Here's to a Boy Full of Color and Rythm and Mischief!

Colson has been skipping naps. It has it's benefits, like this one night when he fell asleep in KC's arms reading a book. It was 5:30 and I thought I had died and gone to heaven to have a whole evening alone with my husband and a book...oh, and Lewis too. But he's an easy story (for now anyway).
The boy is full throttle. The teaching is non-stop. The instruction is constantly pouring out of me. Am I being redundant? Yes? Well, welcome to my life.
"Don't put your big toe in your mouth at the dinner table."
"Don't hover over your brother, you could fall on him."
"Your brother is not a drum set. Please don't bang on his back like that."
"Don't squeeze his fingers in that book. Colson, that could hurt him. Do you want to hurt people? We help, not hurt, others."
"Oh, No, we don't spit."

the list could (and does) go on
and on
and on...you get the idea.

(Reading this list makes me chuckle. It's good for me to step back and look in).

All of these commands must come off my tongue in a guarded manner, speaking calmly and with kindness. I don't ever want my LOUD VOICE to be a motivator of obedience. I don't want to coerce obedience because I'm bigger and meaner and louder!!!!

For awhile I was telling him to do things more than once. You can imagine how my commands we're quickly multiplying. It got exasperating and it was showing. I had to change that quick. It was a good lesson to require obedience the first time I asked. The key here was being ready to discipline if he didn't obey. And if I wasn't in a place to discipline, I wasn't in a place to ask anything of him. It's much easier this way on us both. I'm at a place of true dependence on God right now, needing an abundant amount of patience, endurance, and love. It's good for me to know I need the help of my Father in Heaven during these intensive training years. It keeps me on my knees, lest I become a self righteous mama.

Look at him snoozing in KC's arms. For the wife and mom, this picture kinda tips me over the top. It's death by cuteness.

And the following picture is too true to form. This is the expression on Colson's face noticing frost on the rooftops this morning. This is the first frost we've noticed of the year, and certainly, it won't be the last. Notice Colson's bedhead. It was early and he was out watching the garbage man, naturally.