Adiel's Words of Wisdom

5. Once a child reaches an age somewhere between eighteen months and two years ALWAYS DUCT TAPE HIS DIAPERS. It only takes one little piece of duct tape across the front of the diaper to secure both little straps and ensure that the diaper will stay where you put it the whole night through. Otherwise, you never know where you may find that diaper come morning.
The diaper duct tape rule also applies anytime a child is sleeping while wearing only a diaper. ( During the hot summer months, for example.) Diaper straps loves to get got on blankets, sheets, etc. and pull right off.
(Obviously this only applies to disposable diapers. I have no idea what would secure a cloth diaper. Suspenders, perhaps?)



6. During pregnancy, be sure to keep a lively sense of humor because nothing works quite the way it’s supposed to when one is big with child. For example, if, sometime during your third trimester, you decide that you want to roll over in bed do not be surprised if you find yourself stuck mid-roll with your arms and legs waving in the air in a desperate attempt to create enough force to complete the roll. This is perfectly normal. Also do not be surprised if you find your husband shaking with laughter during the whole episode. This, too, is normal and he is just following my advice by keeping a sense of humor.

Malachi's Birthday

We celebrated Malachi’s second birthday last Saturday. (His real birthday is the 29th of this month.) Since he is the little boy that he is, he loves trucks so that was the theme of his party. Here is the cake I made for him.


He loves to “fix” things so we got him this tool set.
He actually blew out his own candle! It only took three or four tries.
Here's Chewy getting a ride in the dump truck that Grandpa B. got for Malachi. Between the dump truck and his new hammer our furniture is going to be awfully dented.

He got quite the assortment of trucks and various truck-related things. So what if we have to buy a larger house now to hold it all?

Happy Birthday, Malachi! I love you!

Adiel's Words of Wisdom

I hope you all are paying attention to my words of wisdom. They could spare you much pain and frustration down the road.


4. Never use your bare hands to wipe off dried oatmeal from the stovetop. You could cut your finger. ( Ouch, it hurts to type this.)

Adiel’s Words of Wisdom

Here are a few tidbits of wisdom that I’ve picked up through my own experiences.

1. Always butter your corn on the cob after breaking it in half with your hands.

2. Attempting to spackle walls while making dinner is not a good idea.

3. Remember to remove your contact lenses before flossing with spearmint flavored floss. Once that minty wax gets on your fingers... yeow! It's enough to burn your eyes out. (This same rule applies to chili pepper.)

The Bards Will Sing of This

We are trying to instill the trait of bravery in the little man of the house. To that end, Malachi has been dubbed “Bug-Killer.” His habit, upon seeing a bug or anything that could possibly even remotely resemble a bug, is to scream in terror and run away yelling, “A bug, a bug!” So we are teaching him instead to try to squish bugs or at the very least to fearlessly shout at them to go back to their own homes outside.

Today the kids were in Lily’s room playing when I heard a commotion emitting from that room: “Eeeee! A bug, a bug!” Malachi came running to me to insure that I had heard the distressing news. Thinking it was only a piece of fuzz or perhaps a fruit fly or some such thing, I handed him a tissue and told him to go squish the bug. When I followed him into the room a few seconds later to see if he had conquered the lint I saw Lily standing safely behind Malachi as he was bravely trying to squish a spider closely resembling Shelob in size and grossness. In spite of Malachi’s valiant attempts, the spider had evaded the squishing so I grabbed the tissue and delivered the killing stroke. Then we all trouped to the bathroom and flushed the descendant of Shelob, tissue and all, down the toilet.

What bravery my little bug-killer showed! Now that I’m done laughing about it I’m ready to burst with pride. This is how boys become men- by learning to squish bugs.

More Cosby Quotes

"No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal, a norm of acting incomprehensively with sweetly blank looks. But you will find yourself strolling down the road to the funny farm- like my mother, who used to get so angry that she would forget my name:
"All right, come over here, Bar- uh, Bernie... uh, uh Biff...uh- what is your name, boy? And don’t you lie to me ’cause you live here and I’ll find out who you are and knock your brains out!" "


"We have always been against calling the children idiots. This philosophy has been basic for my wife and me. And we proudly lived by it until the children came along."

And the classic Cosby parenting quote:
" I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it."

Camping

We’re going camping tomorrow and I can hardly wait. We’ll only be staying one night, but I’m already dreaming about everything I love about camping: the feel of crisp morning air on my face when I step out of the tent, watching the coffee boil over the fire, sticky, gooey s’mores, the sound of leaves dancing over my head, the way a campfire looks so awesome and powerful and beautiful at the same time, the stars as they show off their brightness in a way that can never be seen in the city.

I have so many good memories from my childhood camping days. There was the time I lost my shoe in some mud and got to go to a nearby mall to get some replacements- what a treat that was for a little kid! I’ll never forget that three-legged bear that visited our campsite- twice. Good thing our fearless mom was there to scare him off. (Dad was back home working that time. Of course if he had been there that bear would never have shown up. Strange things only happened when Mom was around.) I remember Seth (or was it Jonathan?) partially melting his sneakers as he tried to dry them by the fire. And, of course, I remember the fact that it rained every single time my family went camping.

Camping was always an adventure when I was growing up and I can’t wait to give my kids some great memories, too. Though I certainly hope bears and rain aren’t necessary requirements for good memories.

Cosby Quotes

These are some quotes from Bill Cosby’s book Fatherhood. I’ll keep posting them as I enjoy rereading this classic that every parent should read at least once.


No, immortality was not the reason why my wife and I produced these beloved sources of dirty laundry and ceaseless noise. And we also did not have them because we thought it would be fun to see one of them sit in a chair and stick out his leg so that another one of them running by was launched like Explorer I. After which I said to the child who was the launching pad,
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” he replied.
“Stick out your leg.”
“Dad, I didn’t know my leg was going out. My leg, it does that a lot.”
If you cannot function in a world where things like this are said, then you better forget about raising children and go for daffodils.



All five [of my children] ran to the same car door, grabbed the same handle, and spent the next few minutes beating each other up. Not one of them had the intelligence to say, “Hey, look. There are three more doors.” The dog, however, was already inside.



About childbirth...

Meanwhile, [the doctor] was still sitting there, waiting for the delivery.
“Look!” I suddenly said. “Isn’t that the head?”
“I believe it is,” he replied.
“Well, go get it.”
“It’s stuck.”
“Then get the salad spoons, man.”
So he got the salad spoons, the baby came out, and my wife and I were suddenly sharing the greatest moment in our lives. This was what we had asked God for, this was what we wanted to see if we could make. And I looked at it lovingly as they started to clean it off, but it wasn’t getting any better.
And then I went over to my wife, kissed her gently on the lips and said, “Darling, I love you very much. You just had a lizard.”

A Morning Surprise

This morning Joshua and I woke up to find that we each had a little Care Bear lying next to us in bed. Apparently Lily had snuck into our room while we were snoozing and left us some little friends to keep us company. I was touched at her cute thoughtfulness. “How adorable!” I thought, “She didn’t even wake us up. I’ll give her a thank you hug when she gets up.”
And then I noticed which Care Bear had been given to me- Grumpy Bear.
Hmm... I might need to have a talk with that little girl.

One of Those Pictures...

Here we have the adorable flower girl accompanied by the handsome ring bearer.




Anyone have any ideas for a caption for Malachi’s expression? It's rather priceless isn't it? (You may want to enlarge the picture to get the full cuteness of it.)

The Ringbearer

Unabashed Bragging

Every evening after dinner we have a Family Worship time during which we read the Bible, sing a psalm and pray. It’s fun watching the kids try to be involved in the singing and Joshua and I try to sing so that they can understand the words and sing along as best as they can.

One night, while we were still eating dinner, Lily decides to show us how well she can sing Psalm 100. Her little three-year-old voice rises as she sings the first verse from memory and it’s not until she reaches the last line that she pauses, looking slightly confused, trying so hard to remember that final line. Suddenly, from the other end of the table, Malachi’s warbling, not-quite-two-year-old voice pipes up as he adorably and accurately finishes the psalm. We, the proud and amazed parents, applauded enthusiastically.
Aren’t my kids great?

A New Life Begins

This past Saturday, my dear sister-in-law, Jen, became Mrs. Jason Jacob. This wedding was a long time in coming and Jen and Jason had gone through some struggles before they could finally be joined in marriage. The couple met in India several years ago when Jen went there on a missions trip. Jen was able to visit Jason only one time since then. After struggling to get Jason his visa and being apart for what felt like an eternity, Jason set foot in America for the first time ever about two weeks ago.
It was amazing and moving to witness the joining of two people that I care so much about.
May God bless the new Jacob family as they seek to serve Him.

Congratulations!