Little Tenderheart

  Oh, man. This little boy just turned two and a half on Sunday and a couple of years ago I never would have dreamed that a two-year-old boy could be such a sweet encouragement. I don't want to exaggerate his awesomeness and pretend that every word that comes out of his mouth is sweet and spoken from a pleasant attitude; but the majority of the time he is a joyful and hilarious little guy.

  He continues to demonstrate a particularly compassionate heart. Yesterday was a tough day for me ... in the past week Cora has had her first cold, accompanied by lots of congestion and coughing, and has cut her first two teeth. Wednesday morning I woke up with the sniffly beginnings of a cold, myself, so by yesterday I was pretty exhausted from all of Cora's sleeplessness and a little miserable from my congestion. My patience may have been a little thinner than normal, but I wasn't grumpy or cranky. I was probably just a little less fun and enthusiastic than normal. About every 30 minutes, all day long, Liam would come up to me with a concerned look on his face and say, "You happy now, Mom? You smiling? You not sick anymore?" Precious little guy! He also reminded me several times, "Do not be anxious, Mom! About anything, Mom!" One of his favorite Seeds Worship songs is Philippians 4:6-7 (Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.). He sings the song often, but it amazes me when he tells me not to be anxious ... because somehow it is always at a time when that's how I'm feeling.

  Liam also recently memorized his first Bible verse (at least the first that he recites instead of sings). I've worked with him on a couple of different verses, but for me he tends to get super distracted. His teachers at his class that he goes to while I'm in Bible study on Tuesdays have done a wonderful job helping him hide God's Word in his heart. I love his little hand motions!

 
  My little bud also continues to sing ALL the time. It is one of my very favorite things in the whole world. He often starts with one song, like Jingle Bells or I Love you Lord, and then somewhere along the way it becomes a medley and ends with I Come to the Garden. He also sings the ABC's, nearly perfectly.

  He's falling into some great habits, as far as manners go - asking, "Mommy, will you please ______?" when I remind him to ask nicely for whatever he's wanting; and saying, "excuse me, Mommy," when I'm talking to someone else and he wants my attention (although he doesn't yet understand waiting for me to acknowledge him, so his "excuse me" usually is repeated over and over, and louder and louder until he gets his chance to talk). He's also started repeating so many phrases he hears from us. For example, the other day he wanted my attention while I was talking to Josh, so he came up to me and said, "Excuse me mom, I need to talk 'bout something to you!"

  For months now, he has repeated prayers that we would say at meals, but in the last couple of weeks he has started praying on his own. His prayers usually go something like this: "Thank you God for _________ (something he played with or something he saw right before his prayer) and ____________ and ____________. Amen."

  Anyway, I know Cora gets a lot of blog-time lately, since she is changing so rapidly; but I wanted to take a few minutes to record some of my favorite things my boy is up to lately!