Matthew James: The Little Man

When I stop to think about my oldest, so many pictures come to my mind. I see him scrunched inside me on an ultrasound, I see that sweet little face when he was first presented to me, I see him lying helplessly in a hospital bed after surgery, I see that mischevious little grin when he's about to do something outrageous, and I see his "dead man" pose when he's sound asleep. He's my sweet little man, a name I started calling him pretty early on. There's even a song to go with it, but it's just for him. His name means "gift of God" because we believe that having a family is a gift from the Lord. (James is Rob's middle name, so we passed it on!)

Matthew was born on July 19, 2004 at 9:51 am. His story starts, however, back in March of 2003. Rob and I truly believed that the Lord wanted us to dedicate ourselves to our teaching ministry, so we had decided not to have children. (Aside: How ridiculous is that! Like God can't supersede anything we attempt to do to prevent children. ) Well, the Lord put a huge burden on my heart and I began to long for a child. We prayed about it and it wasn't until a missionary's wife spoke to our ladies about faith that I realized my problem was not my ministry but a lack of faith that kept us from having children. We decided to try in that fall and Matthew was conceived about two months later. My pregnancy was kind of crazy, as I was admitted to the hospital when I had stomach flu, I had complications early on (which turned out to be nothing), and then I developed gestational diabetes (best diet ever!) Toward delivery time, the doctor discovered that Matthew was breech and we decided to deliver via c-section. The surgery went well, recovery was a little rough, but we made it.

During my pregancy, a decision had to be made regarding his care. I did not want to give up teaching and we really couldn't afford to live on Rob's income alone, so we had to find care for the little man. After going around through several meetings at school (meetings I would rather forget) we were given permission to have him on campus under the care of Mrs. Tica. What a blessing she was to us! He was the only one in daycare that first year and he received such loving care from her. Even though setting all that up was a trial, I'm thankful we worked at it because now several other teachers are able to keep their children at the school. It was also fun to see him interact with the high school students as he got older. His language skills progressed rather quickly (although he did pick up a few things we had to train out of him!)

Matthew was a pretty good baby, although he did like to keep us up at night and screamed ferociously at feeding times. My attempts to nurse him were abyssimal failures, but I don't regret it. Despite was the militant nursing crowd says, you can raise a happy, healthy child on formula and it was easier when I went back to work. He did have pyloric stenosis when he was three weeks old and although it was frightening at the time, he sailed right through it and recovered nicely.

Matthew has always been a very active child. He loved to climb, run, explore and do all those fun little boy things. (I guess he still does...he's not that old yet! I don't see him as still being little because we have Ben around.) I have noticed something very interesting about him, however, and that is in his behavior. When we moved from Cali to Wisconsin, he went from daycare to being at home with Mommy. He was rather wild before as we were not consistent with his corrections. Now, he is much better behaved. I know we really can't afford for me to stay home financially, but we can't afford my not being at home. Even when he's driving me nuts, it's still worth it if we can produce a godly man who loves the Lord and exhibits the behavior of a gentleman.

I could sit here and talk about Matthew's failures, as we moms tend to do sometimes when we chat about our kids, but I think I'll end with a list of things I love about Matthew:

1. I love to hear him talk. I like asking him questions and hearing his crazy answers. He comes up with some fun stories like "Once upon a time, there was a BIG WHITE TRIANGLE. And it got hit by a car!"

2. He is so caring. Whenever anyone is crying, he's the first to see what's wrong.

3. He loves babies and wants to help take care of them.

4. He has an excellent memory and can memorize Scripture very quickly.

5. He's still not too old for a good cuddle on Mom's lap or to be carried around.

6. He loved to hear me sing when he was a baby.

7. He is an excellent passanger in the car and rarely needs toys or books, even on long trips.

8. He can operate the VCR all by himself and is figuring out the DVD player.

9. His laugh is contagious and he finds some of the same things funny as I do.

10. He's man enough to help me bake.

I love you, Little Man!