Miss J's Birthday

Ah yes, there he is at the ripe old age of 1 swinging at a piñata for the first time (with a little help from Mom). We recently attended the birthday party of our friend little miss J, which I realized this year is something we've attended every year that she's had one. And, Nathan was with us for her first birthday. Below, despite the grumpy expression, I promise he's really having a good time at the party. Meanwhile, note the view of baby 3 in progress with Mom.


See, I told you he had some fun . . .

Thanks to Miss J's mom for forwarding these pictures to us. And thanks to Miss J herself. She is just a couple months younger than Nathan, and she was such a comfort after Nathan left us. On the day of his funeral, she was especially snuggly, and I felt as if Nathan was sending her a message from the other side saying that his mommy really needed a hug and would she please help her get one.

Thoughts on Compensation

A recurring theme lately seems to be the principal of compensation, as in like Maria in Sound of Music saying, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." Today one of my friends posted about an experience she had some years before her son was born with a boy that her son reminds her of, a boy in daycare who was drawn to her in a public place. One of the comments on the post was from someone who'd been in daycare herself & remembered looking longingly at families all together (sorry if I'm totally misquoting). It made me think to post something I've been thinking about for awhile on a somewhat related note . . .

About a month after Nathan left us, our sweet little blond boy with big brown eyes, another baby was born to a family we didn't know existed, a little blond boy with sparkling blue eyes. When he was about ten months old, we were introduced to his family through rather convoluted connections and have been sitting for him during business hours since then. He's just a month or so older than our 3rd child, so it's a little like having twins. And, during weekdays, it means that even though I have just three children, I nevertheless have four. I sometimes wonder if there's any sort of greater design to the whole thing, like whether we can somehow help Mr. B (my blog name for our charge) in some way, and if Nathan is saved for later in part so that we can do something for Mr. B now. I don't know, and honestly I feel uncomfortably self-righteous thinking about things like "I'm so crucial to so and so . . ." when I know full well that the Lord can do very well what needs doing regardless of any so-called importance on my part. What I do find interesting, though, is that He saw fit to, at least part time, send us another little blond boy to fill in for awhile for the one He took back home.

Nathan's First Trip to Nauvoo, 2006

Nathan was just barely two months old when Dad's family had a reunion in Nauvoo. We decided to make the trip nevertheless, and lets just say flying with such a small baby is a mixed bag: works great when they sleep, watch out when the don't. Since Nathan was, well, a fairly helpless infant, we didn't get many action shots of him (also had something to do with the fact that our digital camera at that time only had about 20 pics worth of memory, since we didn't have a memory card for it). However, we did get a picture of him with one of his cousins. Nathan is in white, and as you can see he looks pretty much the same size as his cousin. The interesting part, though, is that the cousin is about three months older than Nathan, and a couple of ounces lighter. So, even though Nathan was the youngest family member at the reunion, he was not the smallest. :) We also got a picture of Nathan with Dad and Amanda at the airport in Chicago. If anyone looks hot, it's because they were; the A/C was having trouble keeping up with the heat wave that day, especially in the outer, windowed areas of the airport.