Communicating With a One Year-Old

We've been absolutely amazed at how much Emerson is really developing an understanding of communication/language over the past couple months. No doubt, for months now he has found ways to tell us what he wants by fussing and staring at an object (when he's hungry or thirsty), reaching out for us (when he wants to be held), squirming (when he wants down), having a trantrum or pushing on us (when he wants our attention or wants to wake us up. If we're at the computer, he'll even turn our swivel chair!), or making one of his many facial expressions (to show he's frustrated, upset, got hurt, etc).

No however, its really clear he understands a lot of the things we are saying and has figured out that the use of words and signs is a real productive way to tell us what he wants too. Over the past few weeks, I can't remember how many times, I've pointed at something and said, "Can you bring ___ to Daddy?" and he does it. One of the blessings of this kind of communication is that he becomes a little helper and (at least a little) less of a deterrent when doing a chore. For instance, he loves it when I sweep the floor, and now he's been assigned to carry the dustpan from room to room and hand it to me when I'm ready. But he still loves to walk right through my pile of dirt too :).

There seem to be so many terms he's grasping that there's no way I could list them all. He clearly knows what shoes are and will sometimes even go pick his up and bring them to you when he knows its time to go. He knows what "outside" means, or at least, he knows it means doing one of the things he absolutely loves to do (and these days, we can rarely get him back in without him screaming bloody murder!). On the other hand, "Night-night" is one of the words he dreads (I can hear him yelling upstairs as I type!). And when I'm pretty sure he just did his business in his diaper, I ask, "Emerson did you stinky?"--typically, when the answer's yes, he'll contort his face and wrinkle his nose (although, this morning he had a "guilty as charged" look and just laughed at me).

As for the sign language he's finally managed to incorporate, he now signs "more," "please" (this is one's quite an accomplishment since before when we'd ask him to say please, he would just get even madder, as if to say, "You know what I want, now just give it to me!! Sometimes, its really cute when he says please, and he signs it with both hands, as if to say, "Yes!!! I'll do anything for a saltine cracker!"), "milk," "ball" (which looks a lot like "more"), "hat," "eat," "finish" (all done), and of all things, "toothbrush" (one of our babysitters got him a book with a number of signs, and somehow this one caught on when others didn't!). He signs toothbrush now every morning when we're in the bathroom, so we finally gave him one of his own (without any paste, of course) and he clearly knows how to use it (and it doubles as a teether!).

With regard to words he now uses, or at least is trying to imitate, he often says "up," which can mean that he wants up onto the bed or couch, wants us to wake up and get out of bed to play, wants out of his highchair, wants picked up, or even that he wants to go downstairs. He learned "hop" from a kids video and even bounces up and down, but it often comes out as "bop." "Banana," which is one of his favorite foods is "ana." "Outside" sounds like "ow eye." "Hobbes" (his stuffed lion) is "opf." "Hat" is "at." From time to time, he even says "irt" (dirt), "og" (dog), and "ock" (rock) when we're outside and pointing out different things we see. Additionally, "mmmm" has become a regular when he takes a bite of something (even before he's had a chance to taste it!) , and he says "ahh" after he's had (refreshing) drink of water (and if you haven't seen this video, go to my facebook page or perhaps i'll have to post it here too). Then, of course, there are the many other "words" he uses when he wants us to do something, but we haven't been able to decipher those yet. And then there's the nonverbal communication, like the habit he's now gotten into, when we're taking a shower and we won't let him in, to throw things into the tub (his toys, my clean boxers, etc) out of protest.

Among other things, Emerson's memory is simply out of this world. If he has been someplace, he remembers whatever it was he liked about it. For instance, a few weeks ago, Amber's parents were in town and Beckie (Amber's mom) took E up and down the escalator while we were at Borders one day. This past Tuesday, I stopped by Borders to look for something, and Emerson darted straight for the escalators and that was all he wanted to do. At church, he knows exactly where the steps to the stage are and darts and heads for them every week. At home, all of a sudden, E will go up the stairs and into a particular room to find something as if he was thinking about the entire process from the very beginning. And he's figured out which cabinet door leads to the cereal boxes and has even managed to open them from time to time.

Every day is a new journey with new surprises and new frustrations as our kid is constantly on the move, which makes it exhausting and hard to get anything done (try planting flowers when your kid is either playing in the dirt, pulling off flower petals in an attempt to imitate you pulling weeds, or picking up garden tools that are likely to impale him and running in the opposite direction!). But no matter how badly we'd like to tie his legs up and duct tape his mouth some days, his cute face, smile, expressions, and many antics always make us laugh. Like my mom said, no matter what it is that kid is doing, you can't deny that he sure is cute!

Emerson at 11 Months

So Emerson has come up with this new face that he makes when he gets frustrated that's a combination between wrinkled brow and huffing and puffing. I'm not quite sure where he got it, but it is quite hilarious, and I mangaged to get it on video when he wound up hurting himself the other day.

We've also been trying to come up with creative ways to get E to eat his vegetables and other foods he's not crazy about. He loves bread and cheese, and a number of fruits--even eats whole pieces of bananas and pears on his own. He usually eats whatever we're having too, so he's been willing to try squash, lentil soup, and has discovered he likes meat too. But to get him to eat broccoli, I've reverted to dipping crackers--or even Chex!--into the broccoli, and amazingly enough, he's gone for it!

Emerson at 10 Months

This past week, Emerson turned ten months and had some milestones to show for it. Emerson started the week by moving from his baby bath tub into the big bathtub. And boy was he excited!





Now with his fifth tooth coming in, he's moving on to more and more solid foods and learning to eat on his own. We introduced him to whole wheat saltines, and he loved them. Finally, after a few times of trying to shove the entire thing into his mouth, he realized it may not be wise to try to eat the whole cracker all at once! (word of advice: cracker crumbs and overalls don't mix!)
















And to round out the end of the week's highlights, later in the week after Amber gave E a bath and set him on the floor, she went out of the room and came back to a smiling baby. After going out of the room again to find him smiling when she returned, she wondered what was going on while she was out of the room. So, she peeked in while Emerson wasn't looking and found that he had discovered and was delighting in his "malehood"! Yes, you are a boy, son.

Emerson's Health Survey

[Ok, so it has been way too long since my last post. It is nearing the end of the semester, and its crunch time to write papers--which isn't easy with an infant in the house!]

So earlier this week, we received a package in the mail addressed to Emerson. We're not exactly sure where it came from, but it included a survey that is supposed to be a "Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale." Now, obviously, whoever sent this thing obviously didn't know that Emerson not only is too young to read a survey, he's can't even cognitively contemplate on this level.

Nevertheless, I had a hilarious time giving him the survey and asking him to answer the questions. He couldn't really check the appropriate boxes [each question had five possible answers, essentially using terms like "none/never," "a little/rarely," "moderate/sometimes," "quite a bit/most/often," "all/extreme/always"], so I had to settle for his nonverbal communication. Here are some of the results:

During the past week, how much difficulty did you have...[#2] Coping with problems in your life?

... [#3] Concentrating?

During the past week, how much of the time did you...[#5] Get along with people outside your family?

... [#6] Get along well in social situations?

During the past week, how much of the time did you... [#9] Feel confident in yourself?

... [#10] Feel sad or depressed?

During the past week, how often did you... [#14] Think you had special powers?

... [#16] Think people were watching you?

...[#18] Have mood swings?

... [#19] Feel short tempered?

During the past week how often did you ... [#21] Have an urge to drink alcohol or take street drugs?

... [#23] Try to hid your drinking or drug use?

The Un-Pacifier

So Amber is working tonight, which means I have to figure out how to get Emerson to bed. Since, I don't have the almighty ta-tas, typically when I'm home with him during the day, I feed him and then take him out on a walk and he falls asleep for his mid-day nap. But I'd rather him sleep in his bed rather than his stroller at night...

At 7pm, he started fussing, which I wondered if it were a sign of being hungry more than tired since he usually goes to bed at 8. So I putg him in his highchair (which he really fought) to feed him some yams/carrots homemade baby food. Either he wasn't interested or was just way too tired, because instead of eating the food, as he normally does, he starting "talking" (quite loudly too) and made these weazing noises that he has recently started doing. There's Emerson talking with food in his mouth, yams dribbling out of the corner. I think he thought this was funny.

Since that didn't work, I gave him a bottle with a of milk and took him upstairs. I walked him around as he ate, and he seemed to be settling in. And then I ran out of milk and he wasn't very happy. I didn't want to give him more milk, for fear that I'd give him a bellyache, and gave him a "Nuk" pacifier to see if he would take that and go to bed. And to my surprise, he actually did take it and start settling down. So I laid down next to him in our guest bed, hoping for the best. He then started playing with the pacifier, which he often does, as he sometimes puts the hard side part in his mouth instead, apparently because its more soothing on his teething gums. So, I started singing to him to get him from "playing with the pacifier" mode to sleep mode. He, indeed, was calming down again, and then suddenly he began screaming. I reached my hand over to the front of his face (it was dark and he was facing away from me) to discover that somehow he had managed to turn the pacifier around, put the handle in his mouth, and get it stuck sideways between his tongue and the roof of his mouth (ouch!). A teething child hurts his mouth. Now that's a double wammy.

So I immediately tried to come up with ways to calm him. I gave him some teething tablets and a touch of baby tylenol and that didn't really help. So I gave him a different kind of pacifier that we got from the hospital when he was born. Emerson has traditionally favored the "soothie" over the other pacifiers (when he takes them, which is rare these days anyway), so I thought it would calm him down. To add to the pacifier, I took him out on the front porch, which usually distracts him from whatever he's upset about. Apparently, the soothie wasn't soothing enough, as he kept pushing on it with his hand and moving it around. Again, he's often chewed on the side of this pacifer too and played with it (I sometimes wonder if he thinks its just like any other toy). But this time, he managed to get the entire thing into his mouth! Honestly, I still can't believe he did that because it makes me gag just to put the whole thing in my mouth (yes, I actually tried). I pulled it out immediately, and alas, had to opt for a different soothing technique.

I took him on a walk. Didn't work. He was just past the point of needing to go to bed that he started crying and trying to turn circles in his stroller. Finally, I gave him a bottle, and he calmed down, almost went to sleep instantly. When the bottle ran out, and he still wasn't asleep, I put him on my shoulder and he fell asleep (which doesn't happen very often). But then when I tried to lay him down in his crip a few minutes later he woke up and started crying again (ugh). I picked him up, and he burped really loud (nice). Back to the bottle again. Finally, after six ounces of milk (he usually only drinks 4 at a time) and nearly two hours later, he was asleep. Maybe I can start on some of my homework now...

Summer's Last Hurrah

So school is back in full swing and we're in the crazy mix of coordinating schedules, trying to find baby-sitters, dealing with a teething child, fixing up the house, staying on top of bills, and doing course work. But before the first day of class, we managed to take a short swing back home to Lafayette and Indianapolis. Now it was totally impossible for us to get in touch with everyone we know and introduce Emerson to them, but even the amount of running around we did totally ran Emerson ragged. Indeed, he was a complete mess on the drive home (and far less excited about being in the car than when we started!)! So we did manage to go home and see some family and friends.

On Thursday morning, we drove home, with our first stop being a Mexican restaurant we have frequented that is at the Cedarville University exit in Ohio (we always get the nachos supremos). Then, we stopped at College Park in Indy on the way to surprise all my former coworkers (actually, the morning started out with me getting up really early to change the oil in Amber's car which hadn't been done in a long while and fill the car up with gas). We were a bit disappointed that some of them were not around when we stopped by, but it was certainly a big surprise for everyone we did see. We actually got there as some of the guys were getting ready to go out and play soccer after work, the regular Thursday afternoon ritual that I used to be a part of, which brought back a lot of memories. Then, we went to my parent's place, where Emerson got a taste of some of the future antics he'll experience from grandpa :).

On Friday, Amber took Emerson over to her friend Sarah's house to introduce him to her two little girls and the now infamous "jumperoo" toy that he loves so well (He's played in it so much that the batteries that play the music in it are already dying out). That night, Everette Mills came over to hang out with us, and stayed for dinner. Sorry you couldn't meet Emerson too, Megan!!

On Saturday, we went down to Indy and unwisely went to the State Fair in the heat of the afternoon on an August day. But we had to keep up with our yearly ritual of going to the fair with our friends, Dennis and Heidi and their addition, Edmund. Edmund is three months older than Emerson (but the same weight!!!), and it was amazing to see the clear developmental differences between the two as Edmund crawled circles around Emerson who just watched.

Saturday night, we and our family stayed at a hotel in Indy as my two youngest brothers were running in the Tri-Indy triathlon on Sunday morning. Exhausted from the heat of the fair (Emerson actually got a pretty nasty heat rash too), we took a nap and then our friend Beth came by to meet Emerson and catch up on each other's lives. My older brother, Brandon, also drove down from Fort Wayne for the evening so he could meet his new nephew. Then, we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown where Emerson proceeded to completely destroy the paper place mat that was at my spot at the table (apparently, he has this thing for paper [maybe its the crinkly sound?] and he even cries when we take it away from him!). Then, he suddenly had a meltdown and I had to take him on a stroll through downtown for him to fall asleep.

Finally, on Sunday, the family cheered Brant and Brogan on as they swam, biked, and ran for two hours. Afterward, we were off back to Pittsburgh. We took a slight detour near Dayton, OH to see our friends Matt and Nancy who had just moved from Lafayette to the Dayton-Fairborn-Springfield area. A couple hours later, we were back on the road for an exhausting five more hours (which should have taken three and a half but Emerson was sick of being in the car). By the time we got home we needed a vacaction from our vacation!!

What Kind of God Are You?

In my last post, I mentioned my dreadful situation of watching my son choke and my response to the situation. That experience also got me thinking about the nature of God. Depending on your theological persuasion, there are a number of emotions that God does or does not experience. Or if you’re an Aristotelian, you’re inclined to say that God is pure thought, so to speak of God and emotion at all is to venture into the realm of metaphor. Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought on this issue (that’s being reductionistic, of course, but the other views seem to be varying degrees of the following two):

The God of Neoplatonic thought, and Calvinism in many respects,(and what is often viewed as orthodox) has a limited scope of feelings. This God may (metaphorically) experience love, joy, peace, anger, righteous indignation, and desire justice. That may even be going too far; perhaps God IS these things (e.g., “God is Love”), but to say he experiences these things would be to place him in the realm of time. But this God certainly does not experience fear, panic, the pressure of taking risks, courage, doubt, the feeling of second-guessing himself, or the sheer delight of surprise. On the other hand, the God of Open Theism and other related views says that God experiences all of these feelings.

There are people—smart and contemplative people, I might add—on both sides. And they don’t take a side due to some shallow shot at proof-texting. Each position can present reasonable and convincing arguments for their case. And each position caters to a certain list of Scripture passages for support (or a certain method of interpretation of Scripture).

The Calvinist resorts to verses that support God’s omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immutability, impassibility (does not feel emotion), foreknowledge, and timelessness (terms which have come from Greek philosophy, I might point out). They cite, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal. 3:6), “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to me” (Ps. 139:16), “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30), “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), or “From one man he made every nation of men…and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26).

The Open Theist resorts to verses that support God experiencing emotion (and Christ’s humanity), not knowing what will happen due to human freedom, and working in tandem with man to bring about his goals for the world (e.g., such as prayer changing God’s mind). They cite, “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. ‘O Lord,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people…’ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (Ex. 32:11-14), “The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, ‘This is what the LORD says: … you are going to die; you will not recover.’ Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD…Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: … ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life” (Isa. 38:1-5), “I thought that after she [Israel] had done all this she would return to me but she did not” (Jer. 3:7), “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6), and “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened” (Jonah 3:10).

My concern is not which position is “right.” If there was a definitive conclusion, one would think that the Holy Spirit would have told us by now or that God would have been a bit clearer in his directions.

I am more interested in the psychology between why someone chooses one over the other. Both positions are concerned with preserving something they consider central to God’s character. The Calvinist wants to preserve God’s sovereignty; the Open Theist wants to prevent God from being the cause of evil. The Calvinist wants to preserve God’s transcendence and sing, “How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out” (Rom. 11:33); the Open Theist wants to preserve God’s immanence, to have a “high priest” who is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). We could say, both positions are often argued for out of the best of intentions.

Since Scriptural support can be found for both (and both sides could easily appeal to the Holy Spirit to claim they’ve got it right!), I’m convinced that the majority of people fall down on one side of the spectrum or the other, in the end, because it is the position that provides them the greatest sense of security, hope, or sense of justice (that is, unless they just blindly accept one since its been taught them…). Actually, most people probably hold to the synthesis of the two positions (e.g., I know many professing Calvinists who sincerely believe in the power of prayer), not realizing that, to many philosophers and theologians, they are mutually exclusive. Ironically then, the nature of God’s emotions (or lack thereof) is decided on by emotion! One person finds security in a God who is cool in the face of evil and suffering and death because he is orchestrating it all and knows how it will pan out. Another finds security in a God who creates space for true human freedom. One finds refuge in God’s constancy; the other finds peace in a God who understands the roller coaster that constitutes human existence.

So I ask myself, thinking about the feeling of panic—an urgency that motivated me to action and was fueled with love and deep concern—I experienced when my child was choking, do I want a God who is sovereign but impassible in my time of need or a God who “panics” for the sake of his people? If God is Father, if I’m to learn how to be a good father by looking to the Father (there's another metaphor), what kind of God is helpful for me in this situation? How do I pray to a God who doesn’t understand the feeling of panic when his child is in danger—or can’t share with me in the delight of surprise, for that matter (just think about it, isn't the delight of surprise one of the greatest things about life?)?

On the other hand, the God I am now describing is starting to sound a little like Santa Claus, there at my beck and call, or at the very least, a tamed God who I can comprehend and fits within certain parameters and expectations (which is bordering on idolatry). Then again, the God of metaphysics is pretty tame (i.e., predictable).

With all these meandering ramblings, I end this post and return to my fussing child. I wonder how God feels about fussy children (he has lots of them!).

Give me a break!

According to most doctor recommendations, a four-month old is supposed to take 2-3 naps a day for a total of 4-5 hours or so in addition to an evening of 10 hours of sleep. Conversely, the infant is supposed to be awake for about nine hours of the day.

Emerson decided he would only take one nap today for a total of one hour. He has decided he doesn't like to go to sleep; more specifically, he won't go to sleep for me. Apparently, Amber has something I don't. It's not just that when he's with me he thinks its time to play either. All the methods I used to have up my sleeve to get him to take a nap simply don't work anymore. I've tried walking him around the neighborhood in an Infantino or in a stroller to lull him to sleep. I tried driving him around town. Doesn't work. He just looks around these days. I'll rock him, sing to him, put him in a dark room, lay down with him... all to no avail. For a while, we thought maybe he just wasn't getting enough to eat—which is also problematic, as it means he thinks he can only fall asleep if he's eating. So today, I stuffed him full. It worked the first time. And when he woke up twenty minutes into his nap I was able to rock him and use a bottle to get him to fall back asleep. Forty minutes later? Not a chance. A little while later, when the bags under his eyes made it obvious he was tired, I tried feeding him more. He got to the point that he was pushing the bottle away. He just keeps wanting to stay awake, keeps getting his “second wind” (and third, and fourth...).

Two days ago, I had similar issues but it wasn't as bad. He slept for a total of two hours that afternoon. At one point, after wrestling with him to go to sleep, I finally set him down on his belly so he could look around, and he looked straight at me with a big grin, as if to say, “Ha! I win!” Later, I laid down with him in bed and sang to him to see if that would work. Then, I stopped singing and closed my eyes to feign sleep (which, amazingly enough does work sometimes in the early morning when he wakes up at 5AM and we want him to go back to bed. Apparently, if there's no one to give him attention, he figures he might as well sleep). Instead, he started smacking me in the face and stuck his finger up my nose. He's four months old and he already knows. I can't trick this kid. Like this morning when I was playing with him and his toy lion and trying to get him to think that the lion was talking to him: Every time I would say something in the “lion voice” he would turn his head away from the lion and look straight at me as if to say, “Are you kidding me?”

So tonight, Amber gets home, feeds him, and he falls right to sleep. We're going out to dinner. I pick him up five minutes later and put him in the car seat. He fidgets a bit more than normal but he stays asleep. Good deal. Before we get out the door, he's awake again. By the time we get to the restaurant, he's hit his wall and starts complaining that he's tired and finally finds solace in sucking the life out of his fingers and blanket.

Child-rearing is easy(ier) until they start becoming sentient creatures. Yeah, its only going to get more difficult.

For the first time in my life, I wish I could grow a boob. It would have to be retractable. “Go go gadget boob!” Bam! And after I settled Emerson down from my retractable boob poking him in the eye, maybe he would finally take a nap.