Benediction

You know those moments in life, the ones where you realise something significant is happening and you're far too relaxed and 'in the moment' to really take everything in. You feel that you should be remembering every word, every intonation of what is being said. You say to yourself, "This is perfectly extraordinary! This will never happen again." And you try and concentrate.

But you're really enjoying it too much to memorise it.

Something like that happened the other week. We were at church, and so were some friends of ours from Australia. These friends happened to be Important People, which is incidental, but important for the story.

One of these friends came up to me while I was talking and carted Jonathan off for a cuddle. This, in itself was rather nice. Not that I mind being responsible for Jonathan, but in those idyllic families with aunts and uncles and grandparents and lavish amounts of kindness, children are cuddled and passed from hand to hand and so forth. I know this because in the childcare books I read it tells me how to handle that.

Anyway, I flitted around talking to people and eventually found the two of them out in the courtyard sitting in the sun. I looked over and thought, "He is an important person. I probably shouldn't disturb him." But then I remembered that everyone thinks this about important people and so they get a bit lonely sometimes. So I went over, and he motioned me to sit down and just as I was racking my brains for some kind of meaningless smalltalk, he started to pray.

It was a Simeon-in-the-temple kind of prayer: rich, full of blessing and interest and an expression of genuine care for the person that the baby is and will become. He prayed that Jonathan would be kept safe and grow strong; that he would grow into a man who knew how to love others; that Jonathan would never know a time when he didn't know and love the Lord Jesus and would always serve and honour him; and that Jonathan might become a man of God.

It was a remarkable prayer. I would love to listen to it again, though as I was not the recipient of the prayer it is less significant that I remember it.

One day, when this Important Person remains in this world only in legend, I'll tell Jonathan about this prayer for him. And I'll tell him how people who owed him nothing loved him and were kind to him. And how they blessed him.

This, in itself is a blessing.

Introducing... the Ocean.

Well, the sea actually.

This is us taking JD down to the water's edge at St Andrews. I would say 'beach' but I'm from Australia, where the waves are more than enlarged ripples. And where the sand is not usually muddy. And where pebbles aren't a prominent part of the beachscape.

And it is the North Sea - the cold, grey North Sea. Not the restless, surf charged, sun dazzling oceans we are blessed with in Australia.

There were seagulls. Of course.

But there was the water that goes on and on, which is the whole point of the exercise.

JD was suitably awestruck.









Wait till he sees Bondi.

Life Lessons: All About Tummies

Pretty much ever since JD was born, Levor has blown raspberries on his tummy when he was changing JD's nappy. He found this a bit odd at first but soon came to find it entertaining and now shouts with laughter when he receives his requisite raspberry. (I have also adopted this, more as a strategy to keep JD lying on his back for two seconds so I can quickly put his nappy on before he flips himself over and takes off).

This is hardly interesting, except that somewhere in there JD has developed the understanding that tummies are for raspberries. This became evident when he was engaged in his usual pre-crawling activity of finding a prone adult, hitching himself up against them and bouncing his entire body up and down, while thumping them and singing at the top of his voice. This had the further advantage of guaranteeing that the prone adult would continue to be prone for quite some time.

So, one day engaged in this activity with Levor playing the part of prone adult, JD came across his stomach, exposed after quite a lot of thumping on JD's part. Unperturbed, JD stuck his head down and started to methodically blow raspberries all over his father's stomach.

We thought this was funny, but JD topped it in the following week. During a particularly bad night when he and I were lying down together at about 3am, and he had gone back to sleep, then quite suddenly he woke up. It was completely dark. And he woke up, not sad and annoyed and needing to go back to sleep, but wide awake. He sat up, found a handy prone adult right next to him and got stuck into the dancing-thumping-singing routine. Not long into this process he discovered an exposed stomache and set to blowing raspberries. Only this time he was too tired to actually keep his head up. So he just blew one long raspberry, moving a bit to the left and the right from time to time. Unfortunately I found this absolutely hilarious, which really didn't help in setting the context in which to explain to this odd little child that blowing raspberries was something people do during the day.



(In case you should think that he just blows raspberries on exposed flesh generally, this is not the case. I was sitting next to him the other day without socks on. He bit my toe.)

So, there you have it. Tummies are for blowing raspberries. It's what they're for.

We think we have probably ruined JD's ability to appreciate the bikini for all time.

Million Dollar Smile

Here's the photo I've been trying to get for ages. Normally when I get the camera out, JD is all about trying to get hold of it for his own purposes. Not sure what they are, but I suspect there would be some chewing involved. But I have to work pretty hard to distract him from the camera. Today for some reason, the camera wasn't as much an issue.

So here is the smile I get first thing in the morning, and sometimes randomly throughout the day when I check in on him or he stops playing and turns around to find me and just beams.

All dimples and squishy eyes, and totally expressive. Just love that smile.