Claire's fat lip and Noah's awakening

Claire has a fat lip. She was playing at the train table and fell. Somehow she scraped/cut her chin right under her bottom lip, and I guess her top teeth dug into the bottom lip so she has a puncture inside her mouth, too. There was a fair amount of blood and so I was a little scared at first, but she just needed some love and a little witch hazel on the outside cut. What a trooper. It made me want to nurse her as that is how I normally calm my babies when they get hurt.

We've noticed that when she is looking at something close up, Claire uses her left eye and her right crosses. Vice versa when looking at something far away. This make sense as she is very near-sighted in her left eye. I guess the patch is doing its job. We go back on Feb. 14 for another evaluation as to when we can do surgery.

We taught Claire "please" in sign language yesterday while eating at P.F. Chang's for my birthday. She can say it, too. Trying to get her to use it is another thing. When we are sitting at the table eating, she says "More more" w/ a lot of enthusiasm. It's cute now but it won't be later. Makes me feel good though. Either my cooking is fantastic or she is just a total pig. I suspect it's the latter. Eating is obviously her hands-down favorite activity. She weighed in at 23 pounds today. She does not look fat, just chunky in a healthy kind of way. Sturdy.

Yesterday Doug and I were in the kitchen hugging (OK, there was a little smooching going on as well) and Noah kept saying, "All done, all done." I used to think that it was a learned behavior for children to not want to see their parents show physical affection, but maybe not. Anyway, I had a little talk w/ him (after we were done kissing, of course). I told him that Mama and Daddy love each other and give each other kisses and hugs to show that. Then I explained that some children do not have a Mama and a Daddy that love each other. Some children live w/ their Mama and their Daddy lives somewhere else. So he needs to have a happy heart that Mama and Daddy love each other. (I did not bring up the "d" word.) Then I reassured him that would not happen to us. I think it was a novel idea to him. Looking back I should have mentioned that the children that live w/ their Mama do not get to see their Daddy very much. That would have really rocked his world. :) I don't want to frighten him or worry him w/ weighty issues at such a young age, but I don't want to totally leave him in the dark, either. I tried to think of a child he knows that has divorced parents, but couldn't think of any.

I also told him about the "womb" today as I was giving him a bath. I don't remember how it came up, but basically I was explaining that boys don't have a womb so they can't have babies. And if God puts another baby in my belly, it will grow in my womb, because I am a girl. (He wants a baby brother, by the way. I explained that God gets to choose that.) We talk about all this as if we are discussing why his hands look pruny after a bath. I try not to make it sound shameful or embarrassing because I want him to come to us when he has questions about ANYTHING.

Noah likes to learn Bible verses. We have a CD that puts 26 verses to music (each verse starts w/ a different letter of the alphabet and goes in order). It's terribly catchy and cute and I have learned them as well. Doug has been teaching him other ones as well, like John 3:16, John 14:6, and now we're working on Romans 6:23. I really enjoy teaching Noah what new words mean and trying to explain them in a way he can understand. Like w/ the word "wages" (in Romans 6:23 -- For the wages of sin is death ...). We explained it as something you get for doing something. Like when he does not obey us, his wages are a spanking. Also the "normal" usage of how Daddy goes to work and they give him money for doing the work. We also have to make sure he understands even the simplest things, like "Lord" is another name for God. He is just like a sponge and is getting better at asking, "What does _____ mean?" It's kinda funny that I like teaching him this stuff since it drove me crazy when my mother would ask, "Do you know what ____ means?" Now I am constantly asking the same thing! :) He carries a Bible around a lot and "sings" out of it. Usually it's about whatever is going on at the moment, whether it be Claire clapping or Mama cooking. He seems to have a hard time singing real songs.