Easter 2008

It was a great Easter. As you can see in the photos, mama did a good job picking out Elliott’s first “real” Easter outfit. There were some of the opinion that he looked a bit preppy, but I thought he carried it well.

The meaning of Easter this year was as overwhelming as it has ever been. In church, I couldn’t help but reflect on the kind of love it must take to send your own son, out of love for others, to die. Just as I understand more clearly why God used the birth of a baby to communicate his message to us; that he would allow that same baby to die for us reveals the importance of that message – an exclamation point of the great magnitude.

Elliott caught on quicker than I thought he would hunting candy Easter eggs. As he watched his older cousins running around in a frantic search for the hidden treasures, he decided it was an activity he needed to be a part of. He wasn’t great at hunting, but if you strategically dropped an egg in his path, he would halt his course, pick up the egg, put it in his assigned plastic bag which dad gladly held on to, and then return to his aimless run until the next egg dropped mysteriously from the sky.

He loves to run and I can’t help but believe it keeps him healthy. His new doctor was very impressed with his mobility during his quarterly check up last week. His weight remained steady since the last visit at 21 pounds. He was a bit longer than before. Overall, the doc felt he was where he needed to be. He asked if Elliott was speaking any words, that at his age he should be able to say 3 to 5 words. Mama must have anticipated this question and had inventoried Elliott’s vocabulary the night before. She answered that Elliott could say 60 words. I then stood there in a nervous sweat anticipating the obvious follow up question, the one we couldn’t answer – “what language does he speak?” Thank God Doc just expressed some brief amazement about Elliott’s speaking ability and moved on. It would have been a long morning explaining that a mote is a remote, a tuck is a truck and sometimes a goat is a dog, but a dog is always a dog. You get the picture.

We hope to have all language barriers solved just in time for the arrival of his little brother (or sister) in November. That’s right, in case some of you have not heard the news, we have been blessed again. Many have said that it would be nice for Elliott to have a sibling to grow up with. Frankly, I thought it was the best way to recruit some help keeping up with Elliott, a resource whose need becomes more obvious every energetic day.

We ask you to pray for us, especially mama, as she works toward the birth of our new son (or daughter). God was so good providing us strength as we worked through some initial health scares with Elliott. There were already some scary moments last week with the new baby that were relieved on Good Friday, thanks to an ultrasound that revealed a tiny little baby and a heartbeat.

Pray for Elliott too. I’m not sure he is ready to abandon his solo act for a duet. At first, he’ll probably appreciate that we’ve added one more member to his audience that can clap, laugh and provide rave reviews of his show. But when he realizes this is someone likely to have an interest in receiving rather than giving the applause, well… mama will have her work cut out for her.