Where'd Ian Go?

Ian has found first gear.  And second, and third, and fourth, and fifth.  Yes, make no mistake, he is a five speed.  It is amazing how fast you go from caddying boy to whoaa!  One minute you feel sorry for him and his inability to get his little knees scooting under him and taking him where his mind wants them to go, and the next minute you're feeling sorry for yourself because you can't afford to buy the 57 baby gates you need to stage throughout the house to contain him.

You'll also see in the two videos posted below that his appetite and food selection have adapted to the need for increased energy supplies for his travels.  Whether it's McDonald's pancakes or Cheerios, he can't get them down fast enough.  And he is officially a Cartwright boy, he loves his pancakes.  Now that Ian is crawling, Elliott spends a lot of time protecting his turf.  Be it his trains or his food, you'll find him holding on to them for dear life and shouting "he's coming to get them".  Elliott's voice would lead you to believe it's a scene out of Friday the 13th, but the ending is always lackluster when mama or I stroll to where Ian is, and with little more than a grunt we pick him up and relocate him. 

I have no doubt that in Elliott's mind this is more of a horror scene than we understand.  His imagination carries him away some days.  On a recent trip to grandma and grandpa's house he and mama saw an airplane.  This isn't unusual since grandma and grandpa live across the road from a small airport.  Elliott informed mama that the airplane was going to be landing in the water.  Mama was concerned where he was getting that notion from.  The news has been filled with its share of water crashes lately and she hated to think they had made an eerie impression on him. 

"What makes you think the airplane is going to land in the water?", mama asked him.

"Because it's wearing a swimming suit," he answered.  Of course mama, and you didn't notice the plane in the bikini?

We realize every day just how precious our two boys are.  There are days, though, that we realize it more than others.  Last week, a young lady who worked in our office for a year lost her 13 month old baby.  The circumstances were tragic.  Her baby boy was left on the van that had picked him up for daycare.  His absence went undetected until several hours had passed.  It was a hot day and he didn't survive such extreme elements.  There are many feelings and judgments that go with a story like this.  Mine were simple.

There used to be a day, before we had our own kids, when tragedies like this were unimaginable to me.  I could hear stories like this without understanding the kind of pain a parent experiences in these situations.  But when I heard this story last week, it was a story I could imagine quite well.  I could feel that mother's pain.  After giving thanks to God for the health and safety he has provided our boys, I prayed that he would provide strength to this mother.  These stories are often challenging to understand God's plan in them, but it is even more difficult to imagine someone going through them without the faith that he has one.  I do know part of that plan is that we all stop and pay attention to the things that are truly important in this world.