The Spanish Inquisition

This new blog is exciting! I almost never write on my own, partly because I am not sure who my audience is, but I am glad we will have one place to post info and I love that we can comment on people's posts. This month we are getting used to our new baby. He is very smiley and cheerful despite a bad case of acid reflux. When my mom was here she commented on how smiley he is, even at a week he would smile back, not just sleepy smiles. I think my mom's exact comment was "wow, the only other baby I have seen like that was Susannah." I hope he is as smart as she is. As a side note I think it is really neat that Susannah was this beautiful miracle, genius baby!

Cole continues to ask about a million questions a day, Stephen and I have named this the "Spanish Inquisition" phase. He asks more questions than I have the answers. At first I wasn't sure if he was just trying to be annoying (why? why is that? why?..) but when I answer him, with "I am not sure" or "what do you think" he gets very frustrated and says" please just tell me, I really, really want to know." My biggest challenge is trying to get him to understand the spiritual side of things. He is constantly asking me what kind of space ship Jesus has and I try explaining that he can be here without a space ship, but he gets very frustrated. My Mother in law also told him that Jesus brought his brother, which has given us 2 months of daily confusion. He is so literal, he wants to know how Jesus came in his space ship and where he landed and how he put the baby in my stomach. I have explained over and over that our bodies are spirits and bodies and that the spirit of Miles and Cole lived with Heavenly Father before, and that Jesus did not give us Miles, but it is a very frustrating answer to him and we are back on spaceships again and how if his spirit came down that his lungs would collapse because of the lack of oxygen, and then I explain again about a spirit body and it starts all over. I am open to any advise on how you help your kids understand this concept. I hope with a little time and maturity if I continue to explain someday it will click. I do love how he will ask the meaning of a word and repeat it over and over and you can see his little mind soak it up. This age to me is really neat, but also a bit frustrating.

I planted a few plants in containers and they have been very successful, I have a lot of tomatoes and peppers and basil. It is rewarding to see things grow in the city. Our ward continues to be great and I am really grateful for all of the support we have. Two weeks ago, two little boys in the primary had their tonsils out. One of the moms had to go back to work and the other mom had a new baby, like me and both fathers were out of town. We kind of combined families for a week and and helped with meals and rotated watching kids and holding babies. I think I have said before how I hate Philadelphia, but I do love the women and they do feel like family, it was actually really fun to pop in for a few hours and take our turn and let Cole play with the other kids, it was a lot of work and I was tired from my own new baby, but I am so grateful that we could help, and that none judged me for my sweat pants and puked on t-shirt.

Anyway I am excited to hear from all of you,
Emily, Stephen, Cole, and Miles