A Bunch of Random Miraculous Happenings and One Simply Random Happening

I went grocery shopping tonight, and I was finishing up at the last store. As I walked out the door, the greeter guy said to me, "You all have a good night." It was 11:00pm, and there was no one within 25 feet of me, so I'm certain he wasn't addressing me along with another customer. Basically, I've decided that either I appear to have three heads when I haven't showered in the last 24 hours, or his eyes were blurring a bit. Anyway, it struck me as pretty funny.

Ladan has been pretty hilarious lately. Within a few seconds tonight, the stack of pillows on my bed went from being a ship that was saving us from drowning to being a snowman that was about to melt. Any blanket, sheet, or box can instantly become a barn for horses or a tent to protect us from bears. His imagination is getting really wild, and it's lots of fun! He's learning more and more about how the world works, what death is, how God protects us from certain things and sometimes decides that He's not going to stop all the bad things and helps us through them instead.

We've been working on some preschool activities very informally, and now he knows his capital and lowercase letters. He can identify numbers and do some simple addition problems. He really seems to enjoy the time we spend doing these things and regularly says, "Mom, I want to learn some math." He's trying to read more and asks me to tell him what words say when he sees them. His favorite book is Are You My Mother? from the Dr. Suess set. He's practically got it memorized and "reads" it with such expression! Not bad since it's 60 pages long. Given that we don't do anything formal and I'm not legalistic about doing something every day, I think he's doing really well. It's been a bit encouraging as I consider the possibility that I may end up homeschooling him at least for a while.

He loves to help out with things and is super-encouraging. Whenever Chet or I leave without him, he likes to help us shut the door. And as we're heading out, he says, "You be careful and don't fall down/crash." When it rains and Chet leaves for work, Ladan instructs him to put his hood on his head so his hair doesn't get all wet.

Gabe woke up in a pile of his own very chunky puke the other morning and was covered literally from head to toe. It was so disgusting! I've never had either of them do anything like that. He also had the Hershey squirts (only it was yellow), so he's eaten LOTS of bananas to stop him up a bit. All this on top of the fact that he's got about 6 teeth coming in has provided a combination that makes it difficult for him to a be the happy, content child that he normally is. Hopefully, he'll be back to normal soon. He does have periods of time in each day that he seems to be himself. During these times, he loves to draw and attempt to copy all of Ladan's athletic feats... mostly all with his left hand. We'll see if he ends up as a lefty or not. He's very affectionate and is saying new words all the time. He's getting bigger, but I will probably see him as my "little man" until he's taller than me.

Finally, I did our taxes last week. We qualify for the Earned Income Credit. Basically, this is a tax credit designed to encourage people to earn income rather than drawing unemployment all year long. If you make less than a certain amount of money based on your family size, then you get a tax credit. For the last two years, the Lord has used this tax credit to provide for us in AMAZING ways! This year, we will be receiving more than half of what we brought home all year. It's like the Lord just said, "Here's an extra 6 months' pay." For all intents and purposes, we should be standing in a line saying that we can't pay our rent and that we need food, but we are doing neither. We are able to eat healthy foods, which tend to cost a bit more than cheap processed foods. We have clothing, LOTS of books, computers, a warm home, and so many other things that go way beyond what we need. And we pay all our bills on time every month and have no debt. Sometimes it's overwhelming to think about how good God has been to us, many times through the generosity of others, including our fellow-citizens. We definitely don't deserve it, but we are SO THANKFUL and will give Him the glory for it!