Dear Reader:

I remember hearing some time back a quote from an unknown author that went something like: “A Baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”

I needed to remember that quote and I needed an “Eloise” day to forget the current misery and sadness affecting so many innocent children and families right now. I would love to hear God’s reassurance, that not only will life go on, but love will reign supreme.

A sleeping child…is there anything better? When I went to check on Eloise (taking her morning nap) I listened to her soft breathing and remembered an old saying…  that while babies sleep angels are whispering to them the secrets of guardian angels and unconditional love.

It has been a few weeks since I last kept Eloise by myself and as we all know babies can completely transform themselves during that amount of time. The last time I returned to her house… she had become a “dolphin” flipping over to the right and left.

This time she reminded me of a loggerhead turtle…pulling itself up as high as possible and then pulling its head up to look around. After I read her a “texture touch” book she pulled it from me and rolled over on the carpet to read it herself…already mimicking me. The sad thing about a third child is that he/she doesn’t stay a baby long. She will grow up faster than her older siblings by watching them and wanting to imitate them.

She also demonstrated (while I was taking her picture with oldest brother, Rutledge) that she can fend for herself quite well.

She also wants to feed herself….at six months she is starting on baby food-sweet potatoes- and I admittedly lost the lunch battle yesterday…when the spoon would go flying across the table at the end of a ‘tug of war’ scene. (And it started out so well…I thought I was going to win this one. But no…)

(Kaitlyn, believe me…even with your funny video when you fed her last Sunday…you did better than I did. I tried to clean her up in the bathroom sink, after lunch, but she thought it was bath time and get trying to slide in…we both looked like we had gone swimming by the time the ‘clean-up’ was complete.)

We spent most of the time playing upstairs in her room where it is softly carpeted….she looks like G.I. “Jo” crawling on her stomach around the room chasing anything she can stick in her mouth since she is trying to cut teeth.

When Mollie and Rutledge got home she was so happy to see both of them…as long as Rutledge kept his boundaries.

So until tomorrow….When we get anxious about the world and the direction it is spinning we need to watch little children play and just listen to the pure unabashed joy of a baby’s laughter.

Proverbs 17:22 nails it…with this first line: “ A joyful heart is good medicine.” (The best!)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh