Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Watching her grow


After months of getting to hold her and small times for people to leave us alone...this was the first "real" babysitting I got to do for Bailey.  She was just starting to sit up, but not able to sit on her own.  With Aunt Lisa's couch pillows and borrowed toys from Nana's house, we had a blast while the mom, dad, and grandparents were taking care of other things.
Although she won't sit for long any more, this was Bailey's first moment at the piano.  It was so fun to watch her tap out the keys and "sing" along.

Throwing her in the air and watching her squeal, we watched as she also began to find pure delight in bouncing on your lap. I was excited to buy this jumper and watch her go.


The process of walking is an amazing thing to see as it happens months before the actual first steps.  In fact, looking back on all of these pictures I realized how blessed I was to be able to see her through all of these stages and compare it to our own "walk" with God.  Babies gain the muscles needed to hold up their head, so they can transition into laying on their tummies for crawling and sitting up on their own.  Before watching Bailey "learn" to walk, I thought the sitting was the most important step before walking, but I actually realized it's when they are on their tummies learning to roll over that is most important.  If babies never learn to roll over and gain those muscles, then during those awkward crawling moments when they need to sit up and turn around they can't get their leg under them quite right.  It's at those times we have seen it happen with babies, their arms get stuck and their legs are tangled in just a way that makes it impossible to move, that's when they flop face first onto the floor. How many times have I done the same things, only whined and complained even more about the process to God.  He's trying to teach me to "walk" with him, only I'm trying to run before I have the skills and muscles to turn around.  Much like parents it would be easy for Him to scoop me up and make life so easy I never learn anything.  We don't have a Father whose mean enough to let us suffer, but loving enough to grow our muscles stronger so we can run with Him. 
Why crawl before we walk? We all knew Bailey wouldn't crawl for very long because all she wanted to do was jump and stand.  It's the arms that are gaining strength to pull up on objects so they can stand during the crawling process.  Here's a picture of her pulling up, shortly after Nana bought her a walker and she took off.  Balance is the last, most important skill in walking.  Observing Bailey I realized you first learn to balance by standing in one place.  The first moment I saw her doing this was in her parent's front yard.  She didn't like her feet touching the grass, so she didn't want to move when I stood her up.  Distracted long enough by a cell phone and she was standing for a few minutes on her own. Do our arms have the same strength or do we give in too soon and stop "crawling" letting our weakness keep us on the floor instead of taking adventures? Most of the times God is calling me to be still, I feel like I am not doing anything but looking at this process of walking I can see how standing still does require action. This sweetness is now running places and I love keep up with her!


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