Dan the Man

 We call him Daniel, always Daniel, but some good friends LOVE nicknames, and Dan the Man is one of them...this boy is at an age...the age of the twos...even though the calendar says it hasn't happened yet.  He throws a fit like no other, turns the screams and tears on and off with great speed.  But still as I tuck him in at night, and breath in the smell of him, soaking up the way he clings to my neck and squeezes, I know.  I know I am blessed to be his mom.  Blessed to be the one who comforts him, the one he runs to to complain, scream, and hug.  The one he calls, "mommy, momma, or mostly MOM!"  

He is SO quick to smile, and he like his brother has this smile that MELTS me.  He has taken to posing(see above) and stopping to say "cheese" whenever the camera is pointed at him...He screams, I mean screams A LOT...I thought it was because he couldn't communicate, now that he has more words then we can count it seems he screams to get his way, to tell you HOW MAD he is, HOW HURT he is...etc.  Oh how I don't want to wish away these moments, but at the end of the day I am ready for the screaming to end.  God knows what He is doing, and I am quite sure He is still teaching me patience (mostly because I continue to lack it), he's teaching compassion, empathy, and I think most of all GRACE.  OH how I wish I would just let God in and give HIM all my heart on this, stop trying to hang on, stop trying to have any control, because Grace, I need it, and I need to extend it.  I LOVE that I am the clay and He is the potter, I just wish I didn't feel like He always is starting me over:-)  I know someday I will be His beautiful masterpiece, and even now in my unfinished state, I am His beauty, when He looks at me it is with love.  Just like when I look at my boys, no matter what I love them and they are beautiful creations to me.

I love being a mom, I love having boys, I can see God knew me, when He gave me these boys, even on the hardest days, it is good, He is good.  I love that the challenges are part of what molds me, makes me a better mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend.  

Wow!  That was a tangent!  I guess it gets to me when I think of this boy:-)

Jeremiah 18: 1-6, "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

 ⁵ Then the word of the LORD came to me. ⁶ He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel."