Joyful Parenting

This essay by Peter Leithart on joyful parenting was very encouraging to me (and a bit convicting as well).

Knox and Creed

On my mother's day post, I wrote this about Creed:

I always think of him being a bit more innocent not knowing the pain of losing Knox, but at the same time I think he "knows" him ...

and I said that I might blog about it later. I realized when I wanted to blog about the pictures below, that my thoughts on Creed knowing Knox fit in with this post. I have kind of hesitated to write some of this because in a way it some of it seems sort of mystical or farfetched, but maybe it is just a mom that looks for comforting things.

Since Creed was itty-bitty he has always looked up when we were outside. I'd get him out of the van and he'd look up. As soon as he could point, he'd look up and point. So I'd talk to him about the sky, the clouds, the stars. I know it really doesn't have to mean anything, but I always have felt like it was a connection to Knox since we tend to talk about the heavens above.

I wear a locket around my neck that has an engraved picture of Knox. Creed has always wanted to look at it and I'd tell him that it was Knox who is his brother. I think I mentioned once before that I felt like it was their hugs to each other. On his own one day, he started giving it a kiss.

Another interesting thing is how he recognizes pictures of Knox. Kids his age have a hard time identifying people that they don't see day in and day out in pictures. One day Creed was beside me and I was looking through some stuff and he saw a picture of Knox he had never seen before. He pointed right at it and said, "That Knox!" It really rather floored me that he knew that was Knox especially since pictures of Knox can really look like Creed.

I was relaying some of this to a friend of mine one day and feeling a bit silly especially the part about the sky, and she told me that she really didn't think it was farfetched to think that God could have created Creed with some sort of knowledge of Knox. Not that he would know the details or such of his life but that he would have a sense of him as his brother. There is no way of knowing if that is true or not, but I thought it was a pretty cool though and definitely not out of the scope of God's character.

Now to the pictures...One of the things we did on April 23rd was to get out the quilt that the ladies of our church gave us on Knox's 2nd birthday. We hadn't had it out in a while and Creed really had never had a chance to explore it. We laid it out on the living room floor and the kids showed Creed all the squares and told him many things about their brother. Creed loved it!
Anne Michal showing Creed some pictures.

Jack wanted Creed to look at every little thing!

Creed pointing to a decal of Thomas the Train. I think this was his favorite square since Thomas is practically his best friend.
A shot to get a look at a good bit of the quilt.


One of the number squares... The kids reminded me that I need to put a picture of Creed in the #6 square.
Emma showing the picture of Knox and herself in the #3 spot since she is the third child.
Creed also loves to look at this little photo book my mom had made of pictures of our family with Knox. He has been asking to look at it almost every day lately.

Bedtime Routine

At bedtime, I always ask creed if he is ready to do verse. Depending on the night, he either yells., "yay!!" and runs to his room or runs the other direction in hopes of delaying bedtime!! In their room, is a picture that has a different verse for every letter of the alphabet and each night we read one out loud and he repeats after us. After verse, we pray and then we sing "The Lord Bless You and Keep You." Some nights he participates more than other. This night I happened to get him reciting and singing most of it! For you added pleasure, he had the hiccups. ;-)