Justice – 15 months; Rayah – 20 weeks

Well, Justice will be 15 months on June 4th and baby in the womb was 20 weeks on June 1st.  I completely failed to write about month 14 for Justice, so there’s a lot more to cover this time! 

We let Justice play downstairs in the basement for the first time, as Joe is working on doing renovations down there.  It’s been too disastrous down there & it’s still pretty chaotic, but it was good enough to let Justice explore a little and get dirty.  He totally loved playing with Joe’s tools and discovering this new part of our home.

But much more exciting than the basement, Justice got his first real taste of the Great Outdoors!  At first, he was a little cautious and didn’t want to leave the blanket I had laid out, but it didn’t take long for him to overcome his hesitations and now he LOVES being outside.  He especially loves gravel, dirt, rocks and sticks and putting them in his mouth.   He also loves to throw the gravel and rocks from their designated areas into the firepit or onto our lawn.  (The picture of the two of us together is from Mother’s Day )

Justice also was introduced the grand world of babyproofing and was NOT too impressed.  From outlet covers to baby gates to drawer locks, it was quite a traumatic experience when his favorite troublemaking areas became inaccessible.  We, however, were delighted!

His climbing skills have also greatly advanced since my last post!  He is now easily able to crawl up onto any couch or chair and has actually managed to climb onto the toilet, filing cabinet, the top of the loveseat, and even onto our dining room table – scary!  He has also completely mastered the stairs and can easily climb up and down a full flight of stairs.

His greatest accomplishment in the last 2 months though has definitely been in the walking arena.  He started off just taking one or two tentative steps and mostly lunging towards his destination.  Then it wasn’t much longer before he started taking up to 4 or 5 steps in a row before falling.  He then gained confidence and coordination by learning to walk while holding onto a walker or by holding our hands.  The great breakthrough really occurred though when he learned how to stand up in the middle of a room without needing to hold onto anything.  Once he accomplished this feat of strength and balance, he became unstoppable and now he is pretty much walking constantly and has virtually left his crawling days behind!  He absolutely LOVES walking and especially in the beginning, he would get incredibly giddy with joy and excitement at his new skill and would be just giggling and smiling from ear to ear – it was so cute!  And once he discovered walking, it didn’t matter how many times he fell (which was often), he would always get right back up and want to try again, almost never crying when he fell.  Some evenings, he just seems to get a burst of energy and he wants to do is just walk and run around the house until he reaches the point of exhaustion – lol.  It has been incredibly fun for us to watch him learn and share in his joy.

As for talking, his vocabulary is growing, but very slowly.  He sort of stopped saying “Good” with great clarity, but will still sometimes say “Ga!” or “Gung!”, which I think is supposed to mean “Good”.    He says “Hi” a lot (especially when playing with a phone) and what started as simply “What?” has advanced to “Whassat?” or “Whatdat?” or the occasional clear “What’s that?”, which he asks probably 100 times a day!  He has also learned to wave “Hi” and “Good-bye” and will say “Da-Dye!”  Another of his most common words is “Daddy” which is obviously in reference to Joe, but which he also seems to use for “doggy”, birds, or sometimes what seems to be just the outside world in general, as he often says it when looking out the window.  He’ll say “Mama” when prompted, but I still don’t think he knows that “Mama” is me.    He also says “yucky” a lot, which we have been teaching him for all the gross stuff he’s always putting in his mouth and in reference to his diapers.  When we say “yucky!” he will actually sometimes take whatever he has put in his mouth and throw it away, repeating “yucky” after us, so at least he seems to be learning what that means!  After we pray at mealtime, he will sometimes say “Ba” or “Bam” after we say “Amen” and when he finishes drinking his bottle, he’ll say “Done!”  I think that’s all of his words at the moment. 

Other random things he does: fish lips, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth, “tractor noises”, grinding his teeth (ewwwww!), throwing things (a very common expression of playfulness and/or frustration), turn the water on in the tub, watch movies (he seems to be enjoying Baby Einstein), eat some finger foods (he especially loves cheese), chew & drool on everything (four molars have come in this last month!), LAUGHS A LOT!!!    He is definitely lots of fun to play with – especially tickling – because he laughs like crazy and has so many different laughs that are so funny – my favorites being the his growly laugh and his shrieking/screaming laugh. 

*********************SPOILER ALERT*******************

Here’s the latest baby bump picture, comparing this pregnancy with the last one – now is on the left, then is on the right.

As for baby #2, I had my 19 week ultrasound and it appears all is well.  But the most exciting part was obviously when we got to find out what our baby’s gender is…it appears that we will be having a ……..  GIRL!!!  We were totally pumped (that was for you Jacki, if you’re reading this), as we had both been feeling all along like it was going to be a girl and we only had a girl name picked out.  We also really love the name, which we feel God gave us especially for her, which is Rayah. 

Rayah comes from a Hebrew word in the Bible used only in the book of Song of Songs, which is usually translated as “my love” or “my darling” and which literally means “intimate companion”.  We feel like Rayah has a special invitation from the Lord for intimacy and friendship with Himself that we are excited to teach her about!  Of course, we all have this same invitation as the Bride of Christ, but at the same time, I believe it is her unique name and destiny in God to know and experience His love in deep ways.  The name Rayah is like a special term of endearment that Jesus calls His Bride and one that expresses His affection and His heart of adoration for her.  This name is used 9 times in Song of Songs, but here are a couple of my favorites…

Song of Songs 1:15 “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.”

Song of Songs 2:10 ”My lover spoke and said to me, ’Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.’”

So there you have it!  She’s lucky she’s a girl too, because when we were trying to find boy names that had a similar meaning, the best we could find was Theophilus and Jedidiah!