I know, I know, there have been a lot of Miss P pictures lately. That is because we had only her for 4 days while the bigs were at Noni and Papa's. I'll pull the camera out for the rest of them some more soon. In the mean time I had to document this new stage we have entered into with the Pres-meister. She has a reputation of being very reserved and slow-to-warm-up to new people. Many times the people in the nursery at church tell us that she played quietly by herself the whole time or just sat on one of their laps most of the time while she was in there, all the while looking at everyone with her serious yet suspicious look she has perfected. Yet, since her second birthday last month she has really come out of her shell, having entire conversations with people in a foreign baby language only she can understand. every once in a while she will say an entire sentence so clearly that we all stop to look at her to make sure it really came out of her mouth. She has really gotten into dancing, teasing, and entertaining. If she can get a laugh, she'll do just about anything. Mostly, she is a parrot, mimicking everything she hears any of us say, especially Lucy. It is hard to have a conversation with Lucy when Preslie is around b/c she repeats everything Lucy says and it makes it difficult to concentrate.
And, it looks like she is going to take Lucy's job of humbling us to the next level. When we dropped her off in the nursery this Sunday, she actually slapped the sweet lady who took her from me. Talk about humiliating! I am okay with handing over a screaming child after having done it with 4 at some point or another, but handing over a screaming child who slaps the darling innocent lady who just wants to love on her...horrifying.
Jessica and I were talking about how we learned in all of our psychology classes that babies are born good and shaped into who they are by their environment and how any observer of human nature could argue against this theory. While, I would never argue that our environment shapes us, I can tell you for sure after having 4 babies of my own, that they are not {in fact} born perfectly good...Of course, they are innocent, sweet, beautiful, and fully dependent on their caregivers, but they are also selfish by their very nature and you don't have to teach them to scream and cry, hit, bite, or defend themselves. They are born with these instincts. It is our job as parents to help them to refine these instincts and behave appropriately, but don't try to tell me that children do not have selfishness in their hearts from the very beginning.
We are born into a fallen world and because of that fall, we are broken. Hopefully we are born into homes where we spend a lifetime being put back together, with parents who love us and love God and are committed to restoring us to wholeness...goodness.
And if we aren't, we still spend a lifetime trying to fix our brokenness, fill our holes of emptiness with something, anything that will make us feel whole...money, status, relationships, beauty, comfort, drugs, alcohol, hobbies...
It is only in Him that we can be restored to wholeness, it it isn't a matter of "trying," it is a matter of letting go and trusting.
