Caleb Loves His Mommy!!

Thank you all for your prayers and encouraging comments over the past two days. While we are still four days into a lifetime journey, we definitely turned the corner yesterday. It was like a little switch just clicked for Caleb at the breakfast table. Mer was feeding him, and suddenly everything was OK. While he still seems to reach for Dad, esp when he is upset, he is comfortable and content, and even giggly happy with Mom, too. What a relief. Please keep up those great prayers. Thank you.

Today we went to a local village. Above, you can see the kids and Mer standing in one. Did you know that they fertilize rice patties with "natural" - I mean "organic" - fertilizer? Oy Vey, did that place have a particular aroma. The people were sooooo friendly, though. We enjoyed our time there.
Then we were off to the world's largest Ferris Wheel. If you look in the bottom right corner of this picture above, you will see people. It gives you a slight perspective of it's size. After seeing the worlds largest public square (Tiananmen) we would be foolish to not also see the worlds largest Ferris Wheel. It moves very slowly, and takes about 1/2 an hour to go around. Very cool. Below, you will see evidence of Caleb's contentment with Mom. Considering I took the picture, and he is not crying, this is incredible progress from yesterday. The blue tint is not from your aging eyes, but from the blue tint to the glass in the Gondola.
Below, is a great picture Abbie took of the Ferris Wheel from afar. As you can tell, it was foggy, so the view wasn't all that great, but it was still great fun.
However, the wheel wasn't nearly as much fun as the fun park surrounding it. Some parts of human nature are universal: the desire to have fun being one of them. The kids had a blast here. Lots of climbing, jumping, swinging, shooting, etc.
On a final note, this whole attachment experience has given me some great faith lesson. In my reading the other morning I was in Joshua's farewell address. He basically says, he is going to die soon, and the people have some choices to make about what kind of lives they will live and whether or not they will seek to know God. He says, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Throughout the entire discourse, the question is always about our love for God, never visa versa. God's love is a given. The choice to love really lies in the hands of the people.

Our love for Caleb is a given. Try as we might to make him love us, we cannot. We can only love him into loving us. It takes time, but is a choice he has got to make. We are showing him that love through everything we do for him. The hard part is the patient waiting. But isn't that true with many of our adventures in parenting? We show our children our love, and anxiously await their response? In what ways is God telling you, "I love you" today?