The Miracle of Life

Raising a normally developing baby after a child with special needs has been quite an eye opening experience.

Every day I am filled with fresh amazement and awe as I look at how God has created us as humans and how easily and naturally things come to us.  We have been blessed with the gift of life, and we so often do not realize or even begin to grasp what a gift has been given to us.

I remember thinking when Liam was five and a half months old and nowhere near sitting up, that he was certainly lagging behind and wouldn't be sitting up for months.  Just two weeks later, he started sitting up on his own.  Just like that.  I sat him up, and he stayed there - for five minutes!  We didn't work with him.  We didn't do exercises to strengthen his core for months on end.  He just sat up.

Around this time, I noticed that Liam would pivot around in a circle to reach for toys that he lost.  This floored me.  I remember working on pivoting for what seemed like an eternity with Wesley.*  But it all just came so naturally for Liam.  We did not have to teach him the motor plan for moving and then train his muscles over a length of time.  He just realized that he lost his toy and pivoted to reach it as if it was a simple thing to do.  I, of course, knew better.  As I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I thanked God for giving me the eyes to see what a gift has been given to Liam.  He has been blessed with a body that naturally learns things without struggling to master the motor plan and gain the strength.

Then two weeks later, I looked over at Liam one day and realized he was up on all fours, rocking back and forth.  How could any child possibly go from sitting to rocking on all fours in just two weeks?  This is yet another miracle that we all take for granted.  God did not have to make it so easy for babies to learn things.  But he did.

I comforted myself with the fact that Liam was easygoing and seemed to enjoy sitting and observing his surroundings.  That, coupled with the fact that he had lagged behind in his physical development for the first few months of his life, assured me that it would be a while before he started crawling.

Not so!  Yesterday, just two days after he turned seven months old, Liam started army crawling.  As I watched him push off with his big toes and lunge forward awkwardly, several inches at a time, a priceless expression of delight and anticipation on his face, I fought back tears.  Mike ran for the camera, realizing that if we didn't capture the moment right then, we might miss it forever.  Liam is growing up faster than we can even blink.  Watching his little body and mind develop at lightning speed is awe inspiring.

To think that this is how God has created babies to develop is mind boggling.  Liam's development is nothing special.  He is just doing what babies do.

But Mike and I have been given the unique opportunity of seeing that our children's development is not just something to be expected and assumed.  It is a gift from God.  He did not have to create us to learn so quickly and absorb the world around us at lightning speed. But he did.  Life truly is a miracle.

May we never miss the gifts of God in the midst of the mundane everyday moments of life. May we never take this life for granted.

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well."  Psalm 139:14

* To this day (to date myself), every time I think of working with a baby on pivoting, I think of the FRIENDS episode where Ross yells "Pivot!" over and over again while he and Rachel and Chandler try to carry a couch up a corner staircase.  (I must add that while this show contains humorous moments, as a whole I do not endorse it.)