Sunday, December 19, 2010

Our Blessing

Randy and I were married on October 20, 2007.  By early November, we knew that we were already expecting our first baby.  Wow!  We knew that it was possible but did not really expect to have a honeymoon baby.  We were very excited and toyed for months with names.  We decided that we would not find out the baby's gender until it was born, so we had 2 names: Michaela, or Manasseh.

It took a lot of work to come up with a boy's name.  Randy had all kinds of crazy ideas about Bible names that he thought we should use. One day he came home from work and said that he thought Manasseh would be a good name.  His logic was sound and we decided that would be the name for our son.  Manasseh was a tribe of Israel that got half of its land before crossing the river Jordan.  They got their blessings early.  Randy figured that since we married quickly and were quickly expecting, that we got our blessings early also.  Not only that, Manasseh is the son of Joseph (you know the guy with the special coat).  Joseph named his son Manasseh because "God has made me forget all my troubles".  We both had some stuff that God was helping us "forget".  So here he is, Manasseh Randall Crum.

From the start, this guy was strong.  Yes, I know, all moms think their kids are special.  He was really strong though, at 2 months he was holding his head up like a 4 month old, at 6 months he was pulling up to stand and 7 months he was cruising the furniture.  Before he could walk, he was climbing.  He has always been very active, and to this day, our blessing loves to jump, run, climb and play hard!  He keeps us moving.

We have experienced a lot of change in our family since our Manasseh came into the world.  We went from a family of 2 to a family of 6 in less than 2 years!  We moved to a new house, changed jobs, got a puppy.  He is so flexible.  He does love routine, and like most children does best when we stick to what's normal.  He is really great at adapting too though.  When Cassius came along 11 months ago, he fell in love immediately.  This boy was in awe of his baby from the start.  Even right now, I can hardly get him to keep his hands off of "Da-ee" (Cashi).  He wants to play "Row your boat"!  He loves other babies too, he got to meet a sweet 2 1/2 week old on Wednesday and was thrilled to bits!

My boy is 2 1/2 now.  He is strong and smart.  He struggles with speech and relating to other kids.  He is learning though.  Manasseh gets therapy for his speech once a week and is doing better at talking.  He will get there in time.  He is enjoying the Christmas season, especially the "ri-mi-wy" (Christmas Lights).  He's growing and changing every day.


We are working on helping him begin to build roots of faith.  Manasseh loves to say prayers at meal times, usually he just names people that he loves and says Amen.  We love it that he prays in his own way for the people that he loves.  We are working on learning the Bible story with him and making it part of our daily routine. 

This boy is truly a blessing to us.  He lights us our lives every day with his smiles, his hugs, and his enthusiasm. 

Thank you Jesus for our blessing.

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