10 Months Old:

I just love being baby G’s mommy more and more every day.  He is such a blessing to us and he just amazes us sometimes.  There really are times when DH and I are speechless, and look at each other and wonder how we got such an amazing baby.  Usually in those times all we can do is thank and praise God, for His wonderful and prefect creation that is our baby boy.

Measurements on 26/10/2012:

Weight: 8.76 kg

Height:  74.5 cm

Head Circumference: 46.5 cm

Milestones:  Last month baby G could not yet wave or clap his hands, but I must say he’s mastered it now.  He loves to wave and say “tatta”, but sometimes he is shy, especially towards strangers.  He has also made a connection with me taking my handbag and getting the keys as then he loves to say “tatta” and wave, even if it’s just to the dogs or no one in particular.  He is also shy about clapping his hands, DH has only seen him start to clap his hands as the moment he notices DH looking he stops.  I say a rhyme every time we clap hands and I notices he sings to himself when he claps his hands, which is too cute!

Baby G is also getting some separation anxiety as he gets quite upset if I should leave a room without him.  So it’s been quite tiring for me, as he wants to be in my arms a lot lately and I have to constantly remind myself to go pick him up even if I just want to fetch something from another room and I know I will be back within seconds.  With this separation anxiety comes stranger anxiety too, as he now does not like it much when someone else tries to pick him up or take him from my arms.  He clings so hard to my upper arms that he’s bruised me so that some people have commented on the black and blue marks.

He climbs onto or into everything and getting on or off the couch is no problem anymore.  He’s learned to swing his legs over the edge and slide on his tummy down until his feet touch the ground and then he is off!  He climbs like that off the bed too, but the bed is still too high for him to climb up onto it.  We have to be more vigilant now than ever, because this baby is not scared of anything!  Just look at these pictures:

Baby G might have been an early crawler, but it does not look like he will be an early walker and that is totally fine with me.  He can stand for a few seconds on his own, but not long and he doesn’t do it too often, so his balance is not too good.  He is also very unstable behind his walking toy and often he drops down to his knees and walks on his knees behind the walking toy, or if he does walk it is with stiff legs – it doesn’t look like he is bending his knees.

Sleeping:  Baby G is gradually sleeping better as he gets older.  I think I mentioned earlier this month that he slept through one night and almost through the two nights following.  Unfortunately he hasn’t repeated that again, but it feels like the bad nights are getting fewer and fewer.  He usually takes 2 daytime naps, one in the morning about 3 hours after he first woke up (that differs from 5h00 to 7h30, but most days he wakes up around 6h30), and an afternoon nap that he takes anytime from 14h00 to 16h00 and then he also had a few days that he just skiped this nap, and refused to nap no matter how hard I try.

Eating:  Baby G just refused to eat any solids for almost 2 weeks this month and had me in a state about that.  I think it had to do with the cutting of his second tooth, because it started about a week before and ended about a week after he cut that tooth.  Since then he eats well again, 3 meals of solids during the day with snacks sometimes too, and he’s also drinking more and more formula now, but mostly when DH gives it to him.  I’ve been pushing the formula a bit the last couple of days because my left nipple is so sore!  Somehow he doesn’t latch too well at times when he is on that boob, and he also tends to bite that nipple more.   His favourite food this month is Spaghetti Bolognaise, he loves to suck up the whole pieces of spaghetti, and it’s also a favourite because he can feed himself!

Teeth:  The third tooth cut through a few days ago, at the top.  I can’t see it yet, but I can feel it.  So Baby G got his first tooth about a week after he turned 8 months, the second tooth about a week after he turned 9 months and now the third a day before he turned 10 months and I’m sure tooth number 4 is coming soon too, because I can see its outline underneath his gums already.  Something that is very weird to me is that each tooth is different – baby G has different symptoms and some teeth bother more than others.

Words:  I mentioned earlier that baby G amazes us sometimes, well its most often when he speaks.  Sometimes I hesitate to talk about it, because I wonder if people will think that I’m lying.  I certainly would have thought it was a lie if someone else told me this:  Baby G is talking in short sentences.  He is saying things like; “Ek wil tietie hê, ek wil mamma hê,” (I want boobie, I want mommy) and yesterday he said, “kyk die vissies” (look at the little fish) while pointing his little index finger at the fish tank.   He also said hello for the first time this month and he is also copying words we say, like I was talking about the mosquito net over our bed and he clearly said “net” after I said it and this morning DH spoke to him while baby G was playing with DH’s shoes in his cupboard, and he repeated the word “kas” (cupboard) after DH.

Favourite toys:  Well, toys are not a favourite at the moment with baby G.  I think he is bored with most of his toys by now, but the absolute favourite thing for him to play with is water.  He plays with the water in the dog’s water bowl, he plays with the water drops on the inside of the dishwasher door if its open and he loves to play outside the shower while DH is taking a shower, because some water leaks through the door onto the tiled step.  O, if he gets a chance he will try to play with the water in the toilet bowl too, but we try to keep the doors to the toilets closed, for that very reason!

Baby G also initiates games of peek-a-boo these days.  He will sometimes put a blanket or any kind of fabric over his head for different periods of time and then pull it off and start to laugh.  Sometimes he will pull it off quickly and other times he will keep it over his head for a while, just like we do.  It so cute when he does that!

Likes/dislikes:  Nappy changing and dressing/undressing is a nightmare!  Baby G does not want to lie on his back and the moment I put him on his back he swings his one leg over and rolls onto his tummy and tries to crawl away.  So I don’t even contemplate changing him on his dresser anymore, but I do it most often on the floor or the couch now, because I’m too scared of him falling, as I cannot hold him still anymore.  I’ve learnt to put a nappy on while he sits and I also dress him while holding him upright and most of the time he breaks loose and crawls away from me a couple of times before I’ve finished dressing him.

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Receiving Blessings:

I want to share a part of a teaching from An.drew Wom.mack again, How to receive God’s best, about receiving blessings from God and how we are still blessed even though we don’t deserve it and what stops the blessings in your life:

“Here’s the thing you’ve got to get:  the blessing of God is not dependent on your holiness.  Whether or not you are worthy of it.  Abraham was blessed by God and Abraham wasn’t the greatest man around.  Abraham lied about his wife – twice, and was willing to let other men take… as a matter of fact she went into the harem of other kings.  Because Abraham was chicken and wouldn’t stand up for his wife and afraid somebody would kill him to get to his wife, she was so beautiful.  The first time that happened she was in her 70’s, the second time he was afraid somebody was going to take her because she was so beautiful, she was in her 90’s…  Boy, that woman was blessed!

But Abraham, you know what, even though he didn’t do things right and he wasn’t the holiest man, he believed God and he believed the promise that he was blessed and because of that God didn’t rebuke him for what he did, He rebuked the kings!  And He told that king; “you are but a dead man for that man’s wife.”  And the king said; “I didn’t know she was that man’s wife, he said; ‘she was my sister!’”  God said; “I know you, I know you weren’t guilty that’s the reason I’ve warned you, but if you don’t turn her back over to her husband I’m going to kill you and everybody in your house.”

You know why?  Because God had said in Genesis 12; “I will bless him that blesses you and curse him that curses you.”  God put a blessing on Abraham and even though he wasn’t holy and he didn’t always deserve it, once the blessing is given it cannot be reversed!  God doesn’t give the blessing based on your goodness or worthiness.

Religion has basically taken the power out of the blessing because we say we’ve got to be worthy of it.  No you aren’t worthy of it, it’s not because you are worthy, it’s because God is Holy and God said this and once God has spoken a blessing over you, you are blessed regardless of how good or how bad you are, it’s just a matter of will you believe it.  The only thing that can stop a blessing of God is your unbelief.  Not your sin, not your unworthiness…  Man that is one powerful truth!”

I want to end this message with the following scripture; Galatians 3:10-14 (NIV):  “¹⁰ For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ ¹¹ Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’ ¹² The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’ ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ ¹⁴ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”

What does that mean to us?  We can never live a sin free life, and if we try to we will be cursed, because we will break the law, but fortunately Jesus took the curse upon Him, He took all our sins upon Him, and those have been forgiven, once and for all.  Jesus redeemed us, so that we might receive the blessing of Abraham!  We get what Jesus deserves, fortunately not what we deserve!

Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus!

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Just for fun

You’re probably going to think we are bad parents for doing this, but it was baby G’s grandma who gave him the slice of lemon, not us!

watch?v=8-SawkoiqU0

 

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Speaking in Tongues:

The Holy Spirit has brought something to my attention that I haven’t mentioned before that also helped me to get my breakthrough, and that is speaking or mostly in my case, praying in tongues.  I guess I didn’t know how to explain why it is so important, but I listened to How to recieve God’s best from An.drew Wom.mack again and here he explains it so well so I’ll just quote him on it:

“Before I do anything else, we need to first of all give you an opportunity, if you don’t know Jesus personally that you must be born again.  That’s super important…  Everything I’ve talked about is contrary to natural stuff.  Many of you are very well aware of, you’re thinking; “man, I’ve never heard people say stuff like this…”  This isn’t normal, but this is supernaturally normal, this is God’s normal, this is the way He wants us to be, and you are not going to get there without God.  If you don’t know Jesus personally you must be born again.  You must have His power because it’s impossible to walk above sickness without the power of God, it’s impossible to live debt free in our society today without the power of God, not that it couldn’t be done, but nobody would desire to do it, it’s just so easy to go in debt and do things that the world talks about.

You aren’t going to fulfil this if you don’t truly know Jesus.  I’m talking about something different than just being religious, just something different than just believing that God exists, you have to know Him personally and there’s lots of people that don’t have an assurance of that, so you must be born again, and also it’s absolutely impossible to walk in these things I’ve talked about without the power of the Holy Spirit.  You need the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which includes many things but one of them is speaking in tongues, and I’m aware that there’s a lot of people that think that that’s of the devil, well, I speak in tongues.  I’ve spoken in tongues today, I speak in tongues a lot, and your either going to have to say that I’m of the devil, that some of you might be willing to say that, or there are people that like the things that God has done in my life, my son being raised from the dead, and miracles happing and things like that and you like this, you like the fruit, but then you are going to sit there and say; “well, I can’t believe that’s God.”

I’m telling you that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which includes speaking in tongues, is absolutely essential to walking in victory.  You are not going to walk in this supernatural power without speaking in tongues which comes as a result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Somebody says; “so do you believe you have to have the Holy Spirit to go to heaven?” No!  I believe you can go to heaven without the Holy Spirit and you will even get there quicker, if you don’t have the Holy Spirit because you aren’t going to have this power, you are going to die of something, something is going to happen…

You don’t have to have the Holy Spirit to go to heaven but you do have the Holy Spirit if you want to see power released in your life.  Jesus said in acts chapter 1:8; “You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you,” Acts 2:4; “they spoke with tongues as the Holy Spirit gave them the utterance.”  You need this supernatural encounter and one the reasons so many people as a Christian are languishing is because you don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit.  You have access to the Holy Spirit but not this power, not the dunamis, the dynamite of God and I know many of you have been taught that that is not necessary –  it’s not necessary to go to heaven, but it’s necessary to win and operate in victory in this life.  So you need that.”

For those people who want to know more about the Holy Spirit, His power and how to speak in tongues I can recommend the following teachings from An.drew Wom.mack:  Holy Spirit and How to flow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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God is so good!

Remember this post where I announced that we are not preventing anymore?  Well, at that stage ttc was not an option because I haven’t seen AF in more than a year and a half.  I was toying with the idea of stopping breastfeeding or decreasing it at least but baby G had other ideas.  As a matter of fact since he got his teeth baby G has been breastfeeding more than he used to, because there were times when he just flat out refused to eat any solids, and with the cutting of his second tooth it lasted almost 2 weeks.

At the time when I wrote that post I resigned myself to waiting a few months and seeing if I could wean baby G off breastfeeding closer to a year and maybe then we can start ttc.  But a few days later while I was thinking about it I suddenly realized I was limiting God again.  I kept on thinking that I had to decrease breastfeeding in order for my hormones to go back to normal so that my cycles can start again, but I believe in an almighty, powerful God for whom nothing is impossible.  So I thought – God designed us to breastfeed, it’s definitely His will for us to do so, and he designed the breast milk to be the perfect food for a baby, so He would not want me to stop, just so that I can start ttc again.  And then I remembered that I was limiting God – I just resolved then and there that God can get a perfect balance with my hormones so that I can breastfeed, but still have my fertility returned, and that He can make me pregnant and that I can continue breastfeeding.  I got peace about the subject and I didn’t think about it again, because I could rest in the knowledge that God was dealing with it on my behalf.

Well, guess what!  On the second of October, much to my surprise, Aunt Flow decided to come visit, right about a month after I decided to stop limiting God about this!  Yes, you read it right – I was so surprised, but also so thankful.  And then suddenly I   started to panic a bit, because theoretically I was ready to start ttc again, but faced with reality I wasn’t so sure.  DH didn’t seem sure either – we were right in the middle of a bit of a rough time with baby G cutting his second tooth and we were soooooo incredibly tired, since baby G once again did not sleep to good, but the night after he cut the second tooth he slept through, and technically speaking the next 2 nights after that too.  (On those nights he slept from about 19h00 to around 4h00, so more than 5 hours at a time, but it still does not feel like sleeping through to me!)

I’ve been taking some ovulation prediction tests for the last couple of days, I haven’t seen a positive yet, but the line is getting darker, so hopefully today or tomorrow I will see that positive ovulation test.  So DH and I had a heart to heart this past weekend, about whether we are ttc again or not and the decision is:  YES!  We are ttc again.  I believe in about 2 week’s time we will get a positive pregnancy test.

Then on another matter – I have been praying for so many people for healing the past couple of weeks, ever since I wrote this post and the reports of pregnancies are starting to come in.  One is a real shocker – again!  Remember the story I told about how I got confused between two ladies names?  How their names aren’t similar at all, the only similarity is that it starts with the same letter, and that I “accidently” kept saying this one lady who is not a Christian’s name, and that she miraculously got pregnant.  Well this time I prayed for her on purpose and guess what!  She is pregnant again!  Another miraculous pregnancy, because once again she did not expect this at all.  God is so good!  I am so excited and I just cannot wait to hear more testimonies!

But here is another amazing testimony for you guys.  Remember I told you that I started my own business?  Well, things did not start out so good.  I got lots of hits on my website, but no one ordered from me at all.  The advertising costs were mounting up, and it looked like it would not be worth it, because I did not get one order.  Thankfully I know that God wants to bless us in all areas of our lives and I just knew that I should not worry, and just do what my blog’s title is – Keep my eyes on Jesus, after all He is my provider.  I got this compelling feeling that God wanted me to pray for others, and I obeyed, and you know while I went through my blog roll I suddenly got an e-mail.  When I took a break I looked at it and it was my first order!  Later that same day I was praying over the second half of my blog roll and I got an e-mail again!  After I finished, I looked at it and it was another order!  Wow!  Since then I’ve had quite a few orders and I’ve been able to ship most of them.  I’m still waiting for payment on a few but I’m also trusting that God will help me there and that those orders will be finalized soon.  (Wow, another amazing thing just happened!  Just after I typed this one of those orders I’ve been waiting on just paid me!  Hallelujah! God is so good and faithful!)

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