One For My Son

A guest blog entry by Joshua Jacobs

This weeks' end was marked by a wonderful day spent with my family celebrating the first birthday of my son. Looking at these pictures, it's hard for me to believe it has been one year since we placed Earnest in a brand new car seat carrier and brought him home from the hospital. He feels more like he's ours now, a year later, than he did leaving Abbot Northwestern that day. Sometimes I think about how much I love him and what a joy it is to bless him and look out for his best interest.  But I also have to remind myself that this little guy belongs to the LORD, and that this is a glorious thing.

His plans and love for him go much deeper and are more sure and steadfast than than mine...

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."


(Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV)   I'm thankful for this reality because it makes me be a better father. I know my role is both temporary and delegated, so although there is much grace, the pressure is on to... "Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it."
  (Proverbs 22:6 ESV)

Every single day I'm blown away to see him grow both physically and as a unique personality, as a soul. He is making me laugh more and more lately with faces like these.

We have bonded a lot over the last few months and it's been increasingly hard to leave for work in the mornings with him clinging to my shoulders and looking at me with this big blue eyes as if to say, "don't go yet daddy, let's play or just hang out!" He is so fun that I find myself not doing a whole lot with my free time on the weekends besides being a dad.

He can say "Dada" and "Mama" well these days but his favorite word is "ball". Anything round, oval, or even remotely resembling a sphere is a - you guessed it - "BALL!" As a lover of all sports involving a ball myself, I can't deny that this rarely gets old. I'm proud of my boy.

Beyond a handful of words, Ernie has mastered a few sounds and has his own renditions of some too. Everything with wheels and that sounds like it may have an engine gets a lip jiggling "vroom" noise. Any animal resembling a dog, in real life or animated, including a bear gets a muffled and nasally "roof...roof." The funniest of all is his cat noise, which in his attempt to duplicate a "meow," just sounds like faint little whimper. For the longest time Jen and I just thought his teeth or something else was bothering him. Nope, just seeing cats. It's fun to watch him explore and interpret a brand new world.

How old is Ernie? That's right, we had a week to try and teach him this new hand signal and he nailed it today for a timely photo opp. I'm thankful for my wife who is constantly teaching him. When I get home from work each day, it's obvious that he is learning from the best. Yet another reason I'm even more in love with her now than when we first met. Thanks for being a great wife and mother and for the invitation to document Ernie's big day on your blog.

-Josh