Children; One day I will have my own, but they will have instruction books

It's interesting the experiences we have as human beings. Last week while driving to Lagoon for our company party, the girl that was with my roommate made an observation I hadn't ever considered before. There are 6 billion people on earth (I'm inserting that number, I think she just said "a lot"), and every single person has their own story and feelings and things going on in their life, and there is absolutely no way for me to know or understand EVERY single one of them. It's really mind boggling to think about the immensity of the scale of knowledge one would have to obtain to understand that many people. It really makes me wonder how God can do it; it literally seems completely impossible. But I know that he does do it, and he does know each and every one of us, and sends us people in our lives to learn lessons. The lesson from tonight came from Garrett Godsey.

Lj was a roommate of mine from about January-November of 2007, give or take. Roommates are interesting things. They are all different (such as noted above), and everyone has their own story. LJ is a bigger guy, not big fat, but tall and bulky; he's balding in his early age, but by no means is an old man. He's a pretty funny guy, who makes anyone around him feel comfortable and welcome. LJ married Michelle Messinger November 2, 2007, and ever since then I don't get to see much of them. However, they are good friends and I do what I can to make the effort to see them every once in a while. They had a baby 7 months ago, whose name is Garrett.

Today, September 18, 2009, is LJ's Bday. He is 2 weeks and 2 days older than me, but to me he seems much older. He's a good guy, really, and I appreciate his friendship. I was talking to Michelle the other day about what she was planning to do for his birthday and she told me she wasn't really planning much, but I could come over to have dinner with them and celebrate. I was trying to think of the best thing I could give them, and I thought the probably most relaxing and relieving thing would be to watch Garrett while they went out to a movie or something fun they probably haven't done for a long time. I wasn't terribly worried about it since I like kids, and I'm generally pretty good with them.

They left the apartment and I was just watching TV, Garrett was mulling around on the floor doing his own thing; I don't think he even noticed they were gone. About ten minutes after they left, I picked him up and played with him for a minute, and walked him around, did the things I'd seen LJ doing to make him feel comfortable. Then he started crying. I honestly didn't know what to do; Michelle told me he would probably be hungry pretty soon, and to make him a bottle, so I did such. He wouldn't eat it and in fact, he wouldn't even lean back to eat. The only thing I could do to keep him from crying was to walk around holding him. If I sat down at all, or even motioned to sit down, he'd start right back up again. Kelsey told me she would come accompany me to babysit him with me since she likes kids and was ok with it since she didn't have other plans. He quieted down more for her. I swear girls just have the special touch….it's no wonder a baby is birthed from a woman, they know what they're doing. In the end, we still couldn't get him to stop crying or eat, or do anything. We were looking around in his room and walked out, and there stood LJ and Michelle. I guess their movie was sold out, so they just rented one and came home. I was kinda relieved to see them so soon, but also bummed out that they didn't get to spend some time together just the two of them. Of course when Mommy showed up, Garrett stopped crying and all was well. Kids learn from a young age to shape up when their parents are around. J

Honestly I was ok, I wasn't like freaking out or anything and I'm sure I would have figured something out eventually. Garrett is a funny baby and a good kid too. I've been around him when he's just fine and doing his own thing. It truly amazes me though, how Michelle REALLY knew EXACTLY what to do. When I was talking to LJ about it, he jokingly said "You know, when you get married and have a baby, they give you instruction books in the hospital about what to do every circumstance. It's not like we learned this on our own." It really made me think, a lot, about what we as human beings are capable of. In my language development class we've been talking about basic language and how a child learns to speak. There are many theories behind how a baby learns anything, and one of them is simply put "Human Beings are "wired" with an ability to learn." Now there is debate on whether or not babies are wired to learn how to speak, or just wired to learn….and because people speak around them, they pick it up because of that ability. It's not like it's a super power, but in a way it is. Watching Garret tonight trying to take steps with the help of his Dad, it really blew me away….how something so simple to the average person is something actually extremely complex. To take one step, the brain has to think "left foot forward, now right," etc. But it's really so much more than that. What IS a foot….does the brain know what a foot PHYSICALLY IS, or does it just know "the thing on the end of the long thing on the bottom of this thing I'm controlling, needs to move with the long thing attached to it." I don't know how a person could look at a human body and not believe there is a stronger force out there putting it all together.

This blog took a direction I wasn't really planning on, but I like the outcome of it and the flow of what I was trying to get across. I really wish when I have kids they would come with instruction books. That would be pretty much amazing. But I guess the real instruction book is confidence in the Lord and doing what is right and being lead by the spirit to help raise the soul he has entrusted you. Wow I'm deep. Go me.