Spotlight: Luke

With the approaching arrival of baby #4 in our house, a lot of blog posts in the next few months will be about him. So, I just wanted to take some time to highlight each of our children individually before he arrives. They are so amazing together, but each of their personalities, gifts, and struggles are so unique! So I will start off with our oldest, Luke.



Luke is so quick witted and smart he never ceases to amaze us. His grasp at language and concepts are way beyond his 4 + years. Because of this, our biggest challenge with Luke is pride. Luke thinks that he is smarter and knows better than just about every adult. Preschool with him is a constant challenge because with skills such as reading, he likes to "cheat". His memory is phenomenal, and you can read him a complex book only one time and he will have it just about memorized word for word. He doesn't think he needs to learn to read, because he can memorize so well! Some days my brain hurts just trying to stay a half step ahead of him!!!



Luke also has one of the most tender sweet spirits I have ever seen. It never ceases to amaze us that God knew Luke would be the perfect oldest brother to our brood. He is gentle and caring and extremely protective of his siblings, especially Gracie. He is also already showing signs of continuing that with his baby brother. He gets so nervous if Gracie or Ben comes even too close to my growing belly because he is afraid they will hurt baby brother!




The other day while I was making dinner, Gracie had fallen down while walking and burst into tears. I stopped to watch a minute before running to her rescue. Luke grabbed her favorite bear and wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her head. She usually can be quite a Momma's girl, but this time she laid her head on his shoulder for a moment or two, gave him a big smile, then stood up to keep playing.

Luke is even protective of us. We struggle trying to find the balance of letting him grow in responsibility, but letting him be a child too. A few weeks ago, I worked until late in the evening at the hospital. I came home and before bed went to peek in on the kids and kiss them goodnight while they were sleeping. Luke was sitting at the end of his bed, half asleep, covered in vomit. Upon further investigation, we realized that Luke had gotten sick and did not want to wake us up....so he had tried to clean it up by himself. (As you can imagine, his clean up made twice the amount of work as it was now all over the room!) This was really his first time being sick since we brought him home from Ethiopia, so it was a good time to remind him that God has given us the responsibility to take care of him and comfort him when he is sick.

Luke has a giggle and smile that are contagious, and a thirst for knowledge. When given the option to read a book or play, most days he picks a book. He does love being active though, and loves the outdoors.




So that is my spotlight on Luke. Our quick witted, tender-hearted oldest. We love you sweet boy. You keep us on our toes and make us stretch and grow in ways we didn't think possible!