You Can Lead a Horse to the Water...

Never before a baby can be so similar to a odd-toed ungulate mammal than my 15-month old. Against my instinct, I caved into pressure and pushed solid food on him before he was ready. So my strong-willed child clamped up for months and had very low weight gain. Of course we got worried and pushed him harder. It wasn't until a few weeks ago when we stopped pressuring him, and now for the first time in his life he discovered the joy of eating solid food and his weight is much more satisfactory. Whew!

So at this tender young age, he is already teaching us that he is his own person, not an extension of us. That is so annoying. I want to control what, when and how much he eats, what his interests and beliefs are. I want to pick his wife for him (let's bring back arranged marriage!), choose his career, and arrange the house a few blocks from us for him to live. Since all these probably won't happen, all I can do is to do the best I can to teach and give him the resource for wisdom. And to be on my kneels everyday to pray for God's touch on his heart.

I guess I should be thankful for this lesson and practice in letting go, and trust that ultimately he (and all of us) is in God's hands. So when he finally move out to be on his own, hopefully I won't be grabbing onto his heels screaming, "my baby!"

The neighbors would think I'm so weird.