Sauron, Saruman, and the Man of Lawlessness

I read the Bible aloud to Luke each night at bedtime. We started with the simplest picture Bible when he was very little and after many other versions have reached the New Living Bible. Anyway, last night we were reading 2 Thessalonians 2, where Paul warns about the “lawless one” who will do great signs and wonders, yet lead the world astray into evil. It made sense to Luke after we talked about Sauron and Saruman, the Force in Star Wars, and C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Luke then asked what the Middle Earth elves represented in the Bible … getting us into a discussion about allegory.

Emmanuel is growing more social day by day. He is starting to enjoy being hugged and tickled, sitting on my lap while we sing and clap (well, I clap) … “Old MacDonald” animal sounds seem to make him smile. At the same time, when not sitting in my lap he spends most of the day wandering around or sitting in a chair. Sometimes he’s quiet, but today he was groaning for hours, interspersed with some periods of laughter. We don’t know whether the groaning reflects distress or is a form of “singing” or what.

Ema has also figured out that if he brings his cup and puts it down near me, I will give him a little water. Today it must have been sort of a game for him, because he kept coming for refills long after I thought he must have had enough. It’s great to see him doing something goal-oriented.

I think Ema has sinusitis so we started giving him amoxicillin today. Fortunately, he doesn’t even seem to notice that we have sprinkled the powder into his food, otherwise we might have a real problem forcing medicine into him.