December 18 – “DadDad and Dink”

I finally heard Cailyn say, "DadDad" instead of lumping me in the broad category of all the daddies in the world.  She spent the night with us last night.  First April prompted her a time or two.  She had to think about it for awhile, and then very deliberately say each syllable.  Kind of reminded me of when we were teaching Kel to say the word, "Drink."  Apparently we were making subconscious movements every time we said the word.  When he finally "got it," his head would nod forward quickly like he was agreeing with himself, and he would say, "Dink."  Close enough.    Thought I would insert a quick update from the rheumatoid arthritis front.  As of yesterday there has been change symptom wise.  Pain still wakes me up some nights, which is really weird.  I told the doctor yesterday that the way I figure it's the pain waking me is by whatever the first thing I think of.  Sometimes I wake up having dreamed of someone in particular.  That means, I surmise, that I am to pray for that person, no matter how strange the dream sounds.  But sometimes the first thing I think of is, "Hey.  My knee really hurts," or something along those lines.  That's when I figure the pain woke me up.  When I told the doctor that, he laughed and said, "If pain woke me up I think I would be saying something more than that.  Must be your religious training."  Oh, well.  He did give me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory med.  Or rather, he gave me samples for a month.  I told him we hit the end of our yearly allowable benefit with insurance, so I wouldn't buy any more meds until January.  He didn't like that idea, so he hooked me up with the samples.  Now I have to really watch to see if it eats up my liver again.  It's supposed to take a couple of days before I would see any results.  And if there aren't any results in a couple of days, I'm supposed to increase the dose.  Again with the waiting.   We have finally started receiving Christmas cards just about every day, so Chris got in high gear with our annual Christmas letter.  She usually types out the first draft, then I go back and add my comments.  She moved quickly, though, so I spent most of the morning doing my editing while we both played with Cailyn.  This afternoon we have to go to Office Depot and get another ink cartridge for our printer so we can get it all printed out.  The letter should be going out soon.    Romans 9:14-16 says, "What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'  It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."   Father, thank you for that mercy.  Amen.