How do you cure the hicups?

So, I have a few questions, and I really want some answers. The first question is,

Do you think that Eli and Lucy look alike?

Below are 2 videos, one of Eli in his first week of life, and one of Lucy in her first week of life.

Eli's first hicups




Lucy's First Hicups


The other question is

How do you cure the hicups?

I have heard quite a few different remedies for the hicups. I want to hear yours.

The joy of the indian burn

So, does anyone remember giving or getting Indian burns? You know - when someone puts their hands on someone else's arm and then twists their skin in different directions? I mainly remember Indian burns as one of those activities to do on the bus on the way home from elementary school (right there with the pencil popping).

Anyway, Eli has changed the Indian burn just slightly and seems to do it almost without thinking about it. There are many versions that he has discovered, but all versions involve his feet burning my skin.

The most frequent version occurs when I am sitting on the couch watching a movie or veggie tales or wonder pets with him. He will stand right in front of me, and, for one reason or another, he seems to find joy in standing on the top of my feet and just shifting his weight back and forth, pulling my skin apart.

Today, I was sitting on the floor next to his small play table where we were coloring. I was leaning on one arm with my hand on the floor. Amy asks me a question or something and before I know it, he is standing on the back of my hand, doing the same little weight shift, pulling the skin on the back of my hand apart.

For a while I thought it was a fairly subconscious habit - I thought that he did it without thinking about it. Well, Sunday morning, he woke up early so I decided that he could watch a movie while I slept on the couch next to him. Well, he kept standing on my leg, pulling the skin apart. Finally, after waking up a few times, I decided that if I put one leg on the front edge of the couch and the other under the back cushion, there was no way that he could stand on my legs. I was awakened about 10 minutes later by an intense burning sensation on my leg under the cushion. He was laying on my leg at the front edge of the couch and had both of his feet under the back cushion, ON MY LEG, pulling my skin in opposite directions and causing me intense pain.

At this point, I laughed out loud, sat up, and decided my sleeping was finished. It is amazing the joy that I get out of this pain...he is just longing to be close to his dad. That pain is a great feeling (not that I don't flinch and tell him to stop it).

Tickles, Wiggles, and Flips

Well, I have been meaning to do some video highlights of all the fun that happens around the James house hold. Below is a video that contains tickles, wiggles, and flips that happened during Eli's first year. We really do have fun, and now with 2 kids it should be twice as fun, right? Enjoy...

I Love Lucy

Well ...

Lucy arrived at 2:46 PM today (July 12th).

She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz.

After looking around a bit ...

She stretched and decided it had been a hard day,

traveling down the birth canal, so ...

... she decided to treat herself to a day at the spa ...

tanning and having her hair done

She decided to finish it all out just meditating on the whole day...

Lucy is coming

Push, push ... Hold on honey while I write this blog.

Just kidding.

We got here about 5:40 this morning. At about 7:30, Amy was in the room, hooked up to her IV and receiving her Pitocin to induce labor. It is a little before 9:00 AM now. Dr. Simmons has been here and broke her water. Lucy has moved down which was the main worry before getting here.

The doctor said that he expects Lucy to arrive noon to early afternoon. He also said that he has never missed a delivery time by more than like 8 hours - haha.

Well, I will let everyone know when she arrives. Prayers are appreciated.

Canada is weird, eh?

Well, last week, I was in Canada. For some reason, I always think of Canada as the US extended north - not much different, just colder. Well, there are some differences.

I saw a joke book with a joke that went...

"How does a Canadian spell Canada?
C eh N eh D eh"

It is true, Canadians do say "eh" a lot at the end of things, ... , eh?

They also say "no worries." It is the appropriate response to just about anything that doesn't require a response.

I think it may rain today. No worries.
Excuse me. No worries.
Where's the rest room? Over there. Thanks. No worries.
Can I get the salad dressing on the side? No worries.

It really works with just about anything.

The other thing about Canada that I guess I knew, but was still a bit surprised about, is that they have longer days in the Summer. I walked out of the hotel at about 9:45 PM to get a late dinner and the sun didn't even look like it was about to go down. Sunset happened between 10:15 and 10:30 every night.

Fast food and Wal-mart both closed by 10:00 PM every night. Everything is in Kilometers and Celsius. It was weird to see 110 as the speed limit and a hot day at 25 degrees.

I am sure that there are other things that are weird to us Americans, but that is all I have for now.

Today is a Great Day!

Hello world,

Today is a great day! "Why?" you might ask. Today is a great day because 27 years ago, a blessing beyond my imagination was born. Of course, it took almost 24 years before we actually met.

Amy is the most beautiful girl in the world. She is the most amazing wife and wonderful mother of my child (soon to be children). She is compassionate and loving and a servant that really puts others before herself.

I just had to wake up this morning and tell the world how blessed I am and how they should join me in celebrating Amy's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Beautiful.
I love you!

Ramblings in Alabama

This morning I left for a business trip to Alabama. Once I got to the hotel, I was flipping through channels, trying to find something to watch on TV, and came across a debate of Democratic Presidential candidate hopefuls. Below are some questions asked, statements that were made, followed by my sarcastic remarks:

• What would you do in the first 100 days of being in office if you were elected?
  • Bring our troops home because we would like to give terrorist nations a chance to get organized and then start the war on American soil


• How would you improve the education system?
• Provide free preschools to all children because our coloring skills are not up to par


• Are you in favor of creating a mandatory time of military service after high school?
  • Not necessarily military, but one year of any kind of public service in exchange for 4 years of paid college because we want to devalue college education more by providing it for everyone; and, by the way, we have a plethora of good teachers to make this possible.


• What would you do in the first 100 days of being in office if you were elected?(Another response)
  • End the Genocide in Darfur(Great Cause) by leveraging China to use their influences by boycotting the Olympics since they are scheduled for Beijing because we want to offend, not only China, but the rest of the world that supports the Olympics.

So, after the debate, I was flipping again, and found Ocean's 11. What is great about that movie is that a man knows what he wants, knows he can have it, and takes it (the money and the girl).

What would happen if the Church (all Christians) knew what we wanted (what God wants), understood that all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27), and then made it happen.

After I watched the end of Ocean's 11, I turned off the TV and listened to this morning's message at Fellowship North. I can't help but feel that God is lighting a fire here and in many places. A paradigm shift is coming. The churches are going to become the Church, a wonderful bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7 and Revelation 21:2).

Ephesians 4:11-16 says it best:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

The we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, the Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

How Beautiful...

Why don't we just do it?

Matthew 28:19 says, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

In John 17:23, Jesus prays for all believers (present and future Christians) saying, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

On Sunday, Craig Loibner spoke at Fellowship in North Little Rock mentioning both of the above verses. Christians have tried so many different tactics to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19).

We have ...

• sent missionaries all over the world


• passed out tracts


• put on conferences


• organized Christian concerts


• preached hell-fire and brimstone


• preached Grace


• invited youth to summer camps


• made marathons of alter calls singing a hymn 150 times


• fought in wars


• debated


• fasted


• prayed


• tortured


• killed

Some of these are good, others are not. We have done none of them as a unified Church.

Why do we (the body of Christ) ignore unity as a method, possibly The Method, of fulfilling the Great Commission?

Craig said some amazing things on Sunday. If you missed them, or want to hear them again, click here. If the link doesn't work, turn off your pop-up blocker (mine was Tools->Pop-up Blocker->Turn Off Pop-up Blocker).

My Space, the good and the bad

OK, so I check my MySpace account on average about once every 2 weeks or so. I have found some really good things about MySpace and some really bad.

We'll start with the bad...

Solicitation! I checked the MySpace messages today, and I had about 15 from people who have had their accounts deleted (My assumption is that they were misusing their account to solicit people). Then I had one that still had an account. It looked suspicious, but I have clicked on a suspicious one before and reconnected with people that I have not seen in ages, so I clicked on it.

It was a solicitation - the worst one that I have ever seen!

Why was it so bad? It was so bad because it was claiming the name of Christ!

I apologize for showing you this, but I have to give you an idea of what the devil is up to. Here is the banner:



So this ad is to meet Sexy Christians. It makes me sick to my stomach. My question is, Does a Christian person really think that this is an alright idea, to advertise sexy and Christian as some sort of "complete package"? I feel like this would be a situation similar to when Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers in the Temple (Mathew 21:12,Mark 11:15,John 2:15).


Now for the good...

It doesn't get any better than this. Following is a video from Jon Shirley's MySpace of him getting vaccinations before his trip to Ethiopia. I laughed so hard! If you don't know who Jon Shirley is, he was the pastor/worship leader of the River Market Church in Little Rock and is now the Worship Leader of a young adult service called The Gathering in Overland Park (Kansas City) at Heartland Community Church.

Ethiopia shots

Dreamer - I am in Trouble

So, I was sitting in my hotel room yesterday, and a movie came on that I had seen before, but this time it was a bit different. The movie was Dreamer.

It is a story about a race horse that breaks her leg and Kurt Russell buys her because her daughter doesn't want her to be put down.

Why is "I am in Trouble" in the title? Because we are about to have a little girl that I am going to have a hard time saying "no" to. I have a feeling that I am going to have to count on Amy a lot.

The movie is cheezy, but if you haven't seen it, you should. It features Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, and Elizabeth Shue and even has a theme song by Bethany Dillon - one of my favorite Christian artists.

It is just cool.

The World Before Lucy

So, I just realized that I have not posted anything about how Amy and I found out a few weeks ago that we are having a girl! We have already received lots of advice and comments on having a girl:

• "Start saving for the wedding now!"


• "She is going to have you wrapped around her finger. She'll be 'daddy's little girl.'"


• "No, no, no, no, no" (The first time we said to Eli "Are you going to have a little sister?")


• "Girls are different from boys - boys are easier"

It is very difficult to imagine what this will be like. I also remember saying that with Eli, and now it is difficult to remember what life was like before Eli. I am sure that it won't be long and we will be saying, "What was it like - The World before Lucy?"

Yes, Lucy is the name that we have settled on. I found that out the other day while on the phone with my sister. She asked if it was definitely Lucy. We had been telling people that it wasn't definite, reserving our right to change our mind. Amy overheard me trying to tell Tarah that we weren't 100%. When Amy heard this, she said, "Its Lucy ... it just is." Then she went on to tell me that she had just finished a blog titled "Lucy's bedding". She is right. The name is Lucy - I mean, there is something that makes it so natural to say "I love Lucy".

So, I am sure that there is a lot of other very good advice. Give me your 2 cents.

Belly Buttons

So, I have been reading "The Fall of Lucifer" by Wendy Alec in which she describes the creation of Adam and Eve. As she was describing God creating man and breathing life into him, I couldn't help but wonder if Adam and Eve had belly buttons. Since the sole biological purpose of a belly button is to provide a pathway for food, oxygen, and excrement between fetus and mother before birth, some believe that Adam and Eve did not have a belly button.

There are many arguments for each side.

On the "Yes, Adam and Eve had belly buttons" side, the arguments might be ...

• They would look funny without them.
  
• There would be one less place for lint.
  
• Belly button fungi might become extinct.
  
• The offspring of Adam and Eve needed belly buttons for the in utero phase of life; therefore, Adam and Eve, having the same genetic makeup, must have also had belly buttons.
  

On the "No, Adam and Eve did not have belly buttons" side, the arguments might be ...

• They had no medical purpose for them.
  
• The wonderment of the purpose of a belly button would have occupied too much of their time, if they had been given one.
  
• The garden of Eden was a perfect place and a belly button would have allowed Adam and Eve a way to get a fungal or bacterial infection, thus, making the environment less than perfect.
  

Well, all that aside, why do we have belly buttons in the first place? God could have made our umbilical cords heal over completely, leaving no orifice. I don't know if Adam and Eve had belly buttons, but I do know that God gave us belly buttons for the arts.

I mean could you really call music "music," if there had never been the childhood song,

I like to play with my belly button,
I like to keep it nice and clean,
If I don't clean out my belly button,
In it grows a fungus green

Even better art comes to us from the brilliant song writer and author, Sandra Boynton. This woman's genius has produced both a "Belly Button" song and the Belly Button Book. For a quick sample of the Belly Button song, click here

Now, I leave you with a quote from the Belly Button Book and some final thoughts:

We Hippos love our Belly B's
They're round and cute and funny
And there's a place we take them to
When summer days are sunny

So what are your thoughts,

Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Did God create belly buttons mainly for their impact on the arts?

I am so excited to hear what everyone has to say about this all important subject.

Listen to some music, hear some useless comments, dial 'til your digits die

"You need more originality."
"Stick to the melody"
"That song is too big for you"
"That was just a boring song"
"Boo hoo, boo hoo, waaaaa"
"It was a little pitchy for me dog"
"You had some pitchyness in the middle"
"It wasn't good"
"It wasn't that bad"
"Be more you"
"So check it out - Dat was hot"

That's right, I am going to talk about American Idol, best described as a survey of musical preference or personality preference of a specific demographic that would watch a show and, tone deaf or not, decide that their opinion matters enough to dial a phone over and over and over again.

That said, I must admit that by the end of the season, I get so fed up with the judges comments that I end up fitting that demographic. So, since the judges always give so much useless, annoying, and unhelpful comments, I thought that I would give my own, most likely, useless, annoying, and unhelpful comments. To make it even more fun, I am not going to tell you who I am describing, just that the following is the ranking, 1 being my favorite and 11 and 12 being the ones I think should go home next (if you really want to know, click on the links next to each useless comment).

1. I like your variety and beat beat chickita chickita puh puh wigita wigita. Want to know

2. You at least seem humble and put a lot of emotion in your songs. My wife really likes you and that makes me happy. Sing it, yo

3. You're just so smiley and happy it makes me want to root for you. Come on dog, click here

4. You remind me of a teddy bear and you keep acknowledging the judges comments like they have a clue. Click me

5. You are different then the others in the competition and that is good. Click it or ticket

6. Diva Diva Diva change it up just a bit. It was cool at first, but it is getting old. Click

7. You pick the wrong songs, but I think you sound good. What you doing clicking here

8. You seem to be only a representation of a certain type of singer. Huh

9. You are growing on me. I like you better when you forget your words. Cluck

10. You look kinda funny. I liked your story at the beginning, but now you are just odd. Quack

11. Sweet voice, but look a bit more like a man and sing something louder than supper soft. moo

12. Shake your back and forth, turn your head to the right, back to the front, shake, right, front, shake, right, front. Ribbit


What do you think? Who's leaving, who's most likely the favorite of the demographic that will actually vote?

What is a soliloquy?

Hello blog-town,

I have resisted long enough. My thoughts are going out to the world - how scary is that? It took me about 2 full days to think of a name for the blog.

"Soliloquy Me" seemed like as close as I was going to get. For those of you that are not drama majors, school teachers, or people with random knowledge about drama, a soliloquy is when an actor is alone on stage and speaks his thoughts.

Since I came up with a name, it has taken me a week to decide to use the blog. Hopefully, things to write will start coming quicker and quicker.

I thought that it would be good to start the blog with some quotes from a very complex individual with, not only amazing intellect, but also good looks and a stunning personality. You guessed it, quotes from

Mr. Elijah William James

"Ba, Bah, bibah, bite, boon, buah, Bu-bye"

You can break it up as such:

Ba - Can I take a bath, please?

Bah -

Interpretation 1: Hey, there's a ball over there.

Interpretation 2: I want that ball.

bibah - same as above, but it is a big ball.

bite - what you're eating, give it to me!

boon - I only have 4 balloons and I need you to reach the other one and bring it down here.

buah - Lets read a book!

Bu-bye - I have got to get out of the house.

---

"up, down, moah, mil, dada, mama, eye"

Up - Hold me or put me up there.

Down - I am finished with my meal, please place me on the floor.

Moah - Please give me more of what I am eating or some of yours might be good too.

Mil - I need a drink from that sippy cup.

dada - where's that really cool person that gets me out of bed and snuggles with me through Sesame Street?

mama - hold me, please.

Eye - so what do you think of my finger in your eye?

---

"mama-uhmee-nana-dada-daddy-mema-mama-dada-uhmee"

This quote is best interpreted as

MAMA AMY NANA DADA DADDY MEMA MAMA DADA AMY - WHO EVER IS OUT THERE - GET ME OUT OF MY CRIB, PLEASE!!!

---

And last, when he is put in his crib at night, he says his own soliloquy:

"ahbahbabemadadeedinuhmeeboonbyebu"

which means:

Today has been a good day