No joke– the very day after I wrote the entry about Imanuel being an easy baby and sleeping so much, he got really bad.  He started throwing fits and temper tantrums, waking up in the middle of the night, and screaming whenever he didn’t get his own way.  We couldn’t believe it.  It literally happened over night!  We started praying.  I prayed every night with the baby that God would change his heart and help him to be more patient, teachable, gentle, you name it.  I particularly asked God to give me wisdom on how to deal with the situation, because I assumed that God wouldn’t just turn Imanuel into a perfect child overnight.  We had no idea what to do.  To make things worse, we all went to the ministerial retreat at Camp Au Sable and he kept waking up in the middle of the night and would just cry no matter what we did (except when we gave him some milk).  We had neighbors on the other side of the thin walls.  It was a very stressful situation.  (Comparable to your baby screaming on an airplane–NOT FUN.)  Anyhow, I was really discouraged…
On the second to last day of the retreat, I was talking with Elder Nelson (ministerial director) about how terrible the baby has gotten, seemingly overnight, and how Israel and I have no idea how to discipline our baby.  Then, he said, “Are you sure he’s not teething?  He seems to be drooling a lot.”   I looked at the baby and I did notice that he was drooling a lot.  It had been about 4 months since his last tooth grew in, so “teething” has not been in our vocabulary for quite some time…but it did seem logical, but too good to be true.  Later on that evening when the baby was more settled, I took a peek in his mouth and I couldn’t believe my eyes!  His two upper lateral incisors had poked out of his gums and his two upper cuspids were just barely visible!  That’s 4 new teeth that have come in and we didn’t even notice!  I praised the Lord.   
Imanuel has gotten much better the past few days.  He’s back to sleeping 14 hours at night, however, he does still act out at times and it’s getting more and more difficult to tell whether it’s because he’s tired, teething, or flat-out rebelling.  And, we still need to decide how we’re going to train and discipline him.  I tried slapping his hand  and flicking (really hard–HONEST!) while saying “NO” very firmly, but he always ends up laughing at me or giving me a puzzled look…and then giggling, like I’m playing a game with him.  He’s not used to me being so serious with him (because there wasn’t much need to prior) so he doesn’t know how to handle it yet.  We may start trying the “time-out” thing.  Well, we’re just thankful that what appeared to be “terrible-twos” behavior hadn’t come prematurely like we had initially thought.  What a relief!
Anyway, we continue to pray that God will give us wisdom to know how to properly train Imanuel to possess ALL of the fruits of the Spirit – even at this young age!  (Hey, we believe in miracles, right?  )