Skip to main content

Our Boy


The child who made me a mother, is also most often the child who makes me not want to be a mother.  We go rounds.  I love him hard, but boy oh boy.  There are moments when I don't like either one of us.  

We recently had a camping high, followed by a hard post-camping crash.  If it takes three days to recover from a two night camping trip, we are going to either have to camp longer or not at all.  It's been ugly around here.  And it's also been precious.  How do they do that?! 

Between bouts of me carrying a screaming fifty-five pounder to his room and depositing him on the carpet, I've also witnessed what will surely be a sweet relationship between him and his baby sisters.  They loooooove him.  Nobody makes them laugh like he does.  They mimic his every move.  This week they all played race cars together.  I'm not sure who had more fun.  I'm going to pull the Mom-card, and say it was me.  Watching them filled my cup.  It was promptly emptied the next morning by more screaming timeouts...and then filled again by the sweetest smiles and words between the two boys.  

I am officially a yo-yo.  

I don't bounce back nearly as quickly as he does, but I'm working on it.  

Parenting continually makes me appreciate my parents more and those who are in much harder situations than myself - the single parent, the parents of a special needs child, the parents of a child with an illness.  How do they do it?! Superheroes.  

On an unrelated note, is anyone else way more emotional now that they have kids?  Or is it just me? The kid's books are just killing me.  I don't ever remember choking up over The Pokey Little Puppy's Christmas as a kid. And every time Blue Truck teaches the big dump truck a lesson or Red Truck rescues the poor stuck school bus, I have to distract the kids while I pull myself together.  "It's okay, boys. Mama just needs a drink of water.  It's just that Blue Truck is just so nice to everyone.... *sniff*"  It's pathetic.  I'm turning into my dad.  Shout out to Larry Wright and his Hallmark commercial problem... Maybe it's genetic.    

Perhaps our boy and his huge emotions don't fall that far from the tree.  He drives me crazy and he drives me to my knees.  He frustrates me and makes me proud.  He surprises me and makes me laugh.  He is goofy, hardworking, hard playing, and sweet.  He is exactly what we prayed for.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tough Love

 We were on our way home from a birthday party not long ago, and Fischer began complaining from the backseat that one of the kids had tripped him and laughed about it.   Ross looked at him in the rearview mirror and responded, "Life's hard, Buddy.  You're going to have to toughen up."  To which his brother responded, "Yeah.  You have no idea.  Just wait until you're eight."  At that, they both sat back in their booster seats and contemplated their life situation for the remainder of the drive home.    Evidently, life is smooth sailing in those early single digits, but once you reach the ripe old age of, "I can mostly tie my own shoes and reach the kitchen faucet," it's all hard knocks and rough living.   I know this must be true because Sawyer also told his aunt the other day, "It's time to get on it and get myself a car.  I'm going to get a Cord Tacoma."  I think what he wanted to say, but didn't have the words  was,
Post a Comment
Read more

All I Want For Christmas...

  Christmas time is such a fun season.  I love focusing on the birth of Jesus with the kids and recognizing the true reason for celebrating.  I also relish the magical part of the season that gives so much life to our kids' imaginations and innocents.  They are always precious, but I feel it even more so this time of year.   Even our oldest hasn't completely given up on Santa, although he has a lot more questions having been around classmates and friends who coolly deny the existence of Santa or Christmas magic.  We know it can't last forever, but I'm going to milk it for at least one more season.  He is still more or less on board.  I think he wants it to be real, so he doesn't dig too deep.  Consequently, he and his siblings were all excited for a trip to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus last weekend.  I was excited too.  I love their reactions, and last year Carter was too sick to go, so this was her first opportunity to meet Santa face to face.   The trip didn't di
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Miracle

 For better or worse, I don't have a lot of pride.  I used to have some, but after the third and fourth child, what little I had vanished.  I'd like to be put together.  I would like my kids to be put together.  I have come to terms with the fact that, 99% of the time, that's not going to happen.  When we leave the house, I consider it a win if everybody has on an appropriate amount of clothing and two shoes that match.   The first time we visited the orthodontist in preparation for Sawyer's braces, I showed up with four kids in dirty play clothes and one child with mismatched shoes.  It just so happens that the orthodontist's wife is the mom of some of my former students, and she was working that day.  Luckily, I also hadn't brushed anyone's hair before we left the house, so we made quite an impression.  I've been trying to raise the bar ever since, but I seem to keep failing.  The next appointment we came straight from the barn and smelled like it, but
Post a Comment
Read more