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Lessons Learned


It's shocking to me that I've been a mom now for seven years.  It feels like an instant and an eternity all at once.  I can't remember my life without kids (I must have been very bored), but at the same time I can't believe it's already been seven years since we brought Sawyer home for the first time.  It seems like yesterday.  Time is funny like that.

Sawyer's birthday was earlier this month, which everyone already knows.  

Because he told them.  

He has told every person he knows and many that he doesn't.  They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Lord love him.  He loves his birthday.  

He started inviting people to his party approximately five months ago.  He invited the eye doctor, and for a second I was worried the man might accept.  He invited kids on the playground and at church, adults we are friends with and some we barely know.  We encourage hospitality in our family, but we are still working on boundaries.    

All in all, his birthday was a success.  We celebrated with family and a few friends.  No eye doctors.  He played hard, had fun, and ended the day feeling happy and loved.  And we were happy that nobody left injured.  Wins all around.  

It wasn't an extravagant party.  We had a slip n' slide and some squirt guns, snacks and cake, and lots of room to run.  I realized at the end of the day, when he told us he had more fun than he even expected to, that it wasn't so much what we did for his birthday, it was who we were doing it with - an unexpected lesson from a seven-year-old.  

In addition to that nugget, he hit me with another pearl the next day.  He received a yo-yo as a gift from one of his friends.  He was more intrigued by it than I anticipated.  The night of his birthday party he spent some time getting instructions from his dad and grandma on how it worked.  The next morning, I watched him wind it up and fling it toward the floor, where it landed with a solid "thud."  I waited, expecting him to throw a fit of frustration.  Instead, I heard him say to himself, "Wow, I'm getting great at this!"  In my mind, he had completely failed; the yo-yo didn't come back up.  But he saw it as a success.  He got it to go down properly.  He was halfway to his goal.  

The cup is half full.    

Comments

  1. "Wow, I'm getting great at this!" A great way to learn a new skill.

    ReplyDelete

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