I can't believe that it's been three years since I've written a post.
A lot happens in three years. I had another baby (a boy!) and started working part-time (at night so I could take my pumpkins with me until my husband gets off work). We've been through a lot of adjustments and tonight while writing up my list of "to-do's" for tomorrow, it occurred to me that I used to like to write, which reminded me of this blog, which then prompted me to go find the address book I keep all my passwords in, which turned into an hours-long re-reading of all the posts I'd written (including the drafts I'd never published).
My aim is to get back into it. Writing for me is cathartic, a soul-cleansing therapy session without the weekly trips to a stranger's couch. And my kids are hilarious. I shouldn't keep all the laughter to myself.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Eau de toilet
Which in our house literally means Eew! The Toilet!!
My baby just turned a year old. I officially have a toddler on my hands. Lord help us all! This kid never sits still. He's on the go CONSTANTLY. And into every freaking nasty, gross thing that he can get his chubby little hands on. And the grandparents spoil him with toys, books, anything his little heart could want. He doesn't want any of it.
What does he want to play with? The TOILET! We're not nasty people by any means. Far from it. But I'm also not a bleach-toting spaz, either. We straddle that middle line and every once in a while when the kids have worn my resistance down to a nub, something passes a smell test to determine its use.
I know he loves the water. He showers with my hubby at night before bed and gets excited the SECOND he hears the release of the water out of the faucet. We even bought him one of those tiny molded plastic baby pools from Wally-World. It's the one you can only put a few inches of water into because it's just big enough to him wet but not much more. His favorite thing to do with that is crawl out of it. He doesn't want to play in it. At all. (The only day I saw him give the pool anything more than a passing glance, was when he saw our neighbor's baby was making a beeline for it. Then he was all over that thing - and relieved her of her toys!) Until today. We have a Bradford Pear tree in our front yard. It's just big enough to house a few birds and a feeder, and offer a little bit of shade on our front lawn.
Because we haven't been playing any where near the pool (why would we? The weather's only been in the 90's around here with 100% humidity), today I noticed that the birdies we've been feeding have been using the pool for their own personal dumping ground! They've been pooping on the pool and spitting bird seed shells into it! It turned from a nice safe place for my son to have some supervised water play, into a birdie landfill! So, what draws my son like a magnet? That nasty, disgusting pool. So I pulled out the heavy artillery and got to scrubbing. I scrubbed that thing until I was certain that every last bit of birdie debris was obliterated. Baby thought it was great! He thought I created all that foam just for him to play in. Kept leaning over the side to get his hands full of suds. Bird poop suds.
After I got it all clean and shiny and added fresh water to the bottom of the pool (I could see my reflection when I looked in), I saw his diapered butt out of the corner of my eye bouncing up and down toward the flower beds - he was on his way to de-leaf them. Or eat the dirt. Or squash the bugs. Hard to tell. He didn't want a single thing to do with that pool. I guess the allure was mixed in with the bird poop.
Boys.
My baby just turned a year old. I officially have a toddler on my hands. Lord help us all! This kid never sits still. He's on the go CONSTANTLY. And into every freaking nasty, gross thing that he can get his chubby little hands on. And the grandparents spoil him with toys, books, anything his little heart could want. He doesn't want any of it.
What does he want to play with? The TOILET! We're not nasty people by any means. Far from it. But I'm also not a bleach-toting spaz, either. We straddle that middle line and every once in a while when the kids have worn my resistance down to a nub, something passes a smell test to determine its use.
I know he loves the water. He showers with my hubby at night before bed and gets excited the SECOND he hears the release of the water out of the faucet. We even bought him one of those tiny molded plastic baby pools from Wally-World. It's the one you can only put a few inches of water into because it's just big enough to him wet but not much more. His favorite thing to do with that is crawl out of it. He doesn't want to play in it. At all. (The only day I saw him give the pool anything more than a passing glance, was when he saw our neighbor's baby was making a beeline for it. Then he was all over that thing - and relieved her of her toys!) Until today. We have a Bradford Pear tree in our front yard. It's just big enough to house a few birds and a feeder, and offer a little bit of shade on our front lawn.
Because we haven't been playing any where near the pool (why would we? The weather's only been in the 90's around here with 100% humidity), today I noticed that the birdies we've been feeding have been using the pool for their own personal dumping ground! They've been pooping on the pool and spitting bird seed shells into it! It turned from a nice safe place for my son to have some supervised water play, into a birdie landfill! So, what draws my son like a magnet? That nasty, disgusting pool. So I pulled out the heavy artillery and got to scrubbing. I scrubbed that thing until I was certain that every last bit of birdie debris was obliterated. Baby thought it was great! He thought I created all that foam just for him to play in. Kept leaning over the side to get his hands full of suds. Bird poop suds.
After I got it all clean and shiny and added fresh water to the bottom of the pool (I could see my reflection when I looked in), I saw his diapered butt out of the corner of my eye bouncing up and down toward the flower beds - he was on his way to de-leaf them. Or eat the dirt. Or squash the bugs. Hard to tell. He didn't want a single thing to do with that pool. I guess the allure was mixed in with the bird poop.
Boys.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Parenting... Eminem style
I'm that white girl that goes all Gangster whenever an old-school rap song with a great bass track comes on the radio. (I go full-out, too - especially if I'm in my truck. I roll down the windows, cock my shades, slouch in the driver's seat and blast it!) I've even downloaded my favorites on iTunes so I can play them round-robin to my heart's content. (Hubby always shakes his head as he heads to the garage, muttering about how his wife morphs into a club kid whenever the music's right.)
This past weekend I was making dinner, rocking out to the tunes blasting out of my computer when Eminem's "When I'm Gone" came on. If you listen to the opening verse of the song, it's beautiful. Poignant and especially true in my case. If you don't know, they go like this:
Have you ever loved someone so much you'd give an arm for
Not the expression, no. Literally give an arm for
When they know they're your heart
And you know you were their armor
And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm her
I don't have a "her". I have "him's". But it doesn't matter. I know exactly where he's coming from.
I love my kids more than I ever thought humanly possible. It's almost panic-inducing when I worry about any number of imaginary complications befalling their sweet heads. (I'm an endless worrier) But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It was not love at first sight with either of my boys. With my oldest, it was a complicated labor and delivery and I didn't get to see him for a while after he was born. They whisked him off to the medical team eagerly waiting to administer emergency care. I was happy he was finally here but I was in such a drugged haze, that nothing was really registering. (I don't even remember large parts of what happened.) When my youngest was born, it was a night-and-day different experience. I was actually waiting for that moment when the heavens would open and I would hear choirs of angels harmonizing in my ears and I would fall madly in love with my kid. My doctor held him up as soon as he was born. Nope. Nothing. I looked at my husband. His eyes were bright with unshed tears and his face was over-flowing with emotion. He was was in love. This was the little miracle that I'd cut out caffeine for, monitored my salt intake for and forced myself to drink gallons of water for. I was not in love. But I knew it would come.
I would die for my children. I would kill for them. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to keep them safe. My oldest knows that. My baby will learn. I taught my oldest this while walking through the parking lot at Target. He was a runner when he was a toddler and I always needed to maintain a firm grip on his hand. And I always made sure that he walked between me and the parked cars. (I would LOVE to see parking lots built that had safe pedestrian walking between the rows of parked cars. Think about how much better it would be to be able to safely get to and from your car without worrying about either you or your child succumbing to the tires of the oncoming SUV and becoming a brand-new speed bump. Then the only thing you'll need to worry about is backing out in front of someone who's paying more attention to their cell than they are to what's in front of them. But that's for another post.) When he was about six, he told me he was "big enough" to walk on the outside. I told him no. His feet grew roots and he planted himself behind a Buick. So, we stopped and had the following conversation:
Me: No
Him: Why not?
Me: Because if one of these people hits you with their car, I will pull them from it and beat them to death.
He laughed.
Me: Baby, I'm serious. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect you and if someone hurt you, I would kill them.
I wasn't sure how much of what I said sunk in, but I was serious. I reminded him constantly after that about the safety of walking on the inside. And he always did. And one day about a year later, as we were walking through the striped pedestrian part of the parking lot right in front of the store, I watched as someone ignored the posted stop signs (they're rather useless to begin with - people rarely even pause, let alone stop) and raced right toward where we were walking. My son grabbed my hand and started pulling as hard as he could.
"Hurry up, Mom", he said. "I don't want you to go to jail."
At least he understood. I might have taken it a little far. (Just a bit) But with my son, it doesn't sink in unless you're overly dramatic. But honestly, what wouldn't you do to protect your kids?
I want my boys to grow up secure in the knowledge I love them.. Knowing that I always have their backs. And that even if they do something I don't agree with, I'm always on their side. And that I'd "give an arm for" (or more), anything to keep them safe.
This past weekend I was making dinner, rocking out to the tunes blasting out of my computer when Eminem's "When I'm Gone" came on. If you listen to the opening verse of the song, it's beautiful. Poignant and especially true in my case. If you don't know, they go like this:
Have you ever loved someone so much you'd give an arm for
Not the expression, no. Literally give an arm for
When they know they're your heart
And you know you were their armor
And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm her
I don't have a "her". I have "him's". But it doesn't matter. I know exactly where he's coming from.
I love my kids more than I ever thought humanly possible. It's almost panic-inducing when I worry about any number of imaginary complications befalling their sweet heads. (I'm an endless worrier) But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It was not love at first sight with either of my boys. With my oldest, it was a complicated labor and delivery and I didn't get to see him for a while after he was born. They whisked him off to the medical team eagerly waiting to administer emergency care. I was happy he was finally here but I was in such a drugged haze, that nothing was really registering. (I don't even remember large parts of what happened.) When my youngest was born, it was a night-and-day different experience. I was actually waiting for that moment when the heavens would open and I would hear choirs of angels harmonizing in my ears and I would fall madly in love with my kid. My doctor held him up as soon as he was born. Nope. Nothing. I looked at my husband. His eyes were bright with unshed tears and his face was over-flowing with emotion. He was was in love. This was the little miracle that I'd cut out caffeine for, monitored my salt intake for and forced myself to drink gallons of water for. I was not in love. But I knew it would come.
I would die for my children. I would kill for them. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to keep them safe. My oldest knows that. My baby will learn. I taught my oldest this while walking through the parking lot at Target. He was a runner when he was a toddler and I always needed to maintain a firm grip on his hand. And I always made sure that he walked between me and the parked cars. (I would LOVE to see parking lots built that had safe pedestrian walking between the rows of parked cars. Think about how much better it would be to be able to safely get to and from your car without worrying about either you or your child succumbing to the tires of the oncoming SUV and becoming a brand-new speed bump. Then the only thing you'll need to worry about is backing out in front of someone who's paying more attention to their cell than they are to what's in front of them. But that's for another post.) When he was about six, he told me he was "big enough" to walk on the outside. I told him no. His feet grew roots and he planted himself behind a Buick. So, we stopped and had the following conversation:
Me: No
Him: Why not?
Me: Because if one of these people hits you with their car, I will pull them from it and beat them to death.
He laughed.
Me: Baby, I'm serious. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect you and if someone hurt you, I would kill them.
I wasn't sure how much of what I said sunk in, but I was serious. I reminded him constantly after that about the safety of walking on the inside. And he always did. And one day about a year later, as we were walking through the striped pedestrian part of the parking lot right in front of the store, I watched as someone ignored the posted stop signs (they're rather useless to begin with - people rarely even pause, let alone stop) and raced right toward where we were walking. My son grabbed my hand and started pulling as hard as he could.
"Hurry up, Mom", he said. "I don't want you to go to jail."
At least he understood. I might have taken it a little far. (Just a bit) But with my son, it doesn't sink in unless you're overly dramatic. But honestly, what wouldn't you do to protect your kids?
I want my boys to grow up secure in the knowledge I love them.. Knowing that I always have their backs. And that even if they do something I don't agree with, I'm always on their side. And that I'd "give an arm for" (or more), anything to keep them safe.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Why babies don't need toys...
My baby just turned one. It's amazing how quickly the time flies - even when you're home every day watching it happen. One week ago, he was a baby. An infant, by medical standards. Now he's firmly in the "toddler" camp (even though he hasn't gotten enough courage to take that first solo step).
We have only bought him 2 toys since he was born. A plastic stacking ring thing, and a plastic Harley trike for his birthday (the one they have at Wally-world). Everything else he plays with, he's picked up from around our house. He has a remote to an old TV (with the batteries removed), plastic food containers and lids, a toothbrush (new from the package, but it's far from clean now), an old Dell keyboard from a old computer of my husbands that he pulled from a box in the garage, small plastic Halloween buckets, a Batman BatCave that he dragged out of the back of my oldest's closet, his baby monitors and the pillows from the couch. He's been given books, plush animals and toys from all the Grandparents (they sure do LOVE to spoil him). But I can tell you, he rarely plays with them.
He's happier pulling all the plastic trash bags off the roll, or flipping the lid to the trash can back and forth, or opening the lid to the toilet and splashing in the bowl, or getting underneath the bathroom cabinet and pulling out all the soap and shampoo bottles, than playing with toys that light up and make pre-recorded sounds. He makes his own sounds, coos his content, and plays happily. He's much more interested in finding out about this wide new world he's in than accepting something that was "created" just for him.
He loves being outside and bouncing the dogs' ball back and forth. He loves crawling through the grass, picking leaves off our rosebush, smacking his chubby little hands on the tractor tire in the back yard (an exercise tool of my hubby's), even practicing his climbing skills on the cement steps from the back patio to the garage.
I love him at this age. I know that the hand-held video game stage is coming. I know he's going to fight his brother on Saturday mornings for control of the remote (I refuse to allow TV's in kids' bedrooms). I know the stage where Mom just doesn't "get it" is on its way. If I could, I would keep those stages at bay indefinitely. (Realistically, I know I can't. But a girl can dream.
If you want to get something for our youngest pumpkin, Mommy and Daddy could do with a night away a couple times a month. But you have to call Daddy. He's less likely to actively request babysitting than Mommy is (he uses the excuse that "no one wants to babysit for us" - which is total crap. All the grands have offered their services!). Spend your time with him, and not your money. Teach him a life skill that he will need as an adult. Have an activity that is uniquely "yours". Help us raise him to be compassionate, sweet, considerate, well-mannered, eloquent and fearless. Help us teach him to be a good man. Impart your wisdom. Be silly. Encourage him. Support him. Delight in his adventurous nature and can-do spirit. Love him. Those are the gifts that will always stay with him.
Happy Raising.
We have only bought him 2 toys since he was born. A plastic stacking ring thing, and a plastic Harley trike for his birthday (the one they have at Wally-world). Everything else he plays with, he's picked up from around our house. He has a remote to an old TV (with the batteries removed), plastic food containers and lids, a toothbrush (new from the package, but it's far from clean now), an old Dell keyboard from a old computer of my husbands that he pulled from a box in the garage, small plastic Halloween buckets, a Batman BatCave that he dragged out of the back of my oldest's closet, his baby monitors and the pillows from the couch. He's been given books, plush animals and toys from all the Grandparents (they sure do LOVE to spoil him). But I can tell you, he rarely plays with them.
He's happier pulling all the plastic trash bags off the roll, or flipping the lid to the trash can back and forth, or opening the lid to the toilet and splashing in the bowl, or getting underneath the bathroom cabinet and pulling out all the soap and shampoo bottles, than playing with toys that light up and make pre-recorded sounds. He makes his own sounds, coos his content, and plays happily. He's much more interested in finding out about this wide new world he's in than accepting something that was "created" just for him.
He loves being outside and bouncing the dogs' ball back and forth. He loves crawling through the grass, picking leaves off our rosebush, smacking his chubby little hands on the tractor tire in the back yard (an exercise tool of my hubby's), even practicing his climbing skills on the cement steps from the back patio to the garage.
I love him at this age. I know that the hand-held video game stage is coming. I know he's going to fight his brother on Saturday mornings for control of the remote (I refuse to allow TV's in kids' bedrooms). I know the stage where Mom just doesn't "get it" is on its way. If I could, I would keep those stages at bay indefinitely. (Realistically, I know I can't. But a girl can dream.
If you want to get something for our youngest pumpkin, Mommy and Daddy could do with a night away a couple times a month. But you have to call Daddy. He's less likely to actively request babysitting than Mommy is (he uses the excuse that "no one wants to babysit for us" - which is total crap. All the grands have offered their services!). Spend your time with him, and not your money. Teach him a life skill that he will need as an adult. Have an activity that is uniquely "yours". Help us raise him to be compassionate, sweet, considerate, well-mannered, eloquent and fearless. Help us teach him to be a good man. Impart your wisdom. Be silly. Encourage him. Support him. Delight in his adventurous nature and can-do spirit. Love him. Those are the gifts that will always stay with him.
Happy Raising.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Laundry, Laundry Every Where!!
I hate doing laundry.
Let me say that again. I. Hate. Doing. Laundry. I’ll wear a pair of jeans for weeks before I
wash them. I’m not a dirty person – far
from it. I just don’t see the need to
wash something that isn’t dirty. And
let’s face it, when it comes to jeans, they fit better the longer you go
between washings.
When I was a
teen-ager, my mom used to say my jeans could just stand in a corner all by
themselves.
But when I do run clothes through the laundry machines, I’m
very particular about how it’s done. I
separate colors from whites, towels from wool sweaters, my husband’s exercise
clothes from the baby’s laundry. I
bleach whites and hang delicates and specialty fabrics to air dry. I know that running a full load
of clothes is more energy efficient. But
I refuse to ruin clothes to make a full load, and space is limited in our modest (tiny) home. Our laundry "room" is really a closet in our eat-in kitchen. I don't want to climb over clothes waiting to be washed.
My husband has a very different view of doing laundry. He stuffs the washer as full as it will
go. And he throws it all in there together - my Vickies bras, his sweaty, nasty workout gear, the babies clothes with towels and sheets. It drives me absolutely crazy!
We have much more laundry during the winter. My oldest son visits his father all summer and the baby refuses to wear clothes. I run the washing machine every single day. I hate it.
So in an effort to rein in our energy bill, I'm enlisting my husband to help me construct a clothesline in the backyard. We're going full old-school in our house. My husband is skeptical. He doesn't think it's going to do much. (Other than cause him to lose a few hours on a weekend doing house chores.)
Oh, but it will. It will save my sanity. My husband has gotten a new job - he's working from home. Which is great! His previous job as a civil servant had him working AWFUL hours and we rarely saw him. And when we did, he was mainly sleepy and cranky. So I love that this new job has him up during daylight hours and much calmer and happier. But since our house is tiny (read: miniscule), he set up his home office in the dining area of our kitchen. He bought a desk and a whole office worth of furniture. We also have our kitchen table. So in order to do a load of laundry, I'm climbing over him and more furniture in that area than needs to be there.
Not to mention the baby and our 11-year-old Boxer are under foot constantly. They both have to be where we are. There's much more room in the back yard to do laundry than there is in the house. So yes, this weekend we're putting up a clothes line. He'll see once I'm back to doing a load of laundry a day how much easier it makes our home life. And that's what it's all about. Happy wife = happy home life. And what husband doesn't want that!
We have much more laundry during the winter. My oldest son visits his father all summer and the baby refuses to wear clothes. I run the washing machine every single day. I hate it.
So in an effort to rein in our energy bill, I'm enlisting my husband to help me construct a clothesline in the backyard. We're going full old-school in our house. My husband is skeptical. He doesn't think it's going to do much. (Other than cause him to lose a few hours on a weekend doing house chores.)
Oh, but it will. It will save my sanity. My husband has gotten a new job - he's working from home. Which is great! His previous job as a civil servant had him working AWFUL hours and we rarely saw him. And when we did, he was mainly sleepy and cranky. So I love that this new job has him up during daylight hours and much calmer and happier. But since our house is tiny (read: miniscule), he set up his home office in the dining area of our kitchen. He bought a desk and a whole office worth of furniture. We also have our kitchen table. So in order to do a load of laundry, I'm climbing over him and more furniture in that area than needs to be there.
Not to mention the baby and our 11-year-old Boxer are under foot constantly. They both have to be where we are. There's much more room in the back yard to do laundry than there is in the house. So yes, this weekend we're putting up a clothes line. He'll see once I'm back to doing a load of laundry a day how much easier it makes our home life. And that's what it's all about. Happy wife = happy home life. And what husband doesn't want that!
Friday, April 12, 2013
Sunny... With a side of Strange
April is Autism Awareness Month. Parents and professionals are pushing Autistic children on the world at large. Media outlets are bombarding you with it; news broadcasts will highlight a family in the community that lives with Autism to show you how difficult their lives are. "Experts" on both sides of the issue debate (although it sounds much more like arguing) the causes and treatments. The message is that by being exposed to all these programs, you will become more aware (and tolerant) of Autism. In my opinion, our kids turn into freaks at the sideshow. Every day in my house is Autism Awareness Day. My oldest son is Autistic. You can't learn my life in one day, one week or one month. Because it's taken YEARS for my life to get this way. And my life changes all the time to accommodate the changes my son's going through. I do not go out of my way to celebrate Autism Awareness.
I can tell you how wonderful my son is. He's smart, sensitive and inquisitive. He's kind and he's learning to be empathetic. He loves to read and be involved in family activities. Now, don't be mislead into thinking that I look at my son through the rose-colored lenses of motherhood. I see him for who he is. He needs constant direction and redirection ALL. DAY. LONG. When he gets stuck on a subject, he cannot focus on anything else (get him started talking about dinosaurs or Pokemon characters and you may be sorry). He is extremely rigid and if things don't go the way he thinks they should, he breaks down emotionally and may start crying. (He's 11 and going through that awful middle school "clique" stage and that is unfortunately ostracizing him from his peers.) Parents of neuro-typical kids tell their kids to brush their teeth and take for granted that it's going to get done. I don't. Because I know between the telling and the execution, a lot gets lost in translation. He may look like he's consciously ignoring me. But I know he's not. I've been doing this a long time. And to some, I may look like a helicopter mom. But I'm not. I'm just being the kind of mom my son needs me to be. And it's exhausting. Because I'm constantly on call. There is no guarantee that when I send him to bed for the night, that my day is done.
Motherhood is NOT for sissies and raising disabled kids is reserved for the bad-asses of the mother bunch. Advocating for special needs children takes a backbone made of titanium and a determination that even the second coming of Christ can't shake. Because it's not just strangers you have to defend your child to, sometimes you have to defend them (and your decisions in raising them) to your own family members! I have to teach my son habits and behaviors that make him socially acceptable to others. I have to teach him to understand his own disorder so he can advocate for himself when he's away from me. I have to teach him to be able to accept how the ignorance of the person next to him has NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM and how NOT to let it hurt his feelings. I have to fight for services from his school (who, regardless of the law, will do whatever they can NOT to provide services because they don't want to have to pay for it) and I have to fight for a spot for him for the limited services that are available (and once I win that spot, I have to pay an ENORMOUS fee for them because insurance doesn't cover treatments for Autism).
We also make him follow a special diet. We exclude certain foods from his diet because we've found that they affect him negatively - both his language and his behaviors. It's a strict diet, and it has to be. So it excludes other activities from his life. We don't have birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese. And when he gets invited to one, please don't look at us cross-eyed when I call to talk about the food that will be served - because we'll be bringing our own. And when parents plan an impromptu birthday party at school - complete with cake and ice cream - my son can't participate. He has to sit there and watch the rest of his classmates eating treats and having a great time. Last year, a little boy in his class thought it was a great way to bully my son. This little boy messed with the lunch my son brought from home and touched him with foods he's not allowed to eat to see how my son would react. These are not the peers I want for my child to grow up with.
There are nights I can't sleep. Worried about the world he's growing up in. Worried about whether or not something I did earlier in the day was too hard or not hard enough. Worried about what's going to happen to him when I die. Worried about him being accepted by his classmates and neighbors. Worried about the kind of adult life he will be able to lead.
Realistically, do you know what you can do for us moms of disabled kids? Teach your children tolerance. Teach them that my child is different, not less than they are. That he has just as much value as everyone else. That his strengths should be just as celebrated as everyone else's. Tolerance is the way for us as a society to accept and embrace everyone. Then we won't need Autism Awareness Month. Because it won't matter.
Happy Raising.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Taking it one moment at a time
Today, I'm slowing down and taking mental polaroids of my kids. It hit me today that my oldest "Chunk" is growing up too fast. (Chunk is just a shortened nickname from when he was a baby. He's all arms and legs now - skinny as a rail - and he knows that the nickname has more sentimental value for me, than being a reflection on his physical appearance. He takes no offense at the nickname and I'm the only one that can call him that.) At 11, he's only a few scant inches shorter than me. Standing toe to toe, he can almost look me in the eye. We live half a continent away from my family, so I posted a pic to Facebook to share with all my loved ones how big he's actually gotten.
Comparing his growth to the baby (whom we affectionately call "Monkey"), it saddens me how quickly childhood passes. Chunk is always trying to be older than he is. No one was there to fight for my childhood when I was his age, so I'm constantly battling him not to grow up too fast. He has the rest of his life to be a "grown up" - or at least what his version of a grown up is. I want him to have the stories of childhood, the memories of slower, sweeter days to look back on and fight for when he's raising children of his own.
So today, I'm enjoying my pumpkins. Being fully in the moment when Monkey pulls every garbage bag out of the box. Enjoying the feel of his chubby, slobbery hands. Not huffing when he wants to be picked up - AGAIN. And inhaling deeply when he falls asleep on my shoulder. And I'm enjoying that Chunk still wants to talk to me. That he's constantly curious and infinitely kind and sensitive. I'm treasuring my babies and hoping that the world doesn't alter them too much. Because they're perfect just the way they are.
Happy Raising.
Comparing his growth to the baby (whom we affectionately call "Monkey"), it saddens me how quickly childhood passes. Chunk is always trying to be older than he is. No one was there to fight for my childhood when I was his age, so I'm constantly battling him not to grow up too fast. He has the rest of his life to be a "grown up" - or at least what his version of a grown up is. I want him to have the stories of childhood, the memories of slower, sweeter days to look back on and fight for when he's raising children of his own.
So today, I'm enjoying my pumpkins. Being fully in the moment when Monkey pulls every garbage bag out of the box. Enjoying the feel of his chubby, slobbery hands. Not huffing when he wants to be picked up - AGAIN. And inhaling deeply when he falls asleep on my shoulder. And I'm enjoying that Chunk still wants to talk to me. That he's constantly curious and infinitely kind and sensitive. I'm treasuring my babies and hoping that the world doesn't alter them too much. Because they're perfect just the way they are.
Happy Raising.
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