You (er, me in this case)

I can barely withstand his leveling (and annoyingly accurate) insight into my few several myriad faults.  I thought the teen years were bad for my self-esteem the first time around; I’m quickly learning that their ventures through are surely going to do in my frail ego.

But then there are moments like this, breathtaking beauty where not only do I tell a joke that actually makes him laugh, but I capture it forever.  I’m printing this one, framing it in my favorite antique frame inherited from my Gramma (who had a crazy large soft spot for this particular lad) and every time I see it on my dresser I’m going to remind myself that no matter what he says to me, I know that I can still make him laugh. (and knit him hats he loves – that one he’s wearing up there is debuting this week.  Perhaps it might inspire some love + laughter in one of your own brood?)

As a human, I can’t ever affirm my kids perfectly– heck, on crazy days I struggle to do it even to a small degree.  It is darned hard in the busyness of life to really LOOK people in the eye, to make them know just how precious they are. It is doubly hard when 80% of the hassle in your day is coming from the kid most in need of affirmation.  I take great comfort in knowing that God loves my kids more than I do, and that He, unlike me, is a perfect parent.

I cannot tell you how mary’s words spoke to my heart.  As I struggle through this trying season with this precious boy, I need to remember that I am not a perfect parent (gracious, I am so far from a perfect parent!) but that I can only strive to be a human, imperfect parent and rest in the comfort of knowing that my boys do have a perfect Father.  and I need to remember that the God who loves them perfectly also loves ME the same way.  Even when I lock myself in the bathroom to escape my boys for 5 minutes.

“Again, Again!” Rusty loves sledding.

This hill is steep – not lovin’ it quite so much…

Yeah, totally done with the sledding. Not lovin’ it at all.

Neither did Greg, once his face got run over by an out-of-control sled.

That’s me and my two eldest boy-men. Ethan, the one on my right in the picture, decided that rather than read a book (like big brother AJ) in the car ride to Uncle Andy’s for our Thanksgiving celebration, he wanted to do some knitting on the hat I was working on. Since I was sitting next to him (a rarity – Mama hardly ever sits in the back-back of the van, but Grandma was sitting in my usual front seat) and I was, of course, knitting, I turned it over to him and gave him a refresher on how to work a knit stitch. This is the child that absolutely refused to learn a few years ago when I attempted to teach him on a few rainy days.

I couldn’t believe what happened next. He not only *got* my instructions right away, but he proceeded to work on my hat (him doing all the knits, me doing all the purls) for the remainder of our hour-long drive. And then he asked me a few a dozen times through the course of yesterday “when can I knit more?”

This morning, first thing, he again asked if he could knit. I pulled out a pair of short size 10 needles and cast on two dozen stitches for him, and my wild-child, normally bouncing off the walls (literally, he bumps him body into the walls and bounces around the room) boy – he sat on the couch and knit all afternoon. He shouted “gotta finish this row!” when I called him to dinner, and after he inhaled his food, he went right back to the couch and knit some more.

The big brother, not to be outdone, sidled up to the couch and asked for his own needles and some yarn. I gave him a brief rundown of the knit stitch, and he also spent several hours on the couch, knitting the afternoon away.

Snuggling with my boys, each of us engulfed in our crafting, passing the hours chatting and laughing, it did this mama’s heart good.

with this:

(a prayer rock, made at our church’s Wed evening kid’s program)

Any guesses?

You get this:

In other words, you get a trip to the Emergency Department (where they, unfortunately, know you by name because you are there with said 4 year old quite often) at 9 pm, with a gushing finger. (let’s not ignore the irony of the fact that the kid was injured by a Prayer Rock. Resulting in lots of prayers that his hand wasn’t broken. Apparently, the rock works, maybe a little too well, in encouraging prayer. I don’t quite think that’s what the Children’s Director has planned when she did this activity with the kids, though.)

You get x-rays (not broken, but badly bruised and sprained) You get DermaBond (not stitches, thankfully, since the boy was seriously traumatized by the last bout with stitches, in his tongue) (No, I’m not kidding) You get almost three hours of kitting time while waiting in the ED for the doc to come in to do said finger gluing. You get a wrapped finger with admonishments to keep it dry (yeah, okay, that’s gonna happen)

You also get a milkshake at the drive-through at 11:30 pm, because even though the boy is exhausted, you promised him a milkshake and he won’t be dissuaded. You get the same boy drinking the milkshake for breakfast because he was too tired and cranky to finish it when you got home last night. You get a really, rally tired mama today, because all that adrenaline rushing around leaves quite a nasty hangover when it dissipates.

The silver lining to my tale of woe? You also get:
A finished sock!