MY SON

I am the proud mom of five kiddos here on earth, four of which are boys.  I am a good candidate for being a mom of boys; I don’t stress out over piles of dirt everywhere, I don’t worry about kiddos staying outside until dark-thirty, and I don’t mind that the boys come in completely covered in dirt / mud and I do mean covered in dirt!  I don’t mind washing the sand out of the bathtub nightly.  I don’t mind the cars, trucks, blocks, and toy guns scattered in every room of our house.  I don’t mind it when we have to watch John Wayne movies 100 times, or that opera has been replaced by George Strait, and the ballet has been replaced by football and trips into the woods.  I am proud to be the mom of all my children, and I am proud of being the mom of boys.

Lately I have noticed that my oldest son is changing.  It’s nothing major, a subtle change from boyhood into manhood, but I see the changes.  Part of me rejoices, the other part of me is ready to weep.  Take, for example this morning, while I was busy with the baby, Cole who is in the Terrific (AHEM) Two’s decided to totally take his dirty diaper off and try to clean himself up.  Poor Maggie is down with a torn rotator cuff, I was busy, and there was a mess.  No words were spoken, I literally didn’t say anything; but in his usual quiet manner, John Robert came in and totally handled the mess.  He cleaned everything up, bathed Cole, put a clean diaper on him, and got him dressed.  I sat back and I watched.  This is just one of many signs that my little boy, my first born son is growing up.  This is just one of the many little examples of him slowly becoming a man.

Preschool Graduation in 2009

Summer fun in 2011

This past January (January of 2014)

Yesterday (June of 2014)

I am not ready to have my son become a man.  I am not ready for him to grow up so fast.  I am not ready to see him leave my care.  I am not ready for him to not be here, not be with me daily.  Oh I know that all of those things have to happen.  I know that I still have eight years left with my amazing son.  I know that I have a lot to be proud of with him. Everyday in little ways I see him acting more like his Daddy a man that I WANT him to grow up and become.   I pray that John Robert will grow up to be a mighty man of God.  I pray that my son will be used mightily by Christ to do amazing things.  I also pray that he will always be my baby boy, even if he is 105!