Appreciating My Son

These past couple weeks have been pretty rough on Grayson and me. Not only because we have both been sick, but also thanks to the holidays, our routine was completely off kilter since most of our normal events like playgroups and gym class have been canceled. As a result, we have been stuck in the house, which means the basement since that’s where we are living right now. Since Grayson is a very social kid, just like me, we’ve been going a little stir crazy.

During this time, I was emailing one of my friends back and forth. They have also been pretty sick over the holidays and we were exchanging battle stories. While we were discussing our holidays she wrote something interesting, “Two is such a fun age.” As I read it, I laughed out loud and then I told her how amusing I found the statement. She then pointed out how funny her daughter is now and how she is able to reason with her, unlike when she was one.

I thought a little more about this and then started to reflect back on the past couple weeks and how really great Grayson had been. Sure, we had our tough moments, but overall we really enjoyed our time together. This prompted me to think more about why I love my son and why I am going to try even harder to appreciate him as a two-year-old. Here’s my list:

He’s hilarious and he tells you so. Now that he speaks in sentences, he says the funniest things and he tells me all the time, “I funny, Mommy, I funny.” Perfect.

He says please and thank you. And very rarely needs to be prompted. This is something I take pride in because manners seem to be disappearing a bit nowadays. He's also really big on saying "bless you" after you sneeze. And after you cough. At first I was trying to distinguish between the two, but then a friend of mine said, "sometimes coughs need blessing too," and I realized she was completely right.

He loves to go to church. Pretty much every day he asks to go to church. I’m sure he doesn’t understand why we go to church at this point, but I’m also sure that when he’s 16-years-old, he’ll probably be fighting me rather than begging to go, so I’m going to appreciate it while it lasts.

His energy is unstoppable. I am amazed at how he can continue to go and go and go. Because of this, he motivates me to do the same. Then again, do I really have a choice??

He enjoys music. He would much rather listen to music than watch television. He also loves to sing and when his Daddy and I practice singing with our group at church for our contemporary services, he really has a blast. Just today I saw him mimicking our drummer as he tapped his drumsticks together, counted, and then started playing his drum. We had always planned on starting him with guitar lessons, but we may have to rethink that!!

He has a mind of his own. This one is hard to appreciate as he pushes my buttons, argues with me, and fights me on almost everything; however, if I take a moment and really think about it, I know I’m raising a strong, independent thinker and that will serve him well as he becomes an adult. And also, all those challenging moments are making me a better person and mother.

This year at Christmas, he got more excited over the tree lights than the gifts themselves. I had mentioned in my previous post about how hard I had worked to have the gifts under the tree for him to see when he awoke on Christmas morning. I did this because his face lit up the first time we turned on the tree lights and it continued to do so the entire month before Christmas. I really thought he would be incredibly excited over seeing the gifts and couldn’t believe he didn’t seem to care at the time. At first I was disappointed, but the more I thought about it, the greater it became. He found appreciation more in the “spirit” rather than just getting toys. I hope he always feels that way.

He tells me he loves me all the time. I remember the first time he said I love you and it has only become better each time. I don’t think I will ever be tired of hearing it. The best sentence someone could ever say!