The boy and I are home during our Winter Break -- We're having a day of domestic revolution.
We've mailed a batch of cards, jerry-rigged and loaded and started the dishwasher, done more outdoor Christmas decorating, swept the floors, put out trash and recycling....
Now the boy is trotting around the yard in pleather pants, making a soup of berries and water. These are the same pleather (black, natch) pants he has worn every single day since he put them on for his friend Ella's visit last Thursday. He even went commando to our church's Festival of Lights, a service of lessons and carols, on Sunday night.
At this very moment, I'm sitting on the front stoop watching my beautiful boy climb trees. He's telling me, "Only the kids in our family climb trees. Gabe teached me. Some day I'll climb higher."
Oh, I love love love this boy. He is such a gift in my life, and in that of my Mister. When he joins us in the big bed middle of the night, I often just watch him sleep. Listen to his deep contented breathing, smell his boy smell of sweetly sour breath and dirt and sweaty feet and Bert's Bee's shampoo. I feel just like I did after he was born when I'd hold him and weep in thanks and awe and wonder, and I lay there often in grateful tears, silently mouthing the words, "Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you for this angel boy. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
At this moment, I am being called to "be a helper" in the making of soup of berries and twigs and leaves and rainwater.
In a short time, we'll return indoors to unload the dishwasher, sort and fold and put away laundry, then go through toys in the boy's room, placing the ones he is ready to part with into bags for another child.
These days with him, they are precious beyond words I can make into things. I know you mothers and fathers must feel this, too, whether like me, you have a singleton -- as a man recently remarked to me with a big grin -- or a whole passel of children.
God bless the child, indeed.
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