Boys

Having a boy, after having had only a daughter for 3 years, was quite a shock. T.J. was the exact opposite of Hope...and not just because he was a boy.

It all started out with food. The boy liked to eat! And that hasn't stopped. I still have to consciously remind myself to cook more food because of the 2nds and 3rds he goes back for!

And then he started moving; first crawling. When Hope was a baby, and heading for trouble, you could pick her up, turn her the opposite direction and she'd resume crawling. Not T.J. If you picked him up, and turned him around, he'd turn right back around and head to whatever it was he wasn't supposed to be in to.

My first real sign of fear was the day he pushed his little tyke trike up my mountain of laundry and tried to ride it down. That was when I realized...he was going to be like his father. And the daredevil antics didn't stop there. But that's for another post.

Then there were the clothes. The boy can ruin any shirt he puts on within 5 minutes of putting it on. There are no hand me downs from T.J. There were no clothes to re-sell at a garage sale. They are all stained. I even quit buying him white shirts; I got tired of bleaching them clean...darker colors hide stains better I've discovered.

But the dirt doesn't stop there! T.J. played hard today. In this pic, he is covered in dirt. From his face down to his socks. And while he loves to take baths (he can spend hours in there) I still have to physically watch him wash himself or he won't do it. My sister used to refer to boys as "dirty, germy little things." And T.J. is living proof of that.

But in spite of the dirt, the daredevil antics, and constantly running him out of my cupboards and refrigerator, he's still our little boy. He'll still crawl up on the couch with his dad and watch T.V. He'll still give me the biggest hugs in the whole world...and better yet, he'll still give me kisses in front of his friends and tell me he loves me.

I love to stand back and see what he's becoming, to watch him grow and learn. His love for the outdoors, for exploring, for playing in the dirt and digging holes, for breaking things open to see what's inside, they many, many "why" questions; they never get old...even as he does.