Wednesday, June 15, 2016

This week(ish)

Last night during worship, Brian and I could hardly sing at some points. Barrett, unprompted, would periodically shout "Hallelujah!" ("ha-yu-yah!") and it was terribly funny. Afterward I asked Brian, "Do you think that, one day, we will forget about Barrett shouting 'ha-yu-yah' during worship?" He answered, "Yes, I am sure we will. Unfortunately." Not if I blog about it! I know one day I will look back on these precious, adorable, heartbreaking little years as a happy blur. I'm so thankful for this blog.

Since William had a nap yesterday, I set him up with "books on bed time." He was using his new headlamp from Aunt Kelly and Uncle David and poring through a stack of Berenstain Bear books. ("I only want Berenstain Bear books, not other books.") While I was in the shower, Brian had to go up and kill a tiny moth that kept flying around him. When I was done, and sitting next to Brian on the couch, we heard him once again on the monitor start to cry. I went upstairs to find him with real tears streaming down his cheeks. "I don't want to sleep," he told me. "Little bugs like dust are flying around me." He was right. There was a fly literally the size of a dust particle periodically flying around the light. I told him very frankly that sometimes bugs get into the house, but that bug is not going to hurt you, and the truth is, they just like the light. "Mom," he implored, still in tears, "you guys can't leave the windows and doors open." We talked some more and he calmed down, then elected to turn off the headlamp and go to sleep. "There's a light over there," he said, pointing to the night light, "that the bugs can like instead." Being with William makes it all too familiar, being a child. I see in my kids all the same fears and questions I had when I was young. Becca told me the other day that she thinks I project all of those things on to my kids and that's probably true. I feel an incredible amount of empathy for anything they are going through that I particularly struggled with. (For things that weren't a struggle, though, I adopt more of a "suck it up" attitude.) I have to remind myself that kids survive even when their parents are not "emotionally attuned" to all of their struggles. But it's just the way I am.

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