boy of my heart.
This kid. He kills me, every single day. Six and a half years ago he came screaming into our lives, and changed our world forever. Serious and solemn from the start, his wide brown eyes took everything in. Now, at 6, soon to be seven, he is serious, loving, adorable, sincere and has the wickedest sense of humour. His father tells me that Bear and I share a sense of humour – we think our own jokes are hilarious (even if no-one else does), but are less likely to appreciate those cracked by others, especially at our expense. My big boy is the one most like me, of our three precious babes. He loves reading and creating. He’s a science nerd. He has a tendency to be shy around new people, or in large groups, but get him among friends and he’s unstoppable. He can talk with a mouthful of marbles underwater. That humour definitely has his mothers quirkiness stamped all over it. A day trip to a nearby rainforest had him sighing that “it’s all so pretty, but I don’t have any paints or pencils or an easel to do art here”. Just like mama. Thankfully, his temper is more like his father’s. But let’s not go there. (me? temperamental? I can hear my mother cackling from here. She is somewhat placated in the knowledge that while my elder son is quite calm, my daughter seems to be showing fine promise in the art of Throwing a Tantrum Like Her Mama).
But he’s growing and changing, and the world is making it’s own mark on him. One full year plus one term of school down, and he is blossoming into a delightful young man. One that I adore more and more each day. He comes out with the most random and often hilarious things. And he has a memory like an elephant. Today, I get to hold him close by, and pretend that he is mine, and mine alone, for one more day. Today, we have baked a cake together. We are currently sharing my studio as Butterfly sleeps while Boy2 is at preschool, and I sit here blogging and sketching, as he sits on the floor behind me, painting and sticking and gluing, making a storybook for his little sister. Soon, we will close up our drawing books and pack away the paints, and we are going to find ourselves a nice spot in the sun, and I will teach him to knit, at his request. It’s a day of no big plans, no life altering events. But it is a day of love and laughter and moments, of all the things that make life worthwhile. Today, it is a day for us.