I keep starting posts but never finishing them. So here's to hoping this one actually gets completed. I went to my childhood home for the Thanksgiving holiday. I hadn't been there fore 2 years. That isn't a huge amount of time in the realm of life, but at the same time, that's a good chunk of time. I needed the break and I'm glad I took it and can now come to things returning to the place of my childhood with a new perspective. I don't need things from there that I once thought I did and that helps a lot. It just took a long time to get there, but I think I needed that as well.
My oldest child is such a dynamic child. He can be intense and he can drive one crazy quickly if you aren't up for all he has to give. However, at the same time he has the absolute biggest heart and just does everything to the fullest. He is unabashedly himself and I give him props for being so. When it came to this holiday, he was stoked about the whole thing. He would have time with cousins, he would get gifts, he would have time with his aunts and uncles and grandparents. He would have free reign of a large yard in the country, something we don't have in the city so much.
He ate every single minute of it up when we were visiting despite having a terrible lingering cough that just would not go away. He did have a few setbacks when he didn't get what he was wanting in his Christmas at Thanksgiving gifts until very late in the gift giving, but still I cheered him on. I knew that he had inherited my terrible gift recipient trait, darn extreme honesty and wearing our heart on the sleeve bites us in the butt here.
On the last night there, he was pretty quiet on the car ride back to our hotel we were staying at due to overcrowding in my parents house and my middle guy's severe allergies to dust mites and pets. I asked him if he was okay. He said he was having a lot of feelings at the moment. He then said he didn't think it was worth it to come all this way to just have to go home again and that he was just so sad about doing so. I said it was okay to be sad and that this sadness comes from your love for these people. And that's actually a very big thing. I gave him a hug and he was just sad for a little while, but like the sanguine he was he was able to go to bed happy and it didn't dampen breakfast the next morning with his relatives either.
It's interesting watching your child grow from being thing oriented to caring about spending time with others. I know he's still little, only being 7, but sometimes I feel like he's got a bit of an old soul and its interesting how it comes out in things like this. It makes me realize that its such a gift of grace to have him be part of my life. That maybe I could learn a bit more from him if I stopped and pondered who God made and is making him to be. Perhaps I could use a little more enthusiasm like him instead of my cynicism, and perhaps my heart could just be a little bigger and see more of the good in people like he does. I am truly thankful for this opportunity to be his mom.
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