Me: “Do I need to help you wash your hands?” slightly annoyed
Kai: “YES! And I also want you to stay, because I need to poop…just stand right there because I need you until I’m done.”
Just as I’m getting ready to sit and download all of my thoughts, I have this wonderful opportunity to spend in the bathroom. Coincidental, of course not! Moments like these frustrate me until I’m standing by the door with the fan on listening to all of the thoughts running through my little guy’s head…and then I remember – his poop stinks. Haha, no I remember much more along with that.
As I’ve been preparing for the addition of another little man into the house, I have to be honest – I’m taking this time way better than the last. I cried with Titus. I mean sobbed when I found out that we were having another boy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read the blogs about boy mom life and celebrating being the only girl…but can I be real – I wanted (and still do want) a girl! Not just for dressing up purposes (those are fantastic), but because I have an incredible relationship with my own mom. I’ve always wanted to have that mother-daughter relationship and with each babe I felt like that ideal was slipping away.
Until recently, two students of mine that greatly remind me of my own two boys began asking me advice about life and how to approach various situations they’ve had. I found myself giving advice that I didn’t realize isn’t common for them. Things like “do you know your value?” “Being manipulated isn’t okay, and you need to walk away if necessary.” “You’re important, do you know your worth?” Their responses were, “I’ve never heard that from someone before..I” It broke my heart. And it dawned on me that so often boys are overlooked and I was about to do the same thing! About to miss the opportunity of building up my boys to be men that know who they are and aren’t searching for it in anyone else. That it’s just as much my husband’s job as it is mine to see their value and nurture the heck out of that.
Spending time reevaluating my own expectations of relationships with my boys has challenged me to see how little I fully understand the value in their need for a vibrant relationship with me…and that my words, my actions, my love is incredibly vital to who they will become. You may be reading this and either relating or thinking how could I not see this. So I will frame it in the fact that truthfully I have two existing healthy male relationships, and those have taken great work and understanding (still do), my dad (stepdad) and my husband.
The majority of my roots are heavily maternal and deep in the essence of being a strong independent woman. Does that negate the worth of men…in some ways yes. Watching my single mother be everything at all times made me love being a woman and caused me to see very little value in a marriage or partnership with men. So having boys rocked my world, I mean has shaken it. I’ve never been so needed, so lost in all things boy, and so loved in spite of being frustrated that I have to repeat myself an innumerable amount of times.
So in a society where the extremes of feminism somehow overlook how wonderful men of value are desperately needed, I see my boys so much more as a gift today than ever before. That even my own thoughts and pre dispositions have had to be tailored not once, but going on three times (I have to laugh). I want my boys to know how great it is to be a man who knows his worth, the same I would a daughter. That their first healthy relationship with a woman can be with their mom, so I need to grow in understanding them and how to best love them in how they receive it. With a house and heart full of boys I owe that to them and myself…to their future wives and their own sons.
I couldn’t imagine a better way to grow as a mother…excuse me I’m being called to rub someone’s head.
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