My youngest, Will, has often been a great source of blog fodder. Time and time and time again. And again. And time again some more and more and more. Seriously, the kid provides me with hours of entertainment daily. I swear he's some old man reincarnated in a small boy's body. He's hilarious and fearless and sometimes just completely strange.
Take for instance his newest request for breakfast.
Mayonnaise on white bread.
Back in the days of learning to use the toaster, Nick, the older boy, found a love for toast with peanut butter and honey. I mean, who doesn't love that, right? Pure awesome. Plus Nick could make it on his own which meant he wanted to eat it for every meal of the day.
Will on the other hand decided that peanut butter and honey toast was not quite unique enough for his tastes. One morning, after hemming and hawing about whether he wanted cereal or a bagel for 10 minutes and me nearly losing my stuffing over the fact that he should just pick something already for the love of Pete he sat upright like he'd had the best idea ever and declared, "I'll have mayonnaise bread!"
Surely, I thought, he wasn't actually going to eat the mayonnaise bread. I thought it'd be one of those things that kids say they want but when they see it on their plate they're all, "Well, I really didn't want that." Except that he ate his "white-on-white open-faced sandwich" happily.
Then asked for it again the next day.
Hey, if we're not dawdling or arguing in the morning? Have at 'er.
I see all these goofy quirks about my son and love every single one of them. I never want him to lose sight of how great it is to be who you truly are - to live life the way that suits you. I never want him to stop saying things like, "That's unbelievable!" or "Holy NUTS!" I never want him to stop being fearless when nose to nose with bees or while at the top of a sledding hill.
I never want him to change, yet I know he will.
One day he'll be in middle school and he'll let some bully make him feel awkward about something and he'll decide to be less of whatever that something is. He'll have a girl in his social studies class that he'll want to impress, so he'll be a little less enthusiastic or outgoing so as to seem cooler. He'll get to high school and decide that maybe the golf team is nerdy and he'd rather go out for football. It breaks my heart to think these things but I know some version of them will be true.
I know that all I can really do is make him feel loved, every day, for being exactly who he is. I can let him know that in my home he's always encouraged to be his silly, quirky, amazingly smart little self.
And hopefully, when he grows up and gets past that high school stage of life, he'll realize that if I loved him for being himself that maybe there's someone else in this world for him that will love him for who he is, too.
And maybe just knowing that will give him the confidence to go back to living life the way he sees fit.
