Three and two months

Nothing could have ever quite prepared me for being a mom to a boy.  In fact, when we first found out that the baby we were expecting was a Tommy, I freaked out a little bit.

"What on earth am I going to do with a boy?"  I thought. 

All if it though - motherhood, raising a son, navigating boyish waters - has come a bit more naturally than I thought it would.  Somehow Tommy brings out the most playful part of myself.  He reminds me that it's okay to be loud and to get dirty.  That adventure can be found absolutely anywhere.  It's actually something he says quite frequently.  "Let's have an adventure mom!"  And we go look for rocks or run outside or play in the rain or I find myself chasing him at the mall, because to him, wide open spaces mean that you can run as free as you please.

And then there are the days where the unexpected happens and you find yourself scratching your head and realize, he's only going to become even more BOYISH than he already is. 

His new thing is getting himself dressed.  And really this just means that I'm having to get over my tendencies of wanting him to look put together and coordinated.  Picking out his own clothes has become a very big deal and gone are the days of my handsome boy looking the way that I wanted him to.  He'll wear his Batman shirt with a pair of red shorts and it's not the jean pair I'd prefer.  *sigh*

Though the biggest problem is that he prefers to skip putting on underwear.  I suppose if there is a difficult part to getting dressed at three and two months, it's the underwear.  We now have to check that he is wearing them before heading out.  Boy, we were surprised the first time to discover our son was going commando!  (To my grown son Tommy - if you ever read this - it was too hilarious to not write down and remember.  Don't be too mad.)

Even with all of the challenges lately - and not the getting dressed ones - but the discipline, teaching how to act and respond and to listen and obey ones - there are still these incredibly sweet moments that I wouldn't trade for the world.  When he calms down long enough to want to just feel our arms around him for awhile.  It doesn't happen often, but when it does, you better believe we cherish it.

And the driving.  Oh the driving.  We.  Drive. All.  The.  Time.  The boy wants to be behind the wheel whether we let him sit in a real car or we're pretending to drive on the couch.  I'm pretty sure he's going to grow up and be a guitar-playing race-car driver.  Sometimes he drives a truck and others he's driving a spaceship.  We always put our seatbelts on and the ride is always, always bumpy.  But our pretend drives we take on a daily basis are something I will always remember about Tommy being three. 

I was having one of those sentimental nights last night.  Where I was watching him pretend to drive his Opa on the couch and I suddenly saw this big boy asking for the keys to the car and going out with his friends. 

This time next year, he will be a big brother.  He won't be the only kid in the house and be the recipient of all of our attention.  I'm curious what his little heart will do with that transition.  I wonder where he will feel missed or envious of his little brother or sister.  I keep thinking about how we are shaping his story.  Where we love and parent out of both our woundedness and the healed places too. 

And how God chose us, Todd and me, to be his dad and his mom.  Just as he picked us for our next baby, we were chosen for this little boy. Our music-loving, pretend-driving, underwear-missing, loud-laughing little boy. 

I may not have known what I was going to do with a boy more than three years ago.  But now, my thoughts are more like...."What on earth would I do without this little boy?"