It was gorgeous here today and after a morning skirmish, BigBoy and I resolved to start the day over and take a beautiful drive over to Biz's house. Of course all was good until it was time to leave, then the I-don't-wanna-go's made their debut. Why is it that children this age seem to always send you back and forth between thinking "what a precious angel..." as you stroke their hair and kiss them goodnight with their teddy, and "Thank the Lord he's finally in bed!"? (Sorry -- I never can remember where punctuation is supposed to go in these cases.)

After lunch we did some foam sword-fighting and worked puzzles before an impromptu trip to a thrift store ministry in the afternoon. BigBoy brought me two race cars and a book I KNOW he loves and said he didn't want them anymore. This was a shock of course. I asked him why and he kept saying "other boys and girls, other boys and girls." (He has a speech delay that can make our communication difficult at times.) After confirming he wanted to give them to "other boys and girls" I asked him why and he said "they not have toys." We've made a couple recent trips to a new thift store ministry and the way I explained it was by telling him that it was a place where people could bring things so kids who didn't have lots of toys and clothes could get more.
I didn't want him to feel like he HAD to give anything away but he convinced me he wanted to take the items he'd gathered. I felt this deserved a trip to the thrift store, fully prepared for him to possibly change his mind or not understand he wouldn't have them anymore. When we got there, however, he very proudly handed his things to the lady at the register and said, "You have more toys!" She thanked him and he promptly reached for my hand again and turned for the door. For the first time there he had no interest in looking at the toys that were for sale. I guess that was because he did what he came to do and was ready to leave. And we did just that.

Just when I think he can't exasperate me any more my sweet child goes and does something like this.

I've spent a lot of time over the last 3 years thinking about how little I thought I had in common with my son (aside from his disinterest in sleeping), but today was a quiet reminder from God that maybe a little bit of mama is rubbing off.