Verklempt

Forgive me for a moment, I'm a little overcome with emotion... you see... um.... give me just a tiny moment here.... my son... is, um, helping my daughter... um.... study! It's such a beautiful thing - he's helping her with science - going over bonds and chemical stuff and balancing electrons or something like that... all I really know is he's being so patient and she's not complaining and perhaps, just perhaps, she's learning something. I'm so proud - my heart, my friends, is full. sigh.

This, I do believe, is the beauty of having them eight years apart. I have had folks look at me and ask me if I was crazy - why on earth, they would say, would you have them so far apart. Well, um... that really wasn't the plan ya' know. The plan was to have them five years apart but life and my body didn't cooperate and I had them eight years apart instead - and it's been a wonderful thing for me, thank you very much. The expense side of it has been good - no one has been in any kind of activity at the same time, and college - well... I have a few years after his graduation to contend with her (hopefully) impending attendance.

I can hear them back there in his room... soft voices, him asking her a question and her answering - every once in a while a little 14 year old girl giggle breaks the gentle murmur. They've been at it a while... and it's not so much I couldn't have helped her because somehow I got him through school, but he's the science boy - he's my chemistry, physics, killer math man and he understands all this stuff much more easily than I do... I would have had to look back over the book and the notes to help me understand it. The funny thing too, is I actually think he wanted to help her - imagine that! And it's a learning thing for both of them - learning in the sense that she's getting quality time with a wonderful male role model and he's learning what it means to mentor someone - perhaps one day it will serve him well as he parents his own children.

My mom always said she didn't really think someone was a parent until they had more than one child. I think most of the time that observation was a dig at my mother in law, who only had the one. I don't really agree with that - for eight years I had one child and I was as much a parent then as I am now. I think the coolest thing about having more than one child though is getting to sit back and observe the interaction between them. Yeah I know, it's not always pretty... that whole sibling rivalry thing, but hey, wanna know a little secret -having them so far apart in age really cut down on that little problem too, ha! As a parent though it's been an awesome thing to see the tenderness between them - the way she looks up to him and how protective he is of her. He supports her and is there for her and she adores him and thinks he hung the moon. Pretty cool... another moment to keep and ponder in my heart. I am blessed.