PYHO: So Blessed

I’m a worrier, just like my mother before me. I worry about Jellybean’s future. I worry about bullies—mostly my child becoming one.

 I worry about so much that I really have no control over. I do my best to teach them life skills, how to respect others, how to give and show love on a regular basis. 

How to treat others the way they want to be treated.

I worry about Scooby too. He’s three, still, and becoming this awesome, sweet, and VERY independent little person. I worry about his speech issues. I worry that his huge heart will get broken because he’s just a typical three old boy with this really big zest for life, and it often gets him in trouble. I worry that he will follow in his sister’s footsteps and have ADHD too.

So, I watch. I love. I teach. I discipline. I snuggle. I play. 

I pay extra close attention to tongue placement when we talk. I give him moments of independence that are appropriate for him. He gets to make some decisions on where we go, what he wears.

He gets hyper in the evening. He is incredibly active, almost constantly in motion from the moment his eyes open, til the moment he is tucked into bed at night. He has his quiet moments where he will sit and play with his cars for 30 minutes here and there. 

His imaginative play has picked up and I’m finding it to be quite entertaining. His ability to play pretend, something his sister never did, has my heart doing little leaps and cheers. 

Watching him grow, something I wasn’t able to do in the same way with his sister, has helped me understand just how early Jellybean’s symptoms began emerging. 

It lets me rejoice in his accomplishments because they are so very unique to me, and so very normal for him.

Empathy is a huge struggle for Jellybean. She is so very literal that she has a difficult time seeing things from another’s perspective, even when it is explained to her. She lacks empathy, sadly. She has never shed a tear for anyone but herself in all her eleven years. Not when her beloved Grandma Nora died. Not when her Poppy passed away on Christmas. Not when her puppy died. Not to a sappy commercial. 

She has never cried to a movie, a commercial, a book, or because of something happy. 

Yesterday, for the very first time, at a moment I least expected it, I caught Scooby sniffing and wiping his eyes as he sat at the edge of my bed watching Where the Wild Things Are on HBO. It was the end of the movie and the wild things were wailing because Max was leaving.

AND MY SON WAS CRYING.

For the first time. 

For someone else.