Happy Birthday DinoBoy!

As a friend reminded me earlier today, 7 years ago today, I became a mother. No one and nothing could have prepared me for the change this little boy brought to my life. How hard can being a parent be? Boy oh boy have we found out. And, truth be known, friends that have older kids have warned us that we haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg of parenting.

Hello? Not even the tip of the iceberg? What have we been doing for these past years? I mean, I've qualified for mom fo the year on several occasions in my dealings with Dino Boy. Most recently being that he's not alowed to open gifts from his birthday party last weekend (7/16) until the toy room is cleaned out. Mainly I'm realizing that I'm generally cutting off my nose to spite my face on this issue because evidently, he can be as hard headed as me. He worked for maybe an hour or two in the toy room, grew bored and decided he wanted to keep all of the toys and sat his rump on the couch to watch tv. No problem. The gifts remain unopened. Indefinitely.

Ok, it really is a problem. The gifts (his and his sister's) are now in the kitchen. There is no place else to put them other than out to the curb! The carpenters are beginning work tomorrow on our "new" kitchen and will need the space. We need the toyroom space for our living room furniture and TV. We need the living room space for our kitchen table, etc. Even after the toy room is cleared out, I still don't know where the new gifts will go.


Alright, off the point a little bit. DinoBoy was born on his uncle's birthday. The only day out of the entire month I wanted to NOT have him. I'm a believer in everyone having thier own special day. We overcrowded Uncle L's. Sorry. The kid arrived on time, a healthy 8 pounds even, the heaviest of any of our kids. I was a house when I was pregnant with him. I was so happy to just have him on the outside instead of the inside. He was healthy and a fussy eater from the start. This trait is still with him. He would not nurse. He would not drink from a bottle. His Aunt nearly opened a small bottle of formula in the hospital and poured it down his throat. Once he got the hang of it, though, there was no turning back from the bottles. And his binky. Boy oh boy ... I thought we'd never get rid of that thing. He was 3 before we finally got rid of it.

And, back to when he was three, he was in a "special" class in our school district because of his limited vocabulary. I know we shouldn't make comparisons between the children but Twinkletoes was speaking in full sentences, with punctuation, at the age of one and he wasn't. We were told by the school district that he would be in this class until kindergarten. But, little did we know, that once the button in his brain was pushed to "talk" there was no turning it off!! They kicked him out of the program after his first year when he started spouting off the names of dinosaurs -- and pronouncing them correctly. Better than his teachers! That was it. Special class was history! He's been talking non-stop ever since. Just shows what he can do when he puts his mind to it.

That being said, he brings me inspiration every day. Whether it is just him working on his reading skills which are getting better every day or just by the excuses he comes up with for not doing something that I ask him to> He is a pretty funny kid!

His imagination will take him into the farthest reaches of being. His quest for knowledge about obscure things will hopefully get him through college and into a great career of his choosing. For the past few years, he's been inclined to say he wants to study dinosaur bones -- and now he also wants to be in the Army. He wants to know if he can combine both careers. I'm sure that his career choice will change many times along the way and we'll support whatever decisions he makes in life.

He is a compassionate, generous little boy. Can he still be a little boy at age 7? Yes. But a little more of that "littleness" disappears each day - each day he becomes more in-tune with the world outside of our home, he loses a little more of his innocence, he steps into the throes of "growing up". While it is a little sad, it is exciting to watch his growth and the changes it brings.


I came by this quote the other day and it reminded me completely of DinoBoy:
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. - Maya Angelou