These days...

These days, with my boys, they seem fewer and fewer as they get older.   And I know that next year Benjamin will be gone every morning, five days a week.  My soul longs to spend every second possible with them, but I know that just isn't possible or good for any of us!

These days are filled with sweet memories and very hard moments and discipline and laughter and imagination.  It's all such a treasure to me and I store it up in my heart so deeply.  I'm surprised that I'm not overflowing yet!

Do you want to know something that makes my days even more fun? Being with two boys all day {and three in the evenings!}.  Boys just do life.  They don't hold back.  They explore and ask questions.  They figure it out.  They create and break and build and learn in their own fantastic way.  What a blessing to have these boys! And what a great lesson for me to learn and see lived out.

Just the other day {when it was very warm and sunny and not cold and icy}, I was talking with my mother-in-law on the phone and as we were chatting Benjamin would run back and forth from outside to the play room.  Finally I stopped him and asked what he was doing.
B: "MOM! We are making a river. In the sandbox.  It's going to be awesome!!!"
Me: "Such a fun idea! Wait. Where is the river? How did you get water? What are you using? Where is Andrew?"
B: {kind of exhausted by my questions and wanting to go back outside} "In the SANDbox. I turned the hose on. For water. Andrew is in the sandbox."
I immediately got off the phone {as my mother-in-law was laughing and remembering the days...}. I took a picture and then discussed how we don't turn the hose on and we don't make a pool of water in the sandbox.  They understood and I started to walk back inside -- only to see Andrew jumping in the pool of sandbox water.

This is life with boys.
And it's wonderful.

These days are hard, sometimes.  Being almost two is hard.  And being newly four is even harder.  I guess.  A lot of fits and tears and sadness and anger -- just because of anything. Hearing "no", shoes falling off, wearing the wrong shirt, tripping over a toy, finding out that we are going to run an errand, or go home. You know. Hard life things. But these things, and getting through them, are good lessons for my boys to learn.

These days are too precious, though.  Each morning and after nap time I ask Andrew, "How did you sleep?!" And he always responds, "P-woe" {pillow} "nigh-nigh". Or how he responds to everything with "yep" or "yeeaaaa".  It's so sweet.  And Benjamin has grown into this fantastic way of himself -- he randomly hugs me and snuggles me and says, "I love you SO much, mom!" It's heart melting.

This is life with boys.
And it's beautiful.

Oh, these days! I wouldn't trade them for anything.  Anything, I tell you!!!