A great read for a mother of a boy is "Bringing Up Boys" by James Dobson and "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge. And even though I've read both, prior to having a son, nothing prepares you for when your boy starts showing the wear and tear of being a BOY.
I'm not sure when it happens, but somewhere along the way, moms of boys quit worrying and fretting over cuts and scars. I never have been super-hyper about injuries with Kyle (Makenna is another story, but she's a girl, and yes, it somehow is different). I've crossed some kind of threshold with injuries though. Kyle's latest 'wound' is from sliding off Eli's bunkbed ladder today.
I think he had been bleeding inside his shirt for awhile before he told me he had an owie--high pain tolerance perhaps? We think he chose not to use the steps on the bunkbed. Why would he want to use those silly things when sliding down is like shimmying down the side of a castle. But those ladder rungs sure are rough and ragged as the picture shows.
A few months ago, Kyle managed to rip a deep laceration into his jawline on a plastic train depot station. It wasn't even a rough edge but the doctor said he hit it at just the right velocity and angle. And of course he was running. Kyle rarely walks. The cut was so jagged and awkward that our doctor couldn't stitch it. There simply wasn't anything to stitch together. I realized then that it was just the first of many more significant scars to come. We dedided it gives him character and makes him look rugged!
So instead of freaking out about his stomach wound, we proudly took pictures because this is what being a boy is all about--every boy has a William Wallace inside somewhere, right John Eldredge? So mothers of boys, quit babying your boys and let them be rough and tumble and let them explore the world with their entire body. I wrote in Kyle's journal when he was 10 months old that he had pulled a friend's cat's tail and got a surprise when the cat scratched his forehead. Of course he did! He was testing the engineering of the cat's bone structure for pete's sake! First, his case study revealed cats don't like their tails being pulled and two, his hand wasn't strong enough yet to do real damage. Good thing he's allergic to cats--otherwise, there'd be a tail-less cat running around our house by now.
If you have a boy, enjoy how they jump, leap, and tumble. Let them develop those gross motor skills and quit hovering! What will the future of the male species look like in 50 years if we don't let them be boys now? I don't know about the rest of you ladies out there, but I didn't go see Gladiator because there was a princess in it. And I certainly didn't watch Braveheart because of the love story.
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