Two sons I've been blessed with. They are about five years apart in age. A towering fifteen-year-old and a nearly ten-year-old. The older, taller one I call Rooster, a 6-foot-tall rooster. A rooster struts around bossing around the hens, crowing and crowing, and generally is not a whole lot of help in the chicken yard unless something comes in to threaten the hens. It's the 'crowing' of the Rooster son that has me eyeing my butcher knife and stew pot. :)
But in some ways I don't blame him for his crowing. His younger brother is the master of pushing buttons; the master of observing what buttons to push on whom and when to push them. We knew we were in for some potential struggles from the very beginning. Due to his birth order, he was the baby after five years of No Baby around our home (after four babies in six years). So he was not just our new son, but The SUN. Everything and everyone revolved around him. We called family meetings and pleaded with the children to stop doting on the child. We reminded each other as mother and father to stop celebrating this child's every accomplishment - the cute smile, the giggle, the sunrise eyes, the gaping stare at the ceiling fan. (The fixation on fans concerned us, actually.)
So as this child has grown, and we've welcomed another baby into the family, we have seen the results of this loving attention: he loves the spotlight. We as a family truly enjoy the 'life' of any party, but daily to have the life of the party actively being that Life of the Party even when the Party's Over, has been a tad on the exhausting side. Wonderful, but exhausting.
Now, if I sent him off on the bus every day I can just picture the reams of papers home from the teacher and the principal at school. But we homeschool. So let's just guess who gets to deal with the Life of the Party?? Well, all of us, actually. Most days are good - but lately I have had to make some adjustments. Remember the kid at school who just couldn't sit still? Or kept talking all the time? The teacher is trying to teach, and he just keeps talking or even just laughing....did you think he was just a little crazy? :) I did. So God gave me one!
After educating four children, two through graduation, one presently a senior, and the fourth a sophomore, here is this 4th grader getting my goat. I've been doing this long enough to know that I can adjust things and he won't actually know that he's running me. :) But I also know that some things he has to adjust to, and to grow, stretch, buckle down, and just do.
One mistake that I made was to perch him right in the middle of our living room - his desk being the table behind the sofa. Basically, it is the center of everything that's going on in the house. If someone knocks at the door, he can see who it is. If Dad is working in his office, he can see and hear him from his desk. If someone comes up or down the stairs, yup, he knows it. If I am in the kitchen helping someone else, he can hear it all. It was a place MADE for this kid if Getting the Party Started was the goal and not a little school work. So, to his dismay, his little sister took over that locale, and he was moved to an equally comfortable desk, but one that faces a lovely, but blank, wall. He's still in the same room with plenty happening, but just not in the center with eyes on everything. I find it interesting that his sister has no problem getting her seat work done in that location. The difference in the personalities is so fascinating to me!
Each of our children is a gift from God, of course, and this one was given to us a) to keep us humble, lest we think we've got this child-rearing thing down pat and don't need any advice or the knees bent in prayer, and b) to keep us searching how best to meet our kids' needs and to appreciate how each child can be different. Actually, as I re-read this last sentence, we've been feeling the same way about each one of our children all these years. And the Lord has been so faithful and good to us. May He continue to show us the ways to enjoy the Life of the Party, and still be found faithful in the important stuff.
Thanks for stopping by....bring me a coffee next time. :)
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