My sweet son

I am just absolutely loving the age Dylan is right now. Being my firstborn and a real terror as a toddler, there were moments when I seriously feared for my sanity. I have, of course, always loved him and each of my girls with an intensity I never ever imagined possible, but let me just say that there were days when he really tried my patience! (And that, I think, is putting it kindly.)

Lately, though, I am finding him to be such a delightful little companion, and I can't imagine spending my days without him around. He is funny. He is smart. And he is just so, so sweet! Some recent examples:

Just a little while ago, I let each of the kids have one Dum-Dum lollipop, and no sooner had they finished eating them when they were already asking for another. "No," I answered. "You don't need another." Dylan looked at Caitlyn. "Come with me," he said, and off they marched down the hall to their bedroom. Two seconds later I hear drums banging and the sound of Dylan's voice singing loudly, "We need a Dum-Dum, we need a Dum-Dum!" Soon the girls joined in and it was hilarious. I am so glad they couldn't see me laughing!

Just prior to the lollipop incident, we had all been laying together on my bed looking at a baby name book. Dylan was doing a great job of looking up, in alphabetical order, all of our names, and reading out loud the ones that he found to be hilarious. ("Ah, hahahaha, BEBE! Spanish: Baby! We can't name our baby 'baby'!") All the while, I was thinking happily to myself how very cool it was to be looking up baby names as our language lesson for the day. I almost fell over when Mr. Smartypants suddenly looked up at me and said, "Hey, Mom! This is really fun sounding out names! So we don't even need to do language lessons today!" I'm telling you...nothing gets past this kid! He's much too smart to be outsmarted!

Yesterday his sweetness made me want to just cry. I had been having a really rough morning, as that dreaded "morning" sickness has finally decided to rear it's ugly head. I was trying my best to get all of the kids (and myself) ready to drive out to Darren's work for a family day they were holding in the afternoon, but I was just feeling so sick. We were all really looking forward to a fun afternoon with Daddy, but seeing how miserable I was, Dylan came up to hug me and said, "Don't worry, Mommy, we don't have to go until you're feeling better. Because I don't want you to drive while you're not feeling good or else then you'll really feel worse. So we'll just stay here until you feel better!" Faced with such sweetness, what else could I do but pull myself together and feel better?! We made it out the door just in time, but I cautioned the kids that I was pretty nervous about driving all the way to Daddy's work by myself (because I'm a big wimp about highway driving) and asked them to please be good for me on the way there. They were perfect little angels for the entire ride, and as we were approaching the turn off to the Missile Range, Dylan looked up from his book in the backseat and said, "Wow, mom, you're doing a really great job driving up here so far!" Awww...thanks, son!

And just one more example of sweet, smart, and funny, all rolled into one: Dylan has, of late, been quite interested in what Santa might bring him this Christmas and has spent much time planning his wish list. Sometimes, being especially good, he'd tell me, "Mom, I'm being extra good so Santa will bring me lots of presents at Christmas!" "That's good, son," I'd tell him, "but I want you to be good because that's the way Jesus would want you to be." So now, when he's being particularly helpful or cooperative, he'll say to me, "Mom, I'm trying to be really good to honor Jesus. And," he adds, almost as an afterthought, "maybe Santa will bring me lots of presents!" Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem. :)