A mother's heart

Before children, I did not understand how my heart could be so wrapped up in one tiny little being. People say that we have children to continue our existence, but I think we have children to teach us things. Things like patience, and love, and how to explain things that you never thought about before. Like how the clouds stay up in the sky or why it's rude to point. I think God gives us a glimpse of how much he loves us through our children, whom we still love, even after telling them for the bazillionth time NOT to eat the cat food. Or stick things in outlets. Or push little sister off the couch. And oh, how our hearts ache when other children are mean to ours! And how our stomachs knot up when they get hurt, even as we try to keep our faces calm.

As the mother of a small boy, I have known my share of accidents resulting from the rambunctious little man. In one three day time span, he ran headfirst into a door, which resulted in a large egg-sized bump on his forehead; then fell off the couch and cut his lip open with his teeth on the windowsill, resulting in one big, fat, bleeding lip; and then used his eye to stop his fall onto the wooden arm of a chair, resulting in a rather colorful area around his eye.

This last week, we were up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for family camp. And last week was the most heart stopping yet in my experience as a mother. First, he was swinging rather high on a swingset when he noticed something in his shoe.... so he let go with BOTH hands to get it out, right at the peak of the forward swing.  After he flipped 180 degrees and miraculously landed on his elbows and knees, I cleaned him up, patched all the scrapes with band-aids, and discussed with him the importance of waiting until you're stopped and on the ground to let go.  Next, while practicing archery, my son was retrieving his arrows near the target and leaned over to pick one up off the ground, failing to notice the one sticking straight out of the target at eye level. He screamed, we saw blood coming out of his eye, and my heart dropped straight down to my stomach. Fortunately, after a visit to the camp nurse and a visit to the eye doctor today, all is well. The next event at camp was at the rock climbing wall, where his finger got pinched in a caribbeaner, which also resulted in a lot of crying and a little blood. But the kicker was the zip line, which he had gone down several times before without problems. This time, it seized up right around the middle, and he was dangling in mid-air. At first he was fine... then he started kicking to try and get it moving again, and the chest strap rode up just enough to start choking him! This caused him to panic, and he was kicking (not helping!), screaming, and crying at the top of his lungs. I have never felt so helpless! Fortunately, the zip line staff member was quick to run a pulley up the line and we were able to get him to grab the rope she could pull him up the rest of the way. There was a 2 inch purple mark on his neck for the next few days, and little popped blood vessels all over his face that looked like purple freckles. He didn't let it affect him, though, and stayed cheerful for the rest of our week at camp.

Last week also held some amazing moments, like when he figured out that he could read most of the words on the screen onstage during song service, and I could hear his sweet little voice singing along with the other campers. Or how he snuggled up to me during the Saturday evening program, playing with my hair, whispering in my ear how much he loves me, and asking me to look up at the stars with him. And on the way home, while we were eating dinner, he figured out how to do a connect-the-dots drawing and find the way through the maze by himself.

He is the love of my life, my joy, my son.