Husbands should not have to work late

I have decided that if I were President, my first act of business would be making it illegal for daddies of little ones to ever have to work late. Ever. Ryan has been working like crazy lately, and it is just no fun for me or for the wee ones. Tonight for example, Eli, who isn't potty trained yet but hopefully will be soon, has taken his diaper off twice in order to tinkle on the floor. *Grin* Hopefully his next step will lead him to realizing that no one else in this family pees on the floor and he shouldn't either.

So that's that.

Speaking of Eli, it's been a rough few weeks. I love, love, love that little boy. Wouldn't change a single thing about him. I love that he goes 90 mph all the time. He loves life and laughs easily. He continues to make progress with his speech. One of things he has started saying lately that is so cute, is when he finds his blanket, he picks it up and hugs it, and says, "I lub it!".

Ove the last couple of months however, he has gotten more and more difficult to handle. His behavior is unpredictable and aggressive at times. It's been so frustrating because I know he has such a sweet, tender heart, but not many people ever see that because of his unpredictable and aggressive behavior. We have just been praying for wisdom in how to parent him and realizing more and more that it seemed to be something more than just being strong-willed.

To make a long story short, I ended up being able to talk to a wonderful lady last week (who happens to have a Ph.D., so she knows her stuff!) and she gave me so much wisdom and insight with Eli. He seems to have a lot of sensory needs, lack of body awareness, and delayed communication skills. All of that combined with being almost three and being strong-willed basically makes for the perfect storm of difficulty.

I believe fully that this lady was sent by God to encourage me as well as to offer practical advice on how to help Eli. Aside from all the wonderful practical things, she ended with telling me that Eli is going to be fine and that with some hard work we would see improvement.

You see, I don't hear good things about my sweet boy too often. That's hard as a mama! I know what a wonderful kid he is and I believe that God has amazing plans for my little Eli. I pray every day that God will use the fact that Eli is not easily swayed by those around him for His glory. I believe it will happen. But most days I only hear about the bad things he has done, and I feel the judgement of how someone else's kid would never act like that.

Let me just say, I had similar thoughts before. But I am being humbled and am eating a lot of words. Luckily, having multiple kids makes it easier to not care so much about what other parents think about me. I know that we are doing the best we can do and trusting God to fill in the gaps with his grace and his mercy.

(This was supposed to be a long story made short. Whoops!)

I'm not even sure if any of this made much sense. I just needed to get some words out about how much I love my little boy. And I am proud to be his mama. And I wouldn't change one single thing about him. God created him perfectly and He has big plans for my boy.