We're tight!

I am so blessed with a wonderfully close relationship with my little man! "We're tight", as we like to say around here! With Daddy too!

I love having little jokes and secret handshakes and special games that we share. I love knowing how he'll react to things and realizing that he can do the same with me. I love that we know exactly how to cheer the other one up, and the best way to say we're sorry. And I'm basking in the sweet arrival of real solid patience and understanding.

I've always worked hard to teach him the skill of reasoning and being reasoned with... I remember the first time I got a strange look quickly followed by a rather forward comment of "Surely you don't think he understands what you're saying, do you?" when Ben was 14 months old and I was explaining something that seemed above his level to others.

Anyway, I'm not saying he never fusses or that we're always perfectly in sync... but more often then not we're able to keep this ship running pretty smoothly.

He still had a few of those fabulous toddler moments of saying he wanted milk, no water, no milk, no water, no nothing and then crying for the milk and water both when I put them back in the fridge! But now he's almost always good to go! Very sweet, understanding, easily pleased, eager to please, and just, well, reasonable. Dare I say, pretty darn flexible :) I will treasure this and incidentally wanted to blog it so I could look back on it if/when we enter a little funk phase as I hear parents and children often move through at different ages and stages. My friends who are mommies to more then one like to, lovingly at least I think :), snicker at me and tell me my day is coming when I eventually try to balance 2 or more little darlings at a time!

Nonetheless... I'm going to finish my basking for this post with this Benglish... One of my favorite phrases heard around here lately is, "well, OK mom..." often followed by "then maybe later" or "then not right now" or "then maybe we'll do/eat/see something else"!!!

Music to my ears! And another maybe not so subtle praise for attachment parenting (which doesn't mean we never want to sleep alone/wean/discipline! :) ). I know just a mention of that phrase "attachment parenting" makes some moms gasp, probably just like I used to about the Babywise groupies or the Pro-spankers. I've since learned not to jump to conclusions though, and have truly read the book (On Babywise that is) which I do think has some good information in it... as well as having learned that discipline is not as easy or black and white as I once thought. Every family and individual has their own personal style and I'm just feeling blessed that our family is in sync thus far. Praise God for the great information, teachers, books and mentors we've had in our constant journey to become the best parents we can be and to love our child as God would have us do with this precious angel he entrusted to our care!

P.S.
But dearest future daughter-in-law, if you should ever read this one day... know that I will work my hardest to understand, respect and most importantly honor your parenting style and most certainly be there to lend an ear and a little muscle should you be called a "crunchy, granola, co-sleeping, nurse your toddler, hippie" or a "overly strict, cold hearted, wean-to-early therefore subjecting your child to the evils of formula, nighttime drill Sergeant"!