So this past Monday all three of my children were off school. My work was arranged so that I didn’t have much to do and was available to them. My plans were to have one-on-one time with my youngest son. He picked going to our local museum to see this special exhibit on “Mummies.”
Now I’m not entirely found of going to see dead bodies but what can I say? I have a boy in middle school. What else did I expect him to pick? But I was able to look past the gruesome aspect of our time together because we were finally getting some quality time.
But then he asked if his best friend could sleep over Sunday night. I reminded him that we had plans on Monday but it would be fine. We could just drop his friend off at home before we headed off to the museum. He looked a little disappointed. I immediately knew what he was thinking. He wanted his best friend to come along.
I felt disappointed as well. I thought this was going to be something special for him and me. I didn’t plan on sharing my time with him. So I reluctantly said, “Well, I guess he can come with.” My son smiled broadly and hugged me. “Thank you” he said. I tried to smile back but he knew what I was thinking. “You wanted it to be just us, right?” I said I did but if he really wanted his friend to come along, that was fine.
Now what was I expecting him to say? I was expecting him to say. “Okay, your right. It should be just us” but he didn’t. He said, “Great” and ran off to call his friend.
I stood there feeling sorry for myself. Whatever happened to those days when I was enough? After I stewed over it for a time I finally came to realize that I couldn’t take this personally. This was nothing against me. This was going to be a cool experience and he wanted to share it with his best friend as well. So who was I to make him feel bad?
As it turned out, we had a really nice time. But one of the best moments came when we were going through an area of the museum and my son looked up at me and smiled. I knew what he was saying through that smile, “Thank you.”
Then to my surprise he slipped his hand in mine and he held it for several minutes as we continued through the rainforest. His friend noticed but didn’t say a word. I felt so touched that he didn’t care that his friend was there, he was going to hold his mom’s hand.
Those days of hand holding are coming to a near end I am sure. However I learned that even in sharing my son, I was able to enjoy spending time with him.
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