Independence is a lovely thing. Particularly when that independence is streaming from your 3 year old. There is no greater satisfaction then a little voice calling out in a zip past the kitchen door, "I have to pee!"

Pee away, little man. Pee away.
My H has been doing incredibly well with using the toilet free of my assistance. No more diapers. No coaxing him to even think about peeing in the vicinity of the toilet. H is a free man!
Maybe I spoke too soon.
*Crash!*

Giving him a moment of self-respect, I wait with baited breath, my hands resting wet on the edge of the kitchen sink, head tilted as I listen carefully.

His voice wails in panic, "Mom! Quick!" Collecting myself I peer around the corner.

Let me tell you first, our apartment is a decent size for what we pay for it. With no complaint his little legs can run from one end to the other. Our bathroom, however. If you HAD to have more then 1.5 people in it, well, just let me say, you might want to find another bathroom to use. I can easily start H's bath while sitting on the pot myself all while washing my hands in the sink. It isn't exactly 'spacey.'

In this moment it might not have been so convenient for H for such a small bathroom to be a part of our apartment. Peering around the corner I see my poor, scrappy, three year squeezed tight between the side of the toilet and the wall. "What happened?" I ask, trying not to smile at his misery. His face full of angst he responds, "I fell in the garbage!"

He wasn't lying. His poor naked bum was stuck straight in the garbage, his knee squeezed between the side of the commode and his little body.

"Get me out of the garbage! he demanded. "I'm just a little person! Get me out!" I couldn't help but laugh as I pried him out and helped him pull himself together.

"Are you ok?" I ask. His face scowled at me.
"It ISN'T funny." His brows hung heavy over his long eyelashes. "I was IN the garbage."

Poor kid. Ok, well maybe it was a little too soon not to be offering some personal assistance for the bathroom.

It's a Revolution!

Really, I need to do this more often. Typically I feel like there are things I want to say that I just shouldn't say. Not because they shouldn't be heard but because it might create a dark light in others minds on how I really feel about where I am at with my life. Motherhood is amazing. I wouldn't trade H for a million dollars. It is the circumstances in which I find my experience of motherhood draining. So many things I want to say here, and so impossible to express without hanging my dirty laundry out in public. My business is my business and I wouldn't want to lead anyone believe that our lives are not wonderful. I aim to build an Empire for H with no gaping holes just because he was born in a single parent family. H and I have enormous amounts of fun together and I have more time for him because it is just us. However, my struggles are of a different kind and I wish I could just write them out to gain understanding in others that everything is not always peaches and cream. I struggle for what I offer my son and my pride egg grows each day. I wish to present this whole, amazing picture of what I have for H and myself. Truth is, that it isn't perfect.
(Perhaps in 18 years I will write a book- retrospective of the whole picture.) I know I can't be going through this single parent struggle of having high expectations for my child while having to accept this non-parent in my child's life who is allowed to call himself parent and weigh on my sons light.

Occasionally it is like I go through this drought. Don't we all? Momentarily, the challenges around us outweigh the blessings we choose to see. My blessings are enormous and I choose to see them daily. Yesterday I got out of the shower and H was finishing an orange. "Here," he says without looking up. "I saved you one." It was the most thoughtful thing any one in the world could have done. His tiny fingers extended that eighth of the pulpy ocher. The fact that it came from my three year old made my heart swell. It was likely the best tasting clementine I had all season. My blessings outweigh my challenges.

I hate Buffalo. I do. Don't martyr me for speaking the truth. I hate Buffalo. If it were my way I would pack us up and take any job I could find in a warm climate anywhere else. Someday's I think about Brazil. Mostly because it ties into a fantasy then for any other reason.
"I've never seen, Brazil. Have you, H?"
"Whats Brazil?"

Answers my question.
If life were so easy. I didn't ask for any of this. At the same time I chose it with my honesty three years ago. I will always be honest. It may always be my downfall. Trusting you on this one, God. Not long ago I was sitting in church listening to a question ask session by a celebrity and his wife who had gone through finding out their newborn son had a life altering disability. The words that the child's mother said were so simple and so changing. "God loves my child." she said.

I love my child. I have felt for so long that I am my son's lone protector in this big world where anything could happen. I pray constantly for God's strength. I am NOT my son's lone protector. In fact, my protection is like saran wrap in a sword fight. God loves my son. He loves him. I am not alone in this battle for caring my sons well being.

God loves my son.
Revolutionary.