All About Super Stuffy

Super Stuffy has the unique distinction of being born one day before my first wedding anniversary.  Our first anniversary date was walking up and down the hospital halls with him.  The day he was born was a wonderful miracle.  

From before he entered this world, he always wanted to do things his own way.  He fought hard not to come into the world.  When he was born, his left fist was on the side of his head, and every time I would try and push him out, he would slide back in.  The doctor finally had to use a vacuum to get him out.

As he grew and learned to crawl and walk, you couldn’t keep him still. He would try to find any way of negotiating to get what he wanted.  His favorite game was to take the steak knives out of the dishwasher and take off running with them.  He did that so often that the name of the knives became “no-no”.

Super Stuffy loved to sit next to me on the couch and listen while I read stories to him.  We would sit that way for hours until my voice gave out.  But that would be the only time that he would stay still.  Otherwise he was a moving noise making machine. 

I was eager to start schooling him so we started a little bit with letters and numbers, but we started too early.  At first he couldn’t wait to “do school”, but when it started to get a little bit difficult he became less enthused.  By the time he was actually school age, he didn’t want to learn any more.  Reading was hard, math was just a lot of busywork, and he would rather play.

I was firmly convinced that because I was enthusiastic about learning that he would be too.  If I found a curriculum that I loved, then he would love it too.  But it was the complete opposite.  School became a fight, and it broke my heart.  He hated it, and he would do anything just to get out of doing his schoolwork.  Our relationship started to suffer.  We learned how to get it back, though, by fighting through it together.

He has a strong competitive streak, just like me.  My challenge is to teach him how to keep his competitiveness in check.  I taught him to play difficult board games like Sorry, Mastermind, Uno, Monopoly, etc. when he was three because I have always had a difficult time with just “playing”.  It also gave me the opportunity to teach him how to lose gracefully.  The funny thing is, when I started teaching him how to play, I cheated in order to let him win sometimes.  Now I can barely win anything when I play with him. 🙂  

He has grown up a typical boy.  He loves to play outside, digging and building.  His favorite pastime is wrestling with his dog, Pete. He loves figuring out difficult video games and playing those video games has taught him how to read.  Right now he is in the middle of learning how to code so that he can create his own app and video game.

He is eager to share with me the things that he is learning.  During the year and a half that we did Charlotte Mason I would have the kids narrate back to me what we read.  That was one of the hardest parts of our school day.  He could not narrate or remember anything that I read to him.  Now, at any time of the day he will come to me and tell me what he has to do to advance to the next level of his video game.  He will come and tell me what is happening in the book that he is reading.  When we read our history stories together he will stop me and ask questions to clarify or to tell a little bit more about the story.  The difference: he is enjoying what he is doing.

He is a natural leader, and he always has been.  Now he has been given the opportunity to teach lower ranks in tae kwon do.  He absolutely loves that, and it just might turn out to be one of his true passions. 

There are a lot of times when I don’t understand his boyness.  What is his intense fascination with bodily noises and scents? Does he really need to make so much noise all the time?  Why can’t he just focus on his schoolwork?  Why does he get so frustrated when he loses a game?  Is it really necessary to pick on his sister constantly?  There are a lot of things that I do not understand about my boy, but one thing that I do know is that he has a tender heart.

As much as he picks on his sister, he is usually very quick to apologize and ask for forgiveness.  If he realizes that he has done something wrong, he will try and make amends.  He loves animals, especially dogs,and anytime we watch a movie with a dog, he cries if anything bad happens.  How I pray that he keeps his tender heart as he matures.

It is amazing to me how much like me Super Stuffy is.  We respond to things in very similar ways.  I can see myself as a child in a lot of the things that he does.  When I sit and imagine who he will be as he grows older, my greatest prayer is that he will be a man after God’s own heart.  I pray that he will be a man like his dad: responsible, hard working, and taking very seriously the responsibility and headship of his family.  I pray that he will use his natural leadership ability to teach others about the Lord and help others with his compassionate heart.

Super Stuffy is a gift from God.  He gave me my dream job – becoming a mama.  I am so thankful for his life, his love, and his laughter. I pray to the Lord that He will guide me in raising this boy.