I wasn’t online yesterday, so I am a bit late with my Mother’s Day wishes. After I called my mom, my older stepson let me know that he was coming over to spend the day with me for Mother’s Day. It was a happy surprise.
I didn’t ask him why he wasn’t heading over to his biological mother’s trailer to spend the day with her. First, I have always told the kids that their relationship with their mother is between them and her. Second, well…I haven’t exactly been in a coma the last decade or so. I know what he has been put through, how he has been treated, what he has listened to. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I was just happy to see him. Watching him with his father is so much fun. They are both colossal smart asses, and as they try to one-up each other, they glance over at me to see if I am laughing harder at their joke than the other’s. They are alike in many ways, like being gifted artists, but so drastically different in others. For example, my older stepson gets embarrassed a lot easier than my husband, and his ears actually turn red, which we tease him about. He also cares much more what other people think, something my husband and I have tried hard to get him to let go of, for his own sake.
My stepson had brought some drawings to show his dad, and he sat down on the couch in between us so we could both see them. It reminded me of when he was little, tucked in between us, showing us something, telling us a story, just happy to be together. As he told us what each drawing was, and he and his dad hashed out edits he might make, I grabbed my phone and sneaked a picture of the two of them together, lost in their moment.
I don’t think they realize how beautiful their relationship is. They bicker like any other father and son, and one trait they most definitely share is hard-headedness (and denying it), but ever since he was little, the two of them have been like two peas in a pod. They are full of non-stop joking and picking at each other when they are together, and both of them get a troublemaking gleam in their eyes when they are near each other. They feed off each other, get louder, more energetic, but they are also affectionate and always hug each other good-bye and say “I love you”.
We sat a long time after dinner, just talking and joking around and catching up. It’s still hard sometimes for me to see him as a young man instead of the little boy he was when I met their dad. I suppose that never really goes away.
He had hugged me as soon as he saw me yesterday and said, “Happy Mother’s Day.” I did, indeed, have a very happy Mother’s Day. I hope all of you did too!
Sweat & Sparkle 