These kids of mine...

Despite the mood of my last post, I feel like I should admit:
I love my kids' ages right now.
I love how they interact together,
I love being around them.

Maddox is so helpful and old enough to understand, and want to do better, and care, and try hard, and make me laugh, and have relatively mature conversation with---
He loves music, just like me.
He needs me to hold him and snuggle him up and tell him how much I love him every day-- but not so much that he needs me to do everything for him or hold his hand through his entire day.
He helps mold Beckham with gentle hands and a forgiving spirit.
He loves him as deep as I do.
He is Lance's best friend.  Truly.

And he acts older than 4 to me...
And yet he's still small.

He's small enough to not know that kissing his momma square on the lips right in front of his friends, and yell out "I love you mommy" from anywhere we are at, isn't going to be cool in a few years.
He still squeals for me when he's hurt, scared or sad.
And my kisses are still full of magic and instantly-heeling.

He is big in so many ways... smart, creative, funny, with a vocabulary well beyond his age--
and yet simple minded and constantly learning.
Most of the time I expect maturity from him and forget that I can't beg for more than 4 years of guarded life experience, has to offer.
And sometimes I see a baby.  Still so little.

Like when he's curled up and sleeping with his baby hands resting near his face, or when he wraps his skinny arms around my neck and wraps hid long legs around my waist, too exhausted to lift his eye lids-- but still instinctually knows how to hold on and trust.

He tells me I am beautiful, and I know that when he says it...
He actually believes that I am.

We can not go anywhere without someone pointing out how much he looks like me.
And all of the things that I have always hated when I looked in the mirror,  God painted on Maddox's face.
His way of making me finding beauty in my flaws, I assume.
He is handsome and perfect to me.

He's my big.
My heart.
My baby.

Beckham is exhausting.
He is busy, going, moving, creating, destroying, and thinking all of the time.
He can say anything he wants to now and talks in complete sentences.
He is constantly cataloging the dialog around him and throwing out correctly to surprise us, but though he can say anything he wants-- he still is not a "talker".

He adores Maddox.
His constant shadow....
wanted to be him in all ways--
And is mean as hell to him too.

I say he is my 90/10 kid.

He spends 90% of his life quiet and observant.
The easiest kid ever.
Filing in right behind the other kids, rarely making wake as he does.
Observing the actions of everyone else and quietly finding his place in the group.
Not picky about what we eat, where we go or who we are with.
A chameleon.
His wheels are constantly turning, and his brain whole-heartily believes that he is every bit his brother's age.
He sees no boundaries or inabilities for himself.
He loves music.
He is crazy over Mickey Mouse.
And he adores me.

He spends the other 10% of his time in a fit straight from hell.
Defiant, stubborn, ornery and demanding.
Believing he has full control of this world, and desperate to prove it.
Mad, hostile, full of temper,
And fighting for the last word.
Dumping every bin in the playroom in a search for one specific toy, and unwilling to accept anything but the thing his has his mind set to.

He is such a momma's boy and can't stand to be over a few seconds out of my sight.
He needs to touch me, hold me, and have my attention most of the day.
He has had very little amount of time in his life without me near...
and that is the way he likes it.
To me, he seems like such a baby still... and I know I treat him smaller than I did Maddox at this age.

He is so funny, and he amazes me daily with how much he knows and how independent he is.
He is so sweet and melts me with the tiny smacking sound he makes when he kisses me.
He is so attentive.  And protective.  And happy.

He is Lance's clone... and everyone tells us wherever we go that they are twins.
He is handsome and perfect to me.

He is my little.
My heart.
My baby.

***
I feel like all I have time to blog lately are the breakdown and pictures of our days,
but sometimes I like to stop and shed a little light from my heart.

And these kids of mine....
They hold my entire heart.