A to Z Challenge 2013

Saturday, April 23, 2011

A To Z - Sons

My family is the most important thing to me, and a great part of that is because I have such awesome sons.  For those who have daughters, I feel for you.  I couldn't imagine how much more stressful my life would be if I had a daughter.  I'd have to keep a loaded shotgun in the closet, I'd have to put bars on her windows so she couldn't sneak out or invite interlopers in, and I'd have to monitor every article of clothing she wore.  Yeah, I definitely am not disappointed with having two sons.

I'm sure my wife would disagree.  She always wanted a daughter, but not me.  On the one hand, having "daddy's little girl" might be pretty cool.  But having to worry about her would probably drive me to drink.  I don't worry about my sons.  I have an almost 18 year old, and though he has his moments, I'm very proud of who he is and who I envision he will become.  I don't think he's figured out yet what he wants to be, but I don't have a problem with that.  I'd rather he take his time and get there his own way.  He has indicated an interest in computer-aided drafting, so we'll see if that pans out for him.

My younger son is an artist.  He already knows what he wants to be and he has a good start on it.  The dragon picture posted above is one of his, and the cool thing is that he drew it straight out of his own mind.  He used to copy images from books or things he saw, but I told him now that he had the basic idea, he needed to draw up his own dragon rather than somebody else's.  As far as I'm concerned, he took the advice to heart and did an awesome job.

My sons are fun.   And I spend a lot of time with them (even when maybe they'd rather I let them be).  Since I know they won't be here much longer, I take every opportunity to bother them.  It's not too bad though and I'm fairly certain they don't really mind.  Even the older one seems to take my need for his company in stride.   Sometimes I give him his space, but lots of times I drag him through whatever fun I can think up.

For those of you who have kids, do you struggle for their attention or are they pretty close to you?  And have you thought about what life'll be like when they've moved on (a moment I dread BTW)?

7 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Eric, if you're raised them right, they will always return to you.
And I don't have kids, so don't know the experience of either.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

I'm still at the stage where I struggle to get away from my son's constant attention. ;)

Eric said...

Alex - I hope that is always true. I do believe in it though.

Sandra - Heh heh, just wait until you're struggling to GET his attention.

Gujjari said...

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Glynis Peters said...

Great post. Try having two daughters! Our son sailed through his teens with no worries. Our girls had daddy breathing behind every door. Having gone through the same, I had to teach him to relax, and the girls to prove they were safe and sensible.

By the time they had all left home, I was the nervous wreck. Now we are expecting our first grand child, it turns out we are going to have a she. DH crowed to my son-in-law...now you can suffer what I had too! My daughter said, but I was no trouble, daddy. He replied, no but the lads sniffing around hoped you would be!

Our son shipped off to Canada, and we thought it was exciting. My brother has just found out my niece is off to New Zealand and is a nervous wreck. The two sexes certainly offer up different emotions and fears for us.

Matt Conlon said...

I used to draw dragons as a kid, and that is way better than anything I ever drew. Good for him. :)

My kids (both girls) are all about daddy. There are times when I struggle with having too much attention... but I always remind myself that there'll be a time when they don't want to be around me, and that's not nearly as far away as it seems, I think. I miss them very much when they're not around, even if it's just for an hour.

Anonymous said...

Lovely post!