Great Warriors
My grandsons...are boys. All boy.
They like snakes. They like lizards. Worms. Dogs. Chickens. Dirt. Mud holes.
They enjoy turning over rocks and finding slugs, bugs and other 'icky' stuff.
Climbing trees, sitting for hours in deer stands, riding bikes, chasing dogs and each other are fun activities for them.
They may or may not enjoy fighting, but either way, they do a lot of it. And they are small, they cry when they get hurt. But before the tears there are raised voices, gnashing of teeth, balled up fists, punches, scratches, hair pulling, kicking. Then come the tears.
My heart lurches when I get a message from my daughter...now don't get excited Mama...with that lead in, I know its going to be pretty serious. (A deer stand fell on Greyson's head...we are at the Emergency Room.)
I have to steal my nerves when my son-in-law posts a picture of the latest battle scar. (A smiling Greyson with a huge road rash on his forehead...the results of doing 'tricks' on his scooter.)
I grit my teeth and squinch up my eyes when I hear my daughter describe how she picks ticks off the boys...including off their privates. Just the other night, Abel woke Amber up during the middle of the night saying he needed to 'check his pee-pee'. Sure enough, there was a huge tick on his private area. So at 2:00 a.m. she was pulling a fat tick off. AAAGGGHHHH!!!!
My grandsons...are boys. All boy. And boys will be boys.
At a funeral this week, the preacher described the gentleman who had passed as a great husband, father, and grandfather. Such a great grandfather was he, that he often took his small grandson hunting. And not just any old hunting, but bear hunting!!!! I was astonished, shocked and awe-struck!
And then the preacher went on to say that the man's wife, the grandmother to this boy, was a good cook. She HAD to be a good cook, because she had to cook up bear! (I am sitting there with my mouth hanging open!) He stated that she had served up many a bear lunch or supper...sometimes just in the form of a peanut butter sandwich, but "bear", none-the-less!
The preacher's point was that this grandfather was very good with this rambunctious little boy. Boys will be boys. He stated that boys NEED to be boys...with all the energy, roughness, excitement, fights, and hair-raising things that boys do, because without all this...how can they grow up to be Great Warriors in life?
So now on, I will encourage my grandsons to catch bugs, lizards, worms, and fish. I won't complain if they track in dirt, leaves, sticks and other debris. I'll try not to stroke out when I get that call...Greyson bumped his head on (insert object here)....Abel has another tick on his (insert body part here).....We are on our way to the E.R....well, THAT one will always get me stressed out!
I will encourage these 'bitty boys' to grow up fearless of creatures found under rocks, of nerf bullets being shot at their face by their brother, to be a 'big boy' when their cousin accidentally whacks him in the face with a shovel while they are digging to China. Great Warriors endure things like this on a daily basis.
My last visit to see these little rascals found me having to go into the darkened hallway to switch on lights for the smallest of the two to go find a toy in his bedroom. Hey! I guess even Great Warriors can be afraid of the dark!!!
