Charles

When I learned I was having a son, I was overjoyed.  My husband and his mother are very close and I assumed my relationship with my son would be as close knit as every other "mama's boy" I've come across.  My son is NOT a mama's boy.  You've heard people say, "Oh she looks just like her mother's baby pictures!"  My son not only looks like my husband's baby pictures but he also very much resembles the adult version.  Head to toe, he is a miniature version of Andrew.... I was quite simply an incubator, the woman that would bring father and son face to face, never to part.  As the two basically gaze into each other's eyes sun-up to sun-down I often use this fact to help them remember I am here.  I absolutely love when people refer to families with only sons as having the mother be the "princess, or queen of the family" or something equally lovely.  I don't know who they know.  I am no princess, but rather the humble maid to King 1 and King 2.  Sometimes I feel like I should be jealous of King 1 and King 2's relationship, and once and a while I feel a slight twinge of envy, but for the most part I am thankful that my husband is the father he is.  God knew I needed a husband that can get along fine by himself with my son from time to time; God's plan for me so far has kept me quite busy.

What I am genuinely concerned about on a daily basis is the way Charlie entertains himself.  When it comes to playing, Charlie is a very different little boy.  For instance I took him to play at a common play zone for kids at our mall.  Once his shoes were off, Charlie took about 30 seconds to survey his grand surroundings.  There were logs to jump on, a big rubber truck to slide down, and play tents and lilly pads to play in.  Kids were everywhere playing with the obstacles and racing around tagging one another.  Not Charlie though.  Charlie looks back at me and smiles and I look forward to seeing how he interacts with the other kids.  What happened next is the what makes me wonder about what kind of TV Charlie sneaks out of his crib to watch.  Charlie runs to the nearest child, who happens to be a little Korean girl, grabs her arm and licks it from wrist to elbow.  The Korean girl is too stunned to move for about 4 full minutes.  My little blondie then releases the poor girl's arm and retreats to the corner of the play zone (tripping several times over people's shadows).  He brought his nose to the corner of the matted walls and screamed, "Doggy!"  As he finished his scream he brought his little gray sock to his ear like it was  a phone. With one swift movement Charlie looked back at the Korean girl and smiled brightly, and then turned back to the corner and began laughing hysterically at whoever was on the other end of his imaginary sock phone.  Other moms started watching and pointing and I slowly began to think, "Hmm.......this might not be normal."   What's so great about normal though?