Busy bee!

If I had not corrected my spelling the title of this post would have been busty bee, which is not at all what I am planning to talk about. Besides, bees are not mammals and that would just be silly. I have been a busy bee this summer, hovering clumsily just above the ground.

I don't think we will be submitting any heart warming stories to the Friend from Joshua B., age 4, in Alberta, Canada anytime soon. He asked if Jesus' middle name was jack ass, because that's what Jesus calls people. I told him that all I knew from the scary people I have heard cussing at rodeos is that Jesus has a middle initial of "H". We tried to assure him that Jesus would never call anyone a jack ass. I had a hard time balancing shock and horror while trying not to pee my pants laughing.

We now have to monitor Josh on the computer. He likes to play free online games and has tried with no success to try and log in to games of a rather bawdy nature advertised by scantily clad medieval wenches. It is a good thing he can't read or spell yet. I also caught him staring at a picture of the Kardasian sisters on one of Kathy's People magazines. OH DEAR! I thought I wouldn't have to contend with this kind of issue until he was much older.

Despite his early onset of love for the female form, he is such a great little boy and I am proud to be his dad.

Scott is now in school at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He started his classes this week and is loving them. I am sure he will thrive. It has been an emotional week since he left. I have had some really nice spiritual experiences this last week regarding him, me and our relationship as father and son. I feel like I have done and am doing a good job at being his dad. It has been strange having him gone and I have had to contend with feelings of insecurity that I did not expect. My fear was now that he was no longer living here with us that my role as his dad was somewhat threatened and in some way redundant. I have never tried to replace his father, but I feel a love for him as strongly as I do for my children born to me.

Scott was the first child I ever babysat. He may have fallen down the stairs when I watched him that day. It was only a few steps until his leg got caught in the banister. I can still picture him the first time I ever saw him. He came around the corner in Kathy's little apartment looking at me with his big brown eyes framed by his blonde bowl cut hair. I still remember how his chubby little feet looked in his sandals.

He would say "Ooomph!", which was an all purpose word that described whatever he pointed at. My job was to figure out what he wanted.

I remember the day I was sitting on the couch and he climbed up beside me and handed me a book to read. I hadn't yet learned the art of alliteration and story telling, so the story took a bit of a somber and grey tone thanks to my monotone reading. I have got alot better with that, and it is because I had him to read to. He would call me Yay Yay, then Jay Jay once he got a little older.

I remember sitting in the tub with him after Kathy and I were married. We were playing with some foam soap and made huge santa beards. He did look good with a moustache, even if he was just three. I would lay with him to get him to sleep and he would hold onto my thumb and rub my thumbnail with his thumb and fall asleep. Josh has done the same thing since he was really little. That is one thing that has bonded my little boys together in my heart.

It took a while to figure out how to be a dad. I was overly hard on him those first couple of years, which I feel bad about. It was and has been a difficult process to learn where I fit in. What was absolutely huge was the day he started calling me dad. He had been to see his cousins in Utah and just started doing it when he got back home. I remember how good it felt to hear him say that, and it still does to this day.

Now I sit here and wonder if I have done enough for him. I sit and wait to hear what he is doing. I get tears in my eyes because I miss him, but I am so proud of where he is and am so happy for him. I believe in tender mercies. I believe that one blessing was when Josh was born, and with having my boys look so much like their mother, is that I got to see what Scott would have looked like during the first two and a half years of his life that I missed.

After Scott left for school, I was comforted by the spirit and it was was confirmed to me that I have done a good job in being a dad to him. That knowledge is precious to me.

I need to go to bed, otherwise I can look forward to a migraine tomorrow.