Friday ended up being “Wilson Day” because Faith was at school all day, I didn’t have to work and I only had the boys. I don’t typically feel that I give wilson his fair share of my time so yesterday I did lots of “Wilson things”.
We started the day with a water gun fight at 8:30am. We filled the super soakers and chased each other around the car. We snuck up on each other and quirted water on the other person. We both ended up completely soaking wet. It was pretty fun.
At 10:00am I dropped Miller off at my parents’ house and took Wilson over to his preschool so that he could see his classroom for next year. He found his cubby and his name tag at the table right away. Some of his friends were there from last year so he went right to playing with them. His teacher is Miss Keri whom we love because she was Faith’s teacher a few years ago. Deep down I wish that I could keep Wilson at home with me like I did with Faith. He has only one more year before he is off to kindergarten and then he will be going to school everyday for the next twelve years. I would love to spend Tuesdays with him and then bring him with me to Bible study on Thursday mornings, but I can’t. His school requires that he go four days this year. Whenever I consider changing his schedule I feel unsettled about it and know that keeping him at home is not what he wants, but what I want. Wilson loves school and he really enjoys being with his friends. I know he wants to be with me but I can’t keep him entertained like he needs to be entertained. Tom says that I should just enjoy my time with Miller, which I will do, but I can’t help but feel guilty that I should be spending more time with Wilson too. We will start the school year as planned and change it if needed.
After meeting his teacher, Wilson and I left to go and pick up Miller. Wilson asked me if I would drop him off at the top of my mom’s street so that he could run down to her house by himself. He has been wanting to do a lot of things on his own lately. I have been letting him go by himself to our neighbors house around the corner. He feels so proud of himself when doing something alone that he deems as “grown up”. We walked this same neighbors dog last week and Wilson really liked being the one in charge of the dog and taking responsibility. I am trying to encourage this behavior as much as possible because I believe that it is helping him in other areas of his life as well. So, in order to help him grow up, I dropped him off at the top of the street and let him run the half-mile down to my parents’ house. Now, just so you don’t think I let him run on a busy street for a half-mile, I have to clarify that it is a long street that dead ends and has little to no cars driving on it at all. After a few minutes of his being gone, I drove slowly towards the house until I saw him and then I stopped long enough for him to make it to the house all by himself. I consider myself a pretty cool mom for doing that!
After we picked up Miller, we went to Sardis Park which is right next to his school. We drove to the playground, spent a few minutes on the playground, and then walked through the woods back to the parking lot of his school. He played on the dry mulch piles, walked through other woods by himself and then he discovered the long trailer bed with nothing on it. This flat trailer bed served as our “ship”. Wilson worked very hard dragging logs up onto the trailer. He then started piling up the mulch. Once again, it was all about Wilson so I played in the baking hot sun in the parking lot doing whatever it was that he wanted to do. It was nice spending that time with him and doing something different. Eventually we did go play on the playground for a little while since it was in the shade.
After we got home we had another water gun fight. He chased me around the yard squirting water on me and Miller. It was great because I could actually squirt him back (sometimes in the face) and he didn’t mind at all. He loved it!
Because Wilson got his “love bucket” filled all day, he let me take a nap on the couch. I put Miller down for a nap and then snuck out to the couch for a little nap of my own. Wilson came into the house, got a squirt bottle full of water, and went out to wash the porch windows. He never once came over to wake me up or ask me to get him something. He just entertained himself. It was fabulous!! In the end, Tom’s dad came in and let Wilson watch a TV show so that I could sleep a bit longer. I love a good nap and generally need one.
I truly enjoyed playing with Wilson and doing the things that he loves to do. It was nice to do some different things as well, I am getting a bit bored with sword fighting. Wilson is growing up fast and I know that he needs some “Mommy time” every once in a while. It typically takes a lot of energy to play the games that Wilson wants to play so I am glad that I had the energy and the dedication to focus on him for a day.