Learning to Listen

I'm quickly learning what it really means to have a boy. I often find myself emptying pockets of rocks and sand, finding pirate swords (sticks) in my house, trying to stop Westin from climbing and jumping off anything and everything, battling him to get dressed in the morning, wiping dirt from his arms, legs and face EVERY time we come back from the park... but I kind of expect all of that. He's a boy. He's going to get into everything. I can't always prevent it. Right? I've recently even come to expect the occasional (ok, maybe a little more than occasional) deliberate disobedient actions. You know, when I ask him not to do something, then he looks at me with that mischievous glare and purposely does it again just to see what will happen. (Timeouts are what happens. Cancelled activities are what happens).

I think it's these little things that prepare a mom to better handle the slightly bigger disasters that kids so often find themselves in. Let me elaborate: the other day we walked with some friends to the mall. The kids were excited to see the puppies, go to the Disney Store, and play on the playground. We had just finished at the pet store when we heard the Disney Store had recently closed. Out of habit, we still decided to walk by on our way to the playground. Westin and his buddy were a little ahead of us and started running toward the Disney Store (which was totally empty - so I didn't understand the rush) once they realized we were headed in that direction. Us moms then noticed the entrance was blocked off. We then realized it was blocked off because they were repaving the store entrance. We all yelled to the kids to stop. All of them did. Except Westin. 

I tried to get there in time. I didn't. He ran right under the posts and right onto the newly paved entrance. Not a second later was he smack on his butt in wet cement. I swept him up as fast as I could, but it was too late. He was covered. 


Lucky for me, my friends came to the rescue. All three of them started pulling out wet wipes (I love that all moms have wet wipes). One of my friends had even just purchased a new pair of shorts for her son and let Westin wear them. She even took off her son's undershirt for Westin to wear. (They saved the day and my sanity). So we wiped him off and stripped him down, right there in the middle of the mall, with lots and lots of people walking by and wondering what negligent mother let her son run onto wet cement. I then ran him into the bathroom and rinsed him and his clothes off some more. Fortunately, all the cement came out. 

Here's a few pictures my friend snapped during all the madness. This was a few minute into cleaning him off, so what you don't see is that both hands, arms, and legs were covered in the cement.

A rear view - you can see his shorts and shoes got a lot of it.

After all the cleanup, I was able to have a good laugh - which was made even better when we walked back by the Disney Store and saw that the workers had added a second tier of tape to block off any future two year olds from running under the posts.