All Boy!

Recently, a lot of folks have asked me how I’ve enjoyed having Sawyer all to myself since Tyler, Darcy and Peyton started school. And the truth of the matter is, as much as I miss having the others at home with me, as much as I miss the bickering over who gets to sit by Mom when we read (yes, I really DO miss that!), I find I’m adjusting rather nicely to spending the greater part of my days alone with my little man.

He has endeared himself to a lot of people at Woodland West (and he has probably annoyed just as many), but what I love most is the fact that he appears to have become the unofficial “mascot” for the youth group.

Now you all know how I value propriety and decorum in public settings, and I will admit that I felt no small amount of panic when it became clear that we were going to be coming to work at Woodland West. I mean, if you have been a consistent reader of this blog, then surely you have gained a pretty good understanding of Sawyer’s ebullient personality. Not to say that my other kids are sticks in the mud, but from the time Sawyer turned two I began hearing the same refrain over and over again: “He’s not like your others, is he?” And believe me, that comment was not a thinly-disguised insult (or if it was, I remain blissfully ignorant); it’s simply that Sawyer is SO full of life, SO joyful (most of the time), so BIG and IN YOUR FACE, so animated . . . so unlike the first two years of his life when the adjective that best described him was “somber.”

The source of my panic was the fact that the church at Southwestern had been given the benefit of four years to grow accustomed to Sawyer’s antics, and now I was being asked to move into a new setting where I really didn’t have the luxury of running ahead of him everywhere we went, proclaiming, “Don’t worry—they’re not all like him!” (That's a joke, people.) Fortunately, Woodland West happens to be a “community church” in the sense that there are dozens of people there who are called “Mimi” or “Be-bop” or “Granny” or “Gramps” or I-don’t-even-know-what-else . . . by kids and grandkids who are not their own. Following our tryout weekend, I lost count of the number of encouragement cards I got from WW members who said they looked forward to "helping us raise our kids." And they weren't kidding--our kids have meshed seamlessly with the rest of the kids here, and Sawyer has been no exception!

I noticed right away that several of the teens paid Sawyer special attention, which I thought was very sweet, but I also noticed that the more attention they gave him, the more he craved. I know that's not unusual, but I can never seem to stop myself from worrying that he's going to get on someone's nerves simply because he doesn't know when to stop. You know how you see kids sometimes, and they're so cute and sweet, and you give them just a little bit of attention, and the next thing you know they're your best friend and you can't shake them? I just described Sawyer to a T.

I kept an eye on him for a few weeks but finally decided to adopt the attitude that says, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." For example, on Wednesday nights I would keep him in my classroom with me (I teach 1st thru 3rd graders) until his teacher arrived, but my classroom is right around the corner from the teen room. Next thing you know, a wave of teens would come by and you would hear, "Sawyer! Hey buddy! Give me five! Hit the rock! Sawyer, Sawyer! Come here, Sawyer!" The first week that happened I watched him being swept away and I thought, "Oh well, it's not like he just followed them into their room!" And when it was time for class to start and I went to retrieve him from the teen room, what I saw wasn't too bad (if you count Sawyer having a pillow fight with the teens as decorous behavior). Seriously, I was mortified and wondered how in the world I was going to turn things around. And then this past Sunday night happened. And after that I realized there IS no going back, and that's okay (I think)!

We had a congregational Bible Bowl on Sunday night, in large part as a way of preparing the teens for LTC in a couple of weeks. I was not participating in the actual test so Sawyer and I were sitting with the rest of the folks who elected to sit on the sidelines and cheer the other teams on. And everything was fine--I'd brought some books for Sawyer to read and a very sweet couple gave him one of those Matrushka dolls that was hand-painted with all the characters from Star Wars and he sat in the floor and played with it for a good twenty minutes. Then we broke for snacks. And I admit, I forgot all about him.

Thank goodness when I finally remembered I was supposed to be, you know, watching him, he wasn't actually doing anything he shouldn't be . . . but what I saw him doing was enough to make me gasp aloud and jump out of my chair, which in turn caused all the folks who had been watching Sawyer to laugh uproariously at my reaction. He was over at one of the teen tables, and he was up on the back of Jason's chair with his arms around his neck, and I want to say he was shaking Jason back and forth. But I kid you not--Jason was having the best time with him and it was clear that Sawyer's presence at the table was most certainly welcome. But in my micro-managing way, I rushed over to extract Sawyer's arms from Jason's neck when . . . I noticed Jason's dad standing on the other side of the table, aiming his camera phone at Sawyer and Jason! He thought the whole thing was hilarious, which prompted me to say, "Don't encourage him!" To which he replied, "Oh, I don't think he needs any encouragement!"

When I was satisfied that Sawyer wasn't overstaying his welcome, I went back and sat down and finally just gave myself up to the inevitability that Sawyer and the teens are going to be drawn to each other like moths to a flame! Not just the teens, though--the rest of that evening I watched Sawyer work that room, going from one table to the next, and I would see people scoop him up, tickle him, give him raspberries, plop him in their laps . . . but the image that stays with me the most always ends up being that of ten or more teenagers swarming around him like mosquitoes. It just seems unfathomable to me that a bunch of teenagers would take such an interest in a four-year-old boy and, what's more, they will never know how much it means to me that they do!