Sweet son,

At the time that I am writing this, you are a little over three years old. And while there are times when I watch you do things you couldn’t do even a few short months ago and I think about how big you are and how old you are now, you are still little. I see your littleness every night when I go in your room to pray over you and tuck you back under your covers. You are small now, but you will not always be small.

You want to grow up so badly. You are always telling me how you are growing “big, big, big up to the ceiling” and how much you want to be tall like Daddy so you can touch the ceiling fan. You are in such a hurry to be big and do all the big kid things. You told me a few days ago that you figured you were old enough to go ahead and drive us on our errands.

I look at this world around us, my precious son, and oh, how I want to keep you little. This week’s headlines alone have me trembling, wanting to reach for you and somehow hold you so tightly that you will stop growing up and stay small and innocent forever. I want you to keep your total lack of awareness of world issues, your simple understanding of right and wrong, your complete trust in us as your parents to take care of you and do the right thing.

Our home is one of safety. And I fear for you, sweet boy, heart pounding, stomach twisting, tear inducing fear for the day when you will one day leave my home and my protection. Oh how I want to wrap you up and shield you from everything the world entices you with and tempts you to do. I want you to be small enough to put in my little front pack again and cover your sweet head with a blanket so no one can even get a glimpse of you like I used to do when people’s stares at your precious face started to make me uncomfortable. You were mine, son. All mine.

Or so I thought.

Little by little, you have grown. You are experiencing new things, finding new adventures, going to new places. Soon you will be old enough to step out of my range of sight, to leave my protective arms for longer than a few minutes. You are so independent and yet so dependent at the same time. Every day you move farther and farther away from dependency.

And every day I move closer and closer into it.

Son, I am learning so much right now. I am learning how to teach you self control. I am learning how to teach you to take care of yourself, to have a healthy distrust of people we don’t know, how to seek for help if Mama isn’t around, how to count on your fingers and calm your temper before it erupts. I’m learning to teach you to say “yes ma’am” and “no sir” and to hold the doors for girls and that we only practice tackling drills with Daddy. I am learning how to teach you the building blocks of respecting women and going against the crowd and standing up for what’s right.

And I am learning to let go.

Jesus has been working on my heart, though there are still times that I stumble and fall. I’m learning to trust. I’m learning to depend not on my strength or the house alarm or Kody or homeschooling or private schooling or whatever else I see as “protection” but to fully trust that Jesus loves you more than I ever will be able to and that His plan for you is better than any that I could come up with. How easy it is for me to trust Him with my life and yet the struggle it has been to trust Him with yours.

Because see, you aren’t mine, sweet boy. You never have been.

You have always been the Lord’s. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with you, Daddy and I have been praying Hannah’s prayer for her son over you: “For this boy I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him. So I have also dedicated him to the Lord; as long as he lives he is dedicated to the Lord.”

You are precious to me. You are more precious to God (Psalm 139:17). You are the joy of my heart. You are the delight of the Lord (Psalm 37:23). You are loved, my child. So loved that even I can’t comprehend the height and depth of it (Romans 8:39).

So bear with me, sweet boy. Yes, I will tell you that things aren’t safe. Yes, I will make you hold my hand while crossing the street, I won’t let you out of my sight in the grocery store and you will get in big trouble when you try to cut a peach with a sharp knife by yourself. You are not going to be allowed to watch certain movies, you will not have unlimited access to the internet, you will not be able to be friends with certain kids and you will get your mouth washed out with soap if you ever use certain words. Someday soon you will be big enough to do everything by yourself and discern everything by yourself and decide right from wrong by yourself, but today you are little. And today, though you are not mine, you have been loaned to me for this short, precious time. And I want to savor it. Every second of it. And I want to prepare you for what is next. With everything I have.

You have been on a kick lately where when you get especially sleepy you start saying, “Mommy? I love you.” over and over and over again. I lock each one of those sweet words in your adorable little voice away in my heart, sweet son.

Nathan? I love you, my precious, precious boy. Let’s figure out this growing up thing with Jesus’ grace, okay?

Love,
Mom

Nathan has been very into “plans” and “jobs” lately. I’m a little worried about what my life will be like when he is actually scheduling things instead of me planning his life for him. He’ll come up and say, “Okay, Mom. Here’s the plan. I’ve got to go fix the door because that’s my job because I’m a super great fixer guy.” Then he’ll flash me a big two-thumbs up and next thing I know, he’s got on his work “gobbles” and he’s hammering away on one of our doors with a plastic hammer.

We had a fun weekend! Our weekends are usually busier than our weeks so they always go by too quickly.

Friday night we met Gammy and Pops for dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town. They had live mariachi singers who wore cowboy hats and Nathan was convinced they were real cowboys. When one walked by our table he asked him if they had ridden their horses to the restaurant. He also had his first experience seeing a urinal in the men’s bathroom.

We won’t go there.

Saturday, we went to a cute little friend’s first birthday! Cortez (or as Nathan calls him, “Portez”) is just adorable. I can’t believe he’s already one. They had the party at a Gymboree and the kids had a blast.

Sunday, we just hung around Gammy and Pops’ house. Nathan took a good nap, we had a friend come for dinner and we just caught up and lounged around. It was wonderful. And it even rained off and on the whole afternoon and evening so that made it even more relaxing. Pops and Nathan watched the Little League World Series and Nathan only lasted like this a few minutes before needing to find his own batting helmet.

The ABCs from Erynn Mangum on Vimeo.

And last but not least, here’s my boy singing the song he’s most proud of – the ABCs. 😉 He’s known this for a long time but apparently there’s been new interest in impressing people with it.

What did you do this weekend?

Last night was Nathan’s first night at Awana. 🙂

He was just a LITTLE excited about it. At 9:30 yesterday morning, he came marching into the family room with a Tupperware container of markers and My Utmost for His Highest and told me he was ready to leave for Cubbies.

I talked him into waiting about eight hours and I could barely get him buckled in the car he was so excited. We started driving and he got really quiet.

Then the questions started coming. “Wait. What if I see a stwanger? What if I fall down? What if you leave and get lost coming back to pick me up?”

🙂

Sweet boy! I was holding his hand across the parking lot and he kept taking big breaths and saying, “Okay. This is going to be good. It’s going to be good, right Mom?”

Once we got there and got him signed in and into his class though he was beyond fine. He ran right in and when I picked him up later he did not stop talking the whole way home about everything that had happened.

So fun! I love that he’s going to be memorizing verses and having a wonderful time with his friends and his fantastic teachers! He was so proud of himself when he memorized 1John 4:10 this week.

I can’t believe how big my baby is getting!

Lately, I’ve been having Nathan take naps again and miraculously, he’s actually going down fairly well and sleeping a long time! He wakes up SO much happier – and it gives me a little bit of time to rest or clean or work on the writing. 🙂

We’ve extended his bedtime a bit because of it, so we’ve had a little more time in the evenings to go play! (and wear our kid out so he sleeps again – ha!)

Monday night, we took a family walk over to the park and let Nathan run around and play for a bit before bed and then we visited with our neighbor friend for a few minutes before heading back. Such a wonderful night!

Brave boy!! He cannot wait until he’s big enough to do this all by himself! Love how happy he is right now.

A little help from Dad. 🙂

I love nights like these!

I started watching a little friend of Nathan’s a few days a week so I feel like we’re a lot busier now than we used to be even though we still do the same things. 😉 I have really enjoyed it! And Nathan has loved having a little buddy to play with.

My silly bean. We went with Gammy to “help” her find running shoes and Nathan discovered a track in the store. He ran back and forth the entire time we were there.

We registered Nathan for Awana! He was SO excited all day to go meet his teacher that night – I think he started trying to leave the house about 10:30am and the meeting wasn’t until 6pm! Ha! He even wanted to dress up for it – notice the light up Woody cowboy boots. Those are Nathan’s version of “fancy shoes”. I guess the excitement was too much because he barely got in the car before he passed out. 😉

Love finding these notes from my Jon in the kitchen in the mornings! 🙂

Yesterday was my brother Bryant’s birthday! So blessed to have a brother who adores my son and is lots of fun to hang out with. 🙂 Nathan has managed to convince Uncle Bryant to read to him every time we lay him down to bed at Gammy and Pops’ house (we usually put him in bed so we can hang out later with the family and then just transfer him to the car and then to his bed at home – we’ve been doing it since he was a few weeks old so he’s an old pro now. He doesn’t even wake up!). Happy birthday brother!!

What a wonderful, wonderful time it is here!

This week, my brother, Caleb, proposed to his beautiful girlfriend, Nicole, and she said yes!!!

We are SO happy. We absolutely adore Nicole and I’m so glad she is going to be in my family forever! I can’t wait to see what amazing things God has planned for these two together!

The happy couple! Praying for so many blessings on this engagement and marriage!

And I HAD to include these…. 😉 Caleb, Jon and Bryant went to the proposal site a few days before to figure out camera angles so Jon and Bryant could hide and take some pictures of the proposal. I found these on my camera the next day:

HA! Love these goofy boys. 😉

We had such a lovely weekend!!

Friday night, Jon and I got a little evening away at my friend Jocelyn’s wedding. Such a beautiful wedding and a beautiful bride!

Me and my favorite guy. 😉 It’s always fun to dress up and go watch friends get married – particularly when you aren’t shushing a little child from yelling “HEY! THEY ARE KISSING ON THE WIPS! THEY ARE MARRIED!”

I’m not sure where his fascination with marriage originated from but my son has marriage on the brain. And he is always saying things like, “Well. I really like grills.” (aka girls) It worries me a little bit. Isn’t he supposed to think girls are gross by this point? 😉 He loves “grills” and “dolts” (adults). He can’t wait to become a dolt so he can be tall enough to reach the ceiling fan.

It’s the small goals, right?

 

We spent the majority of Saturday morning lounging around in bed watching Pocahontas. Nathan thought the Englishmen were pirates, naturally. 😉

Saturday night, we went to Freddy’s for dinner and Nathan ate enough of his dinner that he could get an Oreo ice cream sandwich. Those things are HUGE. Love his face. He’s the boy of a million expressions.

The aftermath… REALLY should have invested heavily in Oxy-Clean the day we found out we were having a boy.

Oh that boy. I just adore that little face.

 We have done a lot of this…

A lot of this…

And a lot of this lately. 🙂 Play, play, play, eat, eat, eat until we are completely wiped out and fall asleep on the couch.

Not a bad way to start off the month of August!!

It’s nearly back to school time around here and I’ve been thinking about all of you in school or soon to be heading off to college. Praying for an amazing year for all of you!! Got anything specific you need prayer for? Leave it in the comments – I know I (and lots of others!) would be happy to pray for you!

Also, just a fun heads up if you’re needing to fill a few more days before heading off to school – Sandra Byrd’s hilariously adorable novel, Let Them Eat Cake, is free on Kindle today!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

We had a wonderful long weekend with Nonnie and Papa O!

Jon’s parents came in on Friday and it was such a good visit with them. We didn’t do hardly anything exciting but it was exactly the relaxing hanging out time we needed with them! We did another little birthday celebration for Nathan and he loved it. This boy is always going to think that his birthday should last for a month.  Ha!

We had rain almost every night they were here and then a TERRIBLE storm last night – oh my goodness. We haven’t had a storm like that in a long time! It flooded our backyard and street and there was TONS of hail.

Jon and Greg were troopers and kept on barbecuing our dinner (in between videoing the storm). Ha! Poor guys. I’m thankful we weren’t using the oven though – our power got knocked out! Thankfully it was back on by bath time last night – as much fun as bathing Nathan by flashlight sounded, I was glad we didn’t have to experience it. 😉

Jon and his mama. 🙂 Love this picture! And check out the old windows I found this weekend behind them – I love how it looks! Connie was super sweet to help us get them in hanging-on-the-wall condition. They were pretty yucky when we picked them up. Greg and Connie are always so willing to help us out with all the little projects we’ve been working on around the house when they come – so wonderful! We had so much fun!

Jon has been working landscaping most of the month of July, so he had a four day weekend this weekend too and it was SO NICE having him home! We were very bummed when he went back to work today. Someone loves their daddy. 🙂

Such a wonderful weekend! Thanks so much for coming, Nonnie and Papa O!! We love you guys!