The Power of an Ocelot

Today I was able to spend some much needed time with Christine.  One of the many things we talked about was Hyrum and how different he is than most boys his age.  One of things that I told her about was how at the beginning of this school year I worried a lot about him not having friends.  

I've always known that David and I have babied Hyrum.  But to be honest, I don't feel all that bad about it.  If I did, then I would stop.  But he is my baby and by the time that you get to your "baby" after having other children, you finally realize as a parent to calm down!  That all those things I worried about so much with Levi and Brigham, didn't matter.  That I should have relaxed more with them and just enjoyed the ride.  So yeah, we've babied him...and it shows.

I told Christine about how when Hyrum's friends come over and they imagine play, the other boys always want to be some hero or bad guy character (almost always Minecraft characters).  Hyrum....yeah, he crawls around like an ocelot (cat) meowing while the other boys are using their pickaxe to "mine" or attack a creeper.  Christine and I just giggled imaging the sight of his innocence.  I told her that when I first noticed the difference in him compared to other boys his age, I worried.  But I also did not want to take that innocence away from him by making him grow up.  Both David and I have kept to the latter.  He has plenty of time to do all that grown up stuff later.

Rewind to last night.  He woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me he had a nightmare and wanted to sleep with David and I.  I could count on one hand how many times he has done that. My boys just don't have lots of nightmares and I'm super grateful.  I of course let him sleep with us.  

Tonight he tells me that he knows why he had the nightmare.  It was because he didn't sleep with his ocelot.  I knew he was right about him not having the ocelot with him last night because we put up the Christmas tree earlier that day and Hyrum put his ocelot in the tree as an ornament. 

So before bed we are looking for this ocelot and it is no where to be found.  Hyrum is about in tears.  So I come up with this idea that Hyrum can sleep with all his other cats and that should be like the power of the one ocelot.  The only thing I placed in this picture is the tiger "watching over" him.  When David and I went to check on him tonight before bed (which is what I should be in but I HAD to blog how cute Hyrum is!!!) we found him alseep with all his cats perfectly placed around his head.

Daddy couldn't handle it and was determined to find it now!  We finally found it in Brigham's room and so Daddy placed it in Hyrum's arms while he slept.  

I can't wait to hear about it in the morning.  I wonder what Hyrum will think about it.

Optimistic Brothers

I was reminded yesterday of the good boys David and I have.  

Over the summer David and I took classes to become foster parents.  We also had to get our house ready to be licensed.  Sounds simple but believe me it was a process and it took a lot of time and money.  We have been completely ready for about 3 weeks now and are just waiting for a call saying we are in need.

So yesterday, I got a text from my family resource worker to ask about a possible placement.  But this placement would mean that Hyrum would have to stay in the room of one of his brothers.  So, I got them together and asked how they felt about 2 little girls staying with us.  Hyrum was excited because he would get to stay in a room with one of his brothers.  On that note, when we first moved here he was sad the first few nights that he wasn't down stairs in a room with his brothers.  I think it was because he was scared by himself (though, he is right next to us) as well as I think he was afraid they were having all kinds of fun without him!

Levi and Brigham didn't want to share their room but I was surprised at their responses.  It wasn't a flat out no.  They just kind of groaned and when I said that he should stay with Brigham because he has the bigger room, again, he didn't say no.  Just didn't want to do it.  And he wasn't even mad about it.  But then, my always wanting to make people happy Levi, said it would be ok for Hyrum to stay with him.

So that was sweet.  And it got even better.  When I asked them about having girls in our house they were ok with it but they wanted her to be older than them.  When I asked them why Levi said because he doesn't like being the oldest.  I get that.  I remember growing up not liking being the oldest at times.  But Brigham said that he wanted an older sister (yes, they want a sister...not someone just living with us :) because of how nice Shaylee (their cousin) is.  I am in love with my niece Shaylee so it melted my heart to hear him say that.  But I wanted him to understand that not all girls are like Shaylee.  He replied that that was ok because they could get her to be like Shaylee eventually.  

I love the hope and optimistic outlooks that children have.