Baby Love

A few weeks ago my middle son called to tell me that he was sending me a ticket to come visit him and his family in Atlanta. I was delighted. ‘How long are you going to keep the old girl this time?” I asked.  “I think we’re going to keep you for the whole month of August.” he replied. “Seriously? The whole month?”  “Yeah. You need a break from that Texas heat."

Bless his dear little darling heart.

He was waiting for me at the airport this last Saturday.  I could pick him out from across the terminal not only because I’m his mother (we can all spot our babies in a crowd, can’t we moms?) but because at 6’2” he stood out in the crowd. He also very handsome and has a dazzling smile. An obedient son he leaned down to let me kiss him on the forehead like I’ve been doing since he was a baby. In fact, my nick name for him (and his brothers) is “Baby Son”.

I have been singularly blessed with relationships I have with my three sons. Not only do I love them all but we are all good friends. It seems each of ‘the boys’ (another nickname for them that came up in from my family) has a specific area of interest or hobby that is also a love of mine.

Oldest Baby Son loves music – in fact, he stole (yes stole) all of my record albums when he moved away. I tried to be upset but he actually played them more than I did and he loves the vinyl. He keeps me up to date on all the best music, plays a number of instruments and has a beautiful singing voice.

Middle Baby Son and I both love books. We are nerds for sure when it comes to bookstores. One of the major outings for us when we’re together is to hit the Barnes and Nobles where we wander the aisles for hours, drink way too much coffee and then buy out the store. Last time we did this we spent over $150.00 on books. Did I say we loved books? 

Youngest Baby Son and I love movies. Well, video of any kind really. For us, movies are books that move. He’s lives up the highway from me in Texas (Oldest Son is in Boston and Middle Son is in Georgia) and about once every other week he comes over to ‘give the old girl an airing’. We hit the movie theater then eat Chinese food. We laugh and fuss for hours about everything surrounding movies – the directors, the actors, the storylines. We have a lot of fun together.

All of my sons have grown up to be good men. I thank God for that. I could say that I raised them alone, but that would be misleading. I was separated when my youngest was seven months old and divorced two years after that. It was a difficult, heartbreaking time but I lived in the same town as my family which was my saving grace.  My parents and my brothers and sisters and my church family were all there to help out and shield the boys from the brunt of the pain. I credit my family and friends for a large part of helping the boys grow up to be the good men they are today.

I love my sons very much and am very proud of them. If I do nothing else in my life I will be proud to be able to say I had a hand in raising these three wonderful men.I do have pictures of all of my baby sons but unfortunately they are on the portable hard drive I left at home in Dallas. That was the one piece of organizing (putting all the scanned pictures in one place) I finally did get done. Maybe I can raid their Facebook pages for current pictures.

More about my Atlanta trip in the next few posts. In the meantime tell me about your baby sons and baby daughters including all of your grandbabies and assorted nieces and nephews. I'd love to hear about the young people in your life.