Yesterday morning, my seven year old son was playing in our back yard. I looked out the window to see him talking to himself…non-stop.

I watched for a few minutes then I walked outside and asked, “Who are you talking to?”

He replied, “My friends.”

“What friends?”

He held out his arm and pointed toward the garage, “The cars. The cars are my friends.”

I found this oddly comforting. Not the fact that my son was going all David Hasselhoff on me, but because these friends of his were real objects.

When my daughter was young, she had an entire entourage of imaginary friends. Friends we couldn’t see. We would get in a lot of trouble when one of them was sitting on the couch and we didn’t realize it. For the record, you can smash something that isn’t even there.

Her favorite friend was Simba. Simba went everywhere with us. Simba ate with us, watched TV with us and even ran errands with us.

And, one time, we accidentally left Simba in a church pew.

After Mass, as the entire congregation was beginning to exit the church, we stood at the back of the building trying to comfort our crying daughter who was throwing a fit because we were leaving her friend behind.

Trying to talk sense into her did no good. Our little girl was crushed. So we did the only thing we could think of doing. People watched as my husband walked back to our empty pew, grabbed at the air, “picked up” Simba and delivered him to our daughter’s waiting arms.

Now do you see why I’m happy about my son’s new friends? You can’t take an SUV to church. Though I will say, his friends do cost more to feed.

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Last Saturday, my 10 year old daughter and I woke at 4:00am to volunteer at breakfast for the Special Olympics. My daughter worked, literally, like it was her job. Running from table to table, wiping them down, pushing in chairs, throwing away trash.

She worked so intensely that she was sweating, and at one point a man pulled me over to his table where a group of people told me they “had never seen a kid work as hard as the girl in the blue shirt”. When my kid walked over, they gave her a round of applause. I got to puff up my chest and tell them she was mine.

My seven year old son’s defective heart has been acting up lately. He’s been complaining of a “funny feeling…like a butterfly” and yesterday his cardiologist hooked him up to a monitor. He has five large leads stuck to his chest and he wore the monitor over his shoulder all day as he ran and played yesterday. He has been a perfect patient. I’m proud to be his mom.

My husband has been working like a maniac. Long, long hours at the office, then hours more from home in the late evening. He often doesn’t eat dinner until 10:00pm, and stays up until the wee hours on his laptop. Then he gets up at 6:00am to walk both dogs, rain or shine, sleet or snow and on the weekends he spends lots of time with his kids. Everything he does, he does for his family. He is a good man.

As for being proud of myself? Well, at least I have that whole being able to hang a spoon on the end of my nose thing.

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My son will be seven in a few weeks, but he looks more like a four year old. The cardiologist says it’s because of his GI problems, and the gastroenterologist says it’s because of his heart. The geneticist threw her hands up and said, “It’s not us!” All we know is that he’s small.

Lately, however, he appears to be going through a growth spurt. In order to boost his confidence I mentioned it last night.

I eyed my boy, then looked at my husband and said, “Doesn’t he look bigger?” Then I turned to my son and said, “You’re huge!”

Taking this as a valid compliment, my son looked up at me and said, “YOU’RE huge!” and in order to one-up my comment, he added, “Actually, you’re HUGE-MONGOUS!”

I tilted my head towards my husband and said, “Uh-oh.” I backpedaled and explained that calling a woman “huge” isn’t really a compliment, but it’s okay when you are talking about a boy’s muscles.

My son looked at his dad and said, “Yeah. Like Daddy’s.”

Somehow this whole thing completely backfired on me.

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Last night, my 10 year old daughter had her First Reconciliation (Confession). As archaic as some people believe this Sacrament to be, I like the idea that my kid is acknowledging she has done things which are wrong, like lying and gossiping and spitting out perfectly good food when her mother told her to eat it and then the dog came along and ate it off the floor, so not only did she not eat her lunch but the dog had apple-scented gas all afternoon…hypothetically.

I also think it’s a good thing that she saw me in line for confession right there with her. She needs to know that even her parents are flawed and that we are always striving to improve. Some parents were in with the priest for so long that they started turning out the lights (*cough* my husband *cough*).

Because there were roughly 30 kids and quite a few parents waiting for an available priest, we were there for a long time. My six year old son wholeheartedly appreciated this captive audience, and amused us with the following:

*When I pointed to a picture of the Pope and said, “He’s the highest priest in the Catholic Church”.

My son replied, “Really? So he’s very tall?”

*After I told him why we were there he said, “When I have my First Confession, I’ll say I’m sorry for this.” Then he hit me.

*When his sister left the confessional and was coming back to her seat he yelled, “What did you tell him?”

*While waiting on the playground for my husband to finish up in the church, the kids started playing hide and seek. When my son couldn’t find his sister he announced, “Mom! I can’t find her. I think she’s hiding in heaven!”

When next year’s class has their First Reconciliation I’m bringing him with me again…and this time I’m going to charge admission.

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