Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Encouragement... it's a good thing!

If you had told me, five years ago, I would be married with two beautiful children today I would of said "uh... yah right!"

But, here I am... happily married to my beautiful wife and we were lucky to have two amazing children. Mauldin just suprises me everyday! I sit on the couch and just watch him walk around, singing his version of ABC/1.2.3.... and it makes me wonder what we did to make him so perfect.
Then there is our pretty princess, Elle. She is just so happy! I have NEVER seen a little kid, a baby no-less, smile as much as she does. The amount of happiness she emits is intoxicating and you cannot help but grin from ear to ear when you see her.

Just the other day, as I was about to head up the stairs my wife let out a gasp!

"Are you okay?" I said quickly. I was standing, one foot on the beige carpet on our stairs as I had one hand tightly grasped the gray graco baby gate that was installed to keep Mauldin from falling up or should I say down that stairs.

"Yes," my wife, Laura replied. "Did you see? Good job, Mauldin!"

I look down and expect to see my son scribing his name on a pad of paper or from the sound of the gasp he may of cured cancer... I wasn't sure. I saw him sitting in the floor with a toy he got from his cousin Everett. The toy is a Red and Blue circular toy that has a yellow handle and different shaped blocks... I guess you could call it a "Shape sorter." He sat on our kitchen floor with four or five of the yellow shapes all around him.

"Watch what your son can do..." Laura said. "Go on Mauldin, put them back!"

Our son loves to put things in their place... if he has a sippy cup it must go in it's cup holder... and if it is on the floor, it must be right side up. He makes sure all the doors are closed because heaven forbid one be open. This is true about the fridge as well... you open it, he MUST close it!

Like she said, I stood there and looked at my little boy work out placing all the blocks into their place. I glaced from Mauldin to Laura to see her face beaming with immense pride.

"But, babe..." I started. "I've seen him do that before, he's been doin' that for a while!"

I headed over to my little boy and patted him on the back. "That's great, Mauldin." I interjected.

"What?" she said with a hint of shock in her voice. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it was a big deal." I calmly replied. "He's been doing puzzles for a while too... I just figured you knew!"

"NO!" she said while she clapped in Mauldin's direction showing her approval. "That's so amazing, Eric! That's really advanced."

"Yay!!! Yay, Mauldin!" I joined in on the clapping.

Mauldin looked up at both of us and starting clapping too! Well, that is all I needed to hear. As soon as anyone says something positive about your offspring... you just beam with pride, excitment... you know, all those good emotions.

I immediatley looked over at our little girl as she swayed back and forth in her exersaucer screaming in what seemed to be excitment for her big brother, although it could of been need for attention! I kinda felt bad we had put all that clapping and excitment into her brother so I felt the need to give Elle some encouragement and attention too! She had a paci in one hand and was grabbing onto a crunchy-sounding flower with the other. I crouched down and gave her a big grin. She responded with a high-pitch sound that could probably call some dolphins if we lived close enough to the ocean. At times we call her our little grasshopper... because of this commerical. It's really sweet actually because she always screams with a huge smile. As I went to stand up I felt something brush my side... it was Mauldin! He ran over and gave his sister a big hug... I guess he didn't want her to be left out either.