UPDATE: I know I have been trying to post twice a week now for going on almost one whole year. Side note, can you believe we have had this blog up for almost a whole year!!!??? That is incredible. A huge thank you to all of my, correction OUR, readers! You are why we do what we do. But the update is, over the course of the summer I am going to try to only write one post a week. I know, I know, you are crying already. But remember my 2018 word, BALANCE?! I am focusing on balance and keeping up with two posts a week is too much for me right now. Between the family move, the office move, the writing for adoption.com and adoption.org, being a mom, being a wife, being a writer, I am choosing to focus more on my family and a little less on my work!! Watch for updates every Wednesday!!! But don’t judge if I miss a Wednesday or miss a week! But let’s get back to what this blog is all about– parenting… Plus next week I should be able to post about our weekend with Heather and her family!

We were at the library the other day (one of Jackson’s favorite places to be) and we were playing with a boy named Alex. They have toys and things set up in the children’s library and Jackson’s friend Abel is usually there on Tuesdays (if he was good at daycare and got a star) but no Abel on this particular Tuesday. So, he played with Alex. Alex was probably school-aged, maybe 5 or 6. He talked FAST, but Jackson didn’t mind, he was able to keep up. So, we were getting ready to leave and were checking our books out (Jackson can do this by himself!) when Alex walked past. Well– let me backup. I should probably tell you that Jackson took his baby to the library. And while we were checking our books out Alex said “You like babies?!” And not in a cute oh, you like babies, me too kind of way. But in a making fun of him kind of way. Of course, Alex’s mom said “You play with babies all the time.” And his older brother said something along the lines of “Babies are cool.” They all tried to play it off and not have Jackson realize that he was being made fun of. Jackson, on the other hand, had no clue he was even being picked on. But this mama did. I looked right at JJ and wanted to just burst out crying for the innocence that is going to be lost in him. He doesn’t even know how to make fun of someone else more or less know when he is being made fun of.

Afterwards JJ and I had a discussion about what happened at the library. And we both decided that exact reason is why we don’t want him to go to school! Of course he is going to go to school– he has to grow up at some point, but as parents, we want to keep his innocence in tact for as long as we can. And he is such a tenderhearted little boy and we want him to stay that way.

Jackson- don’t let this world chew you up and spit you out. Remember it is okay to be tenderhearted, to cry when you are sad, to love the unlovable, to show others you care, to be who God made you to be.