A Little Someone Is Having A Birthday...

A couple of evenings ago, after Judah finally fell asleep, I went in to cover him up and found the following paraphernalia scattered throughout his bed:

• a Buzz Lightyear
• R.C. (the Toy Story remote control car)
• a monster truck
• 4 books
• a wolf stuffed animal
• the jeans he plans to wear tomorrow
• 4 socks
• a belt
• two toy pistols (one for water, one for air-soft pellets)
• and a bow complete with suction-cup arrows

This is after his room was found to be sparkling clean when he was tucked into bed for the night.

I suppose this is because a boy can never be too prepared for the next day's activities.

And that's just his bed!

I can't begin to count all the occasions in which I've wakened in the night with a Matchbox car under my hip, or a Batman figurine jabbing my cheek, or a heavy die-cast cowboy pistol connecting with my ankle bone at about 3 am.

While I love that all these things are all evidence of the lively little boy who lives here, sometimes I find that I like to stay up late just so I can kick back and read or crochet or think in a clean house for an hour or two. Because it doesn't last for long.

When you have young kids around the house, it seems you're forever cleaning up toys and other clutter, collecting laundry and wiping hand prints off of switch plates, messes off of counters, and crumbs off the floor and table, not to mention trying to keep the kids clean.

Sometimes you also find things in odd places. Things that make you stop and think, "Now how did this get here?"...and nearly always, in my household at least, the trail leads right back to the same culprit.

The same boy who is responsible for why the flashlight is never in the drawer of my nightstand where I am accustomed to looking for it. This because he was snooping around in there one day and now eagerly looks for opportunities in which he can come in borrow that fantastic invention (usually always resulting in dead batteries, I might add), and the reason why even though I never use it myself, I still put it back in it's home at least 3 or 4 times a week.

The same boy behind why the calculator I use for balancing my checkbook is never on my desk but has been found in the bathroom and various hidey-holes in his bedroom.

And why the DVD remote has wound up in his backpack (because he was using it as his 'phone' while pretending he was an army guy outside).

And why I've found kitchen utensils end up underneath his bed. Why, I ask? What possible use could an almost-5 boy have for a spaghetti grabber or a folding metal steamer basket?

And sometimes, I'll go to look for a hair clip I was certain was last seen in the drawer of my bathroom vanity and find it's not there.

And then I'll find myself thinking that maybe I'm getting forgetful.

And I'll worry about that. Maybe even look up possible nutritional deficiencies or some supplements I should be taking to help with that.

But then, while cleaning up Judah's closet two days later, I'll find said hair clip holding two belts together in what I can only assume was some getup he'd pulled together to hold his bow and arrows close to his person while playing outside, and this because we'd just watched Prince Caspian and he was suddenly into the whole Knight thing again.

Now we're big Narnia and C.S. Lewis fans, and I can totally appreciate the allegoric meanings attached to Aslan in particular.

But when you have a son like I do (who is both daredevil and overly impressionable) you find yourself needing to stay a couple steps ahead of the game. And movies like that conjure up a whole new set of previously un-imagined possibilities in my boys mind.

Things like leaping off or balancing precariously on cliffs and ledges, not to mention all the cool weaponry from knives and swords to catapults! The last thing I need is for him to find some way of turning my porch swing into a kid-a-pult.

The worst part, however, is that when Judah views the poignant scenes where Aslan is talking to Lucy and she is affectionate and cozies up to the big, friendly looking lion, he gets these crazy ideas rolling through his head.

Ideas that result in such wistful phrases crossing his lips as, "I wish we had a lion" and "I want to pet a lion."

Which wouldn't worry me so much if his eyes didn't light up in the same way they do when he tells us he really wants a puppy for his birthday.

These are just the kinds of phrases which propel me into one of those fast-forward, hyper-speed trains of thought where I suddenly envision him as a college freshman taking a dare from his buddies to climb into some exhibit at the local zoo.

I mean, it happens!

I used to hear such reports on the news and think rather judgmentally, "What kind of kid pulls a crazy stunt like that? And what kind of parents did those boys have that he would break into a zoo after hours and climb into the ____ cage?"

Except that in recent years I can no longer do that, because I know exactly the kind of kid that does that sort of thing.

Someone who was an adorable and yet precocious little 4 year old once upon a time.

Someone just like my Judah.

And though these things are largely responsible for every gray hair I have on my head, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Though boy behavior is foreign to my girly-girl nature and sometimes scares me as his mom, I love that innate, wild-warrior factor in little boys that makes them turn every stick into a gun, that leads them to climb up camper ladders and stand on the rooftop as conqueror, and which causes them to poke at dangerous spider webs and hold emperor scorpions in their hands at the pet store and to beg for reptiles and tarantulas as pets.

The same kind of behavior which when properly channeled helps to grow them up into valiant, warrior-protector types...that will one day be some young woman's knight in shining armor and later a father for his children to look up to. Perhaps also a soldier or a missionary, venturing into places where few others would dare to go.

I don't know what the Lord has marked out for this boy yet, but if his first 5 years are any indication...it's going to be a wild ride!

Happy 5th Birthday, Judah-Boo! We sure do love you!