He's Our Boy | Maris Ehlers Photography

His baseball helmet is on the couch, with a juice box straw sticking out from one end of the cushion. I bet if I looked, I’d find Laffy Taffy wrappers under the cushion as well. That’s where he always eats them and squirrels away the wrappers so he doesn’t have to walk the 3 feet to the waste basket while watching T.V.  

There are 3 pairs of shoes (granted, one pair is mine) on the verge of disappearing under the other couch in the same room, never to be seen again until in sheer desperation I move it out from the wall to conduct a rescue mission for a trove of missing items:  shoes, golf balls, books about snakes, markers, pokémon cards and plastic pieces belonging to things unknown.  That’s the loot for this week. 

His closet is knee deep with legos, army men, tractors and God only knows what else. At this point I’m afraid to look but he can find anything he needs from there in a matter of seconds. 

For reasons I still can’t determine, when he gets clean PJ’s out of his dresser drawer, I always come in later to find 3 of the 4 drawers open with clothes in disarray. I can’t decide if he stands in the lower drawers to reach the higher one, if he just forgets every day which drawer the jammies are in, or if he’s building a one-sided pyramid or a nest or something.

He’s a scientist. I seriously have to hide the vinegar, food coloring and baking soda in our house so that we don’t have colorful explosions in pop bottles more than once a day. My once beautiful butcher block island top has the stains to prove it.  

During trick or treating last year, he came back to the car after stopping at an elderly neighbor’s home sobbing, (his little sister returned just rolling her eyes with a "Here we go again!" expression).  What happened?  The lady gave him some good candy.  He was so excited he gave her a big hug. She exclaimed that she had never had a hug like that before. She didn't realize how literally he would take her words and that they would break his little heart. He was completely devastated a woman "THAT" old had never had a hug before and it totally ruined Halloween for him.  He tried to give her his bag of candy.  

I cannot get him to understand that while capturing yet another caterpillar seems like a good idea at the time, putting it in a box in the garage with a sign on it before leaving for the weekend does not a happy pet make. 

This is the same boy that age the age of 4, 5, and 6 would appear at my bedside before six in the morning (usually on a Saturday), with bright blue eyes asking me things like “Mommy, what sounds do buffalo make?” “Mommy, did you know that a dolphin can kill a shark?” “Mommy...” 

May this be the only picture with a police car he ever has

This is also our boy, who in the early days of first grade fell in love with “the girl in the purple shirt”. He would tell me about her EVERY day, how he saw her in the lunchroom, how beautiful she was (enough already!). He eventually learned her name, that she was in second grade, what her favorite colors were and what bus she rode. I discovered that he would wait there for her every day, just so he could greet her and give her a hug before going to class. He did this for almost the entire year. 

He collects rocks. 

He likes to pull wings off bugs to see if they can fly without them. 


While rain sends most people indoors, it sends him outdoors, usually to frantically try to save all the worms on the driveway (and a little dancing, too). 

He loves fire (admittedly, that one scares us a little - okay a lot).  

He’s the first one to share, to hug, to give.  

He’s a dreamer.  

He hates to be alone. 

Homework is a struggle. Not because he can't do it, but because he has so many other more interesting things to do.

He loves old people.


He's impulsive.

He is much kinder to his sister than she is to him.  


He never wakes up crabby.  


He will get his heart broken. Probably more than once. But he won't be bitter.  That's just who he is. 

He drives me absolutely crazy at times. We butt heads, especially when trying to get out the door in the morning.  


I sometimes worry he'll grow up and join the circus. 

Every so often, I find a booger smeared on the wall above his bed and I'm grossed out. 

Eventually, he'll set aside the rocks, the bugs, the catepillars and the hugs.  I'll miss that, but I can live with it. I think.  As long as he doesn't give up his dreams, his loves, and his kind and tender heart.  


He’s the boy we waited seven long years for, and he was worth every second and more. He's our boy.