Mama's Boy Again

Sometime this past month and a half, it clicked with my 7 year old, that he definitely is not eighteen. If you look at my past post My 18 Year Old's Summer Project, you will see that we had a lot of "putting him into place" ahead of us at the beginning of the summer. With the combination of defining respect over and over and spending more time as just a family, he has become Mama's boy again, but not in a needy, babyish way.
 Our relationship has become fun-loving and full of thoughtful conversations- with the occasional reminder that I AM the parent. He is definitely fitting his place as the oldest quite nicely, but also wants the occasional cuddle and he even hold's my hand in the grocery store! GASP! :) The picture of him is from a picnic at the park, where he chose to sit with mom, while his brothers sat on their usual "boulder". (Can you sense the pride seeping from this post??)

 I'm not saying that we still don't have our moments of butting heads and me reprimanding his "bullying" tendencies with the younger boys, but I occasionally see a glimpse of when he really is 18, and pray to God that our relationship will have only grown into a larger version of today!