{"id":194,"date":"2008-06-10T15:26:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T19:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/?p=194"},"modified":"2008-06-10T15:26:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T19:26:00","slug":"the-countdown-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/?p=194","title":{"rendered":"The Countdown Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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370 days or so and Sammy will be graduating from 8th grade. Today his class went to one of the local high schools to check it out. They ended with a dance. OK I know my kids are not me (thank goodness) but I am proud of the self confidence that Sammy has to boogie with his friends.<\/p>\n

I can’t imagine this year coming being the last year of elementary school for him. I still remember his first day of JK. In many ways I am not one of those parents that says “Where has time gone?” I know where it has gone, 6 children later. But at the same time I would like to freeze for a few minutes.<\/p>\n

High School was such a horrid time of my life. Probably the worst time of my life, if I am honest. I was a loser. I was geeky, gawky and wanted to disappear. Yet at the same time I wanted so badly to simply belong and not stand out. I wanted Hang Ten clothing, a different face and certainly different parents. I wanted to live in a different house and neighbourhood and drive anything other than the Ford Econoline I drove.<\/p>\n

Now I look at Sammy as he begins to reach that phase. I want to make sure I do not dump my insecurities on him. I want him to belong and be accepted but not hang out with the wrong bad boys and girls. I want him to learn, grow and develop into a fine person with morals, manners and happy memories.<\/p>\n

I have realized that it doesn’t matter if you have the right clothing, drive a cool car or live in a mansion. You can’t make someone love and accept themselves. Only they can do that . So as I struggle to accept the child that stretched my belly with marks that are a constant reminder of his presence yesteryear…almost as tall as me, full of love and attitude and then more attitude. This child that makes me feel that I do not know anything that he would know… this child that can be so loving and dear… I pray that I have loved him enough these past 12 years, that I have punished enough and prayed enough for him. <\/p>\n

Now I have 370 + days left to hold my breathe and see how he grows up. I have to watch and see if he continues to love himself and be proud and strong in himself. I hope that this is his journey that he can see in himself as the gift he is and the pain he is and accept all of himself. I hope that he continues to grow and have his soul nurtured and the Spirit move him in positive ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

370 days or so and Sammy will be graduating from 8th grade. Today his class went to one of the local high schools to check it out. They ended with a dance. OK I know my kids are not me … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}