My youngest son is 14.
If you want to see his gorgeous face, just look up the phrase “ball of energy” in the dictionary. That’s his picture.

This boy spent his life surrounded by his four older brothers, but this year caught him off guard.

All 3 of the other brothers at home leave the house each day to go to school at the local college.

This shocked him like a stun gun the first day as he looked around a the VERY silent house and whispered, “I’m gonna die of boredom this year.”

I saw it clearly too.

” Buddy, we have a very unique gift from the Lord this year. It’s just you and me all day. Yes, academics are important, but we’re going to do school differently this year.

We’re going to enjoy our time together and strengthen our relationship. Especially since you’re 14, and mom is weird.”

I stripped back school to the bear minimum.

We do math every day, but not very long.
He is writing a handful of gut wrenching stories/ so I give him time to write most days.
Then he alternates between: history 2 days and science 2 days.

For history, I designed a power point/slide outline with my son to be his year long project. If you’ve seen me share, he’s transformed a black and white list into a beautiful presentation. I think he’s made it from Mesopotamia to Rome.

Science. We were doing health until the day he trusted me with his heart in the rain.

I think it was in January that I really saw myself in the mirror and realize I need to lose about 30 pounds.

My body is beginning to hurt and I know if I don’t get back into shape I will fall apart.

So I declared, “rain or shine, I need to you help me walk every day. Our first goal will be 2 miles a day for a week, then 3, then 4. But I need to get to 5.”

He said, “OK.”

Yes, we’ve been soaked a few times…
I even had to challenge his “man-hood” by requiring an umbrella twice. lol.

Phew! He’s LOVED the time together.

The infamous, “I think I want to be a cardio thoracic surgeon” walk, happened after a few WEEKS of getting closer to the 4 mile mark.

We had spent hours and hours each day, walking, picking up “treasures” on our beach (gemstones, pretty rocks, shells and sand dollars and just chatting about stuff.

I began weaving in some academic discussions while we adventured.
We’d pick a road and talk about academic things for the duration of that path: grammar things, history, health.

And out of that time together… he trusted me with his dream.

We were at least 3 miles into a walk when he said, “Please don’t laugh. I think I really know what I want to be when I grow up…”

💞My heart skipped.
He was trusting me with something.
I could feel it.

This didn’t just happen.

This was the fruit of all that time in the street, in the rain, on our walks chatting that unlocked his heart.

When I show people the level of work he’s put into his DIY heart unit, their mouth drops open.
This is a labor of love project for sure.
It looks like he’s an academic genius, absolutely.

What it really is?

Evidence that he feels loved and “seen”.

It all began because I decided to create a Huckleberry Finn style year of wandering,
I saw I was over weight and we just hung out and talked without distraction.

👩‍🦰Mama, give yourself permission to push traditional academics aside.

Walk beside your kids and sing in the rain, skip stones, catch butterflies, or go fishing at the pond at the far end of your property.

Dedicate a little bit of that time to chat about some “topic for learning” and simply enjoy their company.

Who knows.
Maybe, just maybe… like my son, your kids will trust you with their dream.

Let Stephen Teach your kids to crochet!