Boys

Growing up, I remember my mom having a framed quote in her bedroom that read, "There is a special place in Heaven for the mothers of little boys." As a child the humor of this was totally lost on me, but as woman who is now the mother of a little boy, those words come to mind often and make me laugh. I offer you an example of such a moment:


These are the big boy underpants I bought for Nathan a few weeks ago while at the store by myself...


And these are the big boy underpants Nathan picked out several days later when we were at the store together...


I tried to convince him that Mickey Mouse or Thomas the Train underpants would be so cool — or, hey! Look at these awesome Lightening McQueen underpants! I mean, he's not even two-and-a-half yet. How can it already be time for scary monsters and super heroes?

But my little boy wanted — nay, had to have — super hero underwear. There was no persuading him that anything else would be cooler. This marked the first of what I can only imagine will be many, many moments of thinking to myself,


Carrie, just let him be a boy.


Raising a tough-but-kind little man is an enormous daily challenge, but I wouldn't trade the gift of having a son for anything in the world. And with that, we purchased the biggest package of super hero underpants we could find.