Stone Boy

Have I ever mentioned how glad I am that we have Freestone in our family?  We have a family legend that I'm sure I've mentioned.  After I had Ruby, I had a miscarriage.  When I got pregnant with Ari, I thought for sure it was going to be a boy, because I had told Scott years earlier, "We will have two girls and then a boy."  And I always get my way!  When Karen, my midwife, said it was a girl, I was momentarily stunned.  A...girl?  But...a girl is...not a boy.  That doesn't make sense."

Now we joke that Ari pushed Freestone out of the way so she could come first.  I'm glad she did.  The two of them are best friends, and who knows if that would have happened had Ari been born after Freestone.  In fact, Free can be a bit of a bully toward Xanthe, so I guess we do know how the big brother/little sister dynamic can play out.  Ari was wise to shove Freestone out of the way! ;)

I love having Freestone around because he is funny.  The other day, he came home from school and told me that his only homework was correcting the problems he got wrong on a math test.  He said, "The good news is that I only got four wrong.  The bad news is that I've already tried them once and failed, so..."

Funny kid.  And he's a reader, which I just identify with.  With the other kids, whenever they finish a book, I say, "Yay!  Good job!"  With Freestone, whenever he finishes a book, my reaction is, "Oh no."  Because I know we're going to have to buy another book to put on his Kindle, or he simply won't be able to go to sleep that night.  This morning, he informed me that he was already 60% of the way through the book Scott got for him yesterday.  (Wonder, in case you were wondering!)

Yesterday, Freestone made the observation, "People say time flies when you're having fun, but it flies all the time.  It flies no matter what."

Looking into my ten-year-old's face, I know that all too well, and I'm not happy about it.  I could keep Freestone this age forever.  He would never leave me for a mission or another woman, and he would always be this sweet, eager, creative, unsullied boy.

But time flies no matter what!