So sweet.

The last few days, Elijah has been quite serious about some things.  Yesterday he told me that he doesn't want to die because he never wants to leave me.  Today he told me that if a mean man ever breaks into our house, he will do everything he can to be mean to him and save us. When I went over our safety plan of locking himself in a room with Isaac to call 911,  he insisted that he would make sure I was safe first, and then try to fight the intruder.  Oh, my dear sweet boy.  I think I drilled it into him that he is to stick to our safety plan and call 911, that it is the very best way that he could ever help Mommy, but I had to fight back tears.  My sweet, sensitive little boy wants to be my hero.

As I was helping him to brush his teeth tonight, I was telling him that he would have his new molars forever, so he needed to take care of them.  I told him someday when he was grown, he wouldn't need someone to double check his teeth, that he would take care of them all by himself.  He said that was okay, but that he would always want to brush his teeth with Isaac.  I hid a smile.

As I was helping him into his pajamas, he asked me to tell him about when he grows up.  I told him how some day he will be a great big boy, that can cook and help dad do bigger projects than he does now, that he can mow the lawn for me and help me take out the trash.  He told me that he likes helping me, and I told him that he is for sure the best helper I have ever known.  I told him that some day he will be big enough to drive, and he would even own his own car.  He said he didn't need his own car, because Daddy was going to let him drive the van and he would just keep that as his own car.  I smiled imagining him driving the same van that he rides in the back of now, in a harnessed carseat with a Thomas train in the cup holder.  I told him that someday he will be big enough to have a job where he earns his own money.  He told me that he still plans on getting a job when he is 6 (LOL).  I told him that someday he will be a great big grown man, and move into a great big house that he pays for with his own money.  He got the saddest look on his face and told me he is NEVER moving out of this house, and offered to pay the cable bill (God, I love that kid, he knows how to prioritize lol).  When I told him someday he would marry a nice lady and have his own kids, he said that he only wanted to marry me, and that if he had kids he would play Thomas Trains with them all the time.  I kissed his forehead, because he is the sweetest 5 year old boy I know.

I snuggled my guy as he relaxed and made his way to dreamland.  I got teary-eyed thinking about the fact that yes, some day he will grow up and be a great big grown man, one that has his own job, and a woman in his life that is not his mommy.  He will drive a car, no matter how worried I am while he is out, and he will sleep under a different roof than me, and fall asleep thinking about all the stresses and pleasures of his life, while I think about him, hoping he is happy and safe, and remembering when I was the one who tucked him in at night.  I sighed as I held my little 5 year old boy, trying not to blubber like an idiot on this poor, dozing child.  I whispered to him that someday he would indeed grow up, and some day he would be a wonderful man, with a wonderful life.  And the little boy, that I thought was sleeping, rolled towards me and whispered sleepily "I'm just gonna be me forever".  And you know, as long as he holds true to that, I think I will be able to handle him growing up.  With many tears.