a pain in the neck

Ever since he turned two, Liam has been quite the handful. Daily temper tantrums. A constant battle of wills. And he throws things. The pacifier. Rocks. Food. Anything that's in his hands when he is upset gets launched across the room. Clearly, this will be even more of a problem once the baby is here...

Each day has been a series of handling one situation after another, pleading with him to find things to actually be happy about. Liam has always been a glass half empty kind of guy. I know that is probably just the way he is wired, so I have been trying to teach him to find the beauty in the moment. This is tricky with a two year old.

But all of this is not the pain in the neck I am referring to. No. Today I woke up with a real pain in my own neck that has given me an awful tension headache all day long. Ugh.

I learned early on in our marriage that (1) Gabriel doesn't get bad headaches, so (2) he doesn't get why he should tread lightly, speak softly, or otherwise pamper me when I get a real doozy like today. But what he does get, and does oh so well, is that Liam is in his charge today.

After church, I took a wonderfully long nap. The kind of the deepest slumber where I wake up, not once, but twice, with some serious drool accumulation. It was a good nap.

Liam has had a great day with his daddy, who managed to go outside and capture spring emerging in our backyard while Liam took his own nap.

Here is what caught his eye:

And apparently, he also caught someone else's eye...

And now Liam is digging in the dirt in the backyard while Gabriel splits wood for the fire tonight.

Gabriel, thank you for being so amazing.