Thoughtful

I attended a retirement party recently where one of the speakers stated that the true measure of a person's contribution to the world is reflected in their children. This individual happened to have worked with the son of the retiree and said without a doubt, the son was one of the finest people he had ever worked with. He suggested the son should run for public office because 'more like him are needed'.

I am raising two sons and I hope we are doing an OK job. I have good indicators that we aren't/haven't messed them up too much, yet. There's still time, and who knows. But for the most part, they are both responsible, considerate, thoughtful and nice young men. They give us, their parents, some 'attitude' at times - but around other adults, they are nice boys. We get complimented on them a lot - pretty much everywhere we go. We've had waitresses say 'whatever you're doing, keep doing it 'cuz your boys are really well mannered and nice'. We have teachers and parents of the kids friends tell us that all the time. So I know we're doing something right. And some days, we have tangible proof that in spite of their 'teen-ness', they don't always behave like they are the only person on earth who matters.

Example: B. dislocated his knee at school on Friday. Slipped in mud that was on the sidewalk - his left knee cap moved to the other side of his leg. Ouch. Ambulance and paramedics transported him to the hospital where heavy drugs were administered so they could 'pop' the knee cap back where it belonged. One of the first coherent things Brooks said was to J. - 'Dad, you have to still take C. (B.'s best friend) and H. up to Bear Valley tomorrow for snowboarding - they've both been looking forward to it so much'. This was just shortly before B. rec'd the crushing news that his snowboard season was now officially over, before it had even begun. Saturday was to have been his first day on the slopes - but the knee injury has made his season debut a non-event. He will start months of physical therapy next week and we hope the outcome will be he'll be able to snowboard next season and walk without crutches in a month or so. AND, we hope that he doesn't need any surgery for tears (that are yet un-diagnosed and won't be until the PT people work with the knee for awhile - if they think it's not healing properly, they'll advise our Dr. who will order an MRI). It will be a long winter. He is trekking in Europe for 3 weeks this summer and going to Hawaii for two weeks right after school's out. This is a BIG summer...so he needs two good knees to be ready.

I'm proud of him. He's a really nice young man, and his brother is too. Now if we could only get them to rinse their dishes, put their dirty clothes in the hamper, clean their bathroom, etc., we'll be all set. Still a few years for that stuff to sink in.