Jump Rope

As a parent you want to protect your child from everything.  You don't want them to get hurt, you don't want them to be disappointed, you want to shelter them.  You want to shield them from anything that could make them ever feel sad or cause them any pain.

We listen to a lot of music around our house.  And, as I'm sure you've noticed, sometimes a song speaks to me in a way that nothing else can.  Lately, Hudson has taken an especial liking to the Kids channels on XM and so we listen to a lot of their songs.  I remember the first time I heard this particular song, riding down the road with Dan and Hudson on our way to have breakfast on Hudson's second birthday.  Hudson found the beat especially catchy.  He passed up the crocodile and the dinosaurs, as he tends to do when he really loves a song, so they can drive and jam to the music.  (Yeah, I don't remember what I did before the "dinos" and the "croc" helped me drive either.)  I remember listening to the words and thing bringing a tear to my eye, thinking that I never want my Hudson to know pain.  I never wanted him to suffer those bumps in the road and the bruises that follow.

I've heard the song many times since, each time while singing along, still giving me that same sinking feeling in my heart thinking of my sweet boy realizing these harsh truths about life. Today, leaving the park after a fun morning with friends, the song again came on.  But, this time, perhaps after our difficult week, I saw it in a new light.

It's my job as Hudson's mom to teach him this critical lesson ; not to shelter him from the hurt or to guard him for all disappointments in life, but to show him to never to lose his optimism, to know that things will and do get better.  It is my job to show him that life has its ups and its downs, but the ups do come again.

Yes, my sweet Huddy.  Life's like a jump rope.  Up, down, up, down, up, down....