As my 11 year old son, Benjamin’s grows, his own unique personality shines. There are two things I know he likes, learning about science/nature and personal attention.

Benjamin lets me give him bigger hugs than my other two sons. He lets me hug and kiss him just about as long as I want. When I’m hugging him sometimes he’ll have to finally gently say, “Mom, can you let go of me now?” And then I’ll say, “Oh, but you’re so huggable!” Then he’ll smile a smile that I know came from his heart and let me finish my long hug. Considering that he’s the third in age rank of siblings, he probably has a craving for attention.
On the last day of 2006, I told my children that they should make a New Year’s Resolution. I figured this would go in one ear and quickly out the other. But then a couple days later Benjamin came to me, gave me an unexpected hug and said he thought of a New Year’s Resolution. He would give me a hug every day. Yes!!! I was definitely happy and now I get to look forward to 360 more hugs from him in 2007.
Benjamin also likes science. Some of his favorite subjects include space and insects. He likes to watch the news when a U.S. space shuttle launches and then when he has opportunity he will observe bugs.
Two nights ago, I was reading a five minute passage from the New Testament to my kids. (This is my New Year’s resolution.) I read the part that told how John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey. This sparked much interest so I started trying to describe what locusts are. Then Benjamin mentioned how he once found some Siamese twin locusts. I asked him later about them and he said one really looked like it was dead. It may have been a Secada shedding his outer skin. I also remembered him finding some flies that were “Siamese twins”. I asked him about them. He said they would fly around and it looked like they got tired because there was too much weight.
I didn’t want to tell him yet that those flies were not conjoined. I’ll explain it to him later. I just want to enjoy his cute childhood innocence right now as he explores different aspects of life.
Benjamin is going to quickly grow out of his childhood into his desired destination of manhood. So I’ve got to cling to every tiny particle of his being young that I can find. And hugging him and watching him as he discovers all that is around him helps me do that.