For what seems like most of the past five years, I found myself feeling a little jealous of Bethany. Not because she goes to work and gets paid or because she gets a daily break from child rearing. No, I'm a little jealous of the special bond she and Ellie share.
I'm guessing this is probably pretty normal for mothers and daughters but Ellie wants to be exactly like Bethany. She wants to dress like her, talk like her, and just do whatever she is doing at any given moment. While there's no problem with Ellie loving her mommy, there are those occasional moments where I get a little upset about it. For example, on nights and weekends, I am not allowed to do anything for Ellie. That edict comes straight FROM Ellie so you know there's no disputing it.
It's definitely not easy having a child that seemingly doesn't want to include you as part of her life. However, it's getting much easier seeing as how I recently realized how I'm gaining my own little shadow and his name happens to be Ethan.
This revelation has been a long time coming. For quite a while, Ethan has wanted to be wherever I am and to do exactly what I'm doing. However, I didn't realize just how true that statement is until a couple of days ago and then again today. Flashback to Wednesday with me for a moment. I had been putting off mowing the lawn for nearly two weeks due to the combination of heat and precipitation. However, things finally got so bad that I knew it was time. Therefore, I begrudgingly dragged the mower out of the garage and began making laps.
It didn't take long for Ethan to join in on the fun, pushing his toy mower around the lawn while staying right in my footprints. That's fairly normal though so I didn't think anything of it until he suddenly disappeared. When he reappeared, he did so with his Royals hat firmly planted on his head. According to Bethany, Ethan had come inside the house and informed her that since I was wearing an old trucker hat to mow, he needed his Royals hat on while he "mowed" so that he could be just like Daddy.
Fast forward to today. With me going out of town on a guys' trip this weekend, I decided to clean the house so that Bethany and the kids would have a nice, clean house to relax in. That includes vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning the bathrooms. I had already finished some of those tasks throughout the week but had left vacuuming for today.
When it was time to begin, I headed to our living room closet, took out the vacuum, and plugged it in. Before I could start vacuuming though, Ethan ran to the kitchen and grabbed our dust buster off its charger and brought it into the living room alongside me. When I looked down and asked him what was going on, he responded with "Daddy is big man so he needs big vacuum. I little man so I need little vacuum." With that, Ethan proceeded to follow me all over the house with his dust buster, being sure to get anything I might have missed.
I must say that it's been kind of nice having a little shadow over the past few weeks. I've always been a little jealous of Ellie wanting to be exactly like Bethany and now I'm excited to experience that with Ethan. While it might become a little exhausting at some point, I'm going to do my best to enjoy this phase of life with a son for as long as I can! #DaddyWrite
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