Trying to do the right thing...

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Drew seemed a little "down". It stinks when Drew is not his usual chipper self. When I asked him what is wrong, he looked at me with a big fake smile and said "nothing...I'm not crying". Getting a 6 year old boy to talk about his emotions is impossible, and I'm guessing that is not going to improve. So, I started to think about what we have been doing and I realized that I have been nagging Drew a lot lately and was wondered if that contributed to his "mood". I felt horrible that I may be the reason that Drew is feeling a bit sad and decided that I want to try to help him feel better. Not horrible enough to entirely stop the nagging, but horrible none the less.

Back when Drew still thought I was cool. ;)

Spencer and I have been talking about doing things individually with the boys for quite a while. We know it is a great thing to do, but it is not always easy to squeeze into our days. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to start something like this with Drew. So, I decided to "talk" to Drew without really telling him what I was thinking.

Our conversation went a bit like this...

Me: "Hey Drew, you seem a little sad. Is there anything that I could do to make you happy?"

Drew: "I'm not sad"

Me: "Ok, you are not sad, but is there anything that you think would be a fun thing to do with Mommy?"

Drew: "I don't know"

Me: "Think about it Drew, IMAGINE, if there was anything, in the whole world that you dould do with me, what would you like to do?"

Drew: "Welllllllll, I guesssss, it would be.........to go to Gino's East with Mommy and Ben, Jack, Daddy and Charlie stay home."

Me: "Wow Drew, that sure would be a lot of fun!"

So, of course, I immediately get on the phone with Spencer and tell him that I HAVE to take Drew to Gino's East that night. He agreed and we decided that I would do that and it would start our going out with the boys individually. He also told me that I should explain it to the boys.

So, we are leaving golf lessons that afternoon and Ben and Jack had run ahead so, it was just Drew walking with me.

Me: "Hey Drew, guess what! How would you like to go with me to Gino's East TONIGHT!"

Drew: *Silence*

Me: "I thought you said that you would really like it if you and I went to Gino's East and Daddy and Ben and Jack and Charlie stayed home. I called Daddy and he said that we could go tonight"......"If you want".

Drew: "Hmmmm"

Me: "Isn't that what you said you wanted to do?"

Drew: "welllllll, you did tell me to IMAGINE..."

What am I supposed to say to that?!?!? Here I think I am being a great mom and doing the right thing and he was just imagining! He totally burst my bubble.

It all ended up turning out very well in the end. We changed it a little and went to Red Robin instead. It was a great dinner and we both had a really good time. They had a game on his menu where we had to try to find something on our table for each letter of the alphabet...how perfect is that for Drew!!! Anyway, we did awesome. We couldn't find something for "X" and "Q" and that was it. We were quite proud of ourselves. After dinner, we stopped and picked up Daddy's father's day present and Drew thought it was pretty cool to keep that secret for a few days.

By the way, when I told Ben and Jack that Drew and I were going out and they thought that was pretty cool. They each had one request. Which they yelled from the back of the van, over and over again.

Jack: "I WANNA BE NEXT!!!!"
Ben: "I WANNA GO SOMEWHERE WITH DADDY!!!"

Jack did continue to repeat his request almost daily until last night when Spencer took him to the Kane County Cougars game. He was beyond excited. We didn't tell him until 2 hours before the game and he talked about it non-stop. He told the neighbors and anyone else that would listen and he asked what time it was about 500 times. Jack and Daddy also had a good time. Ben and Daddy are planning to go mini-golfing one day soon.