"So much depends on......and your big cardboard box"

Hudson LOVES to read books and this is one of his favorites.  It is one of my favorites also as it so simply sums up the life of a iittle boy and the simplicity of their days.  I also love that it came from some of my mom's dearest friends in the country "neighborhood" I grew up in (meaning, the next house was over a few hills and down the dirt road).  

But what I love most about it is what it says in the inside flap:

"The simple playthings, the everyday moments, picking up the hundredth rock-all of these are brimming with possibilities......if you slow down and let the future begin with the small moments of today.  Because everything depends on letting a little boy.....be a little boy

Just think about that last line.  We have got to let our little boys be the little boys God created them to be as their future and their families futures depend on it.  

One thing that drives me crazy is watching moms stifle their little boys.  These bundles of energy who accompany everything they do by a noise (have you ever stopped and listened to them? They typically cannot do much without adding a sound effect...) are made that way for a reason.  They need to play loud and hard and rough so one day they can grow up and be hardworking, protective leaders of their families.  Let them get dirty and messy and stinky.  They clean up.  Let your houses become playgrounds filled with possibiities (and believe me I am a neat freak and have to go to bed with a picked up house but thats the great thing...it can always be picked up).  Let them create and imagine and dream....if only we had more men who dreamed big instead of letting the world define them.  The other day inside his big cardboard box, and that is exactly how he refers to it, Hudson had an empty paper towel holder as a car tunnel and an empty egg carton as his car shop.  Let them wrestle hard with dad, he is training him (and they don't even know it), take apart that bug, jump in the puddle, climb the tree to that higher branch, get up from a fall without a big scene from mom. let him be a risk taker!!  Do you know boys see scars as a good thing?  Jordan LOVES when he has an injury that leaves a scar, kind of like a medal representing that particular battle.  He has one on his wrist from falling on a a nail during a dig thru old debris.  He has one on his chin from jumping down from a high hallway shelf.   Your son was made to be adventurous!!!   Yes, they can wear you out but oh the sweetness of their simplicity. 

So, yes Hudson has a big cardboard box and although we live in a small house with one living room his big cardboard box can often be found wherever he is.....and the other night, he asked to sleep in it.  My answer???? "ABSOLUTELY, i'll help you make your bed!!!"
(and you know who was most impressed that Hudson slept in his box all night?....his big brother!!!)

"Little boy, you remind me how so much depends on days made of now."  

(from the last page of the book)

(and check out my friend Branda's new blog appropriately entitled "days made of now"