Ezekiel Life Lesson #213

If my fourth child was to be a boy, I wanted his name to be Ezekiel. I like different names. Good names with strong meanings. Ezekiel means strength of God. We would call him Zeke. His dad didn’t care for the full name, but liked Zeke. And well, Zeke entered the world, at home during an ice storm.

This boy taught me a lot about parenting. Like…throw out everything I knew with the first three kids and start over. He was all boy. Full of curiosity, questions, and noises. He was fast too. He could chase down a beetle and put it in his pocket before you could scream “No!” (His pocket being his diaper.) That young boy presented more challenges than all my kids combined. His sense of curiosity almost caused us trips to the ER. Of, course, he’s in a pretty good running with my oldest son, Nathan, when it comes to curiosity. And probably trouble too now that I think about it. Another blog.

Zeke was a noisy lad. He’d march through the house as different characters. Bowser, an ATST, a T-Rex. Up and down the hall, endlessly, and never wavering in character. Sometimes it was quite distracting during school time with the older children.

But we sure loved that little boy.

Life was eventful with Zeke. He did things the other kids wouldn’t even consider. Two different occasions he tried to eat glass Christmas ornaments from the tree. One red and one green. He smiled at us while blood oozed from between his teeth and chards of glass.

And then there were the micro-machines and LEGO’s that fit nice and snug in…places.

But he sure brightened our days. We didn’t realize how dull and boring our lives were until the day that boy started walking.

As time went on his older brothers took him under their wings and helped him discover their worlds of animals and science. That’s when he wanted to be a marine biologist to study sharks.

He was only 17 months younger than his sister and everyone thought they were twins. He had this fascination with her curly hair and would fall asleep next to her, sucking his thumb and with his free hand create this incredible tiny knots in her hair. Sometimes they broke off and we’d find them in the bedding. Most of the time they had to be cut out. I have a ziploc bag with several cuttings.

His second oldest brother, Jet, was interested in not only birds and reptiles, he had a love for photography and videography. For a college class, Jet needed to make movies so he made a series of short films based on Zeke as the main character, Melvin. These movies are so much fun to watch even today.

Zeke grew up tall and handsome. He became very skilled in martial arts. He also excelled in voice impersonations. At one time he could accurately voice over 200 characters. He has probably surpassed that number as of today. I think my favorite is the Joker.

One day I was driving our van and Zeke was sitting behind me when the Joker started talking to me. I almost pulled over and got out. He still does both, his voices and martial arts, as they are his dreams for his future.

Zeke kept us on our toes and that is okay. He made us laugh and still does today. He’s charming and oh, so funny.

My parenting days are sadly over with Zeke. He was chomping at the bit to get his life started, as many young people are; not realizing that it’s quite different out there. Siblings sometimes fall a part from each other too as they start spreading their own wings. They kinda force each other into independence where they once were dependent upon each other.

Zeke fell in love and got married and then moved away. Far away. He is now a parent himself. His oldest is a beautiful little girl and then two years ago, he was blessed with a boy, like I was.

Zeke has met challenges and trials while learning life lessons along the way. It’s not easy raising a young family in this crazy world. After he read my blog, The Park of Memories, he stated that he missed the old days. I get that. I miss them too. We didn’t realize the bliss of having others make our decisions. The responsibility of our survival depended on someone else. The days of my children being altogether under one roof went so fast. We thought those days would last forever. That’s why kids are anxious to get out and get started on their own. They feel like time is standing still.

My response to his comment was: It’s weird how we can’t wait to get out of places only to want to get back in them.

Those thoughts probably happen fairly often throughout our adulthood. I’m not good with change. Maybe that was passed to my kids through my DNA.

It’s a blessing though that the past doesn’t just disappear. When you can relive the moments with each other it makes it all good. Well, better anyway. It does emphasize the need to enjoy every moment. Time is fleeting. Soon Zeke will experience his children wanting to spread their wings to fly out on their own. And let me tell you, it’s hard.

Enjoy your young family. Enjoy wherever you are in life. Enjoy every single moment. ♥️

Andi