There are many things I can say about Young Jedi.  He’s a tough kid, like a really tough kid.  I lose sleep over him.  I cry myself to sleep on his really bad days over him.  He’s explosive, he’s temperamental, he negotiates everything, he can be downright nasty.  He doesn’t share and many days he’s just plain embarrassing in public.  He can be loud and belligerent. Many days that I am out with him, I feel like “that” mom.  You know who she is, that stranger that you see out who can’t control her kid.  The one who, no matter, how hard she disciplines, it just makes the kid act worse.  There are many days when I feel like a failure of a mom because everything with Young Jedi is just so downright hard.

But then he does something like this.  Then he shows me that he’s kind and compassionate and he cares for his family.  And I think, maybe I’m not failing Young Jedi after all.

Despite being 3 years younger than Sporty, he’s always been fiercely protective of her.  When he was 2 and she had her first surgery he blocked his classmates from knocking her down.  When Dr Fluffy Unicorn was taking off her cast after her first surgery, Young Jedi stood over him yelling, “Don’t hurt my Sporty!”  I saw his care and his compassion with her last surgery this winter.  And yesterday when Sporty came home from school and couldn’t walk, he dotted on her.  Rather than hit her and annoy her, he got her water, asked her if she needed snacks, refreshed her ice and when it came time to go upstairs for bathes, he gave her a hand and guided her upstairs.

So even though Young Jedi is on the Dark Side of the Force most days, there’s this, and I need to remember this because under that ornery exterior, there’s a sweet, generous, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and loving boy.  And that counts for something.  That matters.