All 8 of Us: Some sweet moments with a sweet boy...

A few nights ago before bed, Odesco was lamenting that he never gets to sleep in our bed but L has. Now if Odesco senses any inequity in food distribution or privileges, he is the first to voice his opinion that,"Life is just not fair!!" I explained that L has been in our bed (infrequently!!) but it was due to his recovery after his surgery ( almost a year ago!) or a bad dream. Also, because L sleeps on the top bunk, I can not safely get him back up the ladder in the middle of the night when both of us are groggy. I assured Odesco that if he had a bad dream or is sick in the night, I would come and pray with him and make sure he was okay. I think all of this was brought up because he had a cold and was not feeling so great. Several hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, M and I were awakened by Odesco's persistent hacking. I got up and fixed his pillows, trying to help quell the coughing spells but it was to no avail. Finally I went in and told him to come downstairs with me since he couldn't sleep and we didn't want the rest of the clan awake at 2am . I gave him some cough medicine and let him sip some cold Sprite with a straw (a huge treat!!) as we snuggled under a blanket together on the recliner. Since he couldn't settle down right away he read some easy readers to me. At one point he sweetly told me to lean forward so he could scratch my back and keep me awake... totally melted my heart :) This is what the kiddos do to keep me awake during read aloud time...the longer Mommy can read, the longer they get to stay up :)!! Eventually we both fell asleep. It was a sweet time of bonding with him ...the Lord orchestrated the only time in the day when I would have special undistracted, uninterrupted 1:1 time with him. I think it was just what our little man needed to fill his heart and it was so good for my mommy heart as well. Though I was bleary eyed the next day, it was well worth it and Odesco is now fully recovered from his cold. Of course the next morning there were rumblings about Odesco getting to stay up with mommy sipping Sprite. Later he and I had a little chat about not gloating and provoking others to be tempted to jealousy.... 'Opportunities' sure do abound in the B household!!
This is a very belated post because we celebrated Odesco's 5th birthday on September 18th...Grandmom and Pop-Pop B and Mimi and Pop Pop Doyle came on Friday for a special celebration. Due to all the hubub I actually forgot to get a picture of all the grandparents with the birthday boy.... he loved all the attention and was quite pleased to receive gifts! He has grown so much in the past few months and is now almost as tall as G. Odesco is enjoying the first weeks of Kindergarten and is doing quite well with his reading, handwriting, and math skills. I think the 'osmosis' factor is at work here and I am grateful for all the teaching he has observed with the others because he seems to be 'getting ' it very quickly!! Well, I need to get upstairs to read aloud to the littles...oh, I'm looking forward to that back scratch!!!
Thanks for checking in!!
Love,MamaB

Everyone was up bright and early (even our late riser, C) to greet Odesco on his special day! Odesco's one gift request was for "Medieval guys"since he loves to play with L's set...he received quite a few of these and he and L have been staging battles ever since!

Mercy was so excited about this drawing set that she had picked out for Odesco...she told me a few months ago about her plan to get this for him so he could be like L with a set of his very own.

We were able to redeem some coupons the kids were given from the local library for free dessert at Applebees to finish off Odesco's birthday celebration.