Koper

Koper has always been sensitive to pain and has never liked seeing others in pain.  He often tries to deny the pain when he gets hurt and sometimes can't seem to grasp what it is that he is feeling when he is hurt.  When he was little and had to get shots at one of his doctor's appointments he tore the bandaids off as soon as the nurse put them on and then denied that anything happened when we'd ask him about it.
During my pregnancy he would often point out how my body was changing and would almost wince when I would tell him what was happening and why my body was growing.  One morning when I was nine months pregnant he came into our room to wake me up and in the process he saw my stretched out belly button.  He kind of pointed at it and asked me what was wrong with it.  I explained to him that my belly was stretching because Brady was growing big in my tummy.  He told me that if he were a mom he wouldn't want to do that.  I agreed with him that it wasn't comfortable but it was necessary.

The conversations we have around this house since Brady was born are never dull.  Nursing is a hot topic and the boys are trying to act normal about it, but it really is a curiosity to them.  This morning I was pumping a bottle to take with us to church and Koper just couldn't ignore what I was doing.  Some may feel this is too much information, but trust me, I'll spare you some of the more interesting details.  I hope that everyone gets to have a conversation with a four year old boy about pumping and nursing at some point in their life.  Our conversations are kind of hilarious.  So, I'm sitting there and Koper is asking me questions and I'm answering them and he just looks kind of disgusted by it all.  (Can you blame him?)  So he asks me, "Mom why do you want to do that?" and I tell him that I don't want to do it, but that I need to do it so that Brady can eat (and not die?  Koper adds.)  I explain that nursing is not an easy thing to do but that Brady needs it so that he can grow big and strong.  Koper says, "That's how Jesus made us.  Mom I am going to do something nice for you today.  Because if I were a mom I wouldn't want to do that.  So, I am going to draw a nice picture for you today."

It's always a tender moment when you see your kids make the connection that sometimes we do things that are not easy or maybe we don't want to do them, but we do them anyway for the sake of someone else.  I'm grateful for Koper and his little sensitive spirit.