My son Ozzy has his struggles as I have written about before and we are facing some new issues and are constantly trying to help him and get him help. Ozzy is a many things. I’m not sure I’ll ever figure him out. But one wonderful thing about him is the little kid in him. Don’t get me wrong I complain that he is immature and he is. Very. And that has not played well for him when making choices. But with this side there is a better side bc Ozzy isn’t afraid to like things a teen might feel is too uncool. He loves puzzles. He loves joke books. He still loves Legos. He loves Rubiks cubes. He embraces his inner nerd and loves Robotics. He’s in the robotics club at school and his first competition is this weekend. He is stoked. When we pick him up from club he talks non-stop.

Maybe it hasn’t occurred to Ozzy that some of this isn’t “cool” to other teens or maybe he doesn’t care. I hope he never loses this part of himself. His inner child. For all the issues he has he is very real when he is doing these things. Yes sometimes he gets mad at a puzzle and I worry he might annoy others in robotics bc he thinks he’s always right. But I am glad he holds onto these pleasures in life. He’s always the one to want to jump in and play a board game. And this year he is the only kid of mine that wanted to help decorate the house for Christmas.

When my mom was here last week for thanksgiving we got the tree out (our Walmart special) and decided we would decorate the tree. I was looking forward to this because my mom and I hadn’t decorated a tree together for many many years. We spent many years together when I was young decorating the tree and I still have some of the ornaments from way back then. My parents divorced so at some point in my early adulthood I was given all the ornaments from my kid years. Many have fallen apart but there are still some great ones and I looked forward to sharing these with my mom.

My two “cool” teens didn’t seem interested in helping us decorate but Ozzy was up for it. So my mom and I and Ozzy set out putting ornaments on our small tree. Ozzy would have discussed each one if he could and he spends much time digging way down into the too full bins to find forgotten ornaments. He would find maimed ones and want to adorn the tree with them. God love him. When we finished the tree we sat down to rest and I never got to the rest of the decorating in the house until yesterday. When I began to go through the boxes who jumped up and asked to help? Not the cool ones. I did get L to put out a few Santas. But it was Ozzy who wanted to really help. He began digging in the bins again and took so much joy in finding things.

I can only smile though. Such a troubled kid sometimes – who has this side of himself- is so endearing. If you just watched that scene yesterday you would never know he has issues. It’s that part of him that keeps me digging to get help for the other parts. You realize that people aren’t all one thing or another. We are like diamonds- multi-faceted. Flaws and beauty. I keep thinking that we can polish Ozzy’s flaws. We will keep trying -everyday- but even a flawed diamond has beauty and value. That’s when I realize that I’m finally learning to appreciate Ozzy for who he is now. I spent so much time focusing on the issues that I forgot about the shiny parts. Now I’m trying to focus on the shiny while still trying polish the flaws. It’s a journey I am just beginning to understand. God gave us this child for a reason and if anything maybe this journey of helping him is actually helping me to grow.

Thanks for Reading…