This is Boy

2011-2015 When I first became pregnant, I secretly hoped for a girl. I got a boy. That was over seven years ago now. My life has since been filled with dirt, shoes full of sand, sticks, scraped knees, go carts, cut up cardboard boxes, toy guns, dinky cars, four wheelers and a never ending sense of amazement at this foreign little creature I brought into the world. I was living abroad when he was born and knew I couldn't give him the life I wanted him to have where we were living. When he was three and a half, we picked up and moved back to southern Illinois, among sprawling corn and bean fields. The same area I grew up in. I wanted him to have a deep connection with nature like I was given. Connecting with nature at a young age, not only reaps a multitude of benefits for a child, but it benefits the world as a whole. People protect what they love, what they're connected to. Imagine if every child had that connection? I'm doing everything in my power to give that to him and so far, he has embraced it wholeheartedly. This is boy.