Meditating Sock Monkeys

This isn't just a strange blog title...it is what I painted on my middle son's walls yesterday.  He is nearly 12 and is a self-proclaimed nerd.  He's quite proud of it really.  However, he has this bizarre sense of humor and things that make him happy.  When we set up his room at the age of 8 he wanted to feel like he was in the sky, flying amongst the clouds.  We painted blue walls and fluffy white clouds everywhere and then put glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling. He would gaze upon his world from the top bunk and dream...I guess.  Who knows what goes through a child's mind really.  This is my quiet child, the introverted one...I work really hard to reach him and make him smile so really, painting a few clouds on  blue walls was quite simple.

Advance to four years later, it is time to split the boys, whose age difference is 7 years, into two bedrooms.  The four year old predictably wants "dinosaur green" walls and some dinosaurs painted on them (or vinyl stickers as we are opting for).  When planning for this big split, I posed the question to the middle son...do you want anything new on your walls???  Mind you, we started talking about this long before it actually happened..."yes, Mom...monkeys meditating in the clouds...sock monkeys".  So I do the nod and smile..."okay son".  Meanwhile my mind is thinking..."is this kid huffing???  Are there any outward signs of drug abuse...my God he's only 11 going on 12...I've heard of such things...but MY kid!?!?"  So I give it several weeks as we are approaching the big weekend, I ask again, "still want those meditating monkeys???"  The reply was "yes, please".  Seriously...meditating sock monkeys???  Okay.  Of course, my son just assumes I will somehow magically make this happen.  Fortunately, I happen to be an artist and sock monkeys are cartoon-like so, I PAINTED MEDITATING SOCK MONKEYS IN THE CLOUDS!  And, there was no abuse of substances involved.

Will I ever know why my son desperately wanted them?  Probably not, but when he looked upon the finished product, he smiled and did a little jump and said "Mom, you are AWESOME".  That was a priceless mommy moment that I would not trade for the world!