Big Man

It occurs to me that I don't take about Samren as much on this blog as I talk about my other kids. Not sure why that is, except that maybe he is the kid with the least drama surrounding his life! If I would have had a blog about 8 years ago probably every post would have been about Sammy-man! [That's when he was going through major medical drama.]

Samren is a LOVING and JOYOUS child! I will never forget when we were in Vietnam trying to get visa clearance from a VERY stern embassy official. This woman looked like she had been sucking lemons all day. We could not get a nice word out of her. But Samren...Samren at 5 months old kept giving her these humongous cheesy smiles! Finally, the "mean" embassy lady broke out laughing. That's Samren. He gives people JOY! He can make friends with the 25 year old guy across the street, and the 65 year old neighbor next door. Everybody loves him.

Sometimes I have to stop myself from feeling sorry for Samren. It bugs me that he fits the Asian guy stereotype that I so hate. He's extra short, and yeah, he probably needs braces. His eyes curl into wonderful upside-down smiles when he laughs. The wonderful thing about Samren is he knows who he is. Being shorter than everybody else is a fact of life he's accepted. [Because of meds he had to take as a toddler, he's projected to be under 5 feet as an adult.] Being short hasn't stopped him from making friends and enjoying life!
One thing that I think is unique about Samren is how he plans for his future wife and children. I've never seen a 9 year old boy so focused on becoming handy so, "I can fix things for my wife,", or offering to clean up poopy underwear because, "When I have 12 kids I'm going to have a lot of poop in my life!" He really does do things throughout his day that he thinks will help him become a better husband and father as an adult. This just makes me so proud of him! I know that his wife and children will be blessed by him.


All this to say, if I don't speak about Samren as much on the blog as the other children, it's not an indication of my feelings for my eldest son. This is an amazing kid. A survivor. A child after my own heart!