The very first words out of my mouth this morning were, “Well, put down your rake.” My son had just woken up, came to find me and started climbing in my lap, trusty rake in hand.

I won’t let him sleep with the rake. I would let him sleep with it, but he knows it is either the rake or me. He would much rather have me lay down with him while he nods off to dreamland than sleep with the rake, although there are evenings I wish he would choose the rake over me. I digress…

He lays said rake by his bed when he goes to sleep at night and it is the first thing he grabs in the morning. I love to have him climb in my lap, but I refuse to be assaulted by a rake as he is doing it.

Right now it is the rake. Sometimes is a golf club. Other times it is a wooden dowel from his easel that he calls his “Bible candle” that serves as leaf blower, fishing rod, water hose or any number of other things – rarely having anything to do with the Bible. These items exist only to replace a stick because I will not allow sticks in the house.

Okay, I might allow a stick in the house, but what my son calls a stick most people would refer to as a branch. Minimum length – 3 feet. Minimum diameter – 1 inch. These are minimums remember.

I think he has the largest collection of sticks in existence. He finds them anywhere and everywhere and saves them all. He can spot them in the most hidden of places. He recently crawled into a flower bed and under bush at our local botanical garden to retrieve a stick he just couldn’t pass up. I promise you no one knew it was there. If an employee from the garden saw it they would have immediately removed it because it was not part of the display.

The sticks are all relegated to the garage. Most of the time they are corralled in his wagon, which he affectionately calls his “stick wagon.” Seriously? We have a wagon only for sticks? We only have one wagon. You can see where my son’s priorities lie.

He doesn’t suck his thumb. He doesn’t have a blanket. He doesn’t have a lovey. Trust me, I have tried. My son’s security comes in the form of a stick or similar substitute. The good news – sticks can be found anywhere. Although he is always on the lookout for the holy grail of sticks, he always has a place holder, or two, or three at the ready.

When I became a mother I never expected that very first words out of my mouth in the morning would ever be “Well, put down your rake.” I always thought each day would start with me giving my son a big smile, a big hug and an energetic and upbeat “Good morning!”

What I realized is that is doesn’t matter what the first words out of my mouth were this morning. What matters is that my son climbed in my lap first thing this morning and he didn’t mind putting down his rake. Mom still trumps the rake – at least for today. Love that boy.