My son planted a branch, cut from the bottom of our Christmas tree, into the snow. I'm planting a tree, he explained, in the snow. He paused for a moment to look down with pride at the bristling green pine needles poking up from a small mound of white-white snow. It's going to grow up and be a snowball tree and we'll have snowballs all the time.
This is my Boss man.
He is less than two weeks away from turning five. Five. The number is incomprehensible for me. It's both impossibly old (afterall weren't we all just here a moment ago?) and impossibly young (how can it be that this most integral extension of myself was not yet in existence a mere five years ago?)
Just now, I looked back on posts labeled The Boss. Man, he has always been a source of inspiration. I should probably spend more time here, reading, writing, keeping myself going.
Here are some of my favorites starring The Boss...
About a month ago in my parents living room as I prepared to leave for work, my son walked up to my father and said
Grampy, there's a baby in my Momma's tummy.
Oh! My father played along as though the news was new to him as well. So you are going to have a baby brother or sister? Brother, my son shot back without so much as a blink or a breath and then turned to play with his truck.
On this there is no debate - he is having a brother.
Two weeks ago, on a weekend trip planned for seeing barnyard animals and riding Ferris Wheels, I spent a restless night in a hotel room with my children. Before tucking them in, I saw red in the bathroom. A sucker punch. A gut check. I wondered - Can I go through the motions of motherhood, of kisses on foreheads and bedside prayers. Can I make them feel safe, when I myself am alone and worried that I might bleed more, might have the baby slide from me in my sleep?
By the early hours of the morning, my children had each crept from their bed and come to lay with me in mine. We tossed and turned together, pushed pillows, twisted sheets. None of us slept, but I was unwilling to wake up.
Hours later, I had an appointment set and we were packing. My father reasoned that it made sense to do so, even though the weekend was only just beginning. Still, he thought, in the event the news at the hospital was bad, we wouldn't need to drive back to get our things.
I tugged a sock over my son's heel and he asked me, What are you doing? I'm putting on your socks and shoes, I told him but his puzzled expression stopped me and I held his sneaker in my palm.
Are you taking my brother out? He asked. On the van ride home, as the kids sat on the bench seat behind me watching Disney's Fantasia, I tried to keep my crying as quiet as I could, tried to time my breath with the swelling of the music.
This morning, a beautiful October morning with sunlight and orange tinged leaves peeking through my bedroom windows, Lila and The Boss climbed onto my bed,each with their blankets, their blankies one might say. It's cold, The Boss announced.
It is.
Can I put my blanket on your tummy to keep the baby warm? My son asked, and he did just that.
I've been trying to explain to my kids that I work from home. True, I am not getting paid for the majority of the "work" that I do here at the computer (yet - wishful thinking) - but I have to make this commitment to myself. To treat my writing as though it is a job, a career choice and not a hobby. If there's anything that will separate me from the other would-be-successful-author's, it's my persistence.
I've begun doing some for-profit editing and manuscript critiquing. My rates are ridiculously low, sure, but I'm just getting my feet wet and I don't want to overcharge someone on the off chance that my work is somehow less than they're expecting. Maybe I'll get the hang of it and charge more - or maybe I'll realize while spending my evening hours reading and editing other people's 100K-plus manuscripts, that I should have completed one myself. Something other than a short story collection. (Although, I do so love the medium of short stories - of just capturing enough of a glimpse into another world to satisfy.)
Or maybe I just like the feeling of completing something, and for now short stories are it.
Because the thing is, three year olds don't understand the difference between you working and you ignoring them. So, while he's perfectly capable of playing by himself or with his sister - and does so quite easily whenever I'm NOT on the computer - my son has begun a habit of whining at me and tugging on the mouse to get me away from here.
You can not be selfish and be a good parent. It's just impossible. So I relinquish some of my "me" time while he's napping to do things like draw makeshift scavenger hunt lists or print up activities for him to do at his desk while I'm working on the computer. It all sounded so good in my head - I had great visions of him sitting quietly, or so fervently seeking his plastic dinosaur to check it off of his scavenger list.
So far we've had only moderate success with this. Any activities that involve crayons or glitter or crafty-types of things, requires me to, at the bare minimum, walk over every few minutes and acknowledge the wonderful masterpiece he is creating. And the scavenger hunt is not the independent activity that I had hoped for. Seems my drawing skills are somewhat lacking and he'll wander around the house for ten minutes whining that he can't find the turtle, when in fact, he's supposed to be looking for his plastic dinosaur.
I'm looking forward to the great someday when it's springtime and we have a yard with a fence and he and his sister can play outdoors while I sip coffee and write on my laptop on the deck. Or the even greater someday, when we have a big 'ol house with a farmer's porch and we're in the country somewhere where I can just let them run loose (and we're also independently wealthy and there is world peace...it's really a nice little dream.)
My son has rhythm. And energy. These two forces squeezed into a three-year old boy's body can only mean one thing: Rain Dance.
The words are really secondary to the stomping of his feet (the right foot in particular) - usually he babbles, sometimes throwing in a noun here or there, say if Lila crosses his path. Suddenly, he's singing about her. Or sometimes he'll surprise us with a solid AMEN! and a resounding clap that would be more at home in the pews of a Southern Baptist Church than in my small kitchen.
Sometimes he tears out across the floor, just as soon as he's stripped down for his bath. This is called the Naked Time Rain Dance. (Can't wait to see the people who will find my blog by searching that phrase...)
Anyway. I warned you that there would be more video's. And so, here is my little Boss-man, chanting something about sitting down in a chair and stomping his way around my mother-in-law's kitchen.
Sadly, this is the only rain dance that comes complete with repetitive squatting (in such a way that I almost stopped him once during this performance to see if he was trying to poop...)
We're sitting on the potty last week, well, my son is, and I am crouched on the floor in front of him. The things you do for those you love. Squatting in front of a toilet, holding the hems of a child pants so that they don't slip down past his bare heels (he hates that. He's very OCD in that way. All clothing must fit just right, no twisting or sliding allowed,) while he attempts to go potty.
Anyhow, we're sitting/squatting and I'm holding his pants just above his little white feet and I make the simple comment, Oh, what nice piggy toes.
No they're not. He's quick to correct me.
They're not? Why I think they're perfectly nice. No, he says again and begins swinging his piggies up to my chin. They're mean. This makes me chuckle and I let go of his pants and my squatting faulters. Now, with his pants all drooping down over his feet, he jumps off of the toilet, finished or not, and proceeds to tug at his pants, pulling himself together, underwear first. He pauses. Looks down as though to inspect.
What's wrong? I ask.
My peanut is being mean, He explains, very serious, very stern, then continues to pull up his pants and walks away, leaving me now laying on the cool tiled floor, laughing.
Sidenote - it's been nearly a month now and the little man is officially rocking the underwear all day long. Life is good.
In case you didn't hear my son exclaimations yesterday - he's FREE!
I went to work in the afternoon, but not before giving him a miniature birthday party (complete with miniature cake and gifts wrapped in inside-out Christmas paper decorated with glitter, stencils and crayons, because that's how I roll.)
We are a light family. We dance in the kitchen, wrestle with our kids in the living room and toss pillows and towels and blankets over our heads (or throw them at each other's heads) nine or ten times a day. We are lighthearted, my husband and I. And we try to pass this on to our kids, let them know that making a mistake is more bearable if you laugh it off, that (minor) boo-boo's can be fixed by shaking it out, or getting a quick peck from Mom or Dad. That sometimes you just need to dive off of the couch into a pile of pillows, and that's ok.
But kids are smarter than that, more intuitive. And despite our best efforts to not let them see the burden that we're carrying, they do. Even my little son, not yet three, knows that his mom and dad are struggling, he reads us better than we read ourselves.
Standing in store check-out line, I'm humming and holding The Boss to keep him from running amuck through the aisles of Christmas decorations. He pulls back from me and looks me squarely in the eye. "It'll be ok, Momma," he tells me. And though I'd been masking my worries through humming and smiling and pointing out the big Santa decorations and the plastic snow globes that inflate on your lawn and spew Styrofoam snowflakes - he hasn't been fooled.
While I worked recently, my husband was playing with our son. Some quiet game, not their typical wrestling match, something peaceful before bed. And my son came to my husband, looked at him seriously and told him gently, matter-of-factly, "Love can heal that boo-boo, Daddy."
I saw the woman who fired my husband last night.
The hotel I work at is practically in the same parking lot as hers (and they're currently at war, nothing to do with what happened with my husband). She came through the lobby door, pulling her gloves on her hands, too distracted to notice who was behind the desk. When she looked up and met my eyes, her face turned red, turned raspberry, maroon even. She stumbled over herself, almost turned back around to leave. My presence had caught her off guard - the friend she was coming to see wasn't at the desk, and in her place was the woman working 40+ hours a week to keep her family afloat in the wake of what she did to her husband, her family.
My kids haven't had their annual doctors appointments, we don't have insurance.
I smiled at her politely, treated her with the same warmth and welcome as I do any of the guests who walk through our door.
And when she left, I smiled and waved and would've sent her off with a pleasant "have a good night..." had I not been on the telephone with a guest.
I felt a burden lifted. I am not bitter. She may have disrupted my life, but she has not disrupted my heart.
We are a light hearted family. We dance in the kitchen and laugh off our mistakes and let love heal what we can not.
He's pushing trucks around the house, hiding in duffel bags, zooming over the arms of the sofa, making squealing noises as they try to stop before diving nose first down behind the television. And tonight as I make dinner, he's playing at my feet in the kitchen. A big dump truck and a small white truck. The big truck is named "Big Truck" and the little white one is "Fire Truck", he tells me this as I stir the tomato sauce. Ah, I say. So, Big and Fire are their names? He looks at me, but only briefly before disappearing back into his little world of trucks, swirling at my feet.
I hear their conversations and feel almost guilty for eavesdropping.
Hi. Big says to Fire.
Hi. You come with me? Fire asks.
I too big. Big says.
You can do it. Fire says.
And they ride down the length of the kitchen, hopping through the legs of a kitchen chair and then meeting up again beside the wainscoting.
Woo-hoo, Fire says to Big, cheering him on - You did it!
Later, he's jumping in his room - up and down on his bed, his face bobbing in and out of sight of our neighbors as he moves in front of the window.
My goodness, he says to something happening outside - a loud truck rumbling past, an altercation between neighborhood kids, something I can not see or hear. But he says it again, My goodness. Not upset with anything, simply an expression of bemusement. Much like how I say the phrase at the end of a long day.
I stand in the doorway and listen to him, it's the first expression of mine that I've heard him repeat.
It's been weighing on me a lot lately, stressing me out. This idea that somehow I'm doing something wrong, damaging his childhood in some way or another. Snapping at him for not eating all of his dinner, for whining, for taking off his pull-up and peeing on the floor rather than telling me he needs to use the potty. Lots of things have been breaking me quickly lately - lack of sleep, being the primary culprit.
But still, each night I go to sleep wondering if all of my love and attention has somehow outweighed my momentary lapses of mommy-loveliness. The times when I'm raw and irritated and hissing through my teeth that we listen when Mommy tells us to pick up our toys. I pray that somehow these moments of failure, of weakness, of letting myself put myself before others, won't have an impact on how he treats others, how he sees the world, how he deals with frustration and anger.
I just don't want to mess him up, I guess, is all I'm saying.
And so to see him today, mimicking encouraging behavior with his toys - and repeating something like "my goodness" with a quiet bemusement at his window - I sighed with a bit of relief.
It's a long road between here and adulthood, and it's going to be a process for all of us, going through it together for the first time. I'm just glad to be assured that, if nothing else, for right now, in this moment, the good stuff is sticking.
Not that there's really any excuse, nor should there be, for not blogging - but I wanted to assure you that my absence has simply been for want of time. You could say we've been busy.
Like, a wedding weekend extravaganza type busy.
The Boss served bravely as Ring Bearer, though there was no pillow and he walked the aisle holding our hands, so I suppose he could more accurately be called "The Cute Bearer" - a role in which he thrived.
The weekend itself was a stream of commotion and car rides and late nights that turned into early mornings, they type of late where you're buzzing from being with friends whom you rarely see, and it becomes hard to force yourself to do the responsible things. To stop playing games. Stop talking. To simply go to bed, as you should.
But without the anchor of children for two whole nights, responsibility seemed distant and enjoying the company of friends prevailed.
Learn how to remove the child safety knob from the inside of your bedroom door. - Check
Wake your parents and younger sibling at 6 AM with the proclamation: I wake up! - Check
Demand crackers and juice by repeating the words over and over and over and over and over until you are finally seated and served. - Check
Wet your new pull-up diaper within five minutes of, well, pulling it up. - Check
Pee on the floor. - Check
Demand to be let into the bathroom where your mother is getting ready to take a shower. - Check
Squat on toddler-toilet and do nothing. Yet, refuse to get up. - Check
(Meanwhile, your sister will be crawling her way across the kitchen floor and - whoops -slide down in the mess you made, thus dampening the sundress your mother just put on her.)
Throw a tantrum when your father removes you from the potty so that your mother can take a shower. - Check
Refuse to put on a new pull-up. - Check
When all else fails, scream and bang your head on whatever surface is nearest. - Check
In the car on the way to your memere's house, ask "Momma? Boo boo?" and then point to the bug bite on the back of your mother's arm. - Check
Ask, "I kiss?" (and proceed to blow kisses) - Check
Sit back and watch as your mother's heart melts. - Check, check, check.
The Boss drags me to his toy area to play trucks, then leaves me and runs off to the kitchen. This behavior isn't that unusual for him. He has a tendency to move me places and then go off somewhere else. This time though, he returns, bringing with him a toy train and a definite stink.
"Hey, did you poop?"
He avoids eye contact and shakes his head, settling down beside me with his train. "ChooChoo!"
"Uh huh, that's a choo-choo. Good." I nod and lean closer to him, touching his diaper for a peek, but he stops me.
"No," he says, swatting my hand away and shaking his head. "I fart."
Nine times out of ten, he answers a question by repeating the question - to the point that my husband and I have questioned whether or not he's even listening. Apparently, he is. And apparently, when he does answer the question, he's lying.
My son is a funny guy. Of course, this isn't news to us, he has been cracking us up since the first time he peed on my mother.
What is new though, is watching his humor evolve from what had been a strictly dance-monkey-dance sort of funny (in which he basically followed our commands for spinning or dancing or putting bowls on his head - making adults laugh), to something deeper. He is developing his own sense for what is funny, what makes him laugh as well as others. It's so incredibly cool, watching a little personality emerge.
This new personality is also assertive. I think we had a fight yesterday. I say, I think, because I'm not sure how much of a fight it could've been considering that I was clutching my stomach and laughing through most of it. It started with blocks, the old fashioned letters and numbers on either side type. The Boss likes to name each letter or number, then stack the blocks. He also pauses between each one so that I can repeat whatever he has said. I thought it was for verification, apparently, it's not. It's that I am now the monkey following his command.
He reached for an orange faced block with the number 1 on it, pointed and said "I" - and so I corrected him gently, "Oh, no, honey, that's one." And I reached for another block, thinking, he'll just say "Oh, Oooone" and move on, satisfied with the knowledge that I've given him, as he always had in the past.
Not anymore. I plop a new block down beside him and notice that his finger is still firmly pointing on the 1. He looked at me, dare I say, sternly, and said again "I"
I attempted to correct him again, even pulled out a block that does have the letter I on it, but he wasn't having it. He was determined that I would repeat him. "I" He said again. And so, it progressed into a shouting match of "I" "ONE" "I" "ONE" "I" "ONE" - with me laughing (and covering my face for fear that the "I", excuse me, the "1" block was going to be hucked in my direction out of frustration...)
The Boss bops around me while I'm huddled away in my little corner "office" - sometimes he dances around, other times he sits beside me with a toy or two, making enough noise to keep Lila from falling asleep in the bassinette across the room.
Last night, he showed more interest in my actual "work" - he stood and decided to watch what I was doing. Since staring at a word document isn't exactly interesting, I went to Flickr and showed him pictures of himself and Lila, my husband and I - to all of which he responded with gleeful squeals and an enthusiastic pointing: "Alex!" "Momma!" "Baby!"
Then, he got bored and settled back beside me with a toy truck. Vroom Vroom.
So, I went to check my various email accounts. While waiting for my Yahoo mail to load, he stood and pointed enthusiastically at the screen - "Momma! Momma! Momma!" I was confused at first, until I followed his finger to the advertisment on the right hand side of the screen of a bikini-clad brunette beauty advertising who-knows-what.
For the past two nights/wee-early hours of the morning, he has been screaming. Not just waking and fussing then falling back asleep - but ranting and raving and thrashing about whenever we attempt to return him to his bed.
It's not just his bed either, we attempted to get him to sleep in our bed last night - one AM desperation and exhaustion. He struggled and fussed and fidgeted until finally, he zonked out. A few hours later, we moved his sleeping body back to his own bed, only to hear him an hour later, up and screaming again.
When my husband went in to check on him, he was standing on his benchseat beside the window, just standing and screaming.
We're thinking it's nightmares (as he's also adverse to sleeping during naptime) - but if anyone has any other thoughts, or advice on why a not-sick two-year old would be freaking out (and tips on how to calm him down) please share.
Whatever it is, we're all crabby and miserable here.
Luckily though, sleep deprivation is one of the things that triggers me to write.
Speaking of writing - after the initial elation of seeing myself in print wore off, I was faced with a mild panic of "Ok, what's next?" And, I also thought about how I don't think I'll ever be able to read the story itself again, for fear of nitpicking it to death. I need to just accept that it's done and try to be satisfied with it.
It's odd, for as much as I love writing, I think it, the whole process of it, actually tortures me - yet without it I'd go insane.
Or maybe, it's without sleep that I go insane. Or do the two go hand in hand?
Either way, time to stop rambling, brew some coffee and get back to work...educational DVD's only distract little one's for so long.
The Boss has been busy all day. Busy Busy Busy - basket's to toss, blocks to stack then demolish, and of course, phonecalls to make. Oh, the phonecalls.
We gave him this phone over a year ago because, at the time, it looked like the same old-school Nextel model that my husband and I were rocking. It's a neat little toy, talks, plays music, and rings thirty seconds after you close it. This is the feature that kept my son busy this morning. Over, and over again. Phone Rings, he answers, and this conversation ensues:
(Phone Rings, Boss looks excitedly around the room with his hands up, like he's looking for the phone, even though he know's exactly where it is because he just put it down ten seconds ago)
Oh! Telephone!
(Answers phone)
Hi!
Oh!
Blarblarblar
Poo Poo? (grabs at his diaper)
Oh... (drawn out, as though he's listening to the response to his poo poo question.)
Choo Choo! (Little fist up in the air, charging forward.)
Blarblarblar! Goooooo!
(Pause. Look around the room.) Poo Poo. Bye!
(Snaps phone shut, puts it down on the arm of the couch and takes off for his toy corner...R-I-N-G)
Oh! Telephone! So goes my day. At least between his business calls and my daughter napping, I've had lots of time to waste looking for music...er...I mean...doing lots of productive writing on that story that's due in a week. Yes, that. Lots and lots.
At two, you are busy. You are basket-pushing, block tossing, busy. You are running - circles in the kitchen, darting through department stores, sprinting to our neighbor's house and back, and there again. You are drawing and dancing and going - going - going until at last we tuck you in. Tight - because we know, even the night can not hold you.
At two, you are a charmer. You are smiles in the morning. Waves from the window and hugs, a-plenty. You are giggling, flirting, talking -always. Saying more with the flicker of your eyelashes than most adults say all day.
At two you are a Spaghetti-faced pudding-fisted bedheaded Mess.
And at two, you are mischief. You are crackers on the couch and clothes behind the dresser Broken ornaments on the tree and laundry on the floor.
At two, you are my excuse for homework pastdue for dinner's not made or dishes not cleaned for being late...anywhere.
At two you are my greatest distraction and my favorite pasttime. My source of frustrated tears and belly laughs. You are my trouble, and my triumph.
He is less than two weeks away from turning five. Five. The number is incomprehensible for me. It's both impossibly old (afterall weren't we all just here a moment ago?) and impossibly young (how can it be that this most integral extension of myself was not yet in existence a mere five years ago?)
He is less than two weeks away from turning five. Five. The number is incomprehensible for me. It's both impossibly old (afterall weren't we all just here a moment ago?) and impossibly young (how can it be that this most integral extension of myself was not yet in existence a mere five years ago?)
