To my older son on your birthday,
Eight years ago, you finally came into our lives. Five days late, ten hours of labor. You and your brother have both always been on your own timelines. But you alone made me a parent. You made me a mom.
And now, you’re right on the edge between being a big and little kid. I can no longer say I’m the mom of “little kids.” Just one little kid, with one big one.
So much has changed in the last eight years. I’ve watched you grow so much.
“I want to help!” my older son declared, in that way he does when he feels like life has dealt him a terribly unfair hand.
“Oh! Sure,” I said, handing him the snow shovel. We were clearing the sidewalk of snow, in one of the few times a year Washington D.C. gets it.
Both his tone of voice and demand to help surprised me. He’s a kid for whom chores are like pulling teeth. So volunteering for a hard job that meant I did less work? Excellent. I did want to give him a heads-up though. “The snow is pretty tough to shovel, as there’s a layer of ice underneath. From when we had the freezing rain last night. So try to get under the ice, if you can.”
As he managed the big shovel awkwardly, I tried to both hold my tongue and figure out what inspired this burst of enthusiasm.
“I’m a hell hound! But a nice one,” my four year old says, referring to a Dungeons and Dragons monster who is literally supposed to be a dog from Hades.
This may seem like an odd exchange, but it’s perfectly normal in our household.
“It doesn’t really matter whose fault it actually is, we need to clean it up together,” I said to my kids, talking about some mess or another. I heard those words come out of my mouth as if I actually believed them. But I did really want to believe them.
I am a blame monster. If there’s blame to put on someone – even myself – I am on the case. I used to think that if you could blame someone for a problem, they would learn their lesson and not do it again.
Problem solved, right? Uh, no.
“I’m laughing cause I read that book. She’s 14 now and she’s okay,” a woman commented to me. She gestured at the book in my hand, an advice book about parenting challenging kids. Absorbed in my own thoughts, it took a second to realize she was even talking to me.
“One two three four five six seven eight nine ten!” my three year old counted, touching the pictures in the book as he went.
I blinked. Since when can he count? Did this just happen?
“We have to tell my dad he can’t buy those worms,” I told my husband, panic rising in my voice.
As we were on the way to a fishing trip, this was a major problem. New plan – obtain white bread for our hooks instead of night crawlers. No worms would be harmed in this outdoors experience.
Normally, my kids are fine with the more gruesome parts of the “circle of life.” They know where meat comes from and we’ve seen deer hit by cars and trains. Worms shouldn’t be a problem.
But this was different.
“Mama, [kid’s classmate] told me he was stronger than me,” said my five year old, nicknamed Sprout. “But I’m faster than him.”
“Well, you can tell him that you’re faster than him,” I responded, then immediately regretted it. “Actually, no. That wouldn’t be a good thing to say.” One, I had no idea if my kid was actually faster than the other kid. Two and more importantly, starting a comparison war was going to lead to nowhere good very quickly.
“Don’t worry, I’m being careful!” my five-year-old said as he tried to pick up a piece of broken glass off the kitchen floor with his bare hands.
Twitching a few times before getting the words out, I said, “No, stop, don’t pick it up! With some things it doesn’t matter how careful you are – they aren’t safe.”
I wouldn’t recommend anyone pick up broken glass with their bare hands. But his comment made me stop and think.