Peering through a plexiglass wall, I held my two-year-old steady as he stood on a narrow ledge.
Ten minutes earlier, we had been on the other side of that plexiglass wall, on the ice of our town’s outdoors skating rink. Unsteady on my own skates, I held his left hand while his right hand gripped the wall. His feet flailed beneath him, slipping backwards, then forwards.
“I was such a rule follower! What happened?” I said to my husband after my kids once again ignored my directions and ran away laughing.
While they follow directions pretty well in school, I know I’m not the only one their anti-authoritarian streak comes out around. My mom has given them The Look she perfected after decades of teaching. They shrug it off. If you start counting without a very specific consequence attached to it, they just look at you, wondering what the point of this counting is. Authority for authority’s sake does not resonate for my children.
My five-year-old son ran into the living room, his hands over his mouth. The first words out of my mouth were, “Why are you up again?” It was the third time he had gotten out of bed that night. The next words out of my mouth were, “Are you okay?”
He looked confused, then ambled back to his room. Then, we heard retching.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” my older son’s kindergarten teacher told us, leaning slightly forward over the conference room table.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling harder than I expected to at a parent-teacher conference. She had just finished telling us what a delight our son was to have in class, as he worked hard, focused on getting things done, and was kind to his classmates. This is in contrast to some of his behavior at home. Lately, he has been not listening, fighting every effort to get ready for bedtime, antongizing his brother, and having a marked lack of self-control.
As I exhaled, it felt like I had been holding my breath for days.
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“You got it, you got it!” I yell to my five-year-old as he reaches for a hold on a rock-climbing wall. He stretches his arm just far enough and grabs it. I reach up to the rope attached to him, pull down, and move my hand back to its original position in one smooth motion.
As I run the rope through my hands, I realize his life is literally in my hands. If he falls, it’s on me to catch him. The rope is the only thing keeping him from the ground and I am in control of it.
But this thought doesn’t spark any anxiety. Lots of things make me nervous, but this – as perilous as hanging 25 feet up may seem – wasn’t one of them.
As my chest heaved with heavy sobs, I heard the door open. My five-year-old, clad in pajamas, walked out of of his room. Seeing the tears streaming down my face, he stared.
“Your yelling woke me up,” he said. I just looked back without words, blinking.
“Mommy is feeling sad,” my husband said. He got up off the couch and ushered my son back to bed.
A wave of shame swept over me. Did he overhear me talking? My cry of frustration was over how my son had been treating me.
Looking out on the vast, rushing waters, I realized that this waterfall is where I visit when life feels beyond my control.
I visited here not long after my older son was born. The days were long, spent with a baby who refused to be put down for even a minute without crying. Afternoons and evenings stretched out, just us together after we walked my husband to the subway for work. The nights were longer, up every few hours rocking and nursing, rocking and nursing, wondering when it would be over.
But I came here and found something bigger than the confines of my little home. I pushed him in the stroller and nursed him on the bench, letting the roar of the water fill my soul.
Don’t say anything, don’t say anything, I repeated to myself as I looked at my son’s construction paper pumpkin.
The pumpkin was a “family project” from kindergarten, a totally optional assignment for fun.
It started out simply enough. Cut out the template and trace it onto the construction paper. But as soon as he lifted up the template, I noticed something. There were huge gaps in the lines. This could be better, I thought. But I don’t want to tell him it’s wrong!
My son recently changed his favorite toy and I felt rather bad for his previously-beloved bunny. So I wrote a letter to her.
Dear Snowball,
I swear I didn’t know this would happen. When I said we’d bring the kids to Build A Bear for the first day of school, I thought it would be a cute activity. I didn’t know that the new guy – and I’m so sorry for this – would replace you.
You’ve been my older son’s favorite for so long. Longer than any of the other animals, in fact. At first, you were the stand-in for his beloved imaginary friend, who was also a bunny. While he loved Bear and Woof Woof and Taco, he loved you more. You were the first animal he gave a personality to, told stories about, and even created a whole imaginative world for! His bed became Bunnyland, with houses and stores and even a roller-coaster.
Honestly, you becoming the favorite was a total surprise to us. One day, you were just that white bunny Grandma gave him one Easter. Seemingly the next, you were The Favorite. And so you hopped into our lives.
But now, it seems like you’ve been demoted. Woofie is now the king, with his dog bed and kindergarten cachet. He’s the one my son brought to school for stuffed animal day. Woofie’s the one my son frets about if he’s not in his bed at bedtime. Compared to his soft, fluffy coat, your not-so-white fur is looking the worse for wear. I’ve even seen my younger son walking around with you without my older son complaining. At least you still have the more creative name.
But what are we to do? I can’t make him love you more. I can’t guarantee you’ll ever be the favorite again. While I still have a few of my stuffed animals as an adult, I don’t have the relationship with them that I did as a child.
The only thing I can guarantee is the one thing I hold close as his mom – that he loves me. And he loved you too.
Because you and me and all of us are in this together. One day I’ll experience this too. One day, he’ll love someone else more than he’ll love me. And I’ll have to let go, just as he’s let you go.
We can’t stop him from growing up. The only thing we can do is love who he becomes.
“We’re going to be a little sad when you go to kindergarten,” I said to my five-year-old son at dinner one night a few weeks before school started.
His face dropped and his lip quivered.
“Oh honey! You shouldn’t be sad about growing up.” I paused, trying to figure out how to explain this. “Mommies and daddies get a little sad about their kids growing up. We know you’ll never be babies again. But we also love watching you grow up so much.” I smiled, then got up and hugged him in his chair.
What I didn’t tell him was this: