You know how sometimes in order to step into greatness you have to let something go?  I mean, that sounds familiar, you’ve heard that before, right?  That’s one of those phrases that sounds so much better as a jingle for your life, not mine.  The reality of taking the hand of that phrase and sitting with it on a park bench, or a curb, and listening to it as it listens to you, is a moment you have to choose- because if you don’t choose it, or you can’t choose it, it disappears until you find it again.

I don’t want to choose.  I don’t want to feel this grief.  I don’t want to be that brave.

People who do brave things make brave choices every day.  And sometimes they have to let go of things they wish they didn’t have to let go of but if they don’t, they are letting go of themselves.

I’ve been called selfish many times.  I use to defend myself and shout “lies!”.  But it’s true, I’m selfish.  You have to be selfish to go for greatness, you have to put yourself first.  Now that I understand what this means and what this doesn’t mean, I’m comfortable with this word being thrown across the room at me.  Now I hold up my little velcro  glove and catch it.  Because this definitely does not mean that I don’t love or I’m not vulnerable.  It also doesn’t mean I’m not nurturing and generous with affection.  I am willing to give my whole heart to you.  Just not my life.

We have been going to this go-kart place very close to our house a lot lately, in effort to compete with my daughter’s dad who is all about fun and takes her all the time. So I have to constantly ignore comments like, “it’s no fun over here, I’m bored, we don’t do anything.” SO NOT TRUE. If her dad weren’t SO fun, we would appear fun- because our fun-level is definitely above average.

Anyway, my daughter and I are all about this one game. The truth is my not-even-two-year-old can play it and succeed BUT we are really good at putting our token in the slot and pushing a button.

After you do those two brainiac steps, you just wait for the super bouncy ball to land in a hole to see how many tickets you get. I’m getting so excited just thinking about it. Yesterday, right before we put our first token in, I said, “let’s focus on getting JACKPOT today!” (hadn’t hit jackpot yet, they don’t make it easy). She’s game of course and does her little prayer/meditation that she does when she wants something and off we went. (This is the girl that told me when she was 4 that she was getting a Chihuahua named Cherry and somehow it practically came in the mail.)

Token, button, bounce-bounce, ew ew ooh ya, tickets
Token, button, bounce, swirl, oh oh no no yyes!, tickets

This goes on and on.

A little into the game, we hit JACKPOT!
150 tickets!
We hit JACKPOT AGAIN!

We had to stop playing because the machine ran out of tickets.

We are saving up for the bike that folds up small enough to sneak into the movie theater- it’s only 7000 tickets! Gotta have goals in life.

I was reminded last night while we were at Late Nite Pie (a fun for everyone kind of place- pizza, pool, ping pong AND a huge outdoor kids area), that my nearly-two-year-old son is a man trapped in a toddler’s body.

We are at this great, kid-friendly place- sand, trucks, playhouse, springyhorseythingy, bigwheel and more. Where is Nash? He is in the corner drooling over the weedeaters they secretly stashed out of sight. He is trying to play pool. He is stacking and unstacking the big, plastic crates used to ship two-liters or something, like they’re legos. He wants to go inside. Anything but that kids’ stuff.

I looked over at one point and saw him on the springyhorseythingy and shouted, “he’s a toddler, look, he’s a toddler!”

When we go swimming, he would rather not swim. I have to hang out at the pool pump where he’s having his own pool pump party. He also likes to challenge himself to a good game of “who’s patio can I break into” when we break into a pool in a complex- I don’t know where he learned that behavior.Nash LOVES tools, workmen, trucks, construction sites, orange tape, blue collars.

And he scoffs at those pretend tools for BABIES. He wants real tools and only real tools.

Oh, and I’m not saying this is like a man but, he even picks up after himself- look out ladies.

He has a snack and throws the paper away.
He takes off his clothes and puts them in the hamper.
He finishes his food and puts his plate in the sink.
He takes off his diaper, puts the poo in the potty, and throws his diaper away.

FREAKY.

I’m not trying to say he’s perfect- it’s not uncommon to find him hording sharp objects he knows are off limits. He doesn’t listen at all. I think he’s thinking, “don’t talk to me like that, I am a MAN, so don’t talk to me like I’m a toddler.” It’s a real good thing I am a psychology major. He was breech and it all makes sense now.

Evan comes to me one day with a serious look on her face. “Momma, my dad started smoking.” “What?!”, I say, probably looking pretty shocked. With absolutely no reaction to me, she hardly shifts expressions and says, “And we all thought he was a brave and healthy man…”.

Additional information: Her dad is not my husband so my shock was not that I also just found out my husband started smoking. Her dad is just really healthy so it was shocking. Also, my husband is a smoker- cough cough, go brush your teeth smokey, not in the garage- geez!

Tell me that doesn’t look like a bird. I’m not saying he’s a prodigy, or that he’s magic. I’m just saying it looks like a bird. And just because birds are his favorite thing right now- means nothing. I know it’s totally coincidental and my son is just like every other 20-month old, nothing special. I get it.

I LOVE a dirty little foot. I am equally fascinated and repulsed by feet. There is an urge inside me that wants to eat this dirty little foot- the way some pregnant women want to eat dirt or powdered laundry detergent.

My husband’s To Do List:

Milk y Movies (buy milk & return movies)
Quaff Control (haircuts for himself and Nash)
Roach War (exterminate)
Auto Bath (wash car)
Textile Cleanse (wash clothes)
Otes Restraint (puppy with broken leg confinement)

Nash, my son, almost 21 months, is clearly almost two. I try not to buy into things like “terrible twos” (mostly because I really think it’s 3 that sucks) and “PMS” and girls are this way and boys are that way and women wash the dishes while men take out the trash- but I think there’s a little truth in all of it, I just prefer to continue thinking for myself and not immediately buy myself a front row ticket to a show that’s taking place “in the box”.

My son is changing, being more defiant, more particular about doing what he want to do. He screams “NO!” in my face. At school, they have said he doesn’t want to participate in circle time or play. So, I’m not the only one who notices the shift.

Randy told me this morning about what his teacher said. He doesn’t want to sit in the circle, all the other kids are in the circle but he lays on the floor outside the circle. That cracks me up! No DNA test required, he IS his daddy’s son.

I told Randy that I think he is bored. His teacher also thinks he is bored.
Luckily he is moving up to the next class next month.

At home, I am having to dust off my old parenting tricks until I find something that works. I have to agree, after having both a girl and now a boy- they are different. Now I also understand men more too. They are different. I guess we’re supposed to be expanding our consciousness (sweet, I spelled that correctly the first time) by being paired up with this other species. Surely that’s the purpose, outside of procreation. Probably why I dated women. Honestly after doing that, I personally think men are easier.

Back to my tricks. Manipulating, I mean handling, a boy is interesting. In some ways easier and some ways more challenging. It can be challenging for me to remember that my son is probably not making it as emotional and dramatic as I am. I’m having to enhance my skills at being more linear and straight forward. He is all about cause and effect. When he plays, his favorite activities involve cause and effect. When I am communicating with him, I have to remember to be direct and display some sense of cause and effect. Not punishment and control but cause and effect. He gets it then- as much as he can right now, anyway.

The other thing that seems so critical with him is directing him. Instead of saying, “don’t write on the walls with a sharpie, PLEASE!”, if I say, “write on paper” or “give me the marker”, he knows what to do. Boys are sensitive to not doing it right, not doing a good job- they learn that their value is in what they DO. There seems to be a big connection in communicating this way with them. I try not to shame him for what he is doing, rather, ask him to do something different. It actually works. Of course, he is going to do what he wants to do but it seems to help manage the power struggles. And sometimes I just yell back at him and then we both feel like shit.

It’s one pm, time for nap, says mama to her baby. Just like all the other days in the past 21 months: change diaper, have some milk, turn on fan, get cozy, go night-night.

So all of that went down EXCEPT the night-night part.

We think we have at least two hours to ourselves, like usual.

We drop heavy on the couch and happily tune into the Rob whatever show (Fantasy warehouse experience), we love this show. Why do I feel like an old lady saying the word “show”? Am I using the word “soda pop” and I don’t know it?

Fifteen minutes later, guess who comes walking out, carrying a chair from his room- yes, it was baby.

Several attempts to lay him down lead down a road to nowhere.

I think we were both in denial that he was still awake.

Or maybe just really internally adamant that we deserved these two hours.

I just know that some sort of switch went OFF and we were not parents.

Now that my switch is back on, I think we went to some faraway adult land and just ignored him.

What’s funny is he ignored us too. I think he knew he was somewhere he shouldn’t be- he was getting a sneak peek into life during nap time, and he was “invisible”. He played by himself, sat on the couch with us and watched TV quietly (can’t pay him to watch TV during normal business hours), he even pushed the empty swing, as if he had a friend, who really likes to swing, over.

Now I know what he can do.

His bed is about to resemble a monkey cage.
“I want my two (hours) dollars!”
(Better Off Dead, it’s time to see that again)

I want my kids to like me when they grow up. That’s why I hypnotize them on a regular basis.

But really, I want them to want to talk to me, not feel obligated or guilty. It’s so hard to imagine that I wouldn’t have a good relationship with them when they are grown.

I suppose that means having a good relationship with them now and it continues to be a good relationship, minus the temporary jerky teenage years.

My parents didn’t seem to try to have a relationship with me. Maybe my mom did at times. That would have been something like- who are YOU, what do you think, what do you like, and why? That’s so validating as a human being. And I think it’s one reason relationships are so exciting in the beginning as we are getting to know one another, there’s another person so interested in who we are.

I had two teenagers for parents who were, in my accurate opinion, too distracted with growing up to build a real relationship with their kids.

It can be tough sometimes to balance the job of parenting with the reality that you are shaping and molding another person as they become who they are- and that MORE THAN ANYTHING we need good relationships with other people.

As I’m writing this, my daughter is in her room playing by herself- I am off to learn something new about her.

time
time
time
tick tock
tick tock

Findings: I went in there and she was playing “town” in her baby brother’s room. This is regarded as a special time because baby brother, when home, destroys town before it’s ever constructed and it’s actually a whole different game called “hurricane season came to town”.

Since baby bro wasn’t here, she was experiencing something magical- the satisfaction of completion!

So I join her and she is very happy (one more magical moment, mom all to myself.)

The first thing I learned about her is that she is just like me (once again)- she said, “I really just like to set it up, I guess we could play town too”, but basically we spent the whole time rearranging town, resetting it up. I so vividly remember thinking that same way and still do. I LOVE to move. I get to set things up again. I LOVE organizing and giving everything a place, and she is like that too.

At one point, I noticed a couple hanging out in the horse trailer (see photo above) and asked what was going on over there and she said, “oh, they are talking about whether or not they want to get married.”

THAT’S my fucking girl.

Turns out, they did decide to marry and a wedding ensued. The wedding was all about organizing lines of people, directing them here and there and eventually a ceremony (but not the most important part).