Aye! Aye! Captain!
Chris Brogan tweeted this picture from his doctor’s office yesterday and it made me laugh out loud (maybe a little too loudly), and here’s why:
Last holiday season, the hubby took our three kids for their annual shopping outing to Get Mom a Christmas Present. My daughters chose lovely smelling spa stuff and beautiful Maggie B accessories. My son was most excited about his pick because he knew, without a doubt, that I would love it. Behold…
Random Slice
Son: Do we have any “eluction” paper?
Me: You mean “construction” paper?
Son: Yes.
Me: (peering into supply closet) Hmm. Tha’t a big word isn’t it? Construction.
Son: Yes (very sypathetically) it is hard for you to say, isn’t it?
Boys Are Different
I was made to parent girls. I am infinitely patient, empathetic, encouraging. Where others find cringe-worthy whining and drama, I see an opportunity to teach a girl how to express herself appropriately, manage her feelings, protect her sense of self. I am the antidote to drama. So with my first two children being lovely girls, easy and delightful in every way, I did plenty of patting myself on the back for my superior parenting skills.
And then it happened (cue ominous music here). The boy arrived in our life.
I knew from early on that this was going to be a bumpy ride. The first two preganancies, I was glowing – Madonna-esque (that would be the mother of God, Madonna, not the material girl, Madonna) – the picture of maternal radiance. The third time around, I puked until the blood vessels in my face broke giving me two black eyes – not for just the predictable1st trimester morning sickness, but all day every day for the whole frickin’ term. But I’m over that – really.
He has proven to be all boy ever since – burlier, busier, never failing to be amused by anything to do with butts, snot or spit. He loves cars more than anything, and I am grateful that he has had little interest(so far) in guns, video games, WWF or other uber violent play. I knew, however, it would be just a matter of time before the Tueday Night Cage Match came to town.
My husband was a high school wrestler and retains a love of the sport, the real sport of wrestling. So one night he challenged the boy to a match. We all found this enormously entertaining, despite the fact (or maybe because) the match quickly devolved into a lot of rolling, kicking, punching, and hair pulling that spread to some of the sibling bystanders. I thought to myself, “What on earth are we doing here?”
This is not what we are about, and yet it felt frighteningly natural to encourage this boy behavior. I’ve discovered within myself a niggling “might makes right” mentality of which I’m not terribly proud. The big sisters have always been overly solicitous to the baby boy, but now that he is bigger and more aggressive with them, I find myself less patient with their whining and complaints.
I say very helpful things like, “Well, who’s bigger?” or “Do what you need to do, I’ll be in the other room watching Ghost Whisperer,” and quietly, I hope they will just lay him out. Why?
I really don’t want them to hurt him, but I do want him to clearly appreciate how he may and may not treat his sisters. Am I wrong to think that he will only understand that if we use physical force? I expect so.
God has a great sense of humor, and He has clearly sent this boy to teach me a few lessons.
Grief
Life with a teen ager is really a thrill ride – I’m not a wimp, but I am not an adrenaline junkie either. There is so much to love, that I can endure a little extra drama.
This morning was the usual morning chaos and sniping that attends three kids, two frazzled working parents and one dumb dog. Showers, packing lunches, finding shoes, remembering what needs to be signed and sent back to school, getting some breakfast down, walking the dog…sometimes we get a little frayed. My oldest took off without saying anything because we were both irritable, self-absorbed, and she needed to shove off before I was ready.
I arrived at the bus stop with the other two in tow about five minutes later. As I pulled up, I could see my daughter crying. Normally I would have been instantly irritated by this(if you know me, you know I am the anti-coddler), but my mom radar was buzzing. I went to her quickly and discovered that news was breaking that one of her friends had been killed in a car accident hours earlier.
Grief. In a teenager it is raw and grasping.
My mind was full – with questions, the need to comfort the girls before me, the agonizing empathy I was feeling for the family of that child, the urge to make a point about safety and teens in cars and…well, words would have to wait.
Our evenings are perhaps even more jagged than our mornings. Everyone is tired and hungry and wanting to talk all at once. Someone is usually stomping off in a huff before dinner hits the table. Maybe tonight we can remember how precious every sliver of time we have together really is.
Random Slice
On the way way home from a doctor’s appontment with my 14 year old daughter.
Kyle: Do you think doctor’s get lunch breaks?
Me: I expect so.
Kyle: Cuz, if I ever become a doctor…
Me: You’re going to need to eat?
Kyle: Yeah. If I’m a doctor, the food thing is really gonna be important.
A Delicate Subject
I have never been one of those girls that needed, wanted, or offered accompaniment to the restroom. I won’t go into my public restroom or port-a-potty phobias now, but suffice it to say that I was really glad child number three was a boy. Now it was dad’s turn to visit every stinking bathroom in every store, restaurant, or gas station we’d pass for the next 10 years.
Privacy is good, and so is maintaining a little feminine mystery – no matter how long you’ve been married. Unfortunately, I do now feel the need to announce my intentions to head off to the privy, as my loved ones seem to get panicky if they don’t know exactly where I am at all times.
This strategy has met with limited success.
EVERY time I go to the bathroom, I hear someone say, “Where’s Mom?” They could be in the basement watching a movie or surfing the internet for hours or even at the neighbor’s house, with not the slightest interest in interacting with me in any way.
Then I quietly depress the lock on the bathroom door, and suddenly we are in a movie thriller with quick cuts and close ups: door shut and locked, antennae up, eyes darting, hair bristling…they are now alert and buzzing with the uneasy feeling that I have just made myself unavailable somehow.
And now a little more urgently, I hear it again, “Where’s Mom?”
I wait and see if someone else has the answer to that burning question, but more often than not I find myself shrieking, “I’M IN THE BATHROOM!” There is no gentle, loving, reassuring quality to the shrieking. No, just fire-breathing, flesh-melting rage from behind the locked door.
So now I am in the most undignified position of having loudly declared my exact location, with little doubt as to my exact activity.
There is an awkward period of waiting.
I can no longer take care of my personal business in leisure, I am now terribly anxious about both the passing of time and judgement concerning my daily constituitional.
So I suppose there’s no hope for it. As long as I continue to cohabitate, I can expect someone will notice when I have to go to the bathroom. The question is: how can I get this to happen when the dog needs to be walked?
