Shh

Not that I want to tell anyone how to raise their kids, but....

When I was in high school, I took my baby brother (who would have been around 3 at the time) through the drive thru at Burger King.  The woman at the window had some pretty severe acne, and he very loudly started asking why she had chicken pox all over her face.  It was mortifying for her and me.  All I did was "shhh" him and tell him we'd talk about it later.  Anything to get him to stop talking in that moment.

But see, as an adult, I now realize that is usually not the best way to approach a situation like that.  I didn't stick up for that employee or educate my brother.  I just avoided the situation.

Maybe not exactly the same, but today as my little loves and I rode the elevator down from Little Bug's PT appointment, another little boy loudly and repeatedly called Little Bug "weird" as LB enthusiastically told the whole evaluator full of people about our plans to play with the hose at home.  This little boy and his very nice mommy likely didn't even understand what Little Bug was saying, but everyone there sure understood what the other boy was saying....including my son.

Weird.

And it hit me as his mom turned bright read and shh-ed him over and over that the correct response as a parent isn't always the easy one.  It's the right one.  And it's not the one where we get our kids to simply stop talking without explaining WHY they need to stop talking.

It should have been something along the lines of "he's not weird.......".  Because by just shh-ing him, she was (inadvertently, I am sure) validating the assertion that Little Bug was weird.  At age 4.5, it's not going to be really damaging to Little Bug's self esteem (which, if his constant declarations of being "handsome" are any indication, is pretty good), but as he gets older, having an adult validating those sorts of labels could really cut deep.

I'm trying to do this more in my own life, because I fall into this pattern all too often myself.  Subtle comments about adoption, special needs, intelligence, etc. are just so much easier to ignore, especially when said without any malice or intent.  But one day very soon, those subtle comments won't feel so subtle to my kids, and I need to be well versed in standing up for them in that moment, in front of everyone.  I don't want to be the one who validates with silence.

It doesn't have to be a big deal or aggressive.  I don't need to turn to that little boy and say "look kid, he's not weird and you're being rude for saying so" while crouching into mama bear position, ready to fight his mama for the honor of our sons.  But I can put on my happiest voice and say something like "he's not weird...he's just really excited about our plans this afternoon."

I guess my point is that I'm realizing it is important to push back on the little things in a positive way.  It's my job to nurture my sons' self images, to help them become confident and proud, and to make sure they feel loved, special, and unique. 

And sometimes that means tacking on the line that floats into your head but sticks behind the "shhh."

The Darkness Excuse No Longer Works

Here is what the people who went past our house last night saw:

A mother, her dress clothes covered by her long dress coat and heels grating against the pavement, talking on the phone while pulling a 3-year-old little boy, also bundled up in winter gear to protect against the cold 30 degree temps, who was happily munching on french fries while taking the world in as his mother pulled his little red wagon up and down their driveway.

Up and down.  Up and down.  Up and down. Up and down.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.  Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.  Up and down. Up and down.

If a 3 year old wants an evening picnic and a wagon ride, there is little in the world that is going to stop him from getting just that. Especially when Daylight Savings Time has robbed his mother of her one sure argument against them.

Window Shopping

Little Bug,

You've been home for 2.5 years now.  You know who your mama is.  So I'm cool with you calling any females who look between the ages of 16-50 "mama," because I know it's just the only name you know how to associate with adult women.  Besides I love being your "my mama."

However, when the new little girl in your class has her Korean mother there, it's slightly mortifying for your "my mama" when you run into the Korean mama's arms and refuse to leave.  I get that you were playing with her, but she looked at me like some horrific thing was happening, and she actually asked me if you were confused who your mama was because she was Korean.  I couldn't even be mad at her for asking, not as I was watching the bizarre love fest you had going on.  Granted, it got better when you moved on to your white teacher and did the same thing and she could see it had nothing to do with the way she looked or the accent she had.

You just didn't want to go home last night.  That's okay.  School looks a heck of a lot more fun some days than a healthy dinner, home therapy, and an early bedtime.  So I'll jazz it up if you promise to go easy on the pseudo window shopping. 

Love,
Your My Mama

The Perks

One of the best perks about motherhood is the right and ability to dress your child up in ridiculous outfits and feel justified in attempting to force them to keep the costume on....and enjoy wearing it.

You're dressed head to toe in Elmo, you might not think so, but you actually like it, I insist! Now, stand still and smile at my camera, damn it.

Motherhood is oh-so-fun sometimes!

Macho, Macho Man

A couple days ago Appa and I had the chance to pick Little Bug up from school together. Whenever Appa surprises Little Bug at school he gets *really* excited. Me, I'm no big thang, but Appa....it's like Christmas.

Little Bug was in the potty room when we walked in. The other little kids started chanting "Little Bug's Mommy and Daddy." THAT got his attention. His little head poked up over the swinging door and his eyes lit up.

"DadDDDDDDDDDDa!"

He kept chanting excitedly as his teacher tried to wrangle a diaper on him. He was chattering away to his teacher and would randomly yell "DadDDDa" in joy. Nothing could rain on this kid's joy parade.

Until he got a touch too excited and pushed the swinging door out too fast. In the blink of an eye, he was on his hands and knees as the door swung harmlessly away.

The moment suspended for a second until it became clear nothing had actually happened other than Little Bug clumsily falling as the door opened. He was fine.

He looked up from his hands and knees into the eyes of his friends and his teacher and his mama and dada.

And then he wailed.

His teachers were shocked. I was shocked. Little Bug was busting out his serious, I.AM.INJURED tears and lip quiver and wails. Not because he was hurt; he wasn't.

He was surprised, a little scared, and embarrassed. Emotions that are never fun to feel.

I've been noticing more and more of this lately, a social awareness, a desire not to be the object of laughter unless it is on his terms. It has been fascinating to watch develop. It's also very age appropriate, which is always a huge bonus in our book.

So when the tears dried and the hiccups stopped we gave him a chance to show off some of the new skills he is pretty proud of. He was back to feeling like a king in no time.

My little macho man.

The Campaign for a Television-Enjoying Child

I think I might be the only parent in the world who is actively trying to teach my kid to watch television.

As part of some therapy, we've been asked to start trying to get Seth to sit still for periods of time. He doesn't have ADHD or anything like that, but after almost 3 years of a constant, almost-every-minute movement therapy-lifestyle, coupled with the fact that he is a toddler, Little Bug has a problem being able to sit and focus for periods of time. Television was suggested as a way to get him comfortable with just being still.

However, Little Bug has never shown a preference for the TV. He has a set of musical DVDs that he will watch religiously, and one 8-minute animated version of "Wheels on the Bus" that we had to hide for fear the DVD would break, but other than those programs and the 3-minute part of the Glee episode where they cover Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", he's not really interested.

For a long time, that was okay, good even. He was sitting still and listening to music, which is his biggest sensory stimulator.

But he's not learning much.

So it was determined we needed to switch it up and add some shows that have....words...into the mix. We tried all sorts of things, but nothing seemed to stick.

Wiggles...so, so. Thomas the Train....only when the trains are moving and not talking. Everything else...totally not interested. Even the shows that have a high singing:talking ratio.

You're killing me, Little Bug. Stop being such a perfect, anti-TV child, already!

Little Bug's godmother recently bought him the Thomas movie, and we've been trying to add that into our evening once a week or so. The most we have managed is about 3-5 minutes...basically until the trains stop moving and the plot starts.

Last night we had a pretty ominous storm roll through. Ever since an admittedly scary camping storm incident, Little Bug gets very nervous when storm clouds roll in, scared when thunder hits, and petrified when lightning lights up the sky. Little Bug made it clear last night that he was planning on riding this one out from the safety of my lap with my arms locked around him, courtesy of his baby death grip.

I'm only mildly ashamed to admit I used his fear to my advantage.

Knowing he was more likely than normal to stay close to me, I turned on our new movie and hoped for the best.

1.5 hours later, Little Bug was clapping as the credits rolled.

Do I think this means he will sit angelically through a movie whenever I need to turn one on in a pinch? No. Do I recognize that the storm has a huge impact on his choice to sit still? Yes.

But he did stay engaged with the show the whole time, "choo chooing," "ohh ohhing," and clapping in all the right spots.

So I'm declaring a small step forward in our quest to commercialize our son.

This is the Moment

Sometimes a moment hits me square in the face, and I have this intense need to preserve it.

Last night Little Bug was taking a bath ("bubba baff", a two-word combo with some hard sounds that I am ridiculously proud of). It was past his bedtime, and I was anxious to get him to sleep. I wasn't completely, totally, 100% in the moment.

Little Bug has a nasty new trick where he likes to turn the faucet on and off. We're being very strict about this for a number of boundary and water temperature safety reasons, but my boy is stubborn and patient, making bath time one of vigilance and lameness on my part. Usually he gets his little fingers onto the faucet handle but is denied turning it. Sadness ensues. Regroup. Repeat attack.

Last night, after about 5 minutes of this dance (and after I had turned the water off for good), he finally found a moment of my weakness and quick as a flash, turned the faucet on.

Quick as it happened, I turned it off to preserve the boundary, but Little Bug, oh my baby boy......

The moment the water turned on he reeled back in total stunned elation. He let out this CRAZY triumphant laugh that was a mix between a surprised yelp and a victorious battle cry. The sound was one of the most hilarious things I have ever heard.

As I ducked my head in my shoulder to hid my laughter from a "should-be-getting-a-stern-looking-at Little Bug" all I could think was

This is the moment I want to blournal.

Riding in Cars With One Boy

I think I have become a lot more laid back in my mothering in the last few years. Once over-vigilant to the point of obsession, I'm now more apt to let my kid go ahead and eat that cracker he found under the couch....if it has dust on it, he'll spit it out. I let him plop his butt in mud....shorts can be washed, usually with the hose like the rest of his body. I let him run sans clothes (but with diaper) in our backyard...I never quite figured out why I was so opposed to that one for so long.

But I'm still struggling with one area of unwavering resolve....leaving him in the car.

When I was little, I was left in the car while my mom popped into the gas station or pizza place. I'm confident that leaving the air conditioning on would protect my son from cooking inside out while I take 2 minutes to buy a DDP and a chocolate milk on our way to a park date or drop a library book off inside the library.

Yet, I cannot do it. I tell myself as I pull into the parking lot and gather my things while leaving the car running that he will be fine in plain view for a minute or two, but at the last minute, I chicken out and turn the car off, unbuckle my kid, and drag him into the gas station. Neither one of us is super thrilled with this decision.

I'm not sure if it is because my anxiety of the horror stories you hear of babies in extreme heat gets the better of me or if I am somehow envisioning someone stealing my car and my kid, or if my phobia of a car slipping out of park and into traffic is at play, but I cannot, despite my best attempts, leave my child unattended in the car for longer than it takes to run the video into the rental drop box or return a shopping cart.

Just a small look into the inner workings of a neurotic mama-in-progress.

Precious

Tonight as Little Bug was laying in bed, I gave him a sippy cup of water. It was a new sippy cup from a birthday gift bag...red with trucks and tire tracks and such. Typical boy clip art.

Little Bug must have spied the new red color because he popped up and immediately held the cup away from his mouth, inspecting it with a single-minded intensity that surprised me.

One second
Two seconds
Three seconds

I was preparing for my son to growl "my preciousssssss" when he looked up at me and simply said "choo choo." Then it was back to staring at the new cup with reverent admiration.

The little things in life are sometimes the most preciousssssssssss.

Patience

I've taken to wearing a little collection of charms around my neck each day. It's admittedly not my style, but I'm compelled each morning to fasten all three charms around my neck and say a silent prayer for patience.

The charm on the far right says patience in hangul (the Korean characters). Appa bought it for me during the wait to bring Little Bug home. At the time, I was 2 months into my wait and antsy as hell. Patience, I thought, could be my mantra.

I had no idea at the time that my little bug would teach me a million times over what the meaning of that word really was.

So my charms evolved from just the word to the real thing. SHMC, my living, breathing reminder of my ongoing quest for patience. It hasn't always been easy (in fact, it has been the hardest thing I have encountered in my life), but he has taught me more about patience than anything else ever could, and I am a better person for it.

His charm sits between my hangul charm and my final charm because I feel like he is the reason that naive, wailing-after-2-months woman is the woman I am today. The woman who has had to sit by for 2 full months while her ESHB's paperwork is unnecessarily delayed, causing heartache and anger that has surprised us all, but who still falls asleep at night counting her blessings.

It's not easy, and it makes me want to cry every time I think about it, but each morning I fasten on my reminders of my prayer for patience and wait for the day when the patience will all pay off...just like it always does.

11:11

I'm now a believer. A true disciple of the clearly solid childhood myth.

I wrote a while back about my quirky habit of always wishing on an 11:11 when I see one on a clock. Today I looked at my computer clock just in time to see 11:11 and made a wish.

Then, at that very moment....

Ding.

That would be the ding of my e-mail...

11:11

I don't wish upon a star. I don't cringe when I see a black cat cross my path. I've stepped joyfully on many a crack and my mother's back has never once broke.

But ever since I was young, when I see 11:11 on a clock, I compulsively, passionately, ALWAYS pause and make a wish. Lately, I've been seeing it a lot, sometimes even twice a day.

Is it because I have a fervent wish right now that I am subconsciously drawn to the clock at that moment?

Nah, it's probably just the moment my tummy has become accustom to starting the lunch countdown.

But it can't hurt, right?

Lucky

I'm not superstitious, but I do have some quirks that probably fall in that category.

Like my "lucky" coins. I don't actually think they are lucky, but I do like to carry them everywhere I go. In fact, I like them to be in my change purse so I can see them on a regular basis. One is a Jamaican coin from my honeymoon. It's never left my purse in 6.5 years. The second is a Korean coin minted in the year Little Bug was born. It's never left my purse in the 16 months I've had it.

Unfortunately, I've almost spent them one too many times, so now they both are covered in tape to remind me to take a closer look when digging for that last quarter.

But every day I see them and they make me happy. That's probably not luck, but it can't hurt.