Son Rise

He’s getting older. Why is it that as young mothers, we feel like time is FLYING by but we also feel that it isn’t moving at all?  And not only “not moving” but actually standing STONE STILL?  I’m talking about those days when they won’t nap, when they scream all through the shopping aisles/church/street, when they argue with you… you get the point.  Days like that, I wonder if the day is ever going to end.  I wonder how my pillow is.  I look up in the sky and hope the sun is setting, which it never is.  A watched pot never boils, mama says.

Then I blink and my son has gone from nursing to speaking in full sentences.  So what the heck? I feel this overwhelming urge to treasure every minute, and YET I find every time I wrap my arms around him and go in for kiss, he inevitably screams in my ear!  Treasures aren’t supposed to do that!

But what can you do?  Kiss them anyway, says I.  Kiss them anyway.

Today as I was raking up leaves (interjection: how about this warmish weather?!  I literally begged the kids to play outside with me and I just soaked in the fresh air while a raked for an hour), Trenton ran over to me and asked for a hug.  Then he asked for a kiss.  Then he looked into my eyes and said, “Happy Birthday, Mom.”

Uh, thanks?

“Happy Birthday, Trent,” I said.

“Banks!” He said, running away.  Neither one of us will celebrate a birthday until fall, but it was still nice to hear it.  Never hesitate to tell someone you love happy birthday.  You never know when it will be too late.

Saturday night, I was craving enchiladas.  I felt bad asking my husband if we could go out.  The fridge was full of food -I was just too lazy to cook it.  He agreed to take us all out if I could get the Christmas tree back in the box.  He had undecorated it and pulled it apart while I was on a youth trip, and it was just sitting out by the box with all of it’s branches sticking out in every direction.  I set to work, and I defeated that tree.

I won.

What did I win?  Enchiladas.  We called up my folks -my sister was in town -and we made a family ordeal of it.  Restaurants in these parts are all very charmingly Southwest.  In the gift shop of this restaurant, there is a wooden Indian Chief.  He’s a good 3 1/2″ tall, at least, and the feathers in his headdress aren’t feathers at all.  They’re suckers made to look like feather.  You can pluck them out.  My kids have been enamored with those suckers since they first saw them.  I’ve always told them they can’t have one on account of the fact that I just bought them a lunch they didn’t eat, but Saturday night was different.

The fact that they didn’t eat remained, but the fact that GRANDPA was with us was something mighty different.  Needless to say, each child plucked their own feather and went home with it.  My husband opened Lacy’s up effortlessly and handed it to her.  Trent handed his to Dad.

“Ope’ it, pees!” he cried.  My husband tried and tried, but he couldn’t get the wrapping off.

“Sorry, son,” he said, handing it back, “I can’t open it, you’re just going to have to throw it away.”  To our surprise, he didn’t argue.

“Okay,” he said, taking it back, hanging his head and walking toward the trash.  A few steps into his walk, he turned back and looked at his dad, “Are ‘oo kidding me?” He asked, honestly wanting to know.

We wanted to answer, but we were laughing so hard we couldn’t.  You can imagine his relief.  The sucker stayed.

He took a late, late nap on Monday.  He woke up grouchy and clingy.  He didn’t want anything, and he let me know it.  He only wanted to be a grouch.  Lacy had been watching “A Christmas Story” -a movie both of the kids have seen over and over, especially in the last three months.  I tried to get him interested in the movie, but he wasn’t having it.

As The Old Man started opening his wooden box, marked “FRAGILE,” I started poking my son.

“What is he doing?” I asked, my enthusiasm exaggerated, “He’s opening that!  Look at that!  He’s doing it!  He’s opening it!  What’s inside?  What’s inside?!”

My son wasn’t having it.  He looked at me and very factually said, “A shoe.”

Well, you can’t argue his point. Nevermind the sensual leg or the whole “lamp” idea. That there’s a SHOE.

Mothering, mothering.  Mothering boys.

My life is so full.  Of what?  We’ll talk about it later.