99% of the time I am certain that I do not want more children. I do not have the patience and my career is at a point where it doesn’t feel like a feasible option. And then, something like this happens.
Yesterday, my son spilled an entire 10 oz glass of Mountain dew on my end table. The end table was full of stuff, including my usb modem. It made everything sticky and ruined a highly valued pair of noise-cancelling headphones that they no longer make. To say I was upset and disappointed was an understatement.
What made the situation worse was that AJ tried to clean it up without telling me and also without the understanding that Mt. Dew makes everything sticky and nasty. When cleaning it up, you must wipe everything down with a damp cloth in order to avoid what I term “Sticky, nasty mess.” He did not do this, so when I went to pick up the remote control, my hand was covered in nasty slime.
I got angry, told him to get the baby wipes (of which I still keep in this house even though my kid is 9) and wiped everything down. The headphones were not salvageable. Once the end table was clean, I found a cheapie pair of headphones, sighed at not being able to have nice things, and promptly forgot the incident.
When I woke up this morning, I found this note and these pink flowers. And my heart melted.
If you can’t read it, it says:
Dear Mom,
Please take this as a present.
Love,
AJ
I Know you love these flowers on a video game and I’m sorry I messed up your head phones. I’m really sorry so take it. Please. I love you so much.”
He’s right. I do love pink flowers on a video game we play. The kid is a charmer. And so thoughtful and sweet. He is going to make some woman very, very happy.
Another baby? Maybe not out of the question after all. If I had a guarantee that every child I had would be just like this one, I’d have a million.
Rarely do I take my blog in a serious direction, but after reading this story, my blood is throbbing.
William Cunningham is a man who, in a disgusting attempt to gain funds from Campbell’s soup, put lighter fluid in his children’s soup and almost killed them.
It is difficult to work in any kind of helping profession and not become an advocate for children. It’s next to impossible for a parent, working in that profession, to not get herself in massive amounts of trouble when it comes to things like this because her fury overwhelms her.
When I read this story, I was reminded of the anger and upset I felt when I heard about the Susan Smith and Andrea Yates cases. In this particular case, I don’t know whether or not he intended to kill his children, but the fact that he was using their lives as pawns in a sick money scheme for his own benefit has never been in question.
The other night, Leon was out of town and AJ was sleeping. Those moments when I can observe him like the possessive mother that I am are rare and precious because he rarely allows me to just WATCH him. He will make silly faces, or fill the silence with his boyish chatter. When he sleeps, I become aware of how vulnerable he is and how, even though he’s a tall child, he’s small inside with a big heart.
I continue to try to understand how someone can look at their child and see dollar signs. What compels that kind of behavior? I can look at it and diagnose it and think about it rationally and logically, but I want to understand the emotion that is behind that kind of behavior.
I spend many nights carefully considering the best decisions for my child in the long run. What happened within this parent that he didn’t? How quick was his snap to this level?
It doesn’t matter if I ever understand why someone can do this, and truthfully, I don’t know if that knowledge would soothe me or disturb me. The one thing I do know and recognize is that by seeing these cases 2 things are perfectly clear:
1/There are many parents out there that are doing the absolute best they can without harming their children in any way &
2/the only thing I can do in this situation is change my awareness levels and work to help others with their own.
On Wednesday, I picked up a subdued AJ from school and prepared to bring him home. I expected him to be jubilant as he’d spent all day on a field trip and it was his last full day of school for for 3 months! As a child, I remembered the last week of school as being an exciting time full of joy and the thrill of the upcoming summer. When I asked AJ if he was excited about his last day of school being Thursday, though, I watched his lip wobble and he looked at his feet. Sometimes I forget that he’s still a little guy because he’s so tall.
“Yes. No. I don’t know, maybe.”
Color me confused because this is not the reaction I would have if I was in my last week of school. Most of his classmates cannot wait to get out of school. Earlier in the week, he’d asked me if he could get his teacher, Mrs. C, a card and I’d said yes. After Leon came home from work, we headed to Target, to get some necessities, some non-necessities and the card for Mrs. C.
Immediately, after arriving at home from the store, AJ began digging in the sack for his card for Mrs. C. I asked him to write her a short note and then sign it. When he showed it to me, I immediately saw why he was so sad to be leaving school.
Thank you for all you did for us this year. Your the best teacher. In the world. don’t leave But say goodby .
From,
AJ
(all spelling errors, punctuation and smilies are AJ’s)
He asked me to not take a picture of his writing, but even the writing looked sad on the card. He looked at me and whispered that he “didn’t want to leave Mrs. C” and that he would “miss her so much.”
I’ve mentioned before that this particular teacher made a huge impact on my child. The knowledge that he has is that he will either have a teacher that understands him and his learning style or he won’t. I think there is quite a bit of fear that he will have a teacher that doesn’t and that he will be in the same position he occupied in K-1, where the teachers often misunderstood him.
As a mom, it’s time for me to step in and remind him that he was lucky to have this teacher while he did and that she was precious. However, we’ve learned that he is capable of putting forth a great effort and making some amazing changes in himself that serve him well no matter who he has as a teacher. He will still be in the same school and this teacher will be loving and supportive of him regardless of whether or not he is in her classroom. We will say goodbye gently and lovingly and remember what she has taught him about himself and life and tackling challenges that seem insurmountable. I cannot thank her enough for teaching him something that I could not teach him at the time.
It truly takes a community to raise a child. I’m thankful for the one in which I live. They are wonderful people.
Today, I was reading Jen’s blog (which, if you haven’t read it, you should) on her child’s birthday party and the quandary she is in due to the creativity of her son and his having invited most of the school and the neighboring 3 counties (my author liberty) to his birthday party.
When I finished reading I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. Better her than me, I thought to myself. Jen will likely defriend me at this point, and rightfully so, as I should be commiserating with her, but in the age of Chuck-e-Cheese, I’m just thankful I didn’t get roped into this particular dilemna.
AJ has never had a large party. When I go to adult parties, other parents are very quick to judge me when I state this fact. The response is usually a tightening of the lips, a shake of the head and a “but, don’t you think he’s missing out?” or some equally insane statement. If you just relaxed your lips, stopped shaking your head and closed your mouth, then we need to talk in a very serious way.
As a toddler, a big party would have been more for the adults. Consider the statement “Aw, look at all the cute little ones in their cute little pointy hats and their faces all smooshed with cake. Isn’t it precious?” That cute, precious, pointy party would have cost about $200 and he would have ended up with a bunch of presents that would have put people out of grocery money. For the $200, we could buy him presents and those people could buy their groceries. So, we chose to have small parties, spend less than $25 (usually) on a party for him, us, family and close friends and spend a bit on presents (not $200, for the record).
As he gets older, now 8, we still don’t do big parties. This year, we asked what he would like to do on his birthday. He chose to see a movie. That gets expensive with many people, so the compromise was that he could choose ONE friend to take to the movie and then we’d do the bells and whistles for them: ANYTHING they wanted from the snack bar and they got to pick any G rated movie they wanted to see. You would think they died and went to high fructose corn syrup heaven. Before the movie, they went to the McDonald’s and ate dinner and played in the playland for two hours. AJ said it was “the best birthday ever!” and so did his friend.
By keeping his party expectations low, we don’t have to worry about upsets. Sure, he like attending birthday parties, but he also is an introvert who likes a small get together, too. He’d rather have presents and get to do whatever he wants on his day than a 2 hour party.
Another family we know did something similar. They did the big Chuck-e-Cheese party, but they invited family and they allowed their child to choose one kid to come as a guest (AJ) and so they saved money on tokens and all the extras and the child still got the special feeling that a kid gets from doing all the birthday stuff at Chuck-e-Cheese.
To Jen, what about doing a lollipop lottery? Get some dum dums and whoever gets the dum dums with a mark on them gets to come to your 3-4 person party? To everyone else, I’m just glad I’m still worrying about this kind of thing instead of beer parties.
Need a morning pick me up? This is 15 kinds of precious and they are incredibly good. I’d like to have this as my ringtone if I could figure it out? I’m not tech savvy, but it really is that worth it. Take a couple of minutes and bring some relaxation and harmony to your day. Let’s keep music in our schools, people. It doesn’t just teach children music. If you aren’t seeing that, you aren’t looking at it properly.
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
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We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
