It’s hard to let him grow up

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . August 20, 2011 . 4:11PM

It’s been difficult for me to write anything substantial as of late. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the one thing I’ve been focusing on tremendously is that my son, A.J., is 10 years old now. This year, he moved up from elementary school and there is little I can do to stop his growing up. He’s 8 years from official adulthood and when it kicked in, roughly 3-weeks ago, the regrets and the guilt overwhelmed me.

Every mother suffers from “the grass is always greener” syndrome. Those of us that went back to work or school eventually come to realize that we wish with all of our hearts we’d stayed home with our kids. Those of us that were stay at home moms have days we wish with all of our hearts we could just get out of the house for a little while. I was the work and school mom and during this time period emotions flooded me in that I didn’t do enough “stuff” with my kid. He’d invited me to his school for events repeatedly and frequently I didn’t go. Sure it was sometimes because I had things that had to be done, but sometimes it was because I was just tired and felt like I needed time to myself.

I can’t get that time back and it was pervasive and overwhelming to me. The week before he went back to school this year it pierced my heart so hard that I began to cling to him and struggle with the idea that my son was going to grow and change and, with that, so would our relationship. The little boy in him is already almost gone and a tween is taking his place. I combed the internet for other mothers that felt this way and mainly hit articles that talked about the empty nest syndrome and mothers feeling this way right before pre-school and right before college. Rarely did I see a mother that was hitting it around the time I was and it concerned me.

It is now 3-weeks into his school routine and I’m finally starting to be ok with our change of events. I went back into my journal and realized that every single year of school I struggled with him going back, just not to the extent that I struggled this year. He is adjusting and so am I, mainly with his support and love. He’s still a 10-year old. A tall 10-year old with a lot of opinions who I feel is growing too quickly, but he’s a 10-year old boy who loves his mother desperately and who understands that mothers sometimes have trouble with their kids growing up. Thank goodness for empathy and compassion in children.

As we get back into school and baseball and life moves forward, I resolve to do better. I resolve to be as involved in A.J.’s life as he’ll allow as well as striving to continue with healthy boundaries between us. I strive to finish my education and create a healthy balance with my home-life and try to be more understanding with myself and others. I strive to allow him to grow and learn and be the best man he can be…because that’s my job…as his mom.

Going on safari

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 28, 2010 . 5:20PM

I’m an adventurer. Just this week I’ve been on a safari and went to the beach.

I’ve never been out of the continental U.S. and I’ve been spending the better part of the month in my bedroom. Maybe my way of travel isn’t yours, but for me, it’s necessary and it helps. For the majority of my life, I’ve been a voracious reader and have had a pretty decent imagination. There have never been the time or the funds for me to actually go anywhere worth really digging into, but I can read about places and, in my mind, I have been there.

Lately, that has saved my bacon in so many ways. Southwest.com has a schtick that says “wanna get away?” Yes, I do! Oh, I do! A break, yes please! Right now, though, I’m moving quickly nowhere. But, in this room, I’m going many places.

As adults, we often turn off our imaginations and suppress our pretend-o-meters (yes, I know it’s not a real word, but please stay with me). And, yet, in the back of our minds, there is still the capacity for childlike joy in sheet forts and paper hats and closed eye pretend travel. So, I needed a break.

When I woke up, I was going on Safari. It is supernaturally hot in Nashville this time of year. My bedroom is on the second floor of the house and my ceiling fan runs 24/7 to help keep my room ventilated. My white noise machine was on and the gentle breeze blowing across my face felt good.

Suddenly, I was on Safari and staying in my Safari housing. It was so hot outside that the animals weren’t coming out. The palm fan was blowing a gentle breeze across my face as my hair gently caressed my ears and a small fly landed on my shoulder. I softly brushed it away and hugged my pillow tighter as I thought about what was going on in my home across the ocean…

the ocean…

I turned the lamp next to me on full blast next to my face and turned the white noise machine on to “ocean waves” and suddenly I was at the beach. If you close your eyes you can almost hear sea gulls. The power of imagination is strong when you focus on it. The lamp next to me mimicked the sun so strongly I wanted to pull the covers over my head because it was hurting my eyes.

It relaxed me.

The imagination we gain as children never goes away. We put it on a shelf and pull it out as grandparents so we can play in those sheet forts or play water guns properly or tell stories that make little ones truly believe that there is magic in the air.

Sometimes, as adults, we need to believe in magic, too.

As the child grows…

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . November 11, 2009 . 10:49AM

When AJ was little, he had mad empathy. When other babies would cry, he would wail like crazy. This has never left him and I’m inclined to believe it’s part of his temperament. He’s always been the caretaker in this house, and I think it’s because he sees that when one of us is sick, we all take care of that person. It is how we handle sickness or sadness or stress. Since he was very tiny, he would play the nursemaid when Leon or I was sick. I still remember him fetching me lukewarm water in the bathroom cup when I was nursing a migraine because he’d seen Leon bring me water for my aspirin. I believe he was as young as 3 when he started.

When Leon or I am sick, he hates to go to school and when he is here, he will bring ice packs, aspirin, wet washcloths and as many hugs, kisses and cuddles as we will take. There are many nights that he went to bed on a Friday night at 7:30 because I was sick with a migraine and laying there. He would lay next to me, patting my hand, and would eventually drift off.

There is a certain sense of guilt that comes with having chronic pain–that burden that you place on the people around you. The feelings that you may have of feeling like less of a person some days often express themselves at the weakest moments and not always in the best of ways. They often present in anger, misery or irritability. AJ is immune to that when someone is sick.

This isn’t to say that he doesn’t have his egocentric “me me me” side, because he certainly does, but it has never been as strong as I expected. And I’m watching him shed it rapidly and sooner than the developmental scales predict and I wonder about the kind of man he’ll become, and how quickly it will happen. Will I ever be ready for it? People keep telling me to have more children. My guess is that they recognize that there is so much love within me for this little guy that it breaks me.

I worry less about it when I see that I haven’t done an awful job and that my health issues haven’t affected him so dramatically. As he was going to bed tonight, he kissed my cheek, hugged me tightly and said, “I hope you feel better tomorrow, mama.” Then, he gave me the dimpled grin that melts my heart and he and his hoppy little weiner dog went to sleep.

Somehow, I think we’re all going to be alright…