“Look Mommy, he’s swimming.”
“Look it Mommy, can you find them? They are camouflaged! This one is purple and this one is yellow, see?”
“Did you see that, Mommy?”
“They’re like, you know, that kind of, blue frogs actually just go in water camouflaged, even on ice, because ice is blue, right? Right, Mommy?”
“Hey Mommy, can I get a dinosaur up here, even two?”
At my exasperated response of “yes, Alden,” my 4 ½ year old exited the room briefly to grab two velociraptors to hunt the camouflaged frogs.
I typed out the sentences in this post as he spoke them - in under two minutes including my responses (which I did not write). He was sitting on my bed, playing with two plastic frogs.
To be honest, I had come upstairs to my room to have a hot minute to myself and escape him. From noon until that moment (7:27 p.m. to be exact), he had been non stop talking, moving, needing me, crying, sprinting through the house, asking questions, humming random tunes, calling my name, and needing affirmation of some sort. It felt like a marathon of placating every whim of a tiny dictator who needed all parts of my soul for hours on end. If I denied him, I would certainly pay!
Last week we had a snow storm, or rather, snowmaggedon. From that storm, we had 2 ½ feet of snow and it lasted almost four days. This resulted in not only sore backs and a lot of wet snow suits and hats, but in a week of no school for Alden. Now, it is supposed to snow again a few times this week, and I found myself cursing mother nature for the potential of being stuck inside again with a 4 ½ year old, 2 dogs and a husband who seemed to have conference calls at the very same time as mine. Because my husband works full time and is the one who makes the “cash money”, it was more on me to ensure Alden was behaved and semi-quiet during the times we were double booked. So at the start of any class presentation to my embedded classes, and the start of any 1:1 conference with a student, I jokingly announced I had bribed my son with fruit snacks and Jurassic Park on his kindle, “apologies in advance if he suddenly appears demanding something or singing songs about zombies or yelling about dinosaurs” (all of which happened, by the way).
I am not so blinded by my own frustration to understand I am not the only person in this situation. As 2020 and 2021 thus far have proven- normal is relative and abnormal is normal. I am thankful I am in a position to be working part time, virtually. I am thankful my husband has an excellent job with an excellent company and has so much stability. I am thankful we are healthy, we have a healthy child and healthy pups. I am thankful we have food and shelter and enough that I can feel frustrated and annoyed after a week of feet of snow, shoveling and togetherness. But damn, I was annoyed. MOMMY NEEDS A MINUTE.
Last week, I cursed the toys everywhere in the living room, the consistent and urgent need for snacks, the demanding and the whining and the incessant wanting of my attention. And then tonight, for some reason, when I had tried to escape for a few moments, I realized, I WILL miss this.
I will miss the constant “hey Mommy,” I will miss him following me for no reason, I will miss his little voice humming (or loudly belting) random songs, I will miss his starting sentences with “kind of” or “did you know?” and will most certainly miss him mispronouncing words. I will miss him fake laughing, or his “spying” on me as well as his incessant dancing- everywhere, all time time. I will miss his need to listen to the same three Johnny Cash, Jake Owen, Taylor Swift songs over and over and over. I will miss his innocent sense of humor and his non-stop questions. I will miss his insistence I sing a song while he goes to the bathroom (to the tune of “Shoop” by Salt n Peppa so you know…) I will miss his cowlicked hair and his child-splaining things to me. I will miss the frog documentary he has watched at least 100 times (it is actually really good and Sir Attenborough narrates- frogs rule in this home!) Well, I think you get the point.
After a moment of reveling in frustration and annoyance, I looked at this bright eyed little boy, pretend playing with two frogs, and realized he will all too soon not want to be with me at all.
He won’t want to explain things to me anymore, he won’t want me to watch his every move, he won’t mispronounce words. He will do his hair how he pleases and he will make more time for friends and sports and school than he does me. He would be mortified to know that I sang ANY song to him while he went to the bathroom, let alone the one I did, and he will most likely not want to sing to me either. He won’t need me to get him snacks, he will look up answers to his questions on the internet instead of asking me and he probably won’t think frogs are cool. His sense of humor will change and he will not want to break out into dance parties at any moment in time. He may not like Johnny Cash, Jake Owen and Taylor Swift anymore, and if he does still like them, he will be embarrassed as hell when I sing and dance to them.
So why was I annoyed and exhausted again? “I, I kind of” forget. For another day anyway until exasperation sets in once again!
Until then, this is my Monday Perspective.
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