The "joys" of motherhood

Mother's Day is right around the corner and I am proud to say that I have been in the mommy club for almost five years. Most of the time, I am bursting at the seams with pride at my little guy's accomplishments. He's changed by leaps and bounds since he was born and I would like to think that he has changed me for the better too.

Sure, there have been rough spots. As an infant, there was the projectile vomiting, the waking up daily at 5:45 a.m., the never ending diaper changes. Then as a toddler, there was the worry about when he would walk and whether he would ever learn to count to ten as he was insistent on skipping the number 6 ("I no like six", the eighteen month old Jonathan would announce emphatically). Most recently, we have battled over back talk and eating dinner. And over not running through the house screaming and crying when you don't get your way. We've also dealt with some resistance to committing to memory the letters S, K, G and N.

These frustrations sometimes cause me to question my ability as a parent and whether I am adequately equipped to deal with this strong willed little creature. But then I will get to school to pick Jonathan up after a long day and he will run to me with a handful of weeds that he has assembled for me, thrusting them at me with one hand as he embraces my leg in a hug with the other arm and I think, this is what motherhood is all about. THIS is why they have sappy Mother's Day cards out the wazoo at Hallmark.

When you are contemplating being a mother and even when you are actually pregnant, no one tells you that being a mother is, a lot of times, quite far from the ideallyic images of flowers and rainbows we women have in our heads prior to taking the motherhood plunge. What no one tells you is that sometimes your child will do or say something that makes you wonder who is this alien creature who grew in your body but whom surely must be the spawn of Satan. I suppose that, as an intelligent woman, I should have known this fact but then something happens that will totally blow me away, marking me as the the mother whose child did THAT.

Case in point--I just found out this morning that my dear sweet cherub faced son told a friend at school that he hated her and never wanted to play with her again. This little girl is the sweetest little thing you have ever seen. She and Jonathan went to day care together as infants and switched to their current preschool at the same time last year. Even worse, her parents are good friends of Bryan and mine. They are an all around lovely family. When I found out that Jonathan said this to her, I was mor.ti.fied. I wanted to believe that there had been some sort of mistake. But when I asked him, I knew he was guilty as his eyes immediately welled up with tears. Bryan and I had to explain to him that you never, NEVER, NEVER say something like that to anyone, that it was a mean thing to do and that he had hurt his friend's feelings. We told him that he needed to apologize to her this morning and, most of all, that he needed to be nice to everyone at school and pretty much in the entire world.

This was not exactly how I wanted to spend my morning.

What I think is lacking in the gagillions of parenting books and articles that I have perused during the time from when Jonathan was a two week old mass of cells until now when he is a full fledged person is that people are not born with inherent manners or even any real idea of how to interact in the world. While I have worried about Jonathan's academic achievements as well as his physical growth and development, I have not been as concerned about his growth as a person, his ability to be a kind and compassionate human being--I thought it would just happen. And honestly, I'd rather have a child who cares about others, who knows how to make friends and who makes an overall positive contribution to the lives of those around him than a child who is the valedictorian of his graduating class (OK, I want that too, but if I have to choose one...)

While I am sure that Jonathan will do and say many things over the coming years that will mortify me, I love the little guy unconditionally. This whole motherhood business is not exactly what I expected it to be, but I could not have asked for a better child to travel with me along the journey.

I just hope he gets over this mean streak :)

Quiet Time

A bout of food poisoning from dinner on Friday night left me feeling pretty puny early Saturday afternoon. Jonathan officially gave up his nap several months ago but Bryan and I still require that he have quiet time. This quiet time used to be comprised of watching a movie on the couch or upstairs in our bedroom; more recently, however, quiet time is spent in his room where he gets to watch said movie on the television that he got as a hand me down from my parents. He's not spoiled at all.

He chose the movie Mary Poppins, a good choice in my mind as it is a long movie and I planned to enjoy his quiet time on the couch watching 16 and Pregnant episodes that I had on DVR. After starting the movie, I reminded Jonathan that I did not feel well and asked him to chill out and watch the movie. He seemed sympathetic and said that he would.

And he WAS quiet. And he was being good. I thought to myself at one point how happy I was that he had developed a sense of empathy. This is great, I said to myself.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Yes, the child did not make a peep during the movie. Yes, he did not call for me until the movie was done. But something didn't look quite right when I went back to get him after quiet time ended. I couldn't quite place my finger on it at first.



Then something on the floor caught my eye. Red fuzz and something else. Not dust, which would be totally typical, but something else entirely. I bent down to pick it up and realized that it was hair. Human hair. I wondered from where it came?

Then I looked at Jonathan again. I didn't remember his hair being like that in the front; in fact, I recalled it looking more like this:



Usually hair looks longer the week after a haircut, not shorter. I asked Jonathan how this hair ended up on the floor and he told me that he did not know. I asked him again and reminded him that it would not be a good idea to lie to me as I was holding the evidence in my hand. Still, he hesitated. He started to roll around on the bed a bit giving me a better view, one that looked much like this:



Finally, he confessed that he took the kid scissors stored under the easel in his room and used them to trim up his stuffed Clifford's coat. Apparently that was not gratifying enough as he thereafter moved on to his own head.

An aerial view:



Part of me wanted to laugh as there was a time when I was about the same age that I cut a huge triangle out of my sister Laura's bangs. But the difference there was that I freely admitted to doing it when confronted by my mother (in fact, I recall being PROUD of my handiwork) whereas my child blatantly lied to my face about this. Apparently I was supposed to believe that the hair just fell off while he enjoyed a Disney classic. In sum, I felt pretty pissed off.

Needless to say, we had to have a talk about telling Mommy and Daddy the truth, that even if you are going to get in trouble for what you did, you will always get in more trouble for lying. God, I could literally hear my parents' voices as I said these words. I wanted to rewind ten years to a time when I would have been enjoying the nice weather by sitting on a patio somewhere with a beer.

I'm not sure that he got the message. He was pretty upset when I told him that I was going to tell his Nana and his Grams about this. And anyone else who asked. There were some sad expressions thrown around with a dash of whining mixed in for good measure. The scissors have since been placed where he cannot access them without asking. I hope that he learns something from this lesson. The hair will, of course, grow back and he will look normal again within a week, but I hope that he learned his proverbial lesson.

I think I still see an evil twinkle in his eyes, though, causing me to suspect that the "fun" is just beginning;

Soccer Practice

My kid likes to play soccer. My husband also likes to play soccer as well as watch soccer on TV. I think soccer is great exercise for both of them but watching it in person or on TV? Honestly? It bores me.

However, combine soccer with a chance to use my new camera and I'm interested. This is true despite the facts that I had a killer day at work and it was quite chilly for practice this evening--the temperature display in my car said that it was 53 degrees. Unfortunately, it was also windy which made for one chilly mama.

But I was happy to have braved the elements as I was able to capture some pictures that make me feel all warm and fuzzy and motherly inside.

Look at this face:



I don't know what the coach asked the kids to do but when I uploaded this picture tonight, I had an urge to caption it with Jonathan saying "Man, did you see how tall this chick is?"



Speaking of size, can you believe that Jonathan and Gael (the son of a friend of ours) are just a few months apart? Seeing the two of them together is like a real life visualization of two ends of the growth chart from the pediatrician's office.



The coach had the kids work on learning how to stop the ball. Does it make me a bad mother that I laughed not only at my own child but also other children when they lost their balance and fell off their respective balls? Please say no.



Back to being motherly--I'll leave you with a picture of my sweet boy using his listening ears and following the coach's directions. If he would just transfer some of the behavior to listening to Bryan and me, that would be super great :)

New Camera!

I've wanted a Canon Rebel for some time as my pitiful Kodak point and shoot left much to be desired. Thankfully, Bryan is now employed again (and not a moment too soon!) and it became economically feasible to make the plunge into SLR world. We just brought home the new addition yesterday so I've not had a lot of time to play with it yet but I am already SO happy with the results:



Ignore the dirty face in this one--is there a way to Photoshop filth from a child's face? (I'm intending to learn Photoshop too)--but I am quite pleased to be able to finally achieve (pardon the usage of a super technical term here) the blurry background behind the subject of the picture:



And while I am on the topic of new things, now is as good a time as any to introduce Albert. We adopted Albert two weeks ago--he is around 10 weeks old and the sweetest kitten EVER. And this is coming from a self-professed non-cat person. Long story short on Albert--Bryan and I had decided, despite the fact that I was not a cat person AT ALL, to get Jonathan a kitten for his fifth birthday this July. Then Arthur decided to take a nip out of my lip. He'd done the same thing about two years ago and Bryan and I discussed at that time that was it, he'd gotten his "one bite free" and the next time, he was out. I love the grouchy dear but having a dog who bites with no forewarning is absolutely unacceptable, especially when combined with a child. Luckily, my sister did not mind to add Arthur to her pack of creatures, so Arthur now lives in Georgia and we are now a cat family. So far, so good.



I was hoping for good weather today so that I could take Jonathan to a park or play ground to try out the new camera as well as the zoom lens but looks like I will have to wait until Jonathan's first soccer practice of the season tomorrow for that. Unfortunately, the rainy day today has left all three us us (Albert seems unaffected) looking much like this:

Reason 4,632 why I love Ellen DeGeneres

This quote.

"I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It's been about two months since I've worked out. And I just don't have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words."

Nothing irks me more these days than people commenting on my workout schedule and saying something like "Oh, I wish I had the time to work out." Like I don't have a million other things going on right now? I just want to scream "Dude, make it a priority and you will be surprised about how you found the time!!"

Can you tell I have some animosity today? I need a vacation!

Wednesday rant over.

Super Bowl 2010

He didn't even make it to the kick-off.



Our Super Bowl party of three just did him in. It must have been the mass quantities of queso dip and fried food that I prepared for the occasion. Jonathan sat back on the couch, said that he was taking a break from eating his chicken and promptly passed out. One day this may be him at a college party after too much beer, where falling asleep so early could earn him a date with a Sharpie. Or worse.

But, for this time, it's just sweet, beautiful innocence.

Greats

I've been horrible about updating this blog. I've waffled on whether I wanted to continue it or just give it up. I'm so anal about doing things in order that I've wondered if I can ever catch up. Earlier today, while thinking about this for the millionth time, I decided that I'm not ready to let it go, at least not yet.

This decision was reached as I was looking at Jonathan, listening to him talk about something. He seemed so OLD all of a sudden, leaving me to wonder where in the world the tiny infant son I once held in my arms had gone. Then I realized, with a bit of a shock, that he will be FIVE (5!!) this year and I started to internally panic over the fact that the infant days seem so long ago that I have trouble remembering them. That made the decision for me right there--I must continue to catalog these moments so that I can more clearly remember them.

I pretty much left off with our vacation to Florida in August. While there have been a few posts since then, chronologically in my photos is a trip that we took with my grandparents to Cass, West Virginia. Mama and Papa, as they are more commonly called, are my Dad's parents. They have a "camp" as they call their house in the mountains. As a child, I went there with them several times. Papa has, pretty much since Jonathan was born, talked about taking Jonathan there. This year seemed like the right time so we went for a couple of days over Labor Day weekend.

The feeling of visiting a place with the same people with whom I visited it before, but also with my husband and my son, was pretty amazing. It also was a bit eerie as things looked much the same as I recall from my last visit twenty-ish years earlier.

The case of characters for this trip were Mama and myself,



Papa and Bryan,



Jonathan and his new friend, Davis, acquired right before this photo from the gift shop.



This wooden train was one of a few changes since my last visit. Jonathan enjoyed it quite a bit while the men in the party went to get tickets for our train ride.




The train ride to Whittaker Station was just as I recalled, but for the fact that the train cars are now covered, which is a great improvement. I promise, I really was happy to be on the train.



This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. I have no idea why. Jonathan wasn't scared by the train whistle but it was a lot louder than what his experience with his toy Thomas trains had lead him to believe.



After we left Cass, we headed back to the "camp" to eat dinner and spend the night. Just like Cass, the camp was just as I remembered it. Of note is the furniture, which looks like it came from a whore house from the 1970s.




Also worth mention is the stuffed and mounted squirrel that I killed on my first and only hunting trip with my Dad and my sister Laura; I think I was in fourth grade and she was in third. Bryan really enjoyed this part of the trip as well as the various other dead animals the living room contained, most if not all of which were "taken" by my father. I am super proud :)





We had an incredible visit. Jonathan is so lucky to have great grandparents who are still living and in good health; I feel lucky to have them as well. Sure, Papa is super political (unfortunately, not of the same persuasion as Bryan and myself) and it was a Saturday night spent much differently than we do things at home in Louisville, but memories like these cannot be taken for granted and I am certain that we will wish there were more of them.

On a lighter note, where else can you snap a photo of your precious four year old holding a plastic bear tongue obtained from a bear rug, the same plastic bear tongue that you yourself played with as a child?



Yeah, hanging out with the greats is good stuff.