I don't know if it's a phase or a mood or just something to do with the weather, but my son has been extraordinarily clingy lately, especially at bedtime. He wants me to lay down and cuddle with him whenever I tuck him in bed (a lovely little time during which I admit I have fallen asleep while scrunched onto one side of his little twin bed with the lights still glaring and me still in my work clothes) or he wants to come sleep with me.
I've always allowed him to sleep with me occasionally, usually on a weekend night or if he's sick or something. Almost never on a weeknight since it's considered a "treat" and, let's be real, I don't sleep as well with him next to me. (Between his wriggling and somehow managing to hog the entire bed with his little 4-foot frame, it's not generally a good night's rest. I can make up for that on the weekend, but it leaves me dragging on a work day.)
But I confess, weekday be damned, I have indulged his requests of late. I could blame some streak of parenting nostalgia or a mushy mood of my own, but in reality it's a creeping awareness of the changes that are coming in my life. It won't be that much longer before that spare side of my bed will be taken up with a big ole' snoring man (and talk about hogging all the bed!). There won't be room for my little guy to cuddle up with me for the night, so I'm taking all the chances I can get right now.
That got me thinking, though, about some of the things I will and will definitely not miss about being a single parent. (For the record, I've been alone with my son since his infancy, so I've really not been anything but a single parent for most of his life, making this whole being married and being a mom thing a bizarrely new experience for me).
THINGS I'LL MISS:
-Naptime (Yes, I can sneak them in on weekends right now when my son is watching a movie or something. I can't imagine being able to do that with three kids in the house.)
-Easy dinners (I can throw together grilled cheese or French toast or spaghetti for two in a jiffy. Takes a bit more planning to feed five, including three growing and perpetually hungry boys.)
-Autocracy (I won't be able to reign unchecked in my house with another parent there. Boo for compromise!)
-Quiet time (Did I mention the three boys?)
-Clean bathrooms (See note above.)
On a happier note (and so Mike won't think I'm dreading marrying him), here are the THINGS I DEFINITELY WON'T MISS:
-Mowing the lawn (yep, that just became his job)
-Candy Land (Hey, there are two other age-appropriate players joining the household. Let them have at it.)
-Trying to squeeze every errand and chore I've got into the two hours between school and bed. (How nice it'll be to be able to have a spare pair of hands to start dinner while I help with homework or something.)
-Quiet time (Yes, I know that's on both lists, but as much as I sometimes enjoy quiet time, I've also known it to be "lonely time," and I'm looking forward to having a house full of voices like the one I grew up in.)
There are not comprehensive lists, and I'm certain I'll encounter surprises along the way -- things I never dreamed I'd miss or be glad to have banished from my life. All of it feels very much like an adventure. Sometimes it feels like the kind of adventure Aron Ralston might have, but an adventure all the same.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Existential questions and the not-so-single mom
I had a full day of long-procrastinated housework planned for yesterday, so I left my son pretty much to his own entertainment devices for most of the day. At some point, between scrubbing the bathtub, loading the washer and dryer, and vacuuming the carpet, I could hear the faint sounds of the TV wafting upstairs.
He was watching "Lion King," a perennial favorite in our house but one that hasn't seen much airtime of late since a recently dropped prohibition in our house has allowed him to explore the fascinating and far edgier world of "Shrek."
The return of "Lion King," however, prompted a few existential questions that something like "Shrek," as crass and tasteless as I find it to be for a 5 year old, would never incite.
On the way to school this morning, he started asking why Scar was a bad guy even though he was "the little one's" uncle. And how did pushing him off the wall kill the little one's dad? ("Did those animals that were running stab him with their horns?" he asked.)
By the way, did I mention you'll need a working knowledge of this movie to understand this blog? For the uninitiated -- Scar, Simba's uncle, killed Simba's father, Moufassa, by throwing him off a rock wall into a herd of stampeding wildebeest.
Most of his preliminary questions I could answer with either straightforward factual info -- although trying to explain death by trampling to a 5 year old was a fun one -- or a "well, he's just a bad guy" deflection. The next question, though, was not so easy.
"If Simba's dad died, how could he come back and talk to him that time when he said, 'You have forgotten yourself and me'?"
(Again, for the unfamiliar, Moufassa's spirit speaks to Simba years after his death.)
I hadn't really thought about how heady that scene really was until I saw it through the eyes of my son who was really quite perplexed by how a dead person could come back and talk to you. Having seen that movie for the first time as a near-adult, I really hadn't given the scene much thought. Maybe it really was a visit by a spirit. Maybe it was Simba's projecting his own memories of his father at a time of crisis. Maybe it was something else altogether. Suffice it to say, I hadn't exactly parsed it all out and made it jibe with my own personal belief system or anything.
So, here I was, two minutes away from pulling into school, struggling to figure out how to explain the concept of a spirit or soul and how it could "visit" (or even more confusing, psychological trauma and projection -- no, I did not even think about going there). Despite my valiant efforts, I'm pretty sure I screwed up the attempt at explaining anything, and my son now either will be terrorized by nightmares about ghosts or will be sitting around staring at the stars hoping for a message from our late cat.
Maybe "Shrek" isn't such a bad idea after all.
He was watching "Lion King," a perennial favorite in our house but one that hasn't seen much airtime of late since a recently dropped prohibition in our house has allowed him to explore the fascinating and far edgier world of "Shrek."
The return of "Lion King," however, prompted a few existential questions that something like "Shrek," as crass and tasteless as I find it to be for a 5 year old, would never incite.
On the way to school this morning, he started asking why Scar was a bad guy even though he was "the little one's" uncle. And how did pushing him off the wall kill the little one's dad? ("Did those animals that were running stab him with their horns?" he asked.)
By the way, did I mention you'll need a working knowledge of this movie to understand this blog? For the uninitiated -- Scar, Simba's uncle, killed Simba's father, Moufassa, by throwing him off a rock wall into a herd of stampeding wildebeest.
Most of his preliminary questions I could answer with either straightforward factual info -- although trying to explain death by trampling to a 5 year old was a fun one -- or a "well, he's just a bad guy" deflection. The next question, though, was not so easy.
"If Simba's dad died, how could he come back and talk to him that time when he said, 'You have forgotten yourself and me'?"
(Again, for the unfamiliar, Moufassa's spirit speaks to Simba years after his death.)
I hadn't really thought about how heady that scene really was until I saw it through the eyes of my son who was really quite perplexed by how a dead person could come back and talk to you. Having seen that movie for the first time as a near-adult, I really hadn't given the scene much thought. Maybe it really was a visit by a spirit. Maybe it was Simba's projecting his own memories of his father at a time of crisis. Maybe it was something else altogether. Suffice it to say, I hadn't exactly parsed it all out and made it jibe with my own personal belief system or anything.
So, here I was, two minutes away from pulling into school, struggling to figure out how to explain the concept of a spirit or soul and how it could "visit" (or even more confusing, psychological trauma and projection -- no, I did not even think about going there). Despite my valiant efforts, I'm pretty sure I screwed up the attempt at explaining anything, and my son now either will be terrorized by nightmares about ghosts or will be sitting around staring at the stars hoping for a message from our late cat.
Maybe "Shrek" isn't such a bad idea after all.
Monday, March 14, 2011
A not-so-single mom's word to the wise
Here's a little nugget of insight that should probably be intuitive but that maybe you never thought of before (I didn't): Planning a wedding when you have children is markedly different from when you don't.
Take, for example, our search for a wedding venue. Since my fiance and I both have full-time jobs during the day and are both full-time single parents the rest of the time, any spare moment we have for wedding planning, we generally also have our children.
One recent Sunday afternoon, we decided to check out a little chapel in Greenville as a possible wedding site. It's located at one of the city's older churches, which also features an extensive (and also quite old) graveyard.
As soon as we walked through the gates, the younger boys thought we had brought them to the world's most awesome playground. Early on, I lost count at how many times my fiance or I said the sentence, "Don't walk on the graves" (or some variation thereof like, "Don't climb on the tombstones" or "Don't push each other onto the graves").
After a suitable amount of energy-burning time, we decided to mosey from graveyard to chapel, our actual reason for coming here in the first place. There was once a time when I could just go somewhere without having to build in some mandatory play time. Ah, the good ole' days.
Being well aware of the boys' propensity for noise-, chaos- and general trouble-making, we spoke to them before heading into the chapel about being calm, quiet and respectful. And while not on perfect behavior, they honestly did very well.
So well, in fact, that I got a little cocky and ahead of myself and, without really considering how long little boys could hold out on that good behavior thing, invited everyone inside the "big church" (vs. the little chapel) to look around its beautiful sanctuary.
Let me fill you in on something -- little boy shoes' slapping against a marble floor really echoes around a big, empty church, especially when they're racing to see which one is going to be the rotten egg for getting to the altar last. So much for calm, quiet and respectful.
You try getting a couple of kindergartners to NOT want to play with shiny altar rails, velvety kneeling benches, giant organ keyboards and the very tempting door that leads to the bell tower.
When the giggling and playing reached an unstoppable crest, we finally ushered them back outside where they proceeded to climb every single very old tree they could get their little shoes on. I figure that's the most appropriately respectful thing they did all day. Old trees surely love to be climbed by little boys.
Take, for example, our search for a wedding venue. Since my fiance and I both have full-time jobs during the day and are both full-time single parents the rest of the time, any spare moment we have for wedding planning, we generally also have our children.
One recent Sunday afternoon, we decided to check out a little chapel in Greenville as a possible wedding site. It's located at one of the city's older churches, which also features an extensive (and also quite old) graveyard.
As soon as we walked through the gates, the younger boys thought we had brought them to the world's most awesome playground. Early on, I lost count at how many times my fiance or I said the sentence, "Don't walk on the graves" (or some variation thereof like, "Don't climb on the tombstones" or "Don't push each other onto the graves").
After a suitable amount of energy-burning time, we decided to mosey from graveyard to chapel, our actual reason for coming here in the first place. There was once a time when I could just go somewhere without having to build in some mandatory play time. Ah, the good ole' days.
Being well aware of the boys' propensity for noise-, chaos- and general trouble-making, we spoke to them before heading into the chapel about being calm, quiet and respectful. And while not on perfect behavior, they honestly did very well.
So well, in fact, that I got a little cocky and ahead of myself and, without really considering how long little boys could hold out on that good behavior thing, invited everyone inside the "big church" (vs. the little chapel) to look around its beautiful sanctuary.
Let me fill you in on something -- little boy shoes' slapping against a marble floor really echoes around a big, empty church, especially when they're racing to see which one is going to be the rotten egg for getting to the altar last. So much for calm, quiet and respectful.
You try getting a couple of kindergartners to NOT want to play with shiny altar rails, velvety kneeling benches, giant organ keyboards and the very tempting door that leads to the bell tower.
When the giggling and playing reached an unstoppable crest, we finally ushered them back outside where they proceeded to climb every single very old tree they could get their little shoes on. I figure that's the most appropriately respectful thing they did all day. Old trees surely love to be climbed by little boys.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
A "weekend trip" and the not-so-single mom
As usual, my son and I were chatting in the car yesterday on the ride home from school when he started asking about what the strongest thing on earth was.
While I won't try to recount to you the bizarre twists and turns this meandering conversation took (it would take a 5 year old of your own or a chemically altered state of consciousness to understand it), I will say that it somehow came to involve talk of wrecking balls and cranes, sharks (and whether they bite your skin off), elephants, fire, ants, and cheetahs.
"Strongest," it turns out, can mean myriad things (able to lift vs. capable of destruction, tough vs. mean, etc.), and it took a while for my son to decide what he meant by "strongest" -- and even then it was regularly subject to change. As one point in the conversation, though, he had settled on "strongest" essentially meaning "fastest," thus the cheetah.
In talking about the cheetah -- yes, we had a several-minute conversation about cheetahs -- we ended up at some point talking about a cheetah's prey.
He asked what an antelope was, to which I offered as much of a description as I could muster. He asked if he could see a picture of one, and I told him I'd find one for him.
"You have a picture of an antelope?" he asked eagerly.
Much to his chagrin, I told him, no, I'd find one for him on the Internet.
"Let's find a real antelope and take a picture," he suggested.
"Well, baby, we can't really do that. They live far away, on another continent called Africa," I replied.
"We can go on the weekend," he helpfully suggested.
"No, we can't," I replied. "It takes a really long time to get to Africa. We'd have to go on a plane and everything."
"Well, I can miss a day of school," he said.
"No, sweetie, you can't miss school to go to Africa to take a picture of an antelope."
"Oh, wait, I know. Spring break is next week. We can go then," he said excitedly, thrilled to have found the obvious solution to this conundrum on how to get the perfect antelope photo.
Between barely suppressed chuckles at his overt enthusiasm, I tried to explain that going to Africa was a big deal that would take a lot of time and a lot of money and it wasn't something we were going to do any time soon. It did little to ease his disappointment.
"But I want to see an antelope," he whined.
Though I'm not one to advocate more TV watching (heck, I don't even have cable at home), I think this boy could seriously benefit from some Animal Planet. Springing for cable's definitely going to save me in the long run over two round-trip tickets to Kenya.
While I won't try to recount to you the bizarre twists and turns this meandering conversation took (it would take a 5 year old of your own or a chemically altered state of consciousness to understand it), I will say that it somehow came to involve talk of wrecking balls and cranes, sharks (and whether they bite your skin off), elephants, fire, ants, and cheetahs.
"Strongest," it turns out, can mean myriad things (able to lift vs. capable of destruction, tough vs. mean, etc.), and it took a while for my son to decide what he meant by "strongest" -- and even then it was regularly subject to change. As one point in the conversation, though, he had settled on "strongest" essentially meaning "fastest," thus the cheetah.
In talking about the cheetah -- yes, we had a several-minute conversation about cheetahs -- we ended up at some point talking about a cheetah's prey.
He asked what an antelope was, to which I offered as much of a description as I could muster. He asked if he could see a picture of one, and I told him I'd find one for him.
"You have a picture of an antelope?" he asked eagerly.
Much to his chagrin, I told him, no, I'd find one for him on the Internet.
"Let's find a real antelope and take a picture," he suggested.
"Well, baby, we can't really do that. They live far away, on another continent called Africa," I replied.
"We can go on the weekend," he helpfully suggested.
"No, we can't," I replied. "It takes a really long time to get to Africa. We'd have to go on a plane and everything."
"Well, I can miss a day of school," he said.
"No, sweetie, you can't miss school to go to Africa to take a picture of an antelope."
"Oh, wait, I know. Spring break is next week. We can go then," he said excitedly, thrilled to have found the obvious solution to this conundrum on how to get the perfect antelope photo.
Between barely suppressed chuckles at his overt enthusiasm, I tried to explain that going to Africa was a big deal that would take a lot of time and a lot of money and it wasn't something we were going to do any time soon. It did little to ease his disappointment.
"But I want to see an antelope," he whined.
Though I'm not one to advocate more TV watching (heck, I don't even have cable at home), I think this boy could seriously benefit from some Animal Planet. Springing for cable's definitely going to save me in the long run over two round-trip tickets to Kenya.
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