He is a love. Well, to me anyway. Although he and his sister (my eleven-year-old daughter, Anya) bicker with each other constantly, he has nothing but kisses, snuggles, nuzzles, and compliments for his mama.
We decided to put him in preschool last year. For several reasons, really, the most significant being that he’s smart as a whip and got bored with me at home. He would sit on the couch and watch SpongeBob while holding my hand, kind of like a little old man.
Sweet, but not very stimulating for either of us. Plus there’s only so many times one can take apart the remote and the phone.
Lukas did not initially take to preschool. He cried. He screamed. He wanted his mama. Even when I taught and repeated this mantra to him: “Mama always comes back.” This went on for several...months. Yeah, I know.
Fortunately, he’s at the same school as my daughter, they know us well, and they are wonderfully sweet, extraordinarily patient people. They would assure me, “We’ve done this many times before, Mrs. Thompson. He will calm down eventually,” as they would drag him literally kicking and screaming from my car, or pick him up from the asphalt he had decided to lie down on and not budge from, as I would leave in tears.
And, ultimately, they were right. Lukas did calm down. He made friends. He found his way.
Now he leaves in the morning excited to see his two buddies, ready to show them his “sick” new shoes or to bring his lovely teacher a tiny little present from the outer reaches of his Transformers drawer.
Yet every day when he comes home, he tells me “Mama, I missed you SOOOO much!” and he sits in my lap and gives me giant, squeezy, heart-melting hugs. “What do you miss?” I ask my little, precious love. “Your eyes (he loves my green eyes)—and your hugs.” Hmmm...” Don’t you gets hugs at school?” I ask him. He looks at me with those giant, beautiful, huge, brown long-lashed eyes that all the girls will love and swoon over when he’s a teenager and says, “No. Not really.”
Right then and there my heart starts to rupture. He tells me that his one little buddy and he hug each other hello and good-bye (so sweet—males hugging so easily) but that’s it. That’s the only hugging going on when that little precious boy is away from me.
See, here’s the thing.
You entrust your little beings to a school that you’ve chosen with intense research and with that check you write each month (or the taxes you pay). It’s a leap of faith, if you will, that they will care for and love and oh yeah, teach your children well. But for the littlest ones, one would hope that they would also give them hugs. Lots of ’em.
When he blows me a kiss good-bye every morning, I know in my heart that Lukas is being well taken care of: that he will be given two healthy snacks, that he is learning his ABCs, that he will get a bandage if he falls down. But will he be soothed and hugged if he misses his mama at nap time? Will he be told it’s all right to cry if he’s sad?
In short, will they see and even revel in the same preciousness in him that I do, or will they just hope that he give it a rest already? Or is this more my issue than anything else? Am I really just being neurotic mommy and should I just have some vodka and give it a rest already?
His teacher tells me what we’ve known for a long time—that he’s so very, very smart. (But, as Kathy Griffin says, doesn’t every parent think their child is “gifted?”) She knows that when he gets wound up that it’s best to just let him work it out on his own because he’s also very, very stubborn. That most of the time when he cries there are no actual tears—and I know this is true because he does the same thing at home. He’s a little “furian” as my husband calls him, a name he adapted from that Vin Diesel (hottie) sci-fi movie—“defiant to the end,” which is apropos here.
So obviously my boy is healthy, happy, and knows his numbers. He comes home cheerful from preschool, for the most part. When I pick him up, Lukas literally stops whatever he’s doing and runs at me full speed and leaps into my arms, where he hugs me with all his might, sturdy little arms around me as tight as he can, sweet kisses on my cheek.
And that, my friends, that—the running at me with pure joy on his face just to see me; the forgetting whatever he was involved in that was taking his full concentration, to get to the person that he can’t wait to touch; the long wait through the day for the giant hug that I am so lucky to be the recipient of—that makes my worries about the hugs all okay.
Because our hugs are the ones that count.
***
*Poignancy Alert*
THE MOMENT
My little guy and I are so bonded—on every level there is. I often look at his unconditional love for me and think how lucky I am to hold this precious gift in my hands every day.
I don’t understand how anyone can willingly give that up. I’m NOT a quotey kind of girl. If you want to share quotes with people, fine. Just do it quietly and without a lot of fuss and I’ll probably like you.
And yet…this particular Goethe quote I read when I was in high school; I cut it out of a magazine and kept it on my fridge in college. It stayed with me through various boyfriends and moves. This little slip of paper made a huge impact on my life.
I took it down when I met my husband.
I thought I was done with it. Apparently not.
The right man is the one who seizes the moment. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No one prepares you for that moment, where the air swirls around you with so many tiny black dots that you begin to watch them line up in captivating patterns, distracting you from the weight of what you thought you heard.
“He killed himself,” cannot be what the man on the phone just told you, but it is. Your mind can’t grasp that, though your body knows as your heart races madly, forcing you to sit, unaware that you already have.
The dizziness reminds you. Your burning lungs remind you.
Breathe.
You had just spoken with him, earlier that day.
This is not happening.
This has not happened.
You’ll find out later that he called your parents in a drunken stupor a few weeks back. “Tell her I’ll always love her,” they can barely make out. They don’t want to tell you about this.
You start to fit the puzzle pieces together.
“You’ll always hold a piece of my heart in the palm of your hand,” he told you in that last conversation, which you couldn’t have known were his last words to you. Ever.
“Why are you saying this now?” You didn’t understand, then. Now, perhaps, you do.
You keep looking at the palm of your hand, but it is empty.
You don’t think you are the reason he ended his life—your mind cannot allow you that—plus you’d been apart far too long. But the connection was still so strong…you worry that he still thought maybe… Maybe.
“I remember you used to have that saying (above) on your refrigerator, back in the day," he tells you one night. “It intimidated the hell out of me.”
You tell him that you took it down when you met your husband.
A year has passed. You think back to that awful phone call and feel the dots circling, your heart dripping like sand sliding into your stomach, not sure the shock will ever wear off. For someone who was larger than life, it seems like such a small, selfish way to go.
You turn your face away from furtive reminders so you won’t see the memories in your heart, or hear them in your soul.
You don't want to accept it. But you do. Because it’s an undeniable truth: He wasn’t who he wanted to be, didn’t have what, or who, he wanted. We don’t know what he carried. So he left.
You try not to think about what we carry now.
No matter how much you don’t understand, or wish it was a different choice, it’s now clear that some monumental shift occurred that you will never fathom.
He made the most singular decision a person could ever make that one defining night...
He finally seized his moment.
***
If you are looking for th
e funny, you can tune back in! :-)
THE NEEDS OF THE MANY
I know my ex, D, had a great relationship with his mother. It’s something I think about often. Boys love their mamas. They also love dogs.
Except in our case.
Getting a dog while having a small child, like my five-year-old son Lukas, can be a great experience for a family. Unless it’s our family, and the dog is oh, Satan.
Let me preface this post by saying that I love my husband.
However.
With two kids home for the summer (Bickering, tantrums, crying—why are kids happy about summertime when their parents don’t behave is beyond me.) my guy is, well...
Such a (gulp) MAN.
You would think he’d know better.
It’s not that I’m blind to the fact that I married a man, of course. I willingly applied for all the er, accoutrements when I signed on the dotted line eighteen years ago and all the parts are in good working order. I in no way want to take away from his manliness.
It’s just that I do expect him to get more involved when it comes to our very young son.
In what ways, you ask? Oh, little things. Like taking him for a walk or to the park down the street—getting him out of the house so Mommy can drink her (extra large) vodka in peace. Ya know?
This seems like such a simple thing, really.
One would think.
But no.
Husband makes a production out of it. He always wants me to go ’cause he knows the boy will get into sundry things and it will be easier if I’m around to help.
Well, no duh.
He’s a boy. He’s five. That’s what five-year-old boys do. The whole purpose of him taking the boy out of my line of sight is so the boy will get into various things where I don’t have to see it or clean it up.
Hello? McFly?
Or...husband will tell me he can’t possibly take the boy for a walk over to the park because he has to walk the dog. He needs to train the dog, work with the dog, and spend time with the dog.
So he will walk the DOG, but not the HUMAN. (Say this with your best Jerry Seinfeld voice. Go on, I’ll wait.)
I explain to the husband that I’ve taken the boy for numerous walks to the pool, the beach, and the park where the beloved swing is (OMG the swing); but that sometimes a sweet, very busy little boy just needs his daddy. But my argument seems to be falling on the deaf ears of a man who is caught up in the catch-up numbers game of an entrepreneur in a failing economy.
I love him for how hard he works for our family. I understand. But I don’t agree that work trumps all.
Money will always be made and lost. But my sanity needs to stay. And the little fella needs more than just a crazed, exhausted mama who talks to herself in the corner about how she’s putting that college degree in Communication Studies to use as she searches for lost Lego pieces and mismatched socks.
After my breakdown and subsequent vodka tonic(s), I made my husband promise that the boy would take precedence over the dog. That he would spend one-on-one time with his “big guy” so I could have a moment’s peace. (And please, someone. Tell me these temper tantrums will stop when he turns six—please--or I swear that Supernanny chick is moving in with us.)
To criminally paraphrase Spock, the needs of the boy must outweigh the needs of the man.
Or the goddamn dog.
***
PAY ATTENTION
So my husband will walk the dog, and now the boy—while Mommy drinks her martinis in peace. It’s all worked out.
However, when it comes to going to the store, I find it’s necessary to be pretty decisive with my guy (unlike giving him free rein with dinner options). Too much freedom at the grocery store and he becomes an anxious fussbudget.
I’m still not sure how he functioned B.M. (before marriage).
I still don’t get how my guy cannot know what to buy at the store. He goes more often than I do. We buy the same brands. Nothing changes from week to week. So what’s up with this dude phenomenon? (Yes, dear. They still have a bakery. No, they didn’t move it. Sigh.)
I liken the grocery store to a foreign country where they change the language weekly, hence his confusion. (Otherwise, I’d be in the corner talking to myself. Actually, wait a sec…)
My five-year-old son still pees when he sleeps. That’s not abnormal, I know.
What is pretty freakin’ weird is that my husband cannot remember, every time he goes to the store, what brand of GoodNites disposable underwear he should buy for our son.
Every time. For oh, the last, two years.
It’s a Mancode kind of thing.
I suppose it’s really MY fault for not remembering to pick them up in the first place; or for not remembering to save the packaging to give to him at times like this—the bright, blue, hard-to-miss packaging. That says “GoodNites” on it. With a giant orange stripe all the way around it. To take with him while he shops. (See, by the time I’m done writing this article, even you could remember to buy them for me.)
Naw, I don’t take that on. He’s a big boy. He’s also the going-to-the-store guy when it’s late at night and we realize: Oops—we’re out of nighttime diapers.
He reallllly should have it down by now.
One. Would. Think.
But no.
I tell him as he leaves what to buy, the name of the product. The bright blue color of the packaging. Doesn’t matter.
He’ll still call when he gets to the store in a panic because they are closing and why the hell did we leave it to this late to remember (forget?) to get these: Which one is it? Huggies? (No, we’ve never bought that brand. And they’re purple.) Pampers? Sigh— green. NO.
And it’s not like he’s forgetful about other things. He’s terrible with names but can remember a face from thirty years ago, a client’s favorite candy, or where someone went to college. (And yes, our anniversary, you busybodies.) Obviously the gray matter is still filled with fully working cells and firing neurons.
So when I ask him why he doesn’t remember things like this, he says “Easy. This stuff is not important. It’s just…stuff.”
That, my good friends, is the KEY to how men and women differ in a major way.
To women, these supposed little things mean potentially huge problems: interrupted sleep for both of us (because you know I’m getting his ass up to help me deal with it) as well as for the little guy, because of wet jammies and a sopping bed; a small, grumpy, wet gremlin child who’s been woken up in the middle of the night who tends not to go back to sleep easily; perhaps even awakening the other, older sleeping child, and the damn dog. A domino theory, if you will, from peace to chaos.
Yet to men, it’s just a diaper.
Well. Here’s the real deal, honey. This unimportant stuff? This is what’s going to prevent our house from becoming The Thompson House of Pee.
So pay attention!
***
BOOBS AND COFFEEMAKERS
By no means do I think I’m perfect (I can get a wee bit testy after that seventh call from the store when my guy still can’t find the bread). Yeah, I’m a bitch.
I will admit to being completely enslaved by my addiction to coffee. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Well, okay. There are the kids. Anyway…
I learned only recently that not everyone names their coffeemakers. That’s just so strange to me. It’s such an intimate relationship. Who doesn’t share that kind of info?
I mean, it would be really weird if I told you the name of my boobs—wait. Did I just say that out loud?
Some people name their cars. Or their, er, private parts. Me, I’ve named my coffeemaker. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t you judge me.
See, Joey and I have a very special relationship. When I shuffle up to him each morning, sleep still in my eyes, pants askew, T-shirt wrinkled, and hair mussed from restless nights filled with dreamless dreams and children’s limbs, he gurgles alive and says to me the same thing he says every
morning, “How you doin’?”
What kind of chick can resist that?
Yes, I admit to being a child (just go with it) of Friends. They were uh, there for me.
My younger sister says that I always seem to relate real-life incidents to a Friends episode and she is not far off.
Not in a creepy can’t-tell-the-difference-between-Ross-and-David-Schwimmer-way but more like, “Yeah, of course the flowers on my bedspread all point towards the top, because that’s where the sun would be. Doesn’t everyone?” a la Monica when she was explaining to Richard that he had no weird habits as she did. Like that. (Though what she said does make perfect sense.)
A Walk in the Snark Page 10