you started preschool today. and my chest was tight, and I deposited you in your class with a lump in my throat, but you were happy and ready. more big kid than little kid, it seems.
I love to tell you that you are a good boy, a wonderful kid, a kid I'm proud of. Almost four and full of life a hundred times over. Full of spirit and will, also. Which leads to far more naughtiness and defiance than I care to note, except that it can't be ignored. Because, let's face it, you will not be ignored. And you won't back down. Ever. I teeter, out of balance, between teaching you obedience and crushing your effervescent spirit. Mostly the going for mommy is rocky, but I seek a ray of hope in how you express yourself according to how you think things ought to be instead of how they really are. And that once you fix your mind on an idea, you simply will not let go until you have seen it through. Not for a pack of wild horses or fire-breathing dragons. Certainly not for me. And it's hard, and I cry, and do the walk of shame past stunned mommies and their [apparently perfect] gawking children. (Really, wasn't it bad enough without triggering the car alarm?) And sometimes other moms, who are surely experts, express unkind things in judgment of you or of me. As if I didn't do all the right things like time outs and choices and all that until I turn purple with the futility. Oh their comments are thinly veiled as useful advice of course, still it hurts.
2 comments:
YAY, MAX!
KJ- This is gorgeous and eloquent. Your boy could not have done better with you as his mother. My oldest was similarly "spirited" at that age and it broke me time and time again. But that is what we mothers sign up for. And what makes it worth it, is who they really are and indeed, that they are ours. Love to you and your boys. THS
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