It’s a hard thing, mothering a preschooler. And I think, in my own circumstance, it’s a hard thing to mother a boy preschooler. I’m thoroughly convinced that many of the things I don’t “get” about A I don’t get because he’s male. But that’s beside the point. What I find most exasperating, I’ve realized, is walking that line between allowing him the time he needs to explore and fool around and figure things out, and pushing him along because I.HAVE.STUFF.TO.DO. Like tonight…he went to the bathroom and needed some more toilet paper put on the roll. We’ve recently gone to monitoring his “clean-up” after the pottying, so I went in and made sure the job got done. The boy spent for-freaking-ever folding up the toilet paper so precisely, deciding it wasn’t right, and re-folding it again. While trying the read the title of a book sitting on the bathroom floor. And while telling me a story about the sitter’s house. All I could think about were the reports I need to write for work tomorrow, the list of e-mails I have to answer, and how absolutely crappy I feel with this cold. And he’s folding and re-folding toilet paper that’s going to be used to wipe his little behind! I was so torn between getting on his case about hurrying the process along and allowing him the time to do his thing the way he needed to do it…just so he can learn…and I’m certain I probably didn’t do the right thing. Ahhh…live and learn. And be thankful I’ve got a summer off, full of days to manage these problems when I haven’t been tested by 2 dozen other preschoolers.

Mother’s Day 2006

There are lots of things that I’ve heard people say about “you’re not really a mom until…” Like, you’re not really a mom until you’ve been thrown up on, you’re not really a mom until you’ve done a late-night trip to the emergency room, you’re not really a mom until you’ve nursed a sick child back to health, or calmed their fears through a nightmare, or bounced and rocked a colicky newborn. Well, today I added another merit badge of motherhood to my little (but growing!) collection. I got the plaster of paris handprint for Mother’s Day. All wrapped up in handmade wrapping paper. And A was so excited about giving his gift, he was glowing. I never understood how those silly gifts I made for my parents made them so unbelievably happy. But now as I imagine how that tiny handprint will look sitting on his high school graduation party table, I understand. I cried. It’s amazing how he can drive me to the absolute limits of exasperation and back, several times a day, but how my arms ache to hold onto him and how my heart doesn’t want to see him grow up. He fell asleep on our bed tonight. D was making rounds at the hospital, I was sorting laundry in our bedroom, and A was watching Lady and the Tramp in our room. I left the room for about 2 minutes to hang up some clothes, and while I was away he fell sound asleep. I went in and cuddled him up in my arms and carried him to his bed. When I laid him down, he startled awake and gave me a wide-eyed stare and asked “Mom, am I in my bed?” When I assured him that he was, and I covered him up and said his prayers, he seemed all at ease and settled back into sleep.