I Don't Want to Say It

My kid is the pusher.

When I write it down, it doesn’t look like it has sharp edges and pokey places, but it does. I feel ashamed and scared and disloyal, just for saying it about the boy I love. It’s been roiling around in me for a week, since the owner of the preschool told me I couldn’t add Tuesdays and Thursdays because she has too many parent complaints about the Fox.

What????

I mean, I knew something was off when I asked about adding days for the third time and she said, “Let’s have coffee.” But the really sucky part is that I knew about this a couple months ago, we had the conference, we made a plan, and every day since then when I picked up the Fox and I asked, “How did it go?” I heard “Better. It’s getting much better.”

Clearly there is a communication problem. Is it my hearing? I don’t think so. But when does the person who isn’t listening ever think it’s them? Is it their lack of talking? I think “Yes!” But again…

But this is my beautiful, amazing, happy boy... I hear in myself every bully's mother. I could be Petunia Dursely, the mother of Harry Potter's muggle nemesis Dudley, and I wouldn't know it.

So, am trying to focus on fixing this. Because, above pseudo self-awareness aside, I know with the a ROAR of love that the Fox is confused, not cruel. And believe this is what they call a teachable moment, rather than a character flaw. And I am helped by the fact that the full moon is tomorrow night, and the longest night of the year is also tomorrow night, which both remind me that, as my friend Steve said to me a couple weeks ago at toddler time, “It will change.”

He said that to me because I was, at the time, in a really sweet swing of things with the Fox. We were have tons of cooperation and laughing and singing and “I love you’s.” I even got one “I love you very much, Mommy!” as he ran down the hall, arms full of stuffed animals, ready to make a pillow pile. Steve said “It will change,” after I told him about that, because he was in a hellish phase with his girl, he was on the dark side of the moon. This was a good thing, for him to remind me to cherish the goodness and for me to say to him on the phone, as I hear shrieking and screaming and crashing in the background, “Just remember, it will change.”

So after I spent a week roiling around in shame (“Bad mothers create kids who push,”) and anger (“They are supposed to teach him!”) and generally being a pain in the ass to M, I remembered:

This too will change.

Though, we have to help it. I don’t know exactly how, since we have done a lot already. At home, he has gone from a dog-pusher to a (mostly) dog-petter. Took a LOT of repetition and it’s always worse when he is hungry, angry, lonely or tired.

I had a good talk with Teacher Amy* this morning. I said “What time does this go down, usually?” “Hmm. On Friday, it was right before playtime,” she said. “11:30.”

That’s what time the Fox starts to lose it at home, too. Because it’s nap time.

Teacher Amy is going to write down when it happens and with who, etc. So we can make another plan. And also, I told her  that I understand that if they are shadowing him and he won’t listen, he needs to be separated from the other kids. Yuck.

And now I'm saying to myself, Self, it's the day before Solstice, before the light starts to come back. Dark nights are here, but the bright moon lights them up. Love works and teaching does too. Things will change.

Because there are two things here: I really believe this is “developmentally appropriate.” (You know, that great phrase that experts use to describe behavior that is difficult and embarrassing and normal.) And I also believe in firm but calm boundaries, though sometimes they seem as elusive as Santa Claus.  I told the teacher that the boundary should not be shaming, and she agreed. We looked each other in the eye and at that moment, I felt like she got it, like we were in it together.

And I told her what I have learned from every job, every relationship and every bad week with the Fox: Love has to come first. No one wants to hear what they are doing wrong from someone who doesn’t give the love first. Not me, not M, not the person I’m supervising, and not the Fox. I told the her the one thing that I wish I could remember every second with my son, my marraige, my work as a person. I said, “Give him as much love as you can before it happens. He listens better if he gets love first.”

*Exciting moment. First pseudonym, since I try extra hard to be open about my stuff and fair about the stuff of people who know what they are getting into by having a relationship with me. Or should. Anyway...

Why Sarah Palin is Popular

I like certainty.

I actually like it a lot. I’m not alone, we’ve got a certainty-loving culture here. Ever been at a party when someone says “What do you do?” and the other person says “I’m between things…” Awkward silence.  Or ever been the single person in a room full of couples, all settled in their certainty and couple-ness. Yeah, certainty is pretty seductive.

So, the other day, I was pretty certain I was on the trail of a bad mom. Okay, I know I’ve gone out on a limb and said (with only a slightly self-righteous tone) that I am against labeling other mothers, ‘cause who knows what is really going on? Right? Right.

But this little guy, whose missing-in-action mom was the suspect in question, well, he was the terror of toddler time. He was Jesse James and a touch of Charles Manson all rolled into one. Okay, the Manson thing is a little harsh, but he was taking toys and pushing and steamrolling little ones and generally looking for trouble. I tracked this kid for ten minutes, fancying myself a defender of the innocent, working up a righteous indignation as I waited for the mom to appear. I even gossiped to my friend Steve. “Where is that kid’s mother?” I hissed, before detailing his crimes. “Unbelievable,” he agreed.

Then I saw her. Sitting in the corner. Trying to get her newborn to latch back on and looking mighty hollow-eyed at that.

I should listen to myself more often.

But certainty is so much more seductive than knowing the facts. (For proof of that, look no further than the popularity of Sarah Palin.)

So then, after I got over feeling shame-i-fied on the inside, and after I told Edith to shut the f#*k up, and after I recovered from the once-more-with-feeling relief that I have one kid, because I don’t know how the multiple moms do it, after I was done with all that, I realized that there is a reason that we have toddler time. At the community center. So that we can help each other out. I mean, I know that can go too far and all, but then again, I tend to get all caught up in doing it alone perfectly. (Which makes me really pleasant to be around at about 5:30 at night, let me tell you. Or M could…) 

So then I just found the kiddo with my eyes and kept an eye on him. I felt like a sort of giving auntie, a wise mama type who can help and give and be plentiful.

The next day, the kiddo and the Fox were both at the playground. They got into a pushing match over a toy and I will tell you two things: First, the mama was dealing with the newborn at the time, again. I caught her eye and said “I’ve got it” in an if it’s okay with you sort of tone.  And second, the Fox was giving as well as getting.

Just in case I had any more temptations to cast that stone. Other than at Sarah Palin.

The Purff and the Wurff

I used to carry small purses. Not little bitty sweater dog purses, but no bigger than a breadbox. You see, I had this theory that I’ll call the Law of Universal Purff (Purse + Stuff = Purff) Expansion: that the stuff that you put into a purse will expand to take up the whole purse, no matter how big the purse.

So why get a big purse? Just a backache waiting to happen, eh? (As they say in Canada.)

And now I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a similar law in effect with worry. Have you noticed? It’s almost like I have an invisible worry purse. It hangs somewhere between my throat and my sternum… and when it gets full it starts to choke me. But even if I try to empty it, if I take care of one, another rises immediately. This seems to be true, even if Worry A is a whopper, and Worry B is sort of pathetic. Which makes me wonder: Am I just filling my worry purse? Is there a Law of Wurff Expansion?

Cause Motherhood already blew my small purse plan. Now I’ve got these hunks that I haul around with tupperwares and wipeomatics. And now the worries have gotten so much bigger too, now that there’s so much more to care about.

But maybe they’ll both go back to normal with time? Maybe, just about the time that I can stop carrying the wipeomatics because there isn’t a constant explosion coming out of one Fox hole or another, maybe then I’ll be able to go back to my cute little tangerine orange bag with the ivory leaf top-stitching and stop worrying so much?

But then I remember the moment with my mom. The one when she leaned over my bed and saw the Fox for the first time, and then looked into my eyes and saw that the bottom had fallen out of my world, and I could see that was there in her eyes too, there for me, and I had never seen it before. And I said, “Mom, does it always feel like this?” and she sobbed just a little bit and smiled and said “Yes.” And I thought about all those years, not even the toddler years, but the later ones, and all the worry I put her through, not knowing that there was this hole inside her. This worry purse with absolutely no Wurff limit. And I said, “Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

(She loves telling that story.)

Anyway, if that’s any indication, my Wurff is going nowhere good.