“Here, let me help you with that,” I told my son this morning since I saw he was carrying a precarious stack of dishes and glasses. As we made the hand off, however, I felt liquid pouring down my side.
“It honestly never occurred to me that you would have put a full glass of apple juice on top of a stack like that,” I sighed.
Remember when I said the other day that we’re trying to catch up on schoolwork here?
Today we’re on our final push before the weekend.
Unsurprisingly, sometimes it can be difficult to get my eight-year-old son to try new foods. Surprisingly, one of those foods is cake.
“I don’t really like cake,” he reminded me when I offered him a sample from a ridiculously over the top ice cream cake I’d purchased earlier.
Resisting the urge to say “More for me then,” I encouraged him to try a small slice, which he did with reluctance while I girded myself against any negative reaction.
I needn’t have bothered.
“This cake . . .” he intoned, “is . . . brilliant!”
“Okay, while you have a snack I’m going to do a quick Candles & Curses,” I told my son this morning.
“Great!” he said. “Maybe you could write about my school schedule and how it’s failing!”
Well . . . never let it be said I don’t take requests.
First off, despite my son’s choice of words, his school schedule is not failing, but we are painfully behind schedule because of my being out-of-town for two weeks recently. Oh, his mother and Lala did an admirable job of keeping things more or less on track in my absence, but then I (and my out of town viruses) came back and threw everything into a tailspin.
Even so, we’ve already knocked out the easy assignments, but the remaining ones are time intensive, so this is shaping up to be a long week.
“Do you want to get wet?” today my son asked me with a grin.
Even though I was distracted, I very quickly said, “No!” Noting his obvious disappointment (as well as noting the water squirting rubber duck in his hands), I promptly followed that up with, “It’s a good thing you asked, because I am not in a good mood to be squirted right now, and squirting me would have gone badly for you, but with that said . . .”
I paused to take off of my glasses. “Now hit me!” I challenged him, then, remembering I was talking to a child, clarified, “I mean you can squirt me now.”
To my son’s great disappointment, nothing happened, so he told me to “stay put” while he ran back to the bathroom to try filling up the duck again. Realizing the bathroom would be a better place for a water fight anyway, I followed. Once again though, the duck failed to produce any water.
“It doesn’t work,” my son sighed.
Now it was my turn to grin as I took the duck from his hands and squirted water all over him. “It works for me,” I said with a chuckle.
“They keep playing ‘encouragement’ songs in my class!” my son complained today.
“Would you prefer they play discouragement songs about what a terrible day it’s going to be and how nothing is going to go right?” I asked him.
“No!” he laughed.
“There you go then,” I told him.
“Mom, when do we have to take the Christmas tree down?” my son asked the other day.
“We can keep it up as long as you like,” his mother answered.
“But when are we supposed to take it down?” he wanted to know.
Smiling, his mother replied, “If we follow tradition, February.”
February? I thought. What tradition is she following?
My question must have been visible on my face, because she continued with, “Because by February it’s so close to Valentine’s Day that you’re out of excuses for not having taken your tree down earlier.”
I get bored sometimes too, son, so . . . I get it. I really do. Heck, I’m bored right now, truth be told. You don’t need my help in class at the moment, but I need to stay available in case that changes because that’s my job. It’s not just an important job, it’s important to me that I do it and do it well, but perpetually thrilling it is not because I assure you that getting you a snack so you can keep your focus on class is never the highlight of my day.
It’s okay to be bored though. Bored happens, and what you’re doing right now is exactly the right way to handle it. You’re quietly keeping yourself busy while still paying enough attention that you know what’s going on so you can focus your attention fully when it’s needed.
Just like I am right now, in fact.
Lala: (after L. had taken her pawn) Bye, pawn!
L: You know what they say, “let ‘bye pawns’ be ‘bye pawns‘”.
It . . . wasn’t terrible.
The drive up was pleasant enough (Good job, son!), but not long after we arrived we hit a rocky patch with rocks the size of elephants, and our fun outlook started to look dire.
But then my son managed to pull out of his behavioral nosedive and did really well for the rest of the week. He still got frustrated at points (we all did), but aside from that initial incident, not once did he let his frustration become an uncontrollable storm of griping and outrage. Great job, kiddo. I’m proud of you.
