Forty Months
I can hardly believe that it's time to write one of these again. The month has flown by in whirlwind of chaos and change. Through it all you have emerged on the other side with your laughter, sense of humor and stubborn independence intact.
This month we transitioned to you attending school full time because your long time babysitter, Jesse, moved away. Due to poor planning and unavoidable circumstances on the part of the parents in your life, this was also a time when your father was working a great deal. So for much of the month, it's been just you and me.
It's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times... We sure know how to drive each other crazy. But for all the minutes we've spent being annoyed at each other, we've also spent just as many laughing and enjoying the company of each other and the abundant spring sunshine. Saturdays have been filled with running errands together, hiking or small excursions to museums. Sundays are lazy mornings and busy afternoons, outside doing yardwork or inside cleaning house.
You've been way into alliteration this month and if I'm not careful, I inadvertently reinforce it. Instead of asking for "snack," you ask for "mack, nack, quack, attack." You affectionately call me "swommy," and take my face into both of your hands, gritting your teeth and pressing our foreheads together. I could make you say what you mean, but I'm afraid I find it terribly cute and can't be bothered.
One of the things that surprised me but I should have guessed was that you began to get in trouble at school. I would come to pick you up and you would share an account of an argument with another boy or having to stay inside for not following directions. I've noticed that your teachers now get to experience the "real" Owen, the boy who whines and stubbornly pouts. Ha ha- he does exist!
School is just one of many things that has become a land of contradiction. I drop you off, clinging to me and sobbing about how you don't want to go and I pick you up, upset about having to leave your friends and pouting. I'll carefully explain the consequences of a choice, you'll choose, and then you'll break into hysterics one minute later because it should have been obvious to me that you really wanted the other choice. That you can't live without the alternative you previously refused. Sigh. Grumble, grumble. I know I can expect the heavy doses of irrationality to end soon. But when??? You've also gotten pretty mouthy and just the other day you told me to "Shut the hell up." Hmmm. Wonder where you heard that before?!
The flip side of all this stubbornness and opinionated independence is that you genuinely enjoy and are glad to be able to help when I can get you to buy into whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish. Just yesterday you spent hours outside, cleaning up after our landscaping mess and putting branches one by one into the back of the truck. And I think you would have continued to do this until your feet fell off if you had been given the opportunity. It made you happy to be working closely with us, to be able to help and participate. And I'm hoping we can hold onto that for many years to come. Because I have ALOT of plans for all that energy.