I’ve had a heck of a lot of fun these past couple of months with my four-year-old son, Jack. He’s one amazing little dude (he prefers to be called either ‘dude’ or, conversely, ‘Bob’ at his daycare. Don’t ask me, I have no idea).
I realize that I don’t actually discuss Jack on here too much. That’s partly because I want to respect his privacy rights, even at his young age. I’ve never liked it when people have seemed to use their kids as little more than props for their lives. And it’s not like I can talk about “my son” or “my kid” – let alone use what is my favorite euphemism for children, The Collective – and still maintain his anonymity, since everyone (at least, those who are close to me) knows that I have only one child and hence, could only be discussing him. If a kid is to be singled out (or blamed), it’s necessarily going to be Jack. Sorry about that, Pud.
But at times it just feels odd to not talk about the most important person in my life, the person who fills up so much of my time and who certainly, has command over a good portion of my heart and soul.
So I think I’ll just provide a couple of examples of the two extremes of why I love having a young kid in my life – both the heart-warmingly good moments, as well as the embarrassingly cringe-worthy. Both, though, will stick in my memory, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The first thing – we’ll call it “The Good” – happened just a couple of days ago.
I’m taking a 2-credit Team Building course this quarter. And yes, it’s everything one thinks it might be, full of Finance/Business majors who just know they’ll be involved in this sort of thing in today’s corporate world. That’s fine. The instructor is an extroverted (EX-TRO-VER-TED) social psychologist who does this sort of thing for Boeing, as well. I’m taking it partially because – and believe me, our instructor knows this about many of us – I need to maintain a minimum of 12 credits each quarter in order to qualify for my financial aid, the stuff that pays my tuition, and I’m only taking two “regular” 5-credit classes during the week this quarter. But I genuinely also thought that perhaps it might teach me something that just might help me one day with not throttling some VA schmuck intent on making even more veterans’ lives nightmarish. So I’ve kept an open mind.
Ahem… I digress.
It’s a 7-hour long class for each of the first three Saturdays of the quarter. That means that I need to find babysitting for Jack on the Sat’s that he’s in my custody (every other…). This past Saturday he was lovingly taken into my wonderfully wonderful friends’, Steve and Erin’s, home for the day. Erin even drove 40 minutes at 8 AM to pick him up (what a woman, eh?), and then drove both she and Jack back home to her place, in order to prepare for guests arriving to watch the Seahawks game.
While at S&E’s, Jack was, apparently, the model of the Good Son, the Perfect Child. Well… as perfect as one would want, really (or is that just me?). But by all accounts he was polite, agreeable, fun, and delightful (that’s the word I hear most often associated with Jack: ‘delightful’). But that’s not really what warmed my heart, as nice as it is to hear. I expect those behaviors, for the most part, because Jack is that way, and I believe that children – as with adults – will more often than not rise to the expectations put to them, just so long as those expectations are not outrageous or impossible. But that’s a whole other problem/pathology, LOL.
No, what got to me was that a friend of Steve and Erin’s, a woman I have known casually through S&E for a number of years – and who just happens to get around via wheelchair – told me just how floored she was that Jack was not only exceptionally well behaved, but that he came right up to her and gave her a big hug. That’s not something that most kids feel comfortable doing with people who are in wheelchairs. I think it has something to do with the fact that, during the last year of my mom’s life, she was, for the most part, confined to a wheelchair. Jack always went up to “Gram” and gave her a hug and just loved interacting with all of the people in my mom’s small group home, many of whom were also using wheelchairs to get around. That was more than a year-and-a-half ago – my mom passed away in June ‘06 – but Jack still seems to remember those moments, and her, very well. So people in wheelchairs don’t phase him, and I’ve talked to him about it. I want Jack to feel comfortable around – and accepting of – ALL KINDS of people, of everyone. People are people, and God loves wondrous variety.
But no matter the reason, all of that did Jack’s mom’s heart good. I have a special little kid, if I do say so. He hugs all of his friends and teachers at daycare before he leaves for the day and makes a point of showing me just who is “his friend.” I’m just crazy about my son.
And now… on to “The Bad.” Actually, I have to trust that any parent who may be reading this will understand where it is I’m coming from. It’s not so much ‘bad’ as it is one of those moments when a very large rock being in the vicinity would have been welcome – for Mom, at least.
Perhaps I should preface this by saying that this is rather candid. After 17 months of breastfeeding one VERY LARGE infant/young toddler – Jack’s ranged in the 90th-97th percentile since, basically, birth – I have little modesty left when it comes to that particular part of my anatomy. More people on both coasts have at one time or another seen my breasts than I’d ever imagined possible (and in Britain and Denmark, as well, although breastfeeding is viewed as something that is both completely natural and healthy in both of those countries). And through New Mommy exhaustion and just the simple need to feed my son, one becomes used to it. Actually, I know the precise moment when any vestiges of sheepish modesty left me: It was when I sat down at the North Station ‘T’ stop in Boston during one morning’s rush hour to feed Jack, when he was about 3 months old. The trains stopped, the doors opened and WHOOSH!… it was like Moses parting the Red Sea, and every businessperson in Massachusetts seemed to arrive to take a peek. Hey, just feeding my kid here. Move along…
Once something like that happens, you never look back.
So Jack and I were in the checkout line of our local grocery store. He was in the cart – not an easy thing to do, to squash a large 4-year-old into that tiny little seat, but sometimes, it’s just easier – when Jack noticed a woman near us in the next line who had, shall we say, a fairly generous physical endowment. He kept looking over at her, and then grinning at me – back and forth. I wasn’t sure just what to make of it and at that moment just chalked it up to a preschooler’s penchant for living only “in the moment.”
Boy, was I ever wrong.
He kept glancing to and fro’, and then… he started in on giggling. He kept giggling and giggling. I caught on to that, poked and tickled him – Oh! isn’t it fun to have a 4-year-old… - and asked him just what it was he was giggling about, and then…
(Now, you must understand: Jack has an expressive speech disorder called Apraxia of Speech. He has been in weekly speech therapy since he turned two and is in early education classes based only on that particular “deficit” – a wonderful experience for him, IMO. Jack loves school, and the teachers and kids he meets there are just terrific. Still, during the past few months he has made a developmental leap and his speech has VASTLY improved. But I’m still getting used to Jack actually talking, as opposed to making gestures, using ASL, or otherwise making mostly sounds that only a few of us would really understand.)
… Jack looked over at Ms. WonderChest and virtually shouted, in a clear-as-a-bell voice, “Mom! BOOBIE!!!“… at which point he proceeded to – simultaneously, mind you – point at the woman with his right hand while flinging my shirt up with his left, pointing and poking me in the chest as well.
That is where the searched-for but alas, never found large rock would’ve come in handy. I think I sorta smiled at the woman, I’m not quite sure. I just had to deal with my own moment and try to get Jack to not lift my shirt up and over my head entirely and fling it clear across the checkout stands like a quarterback making a Hail Mary pass.
Just where did he learn ‘boobie’? I don’t know. Where do they learn any of these things?! I do know that he is, for the moment, also in love with the word ‘poop’ (although we’ve now become of one mind as to how that is NOT an appropriate word to use at school or daycare, thank you), and now believes the penis to be the grandest thing in the world.
In other words, he’s a perfectly healthy boy.
But to any and all future girlfriends of Jack’s, please let me say this: Forgive me – I knew not what I was creating.
