Does It Get Easier?

I remember when my son was a tiny newborn.  It seems like yesterday, but it was four and a half years ago.  He was a sweet, easy little baby to have around.  I didn't know that at the time, though.  I was so overwhelmed by the feelings associated with first-time motherhood.  Things that dominated my mind were such as:  "Am I doing this right?"  "Is the formula too hot?"  "Is the formula too cold?"  "How long has he had this dirty diaper?"  "What if I drop him?"  "Does he know who I am?"  "Is he still breathing?"

I bumbled along, wondering, worrying, and going one hour at a time.  When my son was almost a month old, my best friend arrived for an overnight visit.  I had never been so glad to see her.  Having a six-year-old and three-year-old herself, I knew she would be able to shed some light on what I was doing right or wrong.

"You're doing fine, you know," she said halfway through the visit, sensing my uncertainty.  Those words of reassurance made a haze dissipate and the sun shine down into my living room.

Toward the end of her visit, I was reflecting on the lack of sleep (which really wasn't an issue for me, since my baby started sleeping through the night at 11 days old. However, the complications after my C-section made up for it.), the stress of not knowing what I was doing . . . well, I can't even remember now what it was that I thought was so hard.  But I thought this motherhood thing was tough, and in retrospect, I want to laugh at myself for asking her that question.

But my friend didn't laugh.  She thought for a moment and said, "It gets different.  I won't say easier.  As soon as you get everything figured out, something new will come into the picture."  Bless her heart, she didn't want to scare me.  What I have realized over the last four and a half years is that it gets both easier and harder with each passing year.  She was right - it's just different.

I never thought I would be such an emotional basket case over my child changing schools at age four, but I have been.  We have said goodbye to the wonderful preschool where he has been for the last three years, and are gearing up for "big kid school" in the fall.  The adjustment for me will be having him away from me for a full school day, five days per week.  It will be a big change from our three day per week, 9-12 routine.

On the other hand, I think he will thrive, and I would never want to hold him back.  I'm excited for him, but it's just breaking my heart that he will turn FIVE at the end of this year and leave behind the "little years."  For years now, we have woken up in the morning whenever we felt like it (usually sunrise for him). The years where we hang out in pajamas while we read books or watch Curious George, eat snacks and play with toy cars, or get in the car to go putz around in Target at 10am . . . are over.  I know we still have this summer, and other summers.  But it feels like more than just a new chapter in the book.  It feels like a whole new volume in the series.

There were days I thought this time would never end.  There were days I prayed for school to come sooner, so that I could go about my business and get other things done.  But while it seems to drag day by day, the years are flying past us.  Where did they go?  While I would never want to re-live him getting his little 20-month-old head stuck between wooden rods in a chair back, the scary ER visit with the high fever, or some of the harrowing potty training moments, I wish I could go back and visit earlier times just to drink in his littleness and his sweetness.  And I wish I could take back the times I yelled at him in frustration.

But, I can't.  And as my friend pointed out to me so long ago, I have found that it never really gets easier, just different, on a good day.  And yes, sometimes it is harder.  She just texted me a few moments ago and said, "Hang in there!  I'm not going to tell you it gets easier, because it doesn't."  I know she's right.

Today, I feel that complicated motherly conundrum: simultaneous joy and mourning.  I am mourning the end of a "little" phase of his life.  My baby is no longer a baby.  But I am joyful and amazed by the wonderful little boy he is becoming.  I would never, ever want to hold him back.  But it sure is hard to say goodbye to the "little years."

I'm going to inhale every moment of this summer with him like it's the last breath I will ever take.

The Mouse's House! Tomorrowland Speedway Lives On.

We made a trip to Walt Disney World last week.  Out of the four times total that I have been, it was the best, by far.  My four-year-old son's excitement was like nothing I have ever seen.  He knew where we were going, but he had no idea what it would be like.

So when we arrived at our hotel (one of the Disney properties) with its giant statues of Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead, a Mickey telephone, and Baloo and Mowgli, he thought THAT was IT.  And he would have been perfectly happy if we had never left the hotel.  Had we known that, we could have saved hundreds of dollars on passes to the parks.  But we had the passes, so we decided to go ahead and use them.

Of course, a lot has changed since my first trip down there as an eight-year-old in 1981.  Magic Kingdom was the only thing there back then, and the Contemporary Resort with the monorail running through the lobby was the only hotel "on property."  But the Disney property has so many parks, attractions and hotels now, it is like its own county.  Forget about zip code.  I'm pretty sure our hotel (with over 3,000 rooms and about 4 pools) had its own zip code.

But a few things remained the same from my very first visit over 30 years ago.  The Tomorrowland Speedway has the same little race cars.  I was entertained, while waiting for my husband and son to make their way around the track, by watching the people finishing the ride.  A teenage boy, in particular, edged up behind an old man who was alone in another car.  The boy was making small surges in his advances, peering carefully over the front end of the car.  He would get very close, then the old man would move up.  They danced like this for a bit, until suddenly the boy went pouncing forward like a cat and gave the old man's car a good BUMP.  The old man's car jostled forward and his head whipped back a tad.  A smile crept across the boy's face.  He laid back for a while.  But when the cars started moving forward again, he leaned up and began peering over the front bumper again.  Reprobate!  The sign clearly says "No Bumping."

Stay tuned . . . more Disney vignettes to come in the near future.

Men vs. Women: This is Funny

Below you will read an exchange between my husband and me.  It took place this morning.  I was sitting in front of my computer and reflecting on how our little boy gets so angry when one of his toys breaks.  He and I have discussed how he is actually sad, but it feels safer to be angry than to be sad, so he prefers anger.  Just like most men.  I started giggling.

Chip:  What's funny?
Me:  Men and their anger.
Chip:  Why?
Me:  I dunno, even from toddlerhood, it seems men are capable of one emotion: anger.
Chip:  Yeah?  And?
Me:  When you're sad, you react with ANGER!  Frustration?  ANGER!  Disappointment?  ANGER!  Stress?  ANGER!  Vulnerability?  ANGER!  Depression?  ANGER!
Chip:  Yep.  And you wanna know why?
Me:  Hm.  Women?
Chip:  You got it.

I thought so.  I was just checking.

Aw, Foot!! Getting Older is a Pain.

I am accustomed to various aches, pains, twinges, and the like.  First of all, I just turned 39.  Secondly, I have given birth.  Third, said birth means that I now chase a four-year-old boy around for the better part of my day.  "Put that down!"  "Stop that!"  "We do NOT put (fill in the blank) in our mouths!"  "Do you need to go potty?"  "Uuuugggghhhh, if you wanted to do a craft, why didn't you just tell me?  Now there's glue in your hair."  "How did you get on top of the refrigerator?"  "Are you sure you don't have to go potty?"  "How did THAT get in THERE?!" 

Now what that means is that when I do even notice the aches and pains, I usually ignore them and go on.  Women who stay home with their small children don't have time for pain or illness.  I can't say how long it's been, but for quite a while, I have noticed a feeling in the bottom of my left foot like a pulled muscle.  Oh, and I have had a small red bump on my leg for over a year.  And a weird flaky spot on my face.  Maybe more headaches than I used to get.  The list goes on, but I won't bore you with all my old lady maladies.  The trouble, though, is that women tend to overlook things anyway.  That's because we are tough.  Last year, I reluctantly dragged myself into the urgent care clinic to find out that I had just passed a kidney stone.  "Is that what that was?!"  I asked the doctor incredulously.  Waving my hand, I reported, "Oh, I've had those before!  Didn't even go to the doctor."
So on Saturday, after having given my son's birthday party a few days before and having attended another two birthday parties for four-year-olds earlier in the day, I almost thought nothing of it when it became excruciating to walk on my left foot.  After all, children's birthday parties are stressful and hellish at best a great chance for the kiddos to burn off some energy.  Refer to the quotes above.
When I couldn't get a shoe on my foot for the pain and swelling on Sunday, I sent my husband and son off to church without me.  Ahhhh, I thought.  Nice quiet house to myself for an hour.  But by Tuesday morning, I cried "Uncle!!" and went to the P.A.
I had somehow sprained the top of my left foot.  And now I have to stay "off" of it.  Bwahahahaha!  The P.A. is great, and a sweet girl, but she doesn't have children.  I'll try, but I won't be off of it completely.  The anti-imflammatory drug made for some nice, deep sleep last night, though.
Oh, and the pulled muscle feeling in the bottom of my foot?  That was Plantar Fasciitis.  No extra charge for that.  And the bump on my leg?  An old abcess that was never attended, so now it's scar tissue.  I try not to overwhelm her with too many extra unrelated things when I go in.  She might try to refer me to a gerontologist.

The Booster Seat . . . It's a Whole New World

I don't drive stick shift.  Don't want to.  Never will, probably.  When I was a college freshman, my roommate, Kim, said, "Oh, no.  This won't do.  We've got to teach you to drive stick."  I was used to my old diesel-powered Mercedes which moved about like the cars in the Flintstones cartoons, but Kim had a red Honda Prelude (Zowie!).  It was fast, fun and powerful.  The first (and last) time she tried to teach me to drive her car, I laid rubber in the faculty parking lot at Agnes Scott College on a Sunday afternoon.  No one has ever tried to teach me again.

When my husband and I got married, my husband said I would have to learn to drive stick so I could drive his truck.  I said no thanks.  I didn't and still don't want to drive his pickup truck.  My car is newer and nicer.  Guess what?  He thinks it's newer and nicer, too.  I knew, just KNEW that if I could drive his truck, I would get stuck driving that thing around town when I didn't want to someday.  Like to a Junior League meeting or something.  Don't get me wrong . . . I'm very thankful for my husband's vehicle, and it has been an enormous blessing to us in so many ways.  But I don't want to drive it.  #endofthatdiscussion

So since my son was born almost four years ago, we have operated 95% of our lives with one car.  On certain special occasions, like getting my car worked on, we have squeezed the car seat into the back seat (and I use the term "back seat" loosely) in the old pickup truck.  But other than that, we have operated largely as a one-car family on my husband's days off from work (which are plenteous, since he is a firefighter and has a weird schedule).

Certain people, and particularly one family member, have scoffed at the fact that the three of us basically load up and go everywhere together.  We love it, thanks.  I enjoy spending all the time I can with husband and child.  So when I have to go to the bank and all three of us load into the car to get it done, I think nothing of it.  But OTHERS think we are aliens from outer space because of this practice.

But lo and behold . . . my son is now old enough to fit into those little booster seats that cost like $15 and fit very nicely into the back seat of the truck.  So after four years of parenthood, we finally sprang for a *gasp* second car seat in the form of a booster.

Now, when my husband and son go on an errand and I have to stay at the house to work, I am no longer trapped here with a truck I cannot drive.  Husband pops child into the booster seat in the truck and takes off.  I am still here with my wonderful automatic SUV.  I can suddenly up and decide to go deliver books (which I did, two days ago).  This may just be the best development in time management that has happened to our family.  The convenience this has introduced will be a blessing, no doubt, and probably in ways I have not even imagined yet.

But I will still love loading all three of us into the car to go grab a tube of toothpaste at the Walgreen's.

A Trail of Tears is now a trail of toys

For some reason, I still have a good many of my textbooks from law school.  I have gotten shed of many, but there remain a few that I "might want to refer to" at some point: Contracts, Admiralty, Corporations, Commercial Law, Elder Law, Wills, and about 586 others.  Seriously, though, they occupy a bookshelf in the corner of the playroom.  Do I look at them?  Not really.  I don't even dust them.

So today we are playing in the playroom, and Sam decides to take a few books down to make a sidewalk across the room.  And a few more, and a few more, and pretty soon, half the bookshelf is empty.  Now the books comprise a whole interstate system which a toy 18-wheeler is traversing.  *Sigh* At least those books are good for something now.  That toy truck's journey is a whole lot more interesting and fun than the journey I made with those books.  All $10,000 worth of them.  Yep, mine was a trail of tears across what is now the Torts and Con Law Freeway of the playroom floor.

Samtics

So my little guy has been busy over the last couple of days.  He says so many cute, funny, shockingly intelligent things, that I can hardly keep up.  I can't believe he will be four in December.

Yesterday, we went to my parents' house and started up the back stairs.  There was a HUGE lizard crawling on the back porch.  Well, y'all know how I feel about lizards.  If you don't, then scroll back a few months and find out.  I looked around the yard and said, "Where is Maggie (my parents' cat) when you need her?"  Sam turned and looked around the yard, too.  Then he yelled, "Maaaaaaggiiiiiiiiiiiie, come heeeeeeeere!  It's an EMERGENCY!"  That might seem a little dramatic, but to me, a lizard actually IS an emergency.

Last night, I heard him getting into the fridge and rooting around.  He knows he is not supposed to do that.  So when he heard my footsteps behind him, he slammed the fridge door shut.  He stood with his back to the door and arms straight out, and he said, "There's nothing to see here!"  Right.  And when I open it the next day, I will find a matchbox car in my yogurt.  That's usually how that goes.

This morning, on the way to school, he started talking about Jesse, the cowgirl seen in Toy Story 2 and 3.  Sam has seen her in the form of toys, advertisements, etc, but has only seen the first Toy Story movie, in which she does not appear.  So asks me, "How come we never see Woody's assistant?"  I didn't know whether to be amazed that he knew the word assistant and used it correctly, or to be upset that he automatically assumed that the female character was the male's assistant.

 A few weeks ago, Sam was a little rowdy during circle time.  His teacher had to take him down to the preschool director's office for a bit.  When we arrived at school this morning, we walked past the director on the sidewalk and said good morning.  Sam turned and looked back at her, waving, and said, "Oh, today I don't have to come to your office!"  Well, we hoped so . . .

I did get a call when school was almost over and I was about to go pick him up anyway.  Something minor occurred which was not really bad behavior, but did require him to be removed from the classroom . . . and he ended up in the preschool director's office again.  While waiting for me to pick him up, he leaned in toward the director with chin in hands and little elbows on her desk.  "You know," he said, "It's really boring in here."

Just wait, buddy . . . being a grown up can be SUPER boring!  That is, until you have a three-year-old to liven things up.

Dusting off the Cobwebs

Excuse me while I blow the dust off my blog here . . . I have not blogged much lately.  That is mostly because I am on the brink of releasing my next book:  The Ballad of the Shirley T and Other Stories.  It is a book of six short stories, mostly Southern, and several with distinct Lowcountry flavor.  Paperback will be $.8.95 and e-book less than that (yet to be determined).  Check perrincothranconrad.com or http://www.iuniverse.com/ in the next few weeks!

Getting a book out is hard work and leaves little time for . . . well, writing.  There are proofs and polishing, followed by proofs and more proofs.  And with every round, you never trust yourself completely, so you wait around while someone else's eyes scan and tell you that you forgot to dot an i . . . or that your cover needs an overhaul.

The second reason that I have not blogged much lately is that I have a 3 year old son at home.  Sure, he goes to preschool 3 mornings per week, but when he's home, he requires lots of attention.  If I am not actively engaged with him, I must watch him like a hawk.  Anyone who has ever had a 3 year old boy will understand this.  Just try to go to the bathroom, take a shower, run the vacuum in the next room.  Go ahead.  And when you come back, you will find your son on top of the refrigerator.  Or perhaps he is very proud of himself for having outsmarted the childproof drawer latches and wants to show you the cool icepick he found.

Constant heartattacks.  That's motherhood.  Oh, and the 3 year old tantrums . . . they will leave you questioning everything you ever knew to be true in life and thinking you have gone terribly wrong as a mother.  If you stay at home, you will become convinced that you have ruined him with your bad mothering skills and he would have been better off in daycare.  If you work outside the home, you will wail and beat your chest, thinking your work schedule has caused him emotional problems, and if only you had stayed home . . . but none of these things are true.  All of it is a phase.  Or so I am told.  "The good news is that they all turn four!"  That's what I keep hearing.  Of course, my son is wonderful . . . and so much fun.  But every day is an adventure.  Forget Halloween.  NOTHING scares ME anymore.

So, just try having a 3 year old boy at home with you and trying to get your latest book out at the same time . . . you, too, will be wearing your spouse's sweats because you haven't done your own laundry in so long.  You, too, will be coughing from the dust on your nightstand.

But I wouldn't trade my life for the world.

My Son, the Interior Decorator

This has been a really busy summer, so far.  Between keeping Sam occupied and trying to get my second book ready for release, I have not had much time to breathe.  And when it rains, it pours, so it figures that Chip and I have decided to have a bunch of people over to the house lately.  Five sets of people within a two week period, if I am remembering everyone.  That's a good bit of cooking and cleaning, but we enjoy entertaining.  And once we have one set of friends over, it's usually, "Well, while we have the house good and clean, might as well have more . . . "

So a couple of Fridays ago, it was 10 people for dinner and games.  There was last-minute vacuuming and mopping, cooking 24 hamburger patties, and general stuffing of things into closets to put on that false air of tidiness.  I made extra coffee that morning and kicked into high gear at about 6:30 a.m.

So it made perfect sense that Sam choose THAT DAY to add a little interior design flair to the living room.  Why not?  I mean, he saw me sprucing up, right?

Sam was on the floor working on the grocery store for his shoebox village (we have been building a village out of old shoeboxes this summer).  Sam's Save-A-Lot was looking good and getting some last minute crayon touches while I was on the phone.  Suddenly, Sam caught my attention by moving to the corner and sitting down in the "Time Out Chair."  With a little Mona Lisa smile, he said quietly, "I'm in time out."

Then I saw why.

In the center of my living room carpet (which is a shade of ecru called "Biscuit") was a giant spiral design in purple crayon.  "I'm sorry," Sam giggled, "It was an accident."  We're working on what "accident" means.  I wish I had taken a picture, because it was really impressive.  He started with a dot in the middle, and then with the precision of an engineer with a protractor, made an outward spiral that was about one yard in diameter.  I almost left it, because it really looked like it could have been a deliberate part of the rug.  Almost.

Oh, did you know that "Washable" crayons are only washable some of the time?  It's true.  So, half a spray bottle of Woolite carpet cleaner later, we were ready for our guests.  As everyone sat on that area of the carpet that night for our game of Pictionary, I expected someone to whisper, "What's that wierd floral smell on the floor?  It's rubbing off on my jeans."  But no one did.

Lesson learned:  Crayons go under lock and key when I am cleaning up for company. 

A Tiny Hunter's First Kill: RIP Barnwell

(Barnwell the lizard, and a picture of my tiny hunter with his first kill)

I am a wimp. I will admit it. Sure, there are a few exceptions, but overall, I am pretty wimpy. A perfect example is my irrational fear of lizards. In my younger days at our river house, I swam where gators were frequently seen, I walked side by side with respectably-sized snakes, watched wild boars run through the back yard, I caught cast nets full of bait fish, cleaned crabs or boiled them live . . . I don't know what's happened to me now, but I am full-out prissy.

So we have had a problem with lizards living on our back porch recently, which has made going in and out of the back door a little more exciting. There have been two of the little "Geicos" living in the wicker porch furniture. I named them. That's what I do to try and make them seem less threatening. I give them names like Pierre or Steve. Well, these two have been dubbed Barnwell and Sumter. Barnwell was the fatter of the two and hung close to the back door, peering in at us. Many times, Sam and I had the chance to study Barnwell's scaly underbelly closely through the glass. Sumter tends to stay in the wicker loveseat near the garage door. He's not bothering me much over there.

More than once, my husband has captured these little green Southern gentlemen and flung them over our back fence into a green space with a tree line separating us from the next subdivision. What lizard wouldn't love a green space with a tree line?! Ours. They are homing lizards. But I had not seen either of them in a few days and had become lax. Today, I opened the back door without looking out of the blinds first. My three year old, Sam, walked out first. Then I saw Barnwell on the outside of the french door, hanging over my kitchen floor. I knew it was Barnwell because of his chopped off tail, the result of a previous scuffle with my husband.

Instinctively, I screamed and slammed the door shut. With my child on the other side. It was definitely not one of my finer moments in motherhood. At any rate, I started banging on the glass to encourage the lizard to move. He didn't. Sam turned around and yelled at the lizard to move. "Get out of ze way, yizard!" He didn't. So in an effort to protect his histrionic mother, Sam took his sippy cup and SLAM! socked it to the lizard. Barnwell fell the to threshold, barely moving.

"Oh, don't worry, Mommy!" Sam shouted through the door. I guess he could sense that I was still reticent to open the door with the tiny dinosaur struggling for life in my path. Then he took his sippy cup and AGAIN slammed it down on top of the ailing Barnwell. And there it was. My little boy, the fierce lizard hunter, had made his first kill. He was protecting his mommy, bless his little heart. He's almost all Scottish on my side, so that explains a lot. And I think he's got a little Seneca Indian blood on his father's side, so that helps, too. Killer instinct. And he's not even in 3K yet.

I was in shock at my little boy's bravery, but so proud of him for coming to my rescue. Next, we will be outfitting him with little snake boots and building him a tree stand.