My favorite part: “Gwub, GWUB, OH! NO!”

Some kids seem to find more joy in it than others, but I haven’t yet met a kid who didn’t want to put on a costume of their favorite Disney character, or wear a cape and pretend to be a favorite superhero, or put on a hat and call it a “crown.” It’s completely natural, and in fact a sign of proper development, to “play pretend.”

In our house, dress up is a given. At any moment, there is a very, very, good chance that Alex is either wearing a costume or at least pretending that he is someone else. His current costumes include: Buzz Lightyear, another Buzz Lightyear, Captain America, Batman, a Vampire and a Knight. Of course, those are the actual costumes and don’t include the other characters that he will become when wearing one of them. It also doesn’t include his pajamas, many of which are costume-like: Spiderman, another Buzz, Woody. And it certainly doesn’t include his imagination; all of the times when he just says, “I’m _______ now!” and runs off and suddenly is that new character.

This past weekend Alex and I went to a birthday party. A sixth birthday party, to be exact. In this big beautiful house were approximately one bajillion kids, mostly in the five to six year range. Those one bajillion kids were loud and busy and did I mention there were at least one bajillion of them?

Naturally, because this was a birthday party at a girl’s house, the costume selection was, well, “girly.” A fairy here, a princess there. Costumes abounded with frills and poofs and cuteness.

Naturally, my child who is obsessed with wearing costumes wanted to wear a costume. So, he did.

For a long while he was Tinkerbell.

A very cute Tinkerbell who also happened to be “damaging” everything around with a “sword,” which was the wand. Alex ran around the house in that costume at top speed, chasing kids, being chased by kids, “BOOM”ing and “SMASH”ing everything in his way. He owned that costume.

I would be lying if I said, “I didn’t think anything of it!” because, well, of course I did. I’m about as open minded as you get, especially when it comes to gender norms, but I am not an idiot. I know that there are many people who have issues with a boy wearing something pink or frilly, or playing with barbies, or, in this case, dressing up as a female fairy. And, I’ll be honest, I almost said, “No” when Alex asked me to help him get the costume on. Not because I care, but because there were lots of kids and some parents there; kids and parents who I didn’t know.

The kids and parents there who I do know didn’t bat an eye, thought it was adorable, sweet, who cares?, wished their more “conservative” husbands could see it, etc. I got one eye roll from a parent I didn’t know, but I am even more sad to say that I saw multiple children making fun of my son.

It took everything in my willpower to not say something. To not pull aside those little kids and scold them for being mean. To not explain to their little five-and-six-year-old brains that making fun of anyone, ever, is not okay. That just because you think something or someone is different doesn’t mean it’s okay to make fun of it or she or him. But, I didn’t. I didn’t because Alex had no idea. He didn’t know that those kids were not simply stating a fact: “Look at that boy! He’s in a girl’s costume!” He didn’t catch the tone. He didn’t see the giggling and pointing.

He was having a blast, so I didn’t say anything.

I think it was the right decision, but I’m not entirely sure. They weren’t my kids to scold. They certainly were not my kids to attempt to teach. It just makes me sad that, in Kindergarten, these things start. That these kids may not have parents who think it’s important to teach their offspring that not only is different okay, but also it’s good. Maybe their parents are still a few decades back in their thinking, and it can’t be my business to try to change them.

Or maybe it means none of that. Maybe one kid was a little mean and the rest just followed suit.

I don’t know. But I do know that Alex had an amazing, wonderful, time that day. And I do know that the kids of my friends there didn’t care that he was in a costume, which reinforces that I am lucky to be surrounded by such amazing women and amazing children. Alex didn’t want to leave the party. He loved wearing some new costumes and on the way home continually asked me when he could buy a new one for his house. He told me: “I forgot to play with Alexis because I was so busy playing with her cool costumes!”

“I am not Minnie Mouse. I’m a princess. I’m a princess because now you have to bring me the food I want to eat. And chocolate! And I don’t have to clean. And you do my chores. And I can stay up forever.”

What kid wouldn’t want that?

I knew it would be great. I expected it to be wonderful, lovely, enjoyable, fun. I planned on the fact that having two full days off, at the same time as My Boys, would be a fantastic addition to our lives. I fully expected that I would love it, and that Zach would love it, poor guy having to be the one and only parent every other weekend and for days (and days!) at a time.

But the fact of the matter is that it is seriously, truly, beyond amazing. It is better than anticipated.

And the cool thing? It is going to stay that way. From now on, at least with this job, I won’t be working weekends. No longer will I have to work every other Saturday and Sunday, leaving my family behind on their only days off of work and school. No longer will I have to say no to friends and family when they want to stay out late on a Saturday night. I don’t have to turn down every other birthday party, gathering, baby shower, enjoyable event in life that occurs on a weekend because that is when normal people aren’t working. No longer will I be working overnight, missing out on both bedtime and wake up rituals with Alex.

It isn’t going to stay as perfect as it has been these first few weeks. I’ve been able to work mostly 7:30-3:30. I will have to work some evenings each week, two to three, but never overnight, and never weekends. Never holidays! It is with great joy that I can say that I will not have to work Easter, Fourth of July, Christmas. The “hazard hours” will not be fun, and missing out on dinner will be a bummer, but on the days that I miss dinner I should hopefully not miss breakfast too.

Instead, I get to be slightly more normal. Even though I will be staying up late some nights, I will not have to completely change my sleeping schedule every week or two. I won’t be screwing with my body’s natural rhythm, missing out on a million and one milestones in Alex’s development, declining events left and right.

If I hadn’t been home all of this week, I would have missed out on this:

The “L” sound! And at the beginning there is an “R” in there! My little man is growing up, day by day, and I hope that I can start to miss less of it. I got to hear him say “Thor” appropriately, and “Lock” with an actual luh instead of a wuh. As silly and inconsequential as it sounds (and, yes, it kind of it), it made my day. And I don’t want to miss these little things.

Like the constant costume changes. And the need to be playing characters all the time. And the literally nonstop talking. I don’t want to miss it, even though, I’ll admit!, it drives me nuts sometimes when he says my name over and over and over again. “Mommy, do bats fly, Mommy? Uh, Mommy? Did you know that bats are nocturnal, Mommy? Mommy, did you know dat? Did you know dat about bats, Mommy? Mommy?” (No, I am not even remotely exaggerating. The name he is using, whether it’s Mommy, Daddy or a grandparent, will often be the first word and last word in a question or statement.)

But I don’t want to miss a thing.

There was a time when I was concerned about his lack of cuddling. His total disinterest in cuddling made me instantly concerned that something was wrong.

There was a time when I worried that Alex wasn’t smart, wasn’t developing his gross motor skills fast enough, wasn’t something something. I worried a lot. 

While I was pregnant, I devoured parenting books. I had an entire stack of them that I read, word for word. I read parenting blogs, was a member of parenting online communities, and made sure to listen to any and all advice that people gave me. I knew, even while pregnant, to not actually use all of the advice that was thrown my way, but I genuinely listened. 

I considered everyone else more knowledgeable about parenting than me. I don’t know if it was because I was so young; perhaps it was because Alex wasn’t a “planned” baby; whatever the reason, I thought that I wasn’t prepared to be a mother without educating myself. 

So, I read. I listened. I read some more. I searched and found and read some more.

And all of that made me worry. “Why can this other one year old run when Alex can barely walk? Why does this baby seem to understand directions? Why isn’t Alex saying more than simply ‘mama’ and ‘dada?’” 

I worried that it was my fault. That I wasn’t nourishing him appropriately. 

I don’t know exactly when my worrying changed. It probably wasn’t overnight, but at some point I just let go of it all. I let go of comparing Alex to other kids. I let go of reading “expert” opinions on child rearing. I stopped paying attention when other people gave me advice about how to get my kid to sleep. 

It just stopped mattering at some point. 

At some point I learned to trust myself. I learned to believe that I could be a parent, regardless of the fact that I was young and inexperienced and blah blah blah. 

I would be lying if I said that I never worried. I still worry. I worry that Alex, as a boy who will be the youngest in his class, will struggle in Kindergarten next year. I worry that Alex, who we may decide to keep in preschool for an additional year because of those worries, will do worse in Kindergarten because of boredom. 

But I no longer question my ability to parent. 

I think part of this change has been recognizing that, regardless of my faults, I have a really amazing little guy. As parents, we are obviously doing something right. 

Filed under: Alexander ]]> http://allisonsays.com/2012/01/16/worries/feed/ 2 allisonbarton Alex Alex http://allisonsays.com/2012/01/08/painting-is-serious-business/ http://allisonsays.com/2012/01/08/painting-is-serious-business/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:54:32 +0000 allisonbarton http://allisonsays.com/?p=2033 ]]> We started off with a blank picture of Toy Story characters. Alex was determined to make it look real.

“What color is the shirt supposed to be? Is slotted pig very pink? The brown doesn’t look very nice, but I think there is a lot of brown in this picture.”

It was all very serious. “Mommy, I don’t think we have all the colors we need.”

So, instead of having white to paint Rex’s teeth, Alex decided brown would be an okay color choice.

“Rex’s teeth are brown. He doesn’t brush his teeth.”

And then the brown continued as he painted Jessie’s face. “Rexie doesn’t brush his teeth, but Jessie is just dirty.”

But at the end of the day, Alex is a sensitive little bugger.

When singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” this year, he consistently pointed out that the reindeer were not nice to Rudolph. That it is not okay to make fun of someone just because they are different. That if he were Rudolph, he would be very upset with the other reindeer. And, most importantly, just because Rudolph ended up being “cool” at the end, the other reindeer were still not nice. “They should have been nice always.”

And even though sometimes he gets in trouble at school for pushing, or teaching his friends a naughty word, or most likely not listening, for the most part he is very gentle. His teachers often tell me how polite he is, and how instead of fighting back with the other kids he will come to a teacher, often in tears, and explain what happened. He certainly needs to work on his ability to stick up for himself and work out issues on his own, but I am very happy that he chooses to “tattle-tale” rather than fight back. I am thrilled that he is a “softie” and is more likely to cry than take a toy back from someone smaller than him.

The other day, a sleep-deprived, hungry, Alex was being, well, a sleep-deprived, hungry, Alex. Whining, fussing, moaning, near tears, making a big deal out of every.single.little.thing. He was driving me crazy.

Often, his terrible crankiness can be broken by making him laugh. Make a kid laugh and every problem instantly disappears, I’ve learned. In my attempt to make him laugh, I used a typical strategy: calling him silly names, like “crankasaurus” and “crankapotamus.” Instead of laughing, though, he burst into tears.

“Mommy, that’s not a very nice thing to say. It makes me sad when you say that. ::sob:: Please don’t say that ever again.”

(I won’t lie: I had to walk away because it was quite hilarious.)

My sensitive little guy.

Whatever mojo I may have had started to dissipate when I went back to school
to get my BSN. The program was all-consuming, with little time to myself and only a small amount for my family that I made happen. There just wasn’t the ten minutes here and there that I would have liked to have in order to write. To share and remember those moments in blog form like I had been doing since Alex was a baby was just not making the top of my priority list.

And then I graduated, and thought, “Now! This is the time I can be better and document our lives again!”

Well, that didn’t happen, either.

I got a job, with ridiculous hours, and basically just drowned in my exhaustion and attempted to enjoy my days off. I kept Alex out of school about once a month in order to have the opportunity to actually spend a full day with him since I was working every other weekend. We had adventures, traveling to the zoo or simply running errands, apple picking in the fall, and enjoying quiet days at home.

And now, here I am, almost 14 months after I started my job as a registered nurse. Here I am, with a total of 20 posts for over a year of our lives. As I look back on it, I realize there are things that I didn’t post that I should have, because, let’s face it, I will not remember. I won’t remember the adorable way that Alex used to argue when he was just three years old. I won’t remember the way that he continued to play with his hair whenever he was tired even as he neared 4.5 years old.

Unless.

Unless I, this time, find my mojo.

I am starting a new job. This is very exciting, amazingly nerve wracking, and all-around new. My hours will be better and worse at the same time. But: I will be here every weekend. Every holiday. And for that I would have taken on a job that wasn’t very interesting to me. But this job? This job is interesting, and I think it is going to be an amazing opportunity.

And now I want to remember. I want to have documentation of our adventures. Little snippets of the things Alex says, the goofy things he does, the pictures of his smile and not-so-chubby-anymore-face.

So, here goes. If I manage to write even 50% more than I have in the previous 14 months I’ll be happy. I don’t want to forget all of this stuff. I don’t want to forget the little moments that slip away so easily.

Shortly before his fourth birthday Alex started maturing a bit. His logic was becoming slightly more sound, his pronunciation of words a tiny bit better, his step a little less little-kid like. Every once in a while I would realize that I just had a legitimate conversation with him, or that he hadn’t whined in an entire day, or that his legs had absolutely zero baby fat left on them.

Something happened recently.

Around turning four, Alex became what I can only assume is a four-year-old. He’s…grown up a bit. He’s…a preschooler.

The other day he told me something was very disappointing. And he was using the word correctly! It never ceases to amaze me what words he knows and his ability to pull them out of (seemingly) nowhere. When was the last time he had heard the word disappointing? Probably months ago, yet he remembered it.

He is not three. Three was a, how to put it nicely?, stressful age. Defiant. Constantly bargaining. Nearly always whining about something that wasn’t perfect.

Now don’t think I’m naive and sitting here saying “four is wonderful!” when I’ve only been living in four land for two weeks. I know four is a tough age, too. Every age has its challenges, and I know I will meet many new ones this year as a few old ones dissipate. The defiance hasn’t left, but there is slightly more reasoning within it. The whining hasn’t left, but it can be stopped more easily.

I liked three. I enjoyed finally having a kid to really engage with.

Three is gone, and I’m a bit sad about that. But four is here, and Alex has clearly entered it. Little changes here and there. Maturing.

I can’t quite put into words what these changes are, but they are distinct. My little guy is turning into a not-quite-so-little guy.

He’s four.

I mean, first of all? Stop it. Alex is now four, and I am barely coming to grips with the fact that he is only a year away from entering kindergarten! He puts away dishes, goes to the bathroom without any help, gets himself dressed and can do little errands around the house like getting lazy me my iPad.

He doesn’t need me as much. There are fewer and fewer “help me”‘s and more and more “I can do it by myself Mommy!”‘s. Fortunately, he’s still too short to reach a lot of things in life, so at least I can hold on to that for a while longer.

But the real problem with this whole growing up thing? The opinions. Alex has an opinion on anything and everything. What he wants to eat, drink; whether or not he wants to go shopping, play outside, which toys he should spend his evening with; what movie to watch, snack to eat; what clothes to wear.

Now, I realize that it doesn’t really matter what clothes Alex wears. He’s barely four, so he won’t offend anyone. He doesn’t have a uniform. The reality is that he is always dressed just fine. If you know me at all, though, you know I want him in polo shirts and nice jeans, um, every day. And these days? He won’t wear anything but standard t-shirts. The fight that ensues if I even mention wearing a “button shirt” is dramatic, full-fledged screaming, often crying, flipping out status. “I don’t wike button shirts! They hurt! I won’t wear a button shirt ever again.” And my heart breaks.

What happened to the little boy I could dress in lovely button-up shirts? Polos? A nice sweater vest on occasion? He has opinions about his clothes now. He wants t-shirts that have no buttons and he will only wear pants that have buttons. (In case you were wondering, that does not include pants that have snaps. Buttons only.)

Clearly.

If only he could just wear his adorable little blue and orange bathing suit forever. Then we would never have to argue about clothes.

Today? Today, you are four! I can’t believe it. Four years ago, you were coming into this world reluctantly. Now you are here and not reluctant at all.

That first year the changes were unbelievable. I can’t deny that the vast majority of changes in life occurred during that first year, but I have been no less than astounded as each year passes and you continue to grow in so many ways. From one to two, two to three, and now three to four.

You went from a toddler to a preschooler in a year.

And what a year it was! We spent your third birthday on vacation at a beautiful lake house, which you adored. To this day you will bring up that vacation with fond memories. Usually you will bring up memories of the lake house when you are supposed to be sleeping, but it’s charming nonetheless.

We moved into a new house, you started a new school, you grew inches and pounds; your vocabulary continued to explode, your grammar improve, the stories have continued to grow in length and detail. You moved up not just one but two classes at school!

Your love of life can’t be ignored and is almost impossible not to catch. The world has continued to fascinate you. From the day you were born, your wide eyes would examine every little thing around you. Questioning, wondering, thinking. I always assumed it was this fascination with the world that led to your amazingly awful sleep habits that have continued almost to this day.

Your fascination amounts to lots of questions. Questions about what, how, why, come out of your mouth approximately every 2.3 seconds. When we don’t know the answer, you ask us why we don’t know the answer. “But, you’re my Mommy and you are supposed to know why [insert some totally random question about bats or helicopters or asparagus]!”

Because you want to know the answers right away, you haven’t yet showed much interest in reading or writing. That’s okay. I know that every child goes at their own pace, and I can’t deny that you are a smart boy. It frustrates you that you have to learn how to write one letter at a time! You want to just know them and write a book for everyone to read. Right now. No patiently learning over a period of days, weeks, months. You want the answers and you want them as soon as humanly possible.

Your growth this year has astounded me. You have grown up so much. I look at you and see a child. A smart, funny, impeccably clever, loving, little boy. A little boy. Not a baby. Not a toddler. Not a baby! You are so mature in comparison to last year, so grown up.

And with growing up has come so much love. You hug and kiss, cuddle and snuggle, and find so much comfort in us, your parents. You are definitely a Daddy’s boy these days, asking for extra kisses and snuggles from Daddy whenever possible. We love that you are so loving. So very, very, sweet.

We hope you will stay this sweet. This loving. I know that the next year will bring about more changes. You will grow in inches and pounds, becoming longer and leaner. You will learn to write letters, read, continue to learn hundreds of new words. You will continue to learn addition and subtraction, history, world events. You will be prepared for Kindergarten!

I can’t wait to see what this year brings, my big beautiful four year old Alex. You are such an amazing little man, and I can’t believe the amount of love I have for you.

Happy Birthday, my darling Alexander.

We love you.