Smiling Mom

You know you’re a mom when your son runs out of his room, drops his pants, bends over, spreads his cheeks and says, “Mom, my butt hole tic­kles and I can’t get it to stop.”

What the frick??  Seriously?

My solu­tion?  I took his pajama bot­toms, loo­ped my fin­ger under the fabric and wiped his butt.  I know, classy!

Unfor­tu­na­tely it was still tic­kling, so I told him to go into the bath­room and wipe again.  BC then informs me that it’s my fault that his butt was tic­kling because I didn’t wipe him good enough earlier.

My fault?  That my 4 year old’s butt was tickling??

Again…what the frick??

Once the pro­blem was sol­ved he ran back out to the living room to drop trough and show me his newly clea­ned butt.  At this point I was simply laughing too hard to check it again.

Seriously, this was not in the han­dout when I deci­ded to forgo birth con­trol and become a mother!

Face Pain­ting by a 2 1/2 year old

On Fri­day BC told Hubby, “Hmm.  Today I will go to school without crying.”

You little shit.

For weeks he’s been thro­wing the worst of tan­trums at the men­tion of school.  Let’s not talk about the peel the child off the parent tac­tic that his teachers had to enact.

Fri­day?  Fine.

Part (a LARGE part) of me is thrilled.

Part (a LARGE part) of me is pissed.

Now if only he’ll ‘decide’ to take his time-out like a man. 

Tonight was the first night in many that I put my son to bed without an all out Super­nanny ins­pi­red hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

I like to pat my own back, toot my own horn, if you will, on occa­sion.  I gene­rally think I’m gif­ted in the mothe­ring cate­gory.  I got skills!  Or so I tell myself.

But just as I find myself get­ting cocky again, my dear chil­dren smack me down and throw off my equi­li­brium.  I quickly re-realize how many skills I still need to grow.

Take for exam­ple my four year old’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety gone hay­wire.  A vete­ran mom has her set of tools, a solid bed­time rou­tine, a vision of paren­ting that goes something like; start as you want to con­ti­nue. We have rou­ti­nes.  We don’t vary far from the script.  My son knows what to expect.  Life trots along accor­ding to plan until *bam* I’m smac­ked in the face with a severe case of sepa­ra­tion anxiety. Him, not me.

Wha…wha…what??  Um, excuse me, that’s not in my script.

This week I reached my brea­king point.  I nee­ded help.  Nothing I or my hus­band did hel­ped calm or sooth BC’s nighttime/transitional fears. NOTHING.

In addi­tion, hea­ring, “Mama” (A word I des­pise from the get go, I’m Mommy, thank you very much!) “I need you!” in the same tone and pitch repea­ted in the same rhythm for two straight hours is akin to Chi­nese water tor­ture to me.  PAINFUL.

Ear­plugs didn’t even help.

I cried uncle and finally called the advice nurse Satur­day night.  I was at a loss.  No great plan, no big pic­ture, I was stuck.  I was called this mor­ning and BC was sche­du­led an appoint­ment with his pedia­tri­cian for 1:30 today.

I had a plan.  Relief was on the way.

At 1:30 I pac­ked up my tired daugh­ter and my hooky-playing son and hea­ded off to see my life­line, the doc­tor.  His doc­tor.  A woman, who I hoped, would rea­lize that I’m a mom who doesn’t ove­rreact or freak out over small issues.  That my con­cern was HUGE and WORTH her time.

1:30, I show up, exhaus­ted and see­king help only to find out that I have an appoint­ment sche­du­led with ANOTHER doc­tor, one with a repu­ta­tion for a BAD bed­side manner.

How could this hap­pen? I exc­lai­med, I spe­ci­fi­cally said MY doc­tor.  My eyes welled up with tears.

No relief today. I left empty han­ded, with an appoint­ment at the end of the week.  It was time to pre­pare myself for anther 2 hour kic­king, screa­ming, scratching all out hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

No relief.

After a good cry and a sho­wer, I deci­ded to pull up my boot straps and try again.

I for­mu­la­ted a tem­po­rary plan and did something dif­fe­rent.  Ins­tead of telling BC that I would lay with him for 5 minu­tes (part of our old rou­tine), I deci­ded to let him dic­tate the amount of time I’d lay with him.

I gave away my con­trol.  And if you know me, you know how monu­men­tal that act was.  I. am. in. con­trol. damn. it.  But I gave it away.

And I’ll be dam­ned if that little stin­ker didn’t send me out of his room after only TWO minu­tes, pro­mi­sing me he was ready to sleep calmly without tor­tu­ring me for the next two hours.

Two Minu­tes.  I gave up con­trol and the pro­blem, tonight, was solved.

Days like today, I rea­lize that I, in fact, don’t have all the ans­wers.  If I just take the time to lis­ten to my kids, maybe they’ve been SREAMING their needs to me the whole time.

Skill Lear­ned, BC, skill learned.