From the front line

Sure. Just when I'm ready to send you off to boarding school, you go and remind me how freaking adorable and precious you are.

Alright, so maybe not boarding school... but I may have glanced at the calendar today (more than once) to see how many weeks left til you start preschool.

We had a rough day today. Even before leaving the house for the children's museum, which you really wanted to visit, you had decided to be difficult. Didn't want to sit on the toilet. Didn't want to get dressed. I was ready to leave without you! When you wouldn't cooperate and behave at the museum, I told you we'd leave. So we did. I carried your screaming, thrashing body to the car, where we sweat it out in the sweltering humidity til you settled down enough to get into your car seat. You just wanted to go back to the museum.

Oh well. There's always next time.

I think we're having a power struggle, you and I. We're figuring out how to work things, the two of us. Daddy isn't around as much now that he's busy with his new job. We'll figure it out. It's an adjustment for all of us. You're testing me out, and I just need to lay down the law.

After you refused to nap, I eventually brought you downstairs where we had a few more battles. After you cooled off with a time-out, an amazing thing happened.

You wandered into the kitchen where I was working and found the toy train we bought you on vacation. It was broken. I accidentally dropped it the other day, and it broke. Cheapo-made-in-China-piece-of-crap toy. I didn't have the heart to tell you I had broken it. But you found it under a pile of stuff on the table. I'd meant to ask your father to try and fix it.

You weren't the least bit upset when you saw that your brand new train was broken. You asked if we could get another one, but when I said that we couldn't, since it came from a far-away store, you weren't phased one bit. There were no tears. You just rolled with it. You played with the carcass of the train and its pieces and parts for a long time. With all of your usual focus and intensity, you made the pieces talk to each other.

"Hey cow catcher! Let's get some wheels!"

"OK! I'm going to paint you!"

"Alright! Let's go!!"

I worked at the sink while you played, and I watched you in complete awe. If it had been a young me whose brand-new toy was broken, I'm sure I'd have thrown a fit. No doubt there would have been tears. But you just went with it. You improvised and made the best of the situation.

Sometimes you are the most easy-going and imaginative kid. I never tire of watching you and listening to you play. You're smart as a whip, creative, strong-willed and incredibly sensitive. You remind me so much of your Daddy. And I know you're going to grow into an amazing man, just like him.

Even when you pitch a fit and I pull my hair out, I would still walk across hot coals for you in an instant. Who else would sit down with me and watch a bad movie at the end of a rough day, just to bop to its music?

You always remind me that tomorrow's a new day.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Comments

[Karen]

Wow, Michele was right - this was amazing. I've been there and I've done that. But you said it so well. Alas, my battles are larger now that my youngest is 15. And yet, just when I'm about to kill her, she turns around and does something charming or thoughtful. Thanks for reminding me that those moments exist.

Michele sent me here, obviously, and I'm oh-so-glad. You are hereby bookmarked by me. Have a great day!

[Madseason]

Great post Marie! What a charming description of how easy our frustrations can melt away when one can witness the simple happiness of a child!! Am here from Michele's and it was definitely worth the trip! Thanks for the smile and the 'warm & fuzzies'!!

[Jennifer]

Michele sent me, and I'm so glad I came. We have days like that at this house too...days where I alternate between wanting to banish the little girls to time-out for the day and wanting to just sit and hold them...they grow up too fast.
I love your writing...thank you for the smile this morning!! :)

[Auntie Antiquity]

thanks for reminding us all that we need to take one day at a time and then move on!

btw michele sent me

[MissMeliss]

Michele sent me to read this brilliant post...I'm not a parent, but I still appreciated this - it was beautiful. So honest, and so full of love.

[Janet]

Second post I read today that made me wish I had been a mother! Beautiful :-) Loved the quote, too.

Hi, Michele sent me.

[aka_monty]

That actually makes me a tiny bit nostalgic for the pre-pre-school days. :)
But only a tiny bit.
Now we're nearly in the Realm Of Teenage Angst and I can see that the battle of wills will start again soon.

What a wonderful post--and what a sweet child.

Hi, Michele sent me today (although I lurk my way through here now & again by myself)

[Denise]

Hello, Michele sent me and I'm very glad that she did.

What a beautiful, well-written entry! I have no children of my own but I'm a volunteer advocate for a (now) 16-year-old foster child. He has frustrated me more times than I can count and there have been several places in the last three years that I thought I wasn't strong enough to keep up with him. It is the small, quiet moments of truth and light and love that keep me going even though I'm sure most people never notice them. You are clearly one who not only notices but also appreciates those moments and I'm so glad that I dropped by today.

[colleen]

Very sweet. It brings me back to when my sons were little. It feeds me to watch kids play. Play brings out the best in them. I'm glad the whole thing turned around and your faith in each other was renewed.

[colleen]

PS I forgot to say that I came by way of our friend Michele.