Musings of a Mom

 I’ve decided to call the kids Jack and Jill. There’s no big reason other than those are the names that suit my kids for purposes of this blog.

Jill wants an Ipod. She’s been trying to talk me into getting a new one for myself and giving her my current one so that she can have my music loaded already but she hasn’t yet convinced me. 

She approached me the other night with an idea. “Can we sell Jack for medical experiments and use the money to buy an Ipod?” Now, if you haven’t guessed already, our family’s sense of humor is a bit flippant, so I replied, “Well, he would be worth more than you.” To which she said, “Yeah, he’s so small and cute!” Now that’s a loving sister for you.

There’s something special about kids wanting to please their parents. Even when they are going through phases such as constantly saying, “I hate you” or throwing tantrums and such, they still, ultimately, want their parents’ approval.

Recently I went shopping with a friend and bought some clothes for myself. When I got home I told my husband, “I got some things for you. Would you like to see them?” My son said, “I want to see!” and when I pulled out the clothes he said, “That’s girls’ clothes!” I realized that he thought I meant that I had literally bought something for my husband and was confused by the fact that they were girl’s clothes. I explained that I bought the clothes to look nice for Daddy and that when you love someone you try to look nice for them. At that point he looked at me and asked, “Do I look nice?” With my heart melting, I said, “Yes, honey. You look wonderful.”

That’s what love is all about.

 Kids get excited about Mother’s Day, at least they do when they’re young. They enjoy making something special for mom. They enjoy giving gifts but find it difficult to wait until Mother’s Day to have the gifts opened. They are just not patient people.

My son attends daycare a couple of days a week and at daycare he made a gift for me.  He proudly presented the gift and said, “Happy Mother’s Day!” When we got home he asked, “When you open your gift, will you share it with me?” I told him we’d talk about it once I opened the gift. Now, this was on Thursday and he would have to wait a few days and that was just too long so he asked, “Do you want to open it now or on Mother’s Day?” I told him I would like to wait until Mother’s Day and he asked, “But would you like to open it now?”

Whether you’re a parent or not you know he was not really trying to get to my wishes, so of course I agreed to open my gift early. He had given me a jar of walnuts that were specially seasoned just for Mom. Now, however, he realized that he didn’t have something for me to open on Mother’s Day.

On Friday he went to his grandma’s house and asked to make a pretty bracelet for me.  He asked me what color beads I liked and told me not to look. Later that night he gave me a small wrapped box and told me to open it. I asked if I should wait for Mother’s Day and he said, “No, you have to open it now.” After I opened it, my husband saw and said, “You were supposed to save that for Sunday.” Here we go again.

Saturday morning my son came to me with a dollar bill and a dollar coin and said, “Happy Mother’s Day! Which one do you want?” When I asked why he was giving me money he said, “Because I like giving people money to be Mom and Dad.” Great, not only is he proudly paying me less than minimum wage but he makes it sound like my husband and I can easily be replaced. I think I need to check his piggy bank and see how long we’ll be around.

Mother’s Day finally arrived and my son comes into my room, says, “Happy Mother’s Day” in a way that shows no enthusiasm for the day in the slightest. Apparently he had moved on to other things.

 I’ve noticed over the years that boys seem to need more reminders about washing their hands after using the bathroom than girls do. That’s not to say that girls don’t need reminders, it’s just that boys need more, lots more.

Today I saw my son run from the bathroom into his bedroom while tugging at his pants. I asked if he had gone potty and he said, “Oh!” and turned, ran back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and ran back to his room. I said, “Did you wash your hands?” He then ran back to the bathroom turned the water on and back off and ran back to his room. As he was running by I asked “With soap?” He grunted and ran back to the bathroom. This time he thought he would be smart so he came out to me to show that he had washed his hands with soap. He held his hands out to me and said “Smell!” Now, this may seem like an odd request but we use scented soap so the proof is in the smell of your hands.  But my son once again forgot a step. Yes, he had rinsed his hands. Yes, he had put soap on his hands, but, no, he had not rinsed the soap off. So I sent him back to the bathroom to wash again.

 This time I heard him rinsing his hands in the water. He then turned off the water and once again ran to his room. This time I asked,

“Did you dry your hands?”

”Yes.”

“With a towel?”

“A towel?” (There was a real pause here.) “Yeah, of course. What else would I do?”

Now there’s a question worth pondering.