Boy, Oh Boy

I’ve always wanted a little boy. My heart’s desire became reality and BOOM! The fruit was delivered in 2007…my Little J. Yummy and snuggly baby days full of gas, eating, and sleeping, have given way to preschool days of much less sleeping, still plenty of eating, the same, if not more gas, and now, gratuitous nakedness on a daily basis. I have a pretty deep, contemplative child (even though he’s only 4). Yet the fact remains, he is boy through and through. My life with Little J the past few weeks…

~ J ruuuuuunnnnnsssss through the living room, into the dining room, all the while huge gaseous explosions erupt from his behind with every step. He abruptly stops. “Oh that must have been the spinach salad from earlier, maybe the chicken, but DEFINITELY the spinach salad”.  Running on.

~ Arriving home from a field trip, our sweet neighbor drives by and stops to chat for a minute. Jonah half-heartedly waves as he moves on to play in the yard, and jump along the walk way during our conversation. Moments later, “Mama! I gotta go potty”, “Just a minute buddy, we’ll go inside in a minute”. Mind you, my child is the master of holding “it” when he’s not in the mood, or doesn’t want to be bothered with going. Picture if you will, landscapers are mowing the lawn, the neighbor across the street is loading up his car, and I’m talking to our friend. Then, with a heavy tone of impatience, “MAMA”! I look around to see J, butt naked from the waist down, arching his back, tummy out, urinating in our front yard. My neighbor says, “Oh my, I guess that’s my cue to go now”.  I could literally hear her laughing in her car as she drove down the hill and around the corner. Meanwhile, I’m laughing, trying to cover my child and all of his business. We finally make it inside.

~ Describing his own poop is a favorite pastime of Jonah’s. “It’s a poo poo forest”, “It’s a ginormous carrot”, “It looks like a sock”, “It looks like a hat and some snowflakes”, “It looks like Pepper’s face” (our dog).

~ We have some awesome friends who have two little girls that Jonah has grown up with. One day I dropped him off for about an hour to playdate with them while I got some things done. The three kids and my friend were sitting down for lunch when I arrived to retrieve my little guy.  As I got closer to the table, I notice it…my child, eating a PB&J with no pants on. In front of a room full of ladies. Nice. His disenchantment with pants, up until this point, had been an at-home thing. Apparently the shorts came off within the first 5 minutes of his arrival.

~ Play date #2 with some different friends- Jonah decides after his bathroom intermission to come out with no pants OR underwear on to play trains.

~ No pants dance #3- Fourth of July gathering at my brother’s home. Family and many friends we hardly ever see are mingling, and eating. Jonah enters a living room full of adults (most of whom he never sees), all of them are eating, he strips off his pants, and hops up on the coffee table to sit down. Who is this child?!!! I promise I have been very diligent in my teaching of manners and respect. Apparently he has his own ideas. We’ve been having many discussions.

~ In addition to the no pants phase, J really detests shoes right now. Even in public he tries to take them off. I picked him up from Sunday school last week to find him with no shoes on. Thankfully he was fully clothed, and I was almost too scared to ask if the pants issue had come up. I had to know though, and apparently he was having too much fun to notice his shorts were still on.

~ Little J was throwing a Nerf ball back and forth with his daddy while I was making dinner. From the other room I hear Jonah rip a huge one, and I’m sorry to say it was extremely juicy and gross. Almost as if he had the runs right there in his undies.  Anyhoo, he starts laughing and laughing and says, “Man, that toot toot sounded like syrup”. Could he paint a better picture? I don’t think so. He already has a way with words. Yeah.

~ We were putting Jonah down for bed one night, and Joe was home early enough to read to him. I walk in during their cute cuddling and book time. Jonah pats the bed next to him and says, “Come here Mama, read stories with us”. I lay down next to Jonah near the bottom half of his sideways turned body. He immediately rips a huge one right in my face. J is really good about excusing himself after such a display, but I got nothing. “Um, was that a toot Jonah”? I ask. I was expecting a quick “excuse me” since he was clearly so enthralled in story/daddy time. Instead this was his reply, “Yeah, that was me, but don’t worry..it takes practice”. He now prides himself on his flatulent abilities.

This is just the tip of the iceturd with my precious and precocious little fella. Though I am often shocked and amazed by the journey, I wouldn’t trade it for all the non fart loving children in the world. And like those baby days, I still get a lot of awesome snuggles.

A Pep Talk In Every Drop

I have been getting over a cold the past few days. It’s been awhile since I’ve been sick, so I’ve been pretty grumpy about it. I woke up congested and gross, barely keeping my eyes open as I fixed my son’s breakfast. He, too, has had a cold but when it’s time to start the day you’d never know he has the crud (unless he’s really sick). His chipper playfulness was almost more than I could handle when I got a phone call from my dear friend Tameka. We were in need of some catching up, but didn’t have much time. She was right around the corner from work, and about to embark on a long day. I was in some bizarro universe, feeling not quite human, but needing to be momma, friend, homemaker, AND pull myself together to go clean and organize at the home of some friends.

Tameka and I gave each other brief 60 second monologues summarizing our current life events. We laughed about our stoic conversation, and ended on Meka saying, “Ok, we can do this! Splash some water on your face and go tackle your day!” It was just the thing I needed to hear, from the exact person I needed to hear it from, in the perfect tone of voice. I smiled and felt encouraged.  I hung up the phone, sat down at the kitchen table, hacked up a lung, and literally started pining for my bed. I knew bed and sleep were not in my near future, so I shuffled into the next room, “MOMMA!!!! COME PLAY WITH ME!!!!! YOU WANNA PLAY TRAINS WITH ME?! I MADE DINO A SNACK! ISN’T HE A CUTE DINOSAUR?! I’M GOING TO PUT ON SOME MUSIC!!!!” Next thing I know, John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ starts blaring at just under 200 decibels. I think there was some death of hearing tissue in my ears, we’re not sure yet. Don’t get me wrong…I love me some John Denver. Just. Not. Right. Now.

Finally, after dodging a very enthusiastic 4-year-old with his many questions and exclamations…I make my way over to a very loud stereo to adjust JD’s volume to more of an NPR/easy listening level. Then I find what I’ve been looking for all along…the honey-lemon Hall’s cough drop package. Sweet. All I can say is, I was not prepared for what happened next. I pull a drop from the bag, open the wrapper, pop one of those bad boys in my mouth, and just happen to glance at the wrapper as I threw it on the table. See for yourself…

Really?! I opened another one that had phrases like, “Get back in the game” “Be Resilient” “Conquer Today-It’s Your’s for the taking”. How did they know?! I gotta say..a smile returned to my face, I got dressed, splashed some water on my tired eyes, and got back in the game. Oh the ‘little’ things.

Big fan of Halls…their marketing team is brilliant.

34 Things

So I turned 34 years old a couple of weeks ago. This is a bit strange for me, as I’ve always felt young and not always comfortable in my own skin. I remember a phase of elementary school, when I was 8 years old. The 7th graders looked so insanely grown and mature to me. I still have a picture in my brain of this one particular 7th grade girl who I saw everyday in the carpool/bus line after school. I swear the girl looked like this everyday waiting for the bus….

She was Debbie Harry. She was Blondie. She went to my school. Oh, and she was in 7th grade. One slight variation from this picture may have been the trendy, black,  Members Only jacket that said girl would stylishly pair with select ensembles. All of this to say, that this 34th year has had me thinking about some things. 

#1. Those elementary school days were filled with dreams, wonder, overwhelming insecurity, and private concerts to thousands of adoring fans in my bedroom every night. Twenty plus years later I am not Debbie Harry. I thought I would be at this point.

#2. I’ve known this for years, but the fact remains that I’ve lived out of fear for most of my life. I’ve daydreamed til I’ve fallen asleep, talked about inventions, discussed revolutions of the mind and heart… yet most challenges set before me and most of my dreams were never truly given a chance.  Fear of failure, fear of succeeding, fear of what other people may think, fear, fear, fear. This is not an uncommon theme for humans, but it surely has dictated most of my days. In recent years I’ve been learning to tell fear to suck it. It’s a daily battle.

#3. Currently I really don’t have a desire to be big and famous like Debbie Harry. I am actually quite thankful and proud of some pretty awesome things that I have helped co-create in this life. These things bring meaning, substance, and never-ending gratitude into my life every minute.

#4. Even though things are relatively awesome, I still have to force myself to act. To get outside my comfort zone to do things I love. Doesn’t make much sense, eh? I know. Things I love shouldn’t seem so hard. Well, they aren’t when I actually do them. The reality is that nothing that’s worth it is ever easy. Even the good stuff is a challenge.

The Challenge

A brilliant friend of mine started creating a list on her birthday a few years back. The list consists of things she’d like to accomplish within that year before her next birthday. The number of items on the list reflects her new age. The goals can be large or small, but what determines the importance of something like that anyway? The small stuff is usually pretty profound..especially if it’s on a list. Anyhoo! I’m starting a list for my 34th year. This is not the purpose of my blog, but it will definitely be a recurring thought. Now it will be out there…I’ll see it. Other people will see it. There is some sense of accountability and motivation. I hope to conquer the list, but I hear it’s not always easy. In addition to stepping out of fear I’m also learning to be more forgiving and loving toward myself. We’ll see how it all pans out. I am still concocting the list which I will post soon. I will say, I can already check one thing off (I LOVE checking things off of a list). Publishing my blog. There is 1 of my 34 things.

This isn’t just about doing things I love, nor about being self-indulgent. This is about living abundantly, and doing the things I was created to do. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”. True dat. I believe it, and I’ve seen it. Here’s to the journey…