My Boys

"Mama, you can't give in to him like that!" 

How many times am I caught off guard by moments like this--surreal! Hosea is advising me on parenting. 

This morning, too, I had that all-too-familiar scene with a little one about socks, socks being too tight or having something pokey in them or just not feeling right once the shoes are put on. Seriously Joey? I thought I only had to do that with Hosea? Sock and shoe drama was such a thing with that guy when he was pre-kindergarten. No not these shoes! No they're too tight! No they're too big! No I can't run fast in those! No these ones no these ones no there's something in my SHOE!!! 

Traumatizing, really. 

For ME. Ok? How much extra time should I have left to make space for that part of any transition? I never learned.

And now, here was Joey this morning doing something similar. Only, thankfully I wasn't in a rush like I always felt with Hosea. And...really...Joey doesn't have the stamina that other guy had(has?). He's more...shall we say...reasonable? 

The other day I was asking Simon to please help Joey out with climbing stuff, cause he's quite timid and plays it safe and I'm thinking geeeeeesh when is he gonna get some more gumption and just go for it? I'm used to that boy that just goes and goes and doesn't hesitate. Has the confidence. Climbs to the top of everything and nearly gives me a heart attack every time! Joey makes me nervous in a different way--he climbs, and he hesitates, he second guesses himself...and then the chicken that I am well I get too nervous, and I tell him hey how about you practice that stuff with Dada. And, because he's reasonable(enough) he accepts my...reasoning. 

"What's this?" he said at the playground the other day, being prompted to, well, practice his climbing. "Hey try this!" we'd said. And he responded by pointing at the thing we were suggesting and asking what it was. "...Ummm well those are pretend logs there," Simon told him. Joey stands there, pauses some more, says, "...What for?"

What for?!!!!!!!!! 

"Why is there that space there?" he asks, pointing at the space between a rock climbing structure and the landing it goes to. 

"Well, for you to step across," we tell him. 

!!!!!!!!!!!

I go to the playground with Joey, and it's a completely different story than when I used to take Hosea to the playground, all day, every day, rain or freezing or light or dark--all. the. time. See, Hosea is an Outside Dog. I realize that now, the more time I have. "Get him out and run him!" Matthew used to say. 

Joey...well, I take Joey out to the playground, he always always ALWAYS wants to do the swings. For like, forever. Then, maybe a climb and a slide or two. Then: "Let's go to the library," he says. Insists, rather.

The library! Sun, gorgeous day! And he wants to leave the park and go into the library?! 

Yes, yes he does. Forever.

Book after book, game and puzzle after game and puzzle, more books. And more books! Sun streaming in. 

And then, usually, he wants to go home! Cause he's an Inside Dog. 

I know I know I know, they're all different. Just cause they're both boys, what did I expect?! I'm putting them into some kind of category? They share similar genes so they should be similar?

I know it doesn't work that way. I mean, my girls are different enough. It's just...much less pronounced with them. Because they're just much less intense kinds of people. Or, maybe I just haven't had to put so much energy into noticing. They're so close in age, they came along at such a similar time in my life. They're my girls. The girls. 

The Big Kids--

as Joey likes to call them. "My Big Girls," he said this morning, sometimes lumping Hosea in with the idea, but then in his precision distinguishing him as a boy.

The boy who always wanted to play ball from the time he could crawl, compared to the boy who's been happy with cars and puzzles and little figurines to make talk in elaborate scenarios. The boy who needed to be outside ASAP NO TIME TO WASTE for frikkin EVER, compared to the boy who could (honestly) stay in all day some days, and be perfectly content to do so. Do we butt heads? (Lordy Lord knows Hosea and I butt heads!) Do we butt heads too, though, me and (reasonable little) Joey? Oh yes! And the older he gets the more I see it. He loves to control the play, for one thing. He'll ask you to join him and then he won't like how you're doing it and then he'll tell you what to do instead and then--if you're like me and this annoys to no end--well, maybe just maybe it pushes you away? Seemingly contrary to that he's known, too, for saying things like, "Leave me 'lone!" "Go away!"--even when someone comes in for a kiss. (Oh gee where did he get that vibe from? (Whoops!)) Seemingly contrary to that, too, he has this ridiculous habit of...licking my face! But then, "suggling" (snuggling) it. Telling me, "You're warm," as he puts his own warm little hands on each of my cheeks, looking in my eyes...eyes that are so similar to his. 

While my other boy as an almost 11-year-old still yells out to me randomly, "I love you Mama." (No longer the "yove" of yore, but...it's still what I hear in my heart. 

Just like Joey's snuggles will always be "suggles".)

If you have children, I'm sure you can resonate with much this. We see the differences in them, the ways they are so unique. The different ways they push our buttons, the different quirks they have, the things we maybe overlook (hey I'm thinking I need to do a My Girls post next! they're just...they're just mostly so easy!! even as teens!!), the flaws they bring out in your own ways of being. 

What they teach you. 

"Mama, you can't give in to him like that!" That will never stop shocking me, or making me smile, or laugh, or...

oh yes, beam with pride. As a parent I'm always cutting myself down in my head, measuring myself against perfection, or consciously phoning it in because I.just.can't.do it.anymore! Always imagining the things they'll be saying about me in therapy someday, hoping for the excuses they'll also make for me, the empathy they'll have as they get older and realize just how hard life, and raising children, can be. 

But little moments like that! Little funny wins are the things I should notice more, too. Cause we're all doing the best we can in the phase and time of life we're in--here's hoping, at least. This goes for the 11-year-old and the 3-year-old too. 

My boys.