His Sweet Side

(My title is borrowed from this awesome track by Lucinda Williams, Sweet Side. Check it out.) 

Another change that comes with parenting a "kid" rather than a toddler or baby: public perception.  Up until recently, when I took Boodge out, he must've felt like a celebrity.  Especially in our old neighborhood which was full of elders, people would stop to smile at him and talk about how cute, charming, hilarious, and smart he was.  In the local bakery and at the organic grocery, the clerks regularly gave me free stuff for him.  He was that good.  I'm not trying to brag, I'm sure it happens to lots of moms because people love happy, lively babies and toddlers, which Boodge was.  Strangers want to hold them, smell them, and make ridiculous faces to get that gap tooth, drooly smile or giggle directed their way. 

But lately I've sometimes noticed a totally different kind of response to him from strangers.  More of a "Get that annoying kid under control." kind of response.  Or "Whew, wild, loud child energy. Too much for me, thanks." There was the "other mother" at the playground who clearly saw my son as a rude ruffian who had mishandled her little girl.  Then there was the clerk at the department store who became more and more tense as Boodge's Dad and I explained for the third time that he couldn't put his sticky hands on her glass display cases.  Often people comment on how he "never stops going" and I can tell they don't find that as adorable as when he was a little 20-month old buzzing around the living room in a diaper, pot belly, and bald head.  I'm here to tell you, people, that look is only cute for a very short window of one's life. 

It's OK, I get it.  Not everyone is going to find my kid as winsome as I do. They don't see him at his best like I do, the sweet boy singing a "Clean the bags, clean the bags" song and strumming his "guitar-o-scope" (which is really the ladder from his fire truck) to entertain me while I wash out ziplock bags.   The nice guy who offers, "I'll share it with you," and gives half his candy worm to his Dad.  The helper getting me rags to clean his sister's puke off of my pants.  They don't see him diligently working at assembling my seedling-table, using the ratchet for an hour to get all the bolts on.  They don't get to watch him sleeping.

See, there's his sweet side.

He's a real Mr. Fix-it.

And yes, I too find him annoying, rude, too intense and loud sometimes.  But for the most part, he's still as wondrous and beautiful to me as he always has been.  I still find it fascinating to watch him grow and learn, even if his learning these days is clumsy and mischievous, peppered with relentless questions, loud clanging noises, and testing of limits.

It makes me a little sad that his sweet side is not as clear to others as it used to be.  I liked it when strangers shared my pure joy in my child.  And I liked that he got to feel positivity and acceptance from everyone, that he was treated like someone special.   Of course, getting feedback from others about how he affects them is going to be part of his social learning, which is so important right now.  But I wonder sometimes how he makes sense of the different kind of attention he's getting, especially since his sister is now in the uber-cute role, getting cooed at by strangers (though, no free stuff yet--step it up, Peanut!).

C'mon bakery lady. Just one cinnamon bun, please. For Mama's milk. 

And a part of me started to wonder: Is it his hair?  His hair was getting pretty long and usually looked messy and disheveled.  He doesn't like it combed or washed, but it was long enough to get stuck in things all the time--paint, ketchup, bread dough.  For a long time I didn't want to part with his sweet baby hair, but then as it went on longer his hair wasn't making him look like a sweet baby at all, but a little wild child.  And when he was running around he was constantly pushing and flicking it out of his eyes with gestures that conveyed attitude.  I like the long-haired hippie boy look, but Boodge wasn't quite there yet.  He just looked unkempt.  And I was the "unkempter" (?).  I realized either I had to commit to a long, messy grow-out and many more, "he's a boy, actually" moments if I wanted to keep growing his hair.  The time was nigh. 

Is this a face only a mother can love?

Then last weekend I took my first night away from Boodge since he's been born.  Almost three years since I've gone away without him by my side.  Of course, I had Peanut by my side, but it was still a landmark.  And when I came home, Boodge was sitting on the couch, grumpy from just waking up and having been denied a video by his dad.  His hair was sticking straight up and crimped looking on one half of his head, and hanging down on the other.  I wanted to cut it right then and there. 

A while later, I told him, "Boodge, we're gonna cut your hair this week.  We're going to put on a video and I can cut it while you watch."

"I want a video now," he replied.  "I want to cut my hair and watch a video now." Sean and exchanged a look.

"Ok, awesome, me too. Let's do it."

And five minutes later, he looked at himself in the mirror, smiled, and declared, "I look beautiful!"

It was time.  I'm glad I did it. I like not having to pull his hair off where it's stuck to the food on his cheeks.  I like running my fingers through his little locks.   He looks a more like the sweet little boy that he is and a little less like the wild child he can also be.  And of course, I'm not oblivious to the way it all happened in a nice symbolic way (hey, I write and I like Jung--obviously I'm into symbolism), where I finally leave my baby boy and come back to cut his baby locks off.  We are shifting ourselves, Boodge and I, into Mother and Child instead of Mother and Babe.  And it's beautiful, just like he said. 

Ta Daaaaah!

 Now--what does one do with those baby locks?  Anyone.