Today was a good day. Harmonious. Boodge, in his wisdom, said, "No, I think we should just stay home all day, play in the backyard," when I suggested we head out to our local Strong Start. He could see it was going to be a beautiful day. He had said as much when I woke up, gazing happily out the window. Peanut was sick so it was better for her to stay home anyway. It was me who wanted adult company, but not enough to try to motivate all of us against our will into nice clothes and breakfasts and carseats.
Peanut napped early and Boodge and I got a good cuddle in watching the remains of the Bob the Builder he watched while I put her to sleep. We don't cuddle much these days, he's always on the go, or I am, two steps behind his sister as she plunges forward on her two feet, climbing and tumbling and giggling completely unaware of the danger she is in.
Then we headed out to the sandbox (oh, how I wish it was four times the size...had I known how passionate he would become about that little patch of dirt), where we played builders of roads, using our deeper, "man" voices (Boodge's is hilarious) to narrate the amazing load lifting and jack-hammering we are accomplishing. Every now and then I announced I was taking a "rest break!", slipped over into the sunshine, and did a few minutes of yoga. Harmonious.
It has not been that way much lately. Boodge is working something out, something I'm still divining, which is taking the form of angry, fists punching the air, loud-as-I-can screaming. He wants it his way SO badly, he is enraged by his powerlessness, he pulls at his father and I, using his entire energy to will what he wants (a slurpee, to not leave the playground, to have crackers out of the new tube rather than the open one). It's been a couple of weeks now where there's no telling what will bring him to his knees. I do my best, but I often end up unable to help myself from lecturing him or telling him I've had enough, already, just give it a rest. At the end of many days I've felt so tired from trying to take a stand in his storm.
Is it starting preschool? He doesn't want to talk about what he does there, but he seems to love going. Is it his sister starting to walk, and always getting up in his stuff, while also getting constant coos and cheers of adoration from her parents, while he is getting his name called out in tones of frustration, resignation, commandment? Is it the impending trip to visit family on an airplane which he fears will be "too loud"? Is it just a power play, a testing of the limits, trying to see if he can ignore the rules? These are the questions I started asking when it became clear to me that something was going on, and it wasn't about the slurpee. We were in a pattern I recognized from before. And when I could list so many possible issues, I knew that it was all of them, and probably more.
So I'm working all the angles, pulling him in, giving him boundaries and love both. I'm waiting out a lot of tears. During the cracker episode, which had gone on for half an hour, I said in exasperation and wonder, "Wow buddy, you sure do have a lot of tears and yelling in you these days."
"I do!" he sobbed, "I have a lot of tears in me! I'm really mad."
"What are you so mad about?" He was sprawled over my lap, half kicking me away, half in my arms.
"Because I don't want Peanut always int'rested in me. I don't want her wrecking my train track. I don't want to share my pumpkin. I want you to stop her." Something like this, he choked out.
Of course we've been dealing with that a lot, little babe coming in and stomping the construction site in his sandbox, disturbing the road he's been working to make flat for ten minutes. Pulling up on his lego tower and destroying it. She wants to do what he's doing, she adores him with clear blue fascinated eyes. He's frustrated, and Peanut is equally frustrated if I pull her away from the heart of the action all the time. She screams at me. I try to engage them both, I try to encourage Boodge to share, play nicely. He often does, but lately he's not having it. So the best I can do is play with her away from his projects, which means Boodge plays alone. His choice, but still the situation is difficult for all concerned. And also I know it will pass as they grow. It is growing pains, that's all.
He can feel himself becoming more capable, free, and powerful, and he needs to know that I am clear about my limits, strong enough to hold him as he ventures ever further, and to pull him back into my arms sometimes and give him lots of love. I've noticed that today he resurfaced a game he used to play a lot when Peanut was just new. "Save me, Mama, save me!" he would call from some far off corner of the house. "Mama, help." Sometimes he would do this just when I was in the room with him. Often he would do it when I was nursing, or changing a diaper, or soothing a crying baby. "Help, Mama." Sometimes I would play along, but often I would have to say, "I can't come right now, I'm busy." He set me up that way.
That is what his stormy periods are about. "Help me, Mama." And the longer I parent the more I believe that he can help himself if I can just move in and support him the right way. But also the more I am aware that often I will not really understand what is troubling him, or be able to do anything to fix it. I understand how all kinds of other life can get in the way to keep me from being right there for him when he needs me. The longer I parent the better I know my own fallibility, and also my own skills as a mother. I understand that parenting is a fine balance, a juggling act, even, of factors I can and cannot control. Somehow, that makes me feel more confident.
Does that make any sense? I don't know. But today was harmonious. There was yoga. There was sunshine. There was a cuddle where I breathed in my sweet boy. And there was time in the sandbox, digging and jack-hammering and using our big man voices. I love my little guy, screaming demands and fist waving and all. We will juggle our way out of these storms, I'm sure of it.
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