Mothering a Giant

My son is huge. Physically, his so far past his age in development, motor skills, and overall physical achievements it sometimes a little gut wrenching. In some ways, this is nice. I almost never have to carry him anywhere, he helps himself to a good deal of food, he can climb to reach anything he wants. In other ways, it is very, very bad. He can climb to reach almost anything he wants and he outgrows his clothes every two months or so. Unfortunately (or fortunately) his mental abilities seem to have not kept pace with his physical development. While he may look like a three year old, he is very much a nineteen month old. He has no long term memory for what "makes ouchies," his vocabulary consists of "No!" "Mamamamama!" and "I need!" only deigning to use other words if he feels like being charming. Our wonderful child that preferred to be put to bed awake, now cannot be rocked to sleep. Having freed himself from the bondage of the crib, the hours of 9 P.M. to midnight now consist of returning him to bed over and over...and over and over and over. And of course, he has outgrown or outsmarted almost every childproofing measure we installed.

We have been coping with all of this with a measure of not-so-quiet desperation and extreme exhaustion, until last weekend. It has become rapidly apparent that he will outgrow his car seat in a matter of months. The next size up car seat is the booster with the back...and no harness! I find it very hard to believe that we are the only parents out there with a huge toddler and there is no way it is safe for him not to be in a harness. I'm having nightmares of him undoing his seat belt and climbing around the car. Nightmares of me having to stop every three minutes to put him back in his seat. Nightmares of being pulled over for my kid jumping on the back seat of the car. "Yes officer, I know my kid is unbuckled, why don't you ask him to sit down and stay buckled?"

We tried plopping him in every other brand of seat at several different stores in an effort to see if other brands ran a little bigger with no success. If "Go back to bed go back to bed go back to bed" takes three hours to be effective how can I hope that "Sit down and buckle up, sit down and buckle up, sitdownandbuckleup, SIT DOWN AND BUCKLE UP" is going to be any more successful?

Maybe I'll ask the paramedics for a child backboard to strap him to and toss in the trunk.

Broken

Yesterday was one of THOSE days. You know, the days where if a miniature person touches you one more time you are going to burst into tears. Gus was clingy, and whiny, and tugging on me, and wanting held, and wanting down, and clumsy then crying every time he fell down.

He's teething. I get it. He's miserable. Three canines making their grand entrance in unison. Apparently the show is more impressive in slow motion. This act has been building for weeks and yesterday, the crescendo peaked and broke. Well...two of them did anyway.

I went to the garage to get him a Popsicle from the Popsicle shelf (yes we have an entire shelf for Popsicles) of the freezer in the garage. He followed me out there (because there isn't a way to lock the garage door behind me). My pantry is stashed in numerous places till I get off my exhausted bum and finish the shelving in the laundry room so Gus went through the stash in the garage while I searched for frozen delights. I turned around and saw him pick up a bottle of soy sauce.

"Hand that to me."

"No!"

"Give it to mommy, now!"

"No!" and he turned and threw it at the garage door. It, of course, shattered on impact.

Popsicle forgotten, I yelled "Don't move!" I felt myself morph into my father, screaming at the kid not to move. I didn't understand how he though a teenager was stupid enough to run through broken glass. I get it now Dad...instinct.

"No!" Gus runs right into the middle of the mess.

My garage and child smell like Chinese takeout. Gus is screaming while I'm picking shards of glass out of his bare feet. I'm crying, shaking and a little overwhelmed. I give him a bath, stash him in the crib while I clean up the soy sauce (and a melted Popsicle).

Once freed he resumes his drive mommy crazy agenda. Whiny, crying, touching me, touching me, touching me... He refuses to eat anything, is pulling everything off the counters and shelves and emptying laundry baskets, holding down the water dispenser on the fridge. His diaper rash is only marginally better and every diaper change involves me pinning him down by a leg across his chest and dangling him from his ankles while he shape shifts into one of the torments of hell. Spinning on his head and everything...

He's been awake for two hours and I'm over it. In the interests of consistent discipline, he has been corrected...a lot.... By eleven A.M. he is in trouble at least every five minutes. I'm furious, shaking in rage, he's angry, hurting and acting out. We are testing each other's wills. I get the brilliant idea that we should go for a walk or something, get out the house, change of scenery and all that.

I go upstairs to change my clothes (again) and hear shattering glass. And screaming...

I run downstairs and see that he had been banging together little glass ramekins and one had shattered. He has glass in his feet (again) and about twenty pieces embedded in his forearms. We sit in a chair and pick all the glass out of his arms and feet. I strap him into his high chair while I sweep and vacuum. He screams and attempts to shake the booster seat off the dining room chair. In his rage he grabs a bag of potato chips sitting on the kitchen table and pounds it with his fists reducing the contents to crumbs.

I. Have. Had. It.

We do NOT smash potato chips in this house!

I lost my mind. I stood rooted to the spot, clenching the broom. I wanted to chloroform him, put him in a ventilated box and ship him to his dad in Alabama, throw him against a wall, cry. So cry I did. I left him in his chair, sat on the stairs and cried. How did I get here? How could a one year old have enough power that he could completely break me? I was supposed to be a great mom. I have been so patient, kind and firm with discipline up till now. And now? afraid to touch my kid because I don't think I can do it in love. Angry with my husband for having the nerve to have a job. Terrified. What if he gets deployed? This is us after one month of Rob being gone, how could I ever think I could do a year?

I called my cousin and told her I was coming over. I needed help. On the hour drive there, I prayed. Gus and I held hands, he sang to me and I prayed for me, for him. I apologized for being angry and losing my temper. I apologized for not being patient and yelling. I explained that his behavior had been bad and that it wasn't appropriate destroy things when you didn't feel good. I promised to do better as his mom, not a perfect mom, but a good one.

He just smiled at me, blew me a kiss, patted my hand and made train noises until he fell asleep.

I think I'm forgiven.

Sarah Vs. the Black Thumb (part whatever)

My vegetable garden is in! HA! Stop laughing, it's only the end of June and in my family that's actually not half bad!

I am so not going to have vegetables before three feet of snow blows in off the lake in early October...

I'm telling myself this is so I can learn how to make seeds sprout (and I have the whole summer to try over and over again until I get it right. By next year, I might know what I'm doing.

That sounds plausible right?