we do so much here at the big red house...we learn and live and eat and fight and dream and wreck and repair and mess up and clean...we are each other's best friends and worst enemies...we are in love one moment and at odds the next...we are on a daily basis filling our minds and filling time...we are not exciting and yet the possibilities are endless...
we are a family...
i am a very mortal mama...i rage i laugh i cry i hug i learn i apologize i screw up i shine...
my kids are dream children...they too are mortal...they are the most wonderful annoying god forsaken gifts from the highest on high you could ever want...
but the end of the day, i am so there...thank you bedtime, thank you lights out...
tonight we played a game...due to a set of circumstances beyond our control, it was bedtime when we started...it was touch and go here and there but we had a lot of fun and everybody managed to make it to the end...
wingman won, of course...he always wins...even if he doesn't know the game and you "move" for him...he wins...he's off feeding peanuts to the cat, comes back for his turn, could care less, and wins...you ever want a partner for vegas, take this kid...the duke may have the strategy but damn does that little one have the luck!...
so wingman wins it's the end of the evening and time for teeth brushing and pajama wrestling...and of course, the duke is doing something dumb, dramatic, and duke-like and totally hurts himself...he cries, i hold, long story short he tries to get out of the whole nighttime bathroom ritual (teeth, toilet) due to the "incredible pain" he is suffering...
yeah, no such luck, dude... i have crappy teeth and i vow to help him to not...he doesn't KNOW suffering until he has to deal with teeth subject to genetics and a lifetime of benign neglect...and NOBODY likes a peed in bed at three a.m. due to not using the toilet beforehand...
he's crying, wingman is up too late and beside himself and near tears, and the cat is batting the playing pieces under the furniture which means i'll be on hands and knees to retrieve the suckers...if calgon includes a shot of morphine i'm there...take me away...no really, you need a vein?...
lucky me, the lord of the ring, savior of all things bedtime, is handling the meltdown...
meanwhile, i am handling the delicate psyche of the child...two to be exact...in my own way...
sure, being up too late is the cause, even if it is for family fun...but damn the end of the day no matter the time can be delicate for any of us...especially the little and the sleepy...
upstairs i am mama getting the lamps turned on and beds turned down...and under each pillow a little something...very little, but something...
a few years ago i left a little random gift under the duke's pillow...and every once in awhile since then i will repeat the gesture...he knows it's from me and however small it makes him smile...we are literally talking maybe three or four times...but boy does he talk about it...
"remember that time you left (insert whatever it was here) under my pillow?" it gets brought up more than you know...
it had been some time since the last under the pillow surprise and judging from the tears in the bathroom the time had come again...
i had seen a pencil box with a rain forest theme at the store marked down to 99 cents the week before...i had no idea what possessed me to buy it but i remember thinking at the time "this will come in handy"...it has two pencils, a sharpener, a ruler, and an eraser with all kinds of rain forest animals printed all over...in a handy box...
about a year ago i found a blank journal called "a hobbit's journal" at a library book sale for 10 cents...i bought it simply because the duke and the lord of the ring were reading the hobbit at the time...i had no idea what i would do with it...the duke was much too new at penmanship and creative writing for it to be of any use to him, but i thought at the time "the duke will love this, someday"...
well, that "someday" had come and i knew exactly what to do with each...
the pencil box went under the pillow of a little boy new to school who envied his brother's pencil box...and without one of his own was forced to store his one prized football pencil inside his brother's box...and who despite having won the game that night was still having a difficult time getting to bed without tears due to the overwhelmingness of the lateness of the hour...that went under a pillow with bugs and butterflies on it...
the hobbit's journal went under the pillow of a boy, still little, though you wouldn't know it due to the nature of his perceived "bigness", largely due to the existence of his little brother...and as a result of that had to also deal with this perceived "bigness" in the form of his mother's idea that because of his age and birth order he should be able to be more responsible and less "instigating"...and that for now, he cannot possibly understand that she is still making her way as a mama...and that mama has a hard time remembering that he is still a little guy, regardless of when he was born...a boy in that position could certainly use a place to store thoughts that were his and his alone...thoughts that could be freely written...written not as a school exercise, but as an exercise of his own doing...thoughts that were not checked for grammar and not subject to whether or not they were a proper "example" for his little brother...that journal went under a pillow that had charlie brown and lucy and peppermint patty and snoopy and woodstock...
the pillows were turned over and the surprises found...smiles and chattiness abounded...along with an embarrassed and terribly pleased smile from wingman, and a very sincere thank you from the duke...
the trials of the day were forgotten...in their place were smiles and happiness...
it wasn't much, but if i've learned anything i've learned it's the small stuff that we remember most...
i am not a perfect parent...not even remotely close...damn, some days i feel like they'd keep me out if i didn't show actual documented paper proof that i belonged...
and yeah, i recognize that a bad day can't always be bought off with cheap gifts and the slim hope that such will make it all better...
but sometimes, well, sometimes they can...
because it's the thought that counts...really...and more often than not, that's all we have to go on...
x.
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