The Boy

I’ve made a break-through.

It came in the most unexpected way.

But, then again, that’s usually how God works.

Joshua and I had been bickering (yes, my son bickers with me…yes, I should probably stop bickering back, but that’s another issue for another day), and it all came to a head.

“Mom? Can I help you cook that??”

“Tell you what, Josh, I’ll teach you how to cook when you are eight,” I replied. I congratulated myself on my quick thinking.

Josh was nonplussed.

“*SIGH* that’s in NINE MONTHS…”

What the…

Before I could amend my response to “I’ll teach you to cook when you are ten,” Joshua turned to me and said, “I already know how to cook.”

I snapped, my mounting anger finally exploding. You see, Joshua had been bragging to me all day about how much he knew, sort of lording it over me, and I’d had enough. No one can beat 7-year-old ego.

“Oh really?” I said, raising my eyebrows at my miniature man. “Okay, well, since you know everything, it’s time for you to go into the world. You may fill up your pillowcase with all your clothes, and I’ll open up the garage and you can head out.”

I waited expectantly for all the protests, and his “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry!” but it didn’t come.
He looked up at me with icy blue eyes, back-lit with mingled excitement and doubt.

“I can head out?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to be stony and nonchalant. “You can take all your stuff and go make your way in the world.”

“Can I bring my toys?”

“N--,” I started, then amended. “Yes, you can take your toys. And I’ll give you some bread to take with you, since you can’t stay for dinner.”

“What?” he said in amused disbelief. “How about I visit for dinner?”

“Nope,” I replied.

At this point my heart felt like it was being crushed, but I had to follow through, every moment hoping that he would back down.

“Okaaay,” he said. He then went off to his room, and started packing up his pillowcase.

After a few minutes, he came out, his pillowcase chocked full of his stuff. I don’t think he put any clothes in it, just his toys, and maybe a blanket.

“I’m going to say goodbye to Eva,” he said, full of little boy confidence.

“NO!” I exclaimed. The reality that my little boy was trying to leave startled me. He really thought that he was leaving for good. “It will make Eva sad if you tell her you are going.”

Joshua looked confused and conflicted.

“But, if I don’t tell her, she will cry when I’m gone.”

“She’ll cry if you tell her,” I replied, trying to figure out how I was going to reverse this terrible train-wreck that was unfolding before my eyes.

“Josh, you really can’t go,” I fumbled. “I would go to jail if I let you leave.”

“Really?” He said, shocked at the horrible idea.

“Yes.”

“I would break you out,” he said. I could see his little brain already trying to come up with an escape plan for me.

“No, you would probably be stuck in some other person’s house, and they wouldn’t let you leave.”

He looked troubled, not sure what to do.

I couldn’t take anymore. My attempts at bluffing my little boy had failed.

“Josh,” I said, pulling him near me, my heart aching. “I don’t want you to go. You are the only Josh I have. You are special. You are important. And I love you.”

He looked into my eyes, and it was as if we suddenly connected. Almost like when you recognize someone you knew and loved a long time ago and your eyes lock across a crowded room.

“Are you crying??” He asked, surprised.

“Yes,” I said, wiping away a large tear that had made it’s way to my cheek.

“Can I have a bite of your food?” he asked, eye-balling the quesadilla that I had managed to put together during the whole fiasco.

“Yes,” I laughed. “But only if you put all that stuff in your pillowcase away.”

He smiled, and ran to do what I asked. He zoomed in a moment later, and looked at me again. I was half-heartedly looking through a recipe magazine.

“Are you still crying?” Josh asked.

“Yeah,” I answered weakly.

He then sat down at the table and began to work industriously.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a mischievous smile, and said, “It’s a surprise!”

A moment later, he presented me with a gift.

It was a paper airplane wrapped in a tattered piece of doodle pad paper. The air plane I had taught him to make a few short hours before.

I unwrapped it, and the words he wrote on it read, “I love you mommy,” and it was accompanied by two hearts, pierced through with an arrow.

He waited expectantly for my response.

“It’s beautiful, Josh!” I hugged him close.

“Those two hearts mean we’re together forever,” he explained.

I couldn’t ask for anything better.

I was riding high on this mother-son moment for all of ten minutes, when I heard Pepper call out in annoyance. I heard Josh talk soothingly to her, and I looked over to see Josh, lifting Pepper’s tail, about to satisfy his curiosity about something in his little man brain with a crayon and Pepper’s bottom.

Moment gone, reality sets in.

Oh boy. I think I’m in for it.

Hyde-ness

When Eva was first placed in my arms, she was a very serious newborn.

Life is serious, after all, and she knew it.

I remember her look of complete disapproval when I would reprimand Joshua for his pre-schooler misdeeds. It was sobering to see that kind of silent objection in a one-year-old.

She remained that way for a good two years.

Time passed...

And she learned some other behaviors that balanced her out. Or it could just be genetics.

She is a quarter Hyde, after all. I had hoped it was recessive, but apparently it's not.

Unfortunately, that equates to her being super naughty at times (Which definitely comes from Dad's side...because that kind of behavior would have never come from Mom's side. She's perfect.).

So, Eva spends most of her time running between Syrupy Sweet and Angry Monster Princess. And then, of course, there is the in between, which confuses everyone with the random manifestations of good deeds and less than desirable attributes.

One of these charming attributes she has developed is lying.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

I found her on the kitchen floor a few mornings ago, in front of the open pantry, with a bag of marshmallows.

With her hand in the bag, and a horrified look on her face, she stared me in the eye, and said,

"I'm not stealing."

I wanted to respond, "What are you doing, then? Counting them?" but knew she would probably say yes, and that would be even more silly since she can't count past four without going into "imaginary numbers."

I instead replied, "Yes, you are, go back to bed."

Which resulted in an eruption of Wounded-Eva tears.

We later had a discussion about lying and stealing.

A few days later, we went to Costco and bought a fabulous Tuxedo Cake (I suggest you go and buy three: one for you, one for you later, and one for you to freeze and enjoy frozen all by yourself in the garage. And while you're at it, buy a whole bunch of plastic forks, to hide the evidence.). Jeremy ran off with The Boy, and left me with the girly-goos, which meant I was able to curl up in bed with a book while Eva played with her "Princess Tea Party" (she made that name up herself....if nothing else, she has a good self-image..All girls are princesses, you know.) and Eden and Lily napped. I stealthily slinked into the kitchen and cut myself a slice of the chocolate decadence, and shuffled back to my bedroom, where I thoroughly enjoyed my cake and most of "The Hunger Games."

While I was wrapped up in my chocolate and book fantasy, I kept hearing Eva open and close the playroom door. She must have done it 5 or 6 times. A little voice in my head told me something was up, but I just couldn't put Katniss and Peeta down, just in case they died between the time I went to see what was going on with Eva, resolved it, and got back.

I nestled in deeper into my pillow-strewn bed, and batted away at the Guilt Fairy that sometimes hovers there when I'm deeply involved in a novel. She's used to it, and bless her heart for still trying.

Jeremy finally came in, and I decided to go and pretend that I'm an attentive mother.

As I rounded the corner, there was Jeremy with eyebrows way up into his hairline and hands on his hips, and Eva looking like somebody had run over her "Princess Tea Party" with a steamroller, and then told her that despite all her pining, she would never, EVER turn into a mermaid when she grows up.

"Eva," Jeremy said sternly. "Why did you do that to the cake?"

I looked over at the beautiful Tuxedo cake. It had a huge gouge in it on one corner, as if tiny fingers had been scraping it away over, oh, I don't know...five or six trips over a 3 hour period.

She was crushed, and said, "It wasn't me..."

My heart laughed a sad little laugh at her plight, and we tried to explain to her the problem. She just kept backing up and eventually ended up in the dark bathroom, and attempted to close the door on us and her shame.

Not that her shame lasted long, since I caught her in the pantry yesterday drinking honey directly from the honey bear.

I suppose I deserve it. I mean, Emily and I used to raid the pantry when we were kids and swell with giddiness as we dined on our pilfered semi-sweet chocolate chips and plain cheerios. It's only natural that my children would probably end up doing the same.

Oh Eva...I know it's hard, but you must fight your Hyde-ness...Or at least hide it.

Like me.

Pin-interest

I have said in the past that Jeremy is a Russian spy.

There are too many factors that all come together that prove this to be the case.

Like the fact that he makes up words.

And the fact that no matter how many times I say it, he still calls it "Pin-interest."

"Anything new on Pin-interest?" He asks, looking eagarly over my shoulder and breathing into my ear in that hot-breathy way that bothers most American humans.

"It's PINTEREST," I say slowly and emphatically.

"PInINterest?" He attempts.

"P I N T E R E S T." I say between clenched teeth. Not in an angry way, mind you. I'm just enunciating so his Russian brain can assimilate the information.

"PINinTErEST." He tries again.

"P I N T E R E S T!" I exclaim.

"Whatever...OOo, an oatmeal cream pie recipe!" He exclaims in return.

*I click "repin"*

"I thought you didn't like oatmeal cream pies?" He queries.

"I do," I reply blandly. "It's a secret obsession."

He looks down at me appraisingly.

"Really?"

"No."

Although...it really is a secret obession. But don't tell him that.