Entries Tagged 'Boys' ↓

My four year found his “easy button” outside on a sidewalk this afternoon. With running, bounding leaps, hollers of “PUDDLE CANNON BALLLLLL!!!” and squealing peals of laughter – he made the sun finally slip out from behind the clouds just to watch the fun. His puddle jumping joy is enough to make any day brighter. Love, love, love that kid.

This is what I get, I suppose. It’s all my fault.

Sure sure, I’m like every mom struggling to hold on to my boys and freeze time in it’s place. I say it all the time: “Where are my babies?” In fact, I say it so much that when my four year-old climbs into my lap in search of a snuggle, he actually asks me, “Where is your baby, Mommy? I’m all growed up!” Of course I don’t want them grown. Of course. Right?

Well. When no one is around. Sometimes. I curse and wonder when they will GET it already. No, you can put your shirt on by yourself. What do you mean you need me to feed you?  Stop eating board game pieces. Hold on a minute, did you actually wipe???

I think – when no one is looking and expecting my wistful, misty, mommy melancholy – I have actually spent far too much of my time secretly shoving my children to the edge of the nest. With loving nudges and well-intentioned heaves, I’ve tried toppling them over the side. Fly, dammit. You can do it. You can go pee in the potty and eat big boy chicken and take a shower by yourself and tie your own shoes. You can ride your bike. You can! Come ON, already, YOU CAN.

I’ve spent hours in front of our house with one hand on my son’s bike seat and one on the handle bars, hunched over, pushing, making momentum, panting and heaving and trying to get that thing to balance.

“PeddlepeddlepeddlepeddlegogogoyouhavetopeddletomakeitgoFasterFASTERFASTER!!!!”

*Crash*

*Tears*

“I’m never riding my bike AGAIN. EVER!”

*Stomping into the house*

I thought he would never learn. I thought he had to be the last kid his age unable to ride a bike. I thought I was being too hard on him. I thought I wasn’t a good teacher. I thought it was too hot outside.

So I gave up for the summer.

But finally summer has passed us by in Florida. The windows are open, the doors are open and the kids spend hours screaming their way through the front and back yard and chasing our indoor cat back in who has spring fever too and is desperate to eat just enough grass to throw it all back up on my floor later.

So, with a cooler spring in my step, I gave it a try again. He was ready to go. And. My pushing and shoving and fly, dammit, FLY… well, this time? It worked. He suddenly did it. He just kept going. And going.

And he didn’t need me at all.

Last weekend, I piled the boys, his bike and the tricycle into the car. We went to a nearby dead end with lots of open space to really conquer this whole bike-riding thing once and for all. I packed snacks and drinks. The day was beautiful.

Oh but I put this on myself. I know I did. Because suddenly there I was, alone in the middle of a road with my son soaring far far far ahead of me. Torpedoing over skull crushing concrete and I was no where near him at all to catch him. He was flying. He was gone. And he was thrilled about it.

There are many many milestones in a child’s life. And, thanks to my husband and luck, I have been able to be home to see most of them.

But there was something about this one. This milestone was a fantastic one to reach. But fantastic in that breath-taking “roller coaster” sense, that oh my God, he is doing it, he is on his own, he is in danger and going so fast and doing everything I pushed and shoved and made him do. He’s doing it. What have I done? WHY did I insist on doing this? WHY? Oh my God though look at him GO! And love and pride and his childhood is all over and what a beautiful moment… all rolled into one gorgeous fall day.

So I made a video of it.

I know. WHO wants to see someones kid figure out how to ride their bike? *Groan* It’s soooo “Mommy Blogger” of me and self indulgent and enough already.

But. Really? I love this video. I do. Maybe its the fantastic music I put in by the brilliant composer John Williams (of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” fame to name a few). I won’t tell you which theme song I picked but… it’s perfect. And it makes me weep, I tell you. Especially the end, please wait for the end. I’ve seen it a thousand times now, but… still. Tears.

So if you love me, you’ll indulge me. And watch my boy soar.

I told my boys and their cousin that we would take them to the city. And go bowling. So we did. We headed to Splitsville in downtown Tampa. And clearly, the party didn’t start till they walked in…

The day wasn’t going as planned. We had meant to go bowling. But after arriving to a local alley filled to capacity with senior citizens in the middle of a tournament, our plans changed. So after a couple vanilla milkshakes bought to stopper disappointed little boy tears, we found ourselves at the library. My youngest wandered over to the toys in the corner and my seven year old found himself next to me at a table with a stack of baseball reference books.

So we sat there awhile. Enjoying the cool and the calm inside the library.

And that’s when I looked over and stared at my son.

Bent over his books, he was lost in their words. His face still, thinking. His eyes beautiful and brown, liquid and lashed. A button nose; smooth, sweet skin. New over-sized teeth this way and that; cherry lifesaver lips biting, moving, grinning. Newly cut hair, light brown and so much like his father’s. And an enormous smile under crinkled eyes revealing his old soul, as if he’d been smiling for centuries and had perfected its art.

And staring as I was, I held my breath and willed myself not to fold him into my lap. A friend once described my son as being a little bit like a bird on a wire. When he settles next to you, you dare not disturb him in case he flies away. And while I didn’t fear that he would flee, I couldn’t startle this moment of still beauty.

My boy is amazing.

I am sure every parent stares at their child this way and comes to the very same conclusion. Of course they do. They have unearthed their own wonder of the world and are quite certain that there could be nothing more amazing. Ever. In the history of the universe. The end.

I also know that losing yourself in your child’s perfection is, at its core, a reflection of a parent’s own vanity too. But I couldn’t help it.

It blows my mind that I could have anything to do with something so fantastic. Really. Again considering myself in my child reveals even further vanity but forgive that and just humor me.

This boy came out of me. Me. Me?

He’s too perfect. Too exact and just so.Too much more than anything else.

I could hardly swing a B in math. I can’t see past my nose without my contacts. I slouch, I talk over people, I have a very bad habit of feeling sorry for myself. I never “applied myself enough” at school. And I believed the word “gullible” had been taken out of the of the dictionary for a very long time.

But I am still half responsible for THIS?

Impossible.

So I stared. I don’t think he noticed. He stayed put. Reading. Sharing a quick fact now and again.

And I waited. And watched.

Until his wonderful, bubbling bull in a china shop brother finally leaped up into my lap. He patted my cheeks and wound an arm around my neck and stage whispered about some Elmo toy over there in the corner. My youngest boy is a wonder in his own right. Pink cheeked, effused with glee, blue eyes alight, his body humming with motion. He shines joy and wonder and drama into every crack and crevice of any room. I find myself needing to step a few paces back at times – he is bright, beaming and often very overwhelming. He weighs down the wire and shamelessly radiates glory all around.

But when I looked back to my eldest, he had flown off into the stacks. His chair empty, the books gone. Eventually he peeked out and laughed at his brother. And then re-emerged, asking if we could go to the playground.

Our moment was over.

But my soul took flight and my heart soared. These moments remind me what I’m actually doing everyday. While I spend lots of time feeling sorry for myself (see above) about Groundhog Day and the challenges of entertaining little boys during the summer (uh muh guh, I need a vaca…), its moments like these that slap some sense into me. Maybe getting me to apply myself as a parent just a little bit more. Because low and behold, I am kind of responsible for guiding along the two most amazing things I will ever have any part in creating. And that’s kind of a big deal. So at attention. Long summer days or not, I’ve got some parenting to do.

My son loves baseball. He loves it so much in fact that I feel remiss as a mother and a blogger for not having mentioned this fact in detail here before. It is an enormous, entirely captivating, thoroughly significant part of his life, his thinking, his playing, his focus, his every day purpose.

You think I’m exaggerating.

My six year old has a battered, dog eared, ripped and taped coffee table book about ballparks that my mother gave him for his last birthday. It is now in three pieces, it’s binding completely unraveled. And he reminds me that it is out of date. Where is the new Yankee Stadium? Where is the new Nationals ballpark? When will they reprint it with the updates? I don’t know. He keeps paging through though, carefully organizing the pages that have slipped out, memorizing every picture and statistic.

Somehow, he has pilfered my father’s MLB.com login and password. And every morning, after spooning up his cereal and haphazardly pulling his uniform on, he runs over to the PC and checks last night’s scores. He watches replays. He pulls up teams. He checks old games and stats and player information. He calls me in to see a play. “Mom! Check out this walk off home run!”

In the backseat of my car, there are two copies of Sports Illustrated – worn, weary and coverless. But they have all of the 2010 MLB stats and player information. He reads them on his way home from school every single day.

We have a pitch-back positioned up against our backyard’s back woods and a home plate lying there in the grass. First base lies up against the fence of the empty house next door. (The fence is our “Green Monster”, the abandoned yard is our “Sandlot” – just replace the dog in the movie with snakes, rabbits and armadillos.) Second base is in front of my dining room window. Third base lies in front of the back porch. If he doesn’t have school, my six year old pulls open the slider and runs out to our backyard ball field before the sun has even peeked up over the trees. And then, one after the other, he throws tennis balls into the air and cracks them up over the house. Over and over and over. And after each hit, he talks and cheers and yells the play by play to himself as he rounds the bases. Over and over and over.

There is also a “Mommy base”, where my folding lounge chair is positioned in left field. My three year old always makes a stop there as he rounds the bases. You know, just for a quick snuggle and chatty recap about the game in play. My six year old does not stop however. There is no “Mommy base” in the MLB.

On weekend evenings, he begs. “Just one more inning, Mommy. Just one more. Please.” And so our nights are filled with MLB baseball, no matter the team. Repetitive pitches, fouls, outs, man scratching, commentators mentioning historic facts as filler, spitting, swinging, staring, nothing happens. He remains focused while my husband and I wander away to make dinner. And suddenly there is a double play, the inning is over. He jumps up and down and races around the house and gives my husband and I high fives while we simmer veggies on the stove. What just happened? He is happy to reenact it on the hard wood floor – dives, catches, slides, it’s the most exciting thing in the whole wide world.

Do you know where the oldest ballpark in the country is? Do you know the entire line-up for the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox? Do you know the oldest team in the country? Do you know who won the first world series? I don’t. But my son does.

Do you know how much space a full length MLB game takes up on a DVR? He records games every day. And we quietly erase them a few days after that.

Guess where he’s celebrating his 7th birthday? Predictably, in the parking lot of the Trop before a Rays game. Baseball cupcakes, friends with their gloves, sneaking down to the edge of the field to watch warm ups, climbing up to nosebleed seats to watch the game, Lets Go Rays!

We just finished our Little League season where he played on a local coach pitch team. Proudly. He would practice before his games and perfect his slides on the dining room floor. He remained stoically “baseball ready” in the outfield. He dove and rolled for any catch that he could, certainly re-enacting some highlight or another. When ready to hit, he would twirl his bat before the pitch – also something he had obviously seen somewhere before. In the dugout he clung to the fence, staring, watching, jumping in place nervously. He counted the plays, disagreed with calls (later, while being tucked into bed), slid into bases, dove, swung, ran, tagged and tried so so hard. He wasn’t the best player and he wasn’t the squeakiest wheel – but he adored every single moment.

I just signed him up from baseball summer camp. And once school is back in session, there will be Fall Ball too. Again.

It’s a whole new world for me. And I want to be entirely into it with him – but I tapped out of sports about as fast as it took a well aimed kickball to knock the glasses off my wee first grade face many decades ago. I didn’t know the difference between a hit and a run until this Little League season. And is there a difference between a “double” and a “double play”? I’m pretty sure there is.

But I’m trying. And adoring his passion and irrepressible glee for it. And screaming “Way to go baby!!!” from behind the chain link fence at the ball park. And searching for foul balls in our snake infested “Sandlot”. And pitching (no matter how often I’m labeled a “belly itcher” rather than an actual pitcher). And counting up his gear and shaking dirt out of his cleats and washing his uniform and slowing the cart down through the baseball aisle every single time. And sitting through inning after inning, with him snuggled at my side, hanging on his translated play by play.

I’m really trying. And loving it. And always always baseball ready for my wonderful boy.

What the hell are Silly Bands?

I had no idea. I guess I had vaguely seen brightly colored kinked plastic bracelets on kids in passing at Little League, at the grocery store, just around. I thought they were just some new kind of jelly bracelet. And something girls were into. I have two boys who have zero preference about what they wear EVER. So bracelets just weren’t on my radar screen.

Plus my six year old is kind of a serious, by the book, I want to do my own thing kind of kid. Peer pressure has yet to sway him too much.

But recently he has been untethering his independence. And shrugging on the language of a grown up kid.

“Mom that is so awesome, did you see that play? So cool. Dude.”

And I’ve been seeing him goof off in the dug out and wrestle his friends to the ground at the park and yell out the open car window at friends: “Hey! Ryan! Matthew G.! Hey you guys!!! Over here!”

This is nothing like my timid, skirt clinger who hid under a table for his first two months of preschool.

And this is a good thing.

But the other day, my boy watched a pack of kinky braceleted kids walk by. He turned and looked up at me.

“Mom. You know those Silly Bands?”

“Those what?”

“Silly Bands. …They’re cool.”

“Oh yeah?”

He had grabbed my attention. Because in my mind, my sweet boy was perpetually hiding under the world’s table, yet to really peer out. His teachers describe him as very quiet. A good boy. Bright, straight As, certainly the least of their concerns. But my husband and I always worry about how it all goes down with his peers. We fret over his “cool” factor. And were we doing anything at all to encourage or maintain it?

So these Silly Bands. They are indeed a new version of jelly bracelets but apparently every one of his friends wear them at school. And when you take them off, they make shapes. And sometimes glow in the dark. They’re cool. I guess.

“Do you want some too?”

“Yeah.”

So after dropping him off at school yesterday, I pulled up to Walgreens. Their digital billboard outside blinked that they had just received a new shipment of Silly Bands. Huh. Am I the LAST person to know about these things?

I walked in. I couldn’t find them. I walked up to the twice my aged cashier, half dozing on his stool. “I’m looking for these… um…” and started touching my wrists. Before I could spit out the word “bracelet”, he pointed me to a bin at his right.

“Silly Bands. Oh I know all about those. Fastest selling things in the store.”

Even the guy two times my age at Walgreens was more current than I am. Ok then. I grabbed two packs.

And while the “letter” ones I had picked out apparently aren’t as cool as the animals or other shaped ones, my six year old carefully put each colored band on. He practiced walked around the house, staring down at his wrists. He kept stopping, taking them off, arranging them in rows, and putting them back on. We made a special ziploc bag for them. We talked about which ones the other kids had. And this morning, he put them all back on. Coolness checked and rechecked, he stomped out the door, backpack bouncing behind him. And I caught him glance down at his wrists one more time before he was gone.

I should know better. I remember jelly bracelets and slap bands and garbage pail kids and sticker albums. I remember how badly I wanted to be able to have some reference of cool in first grade. I remember wanting to “get it”.

So while I’m not rushing out buying every Wii game the other kids have or electronic whatever just so my kid maintains his cool, I think investing a few bucks in some strange little plastic bracelets so my kid feels like he can be part of something is absolutely worth it.

Silly Bands. Cool kid. Happy mom.

I have no idea where he got the idea. But my three year old decided he was jacked this morning. Ripped, cut and totally rocking it for me. Did this kid get muscle milk in his cereal this morning? And like any overly pumped far too stoked on himself dude, he started posing down – with newly sprouted muscles to boot.

And I grabbed my camera of course.

I’m thinking we need a little cheer around here. A little holiday cheer, in fact. And as the wonderful Buddy the Elf would say:

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.”

And so, here are my boys singing loud for all to hear.

When they aren’t showing off, being silly and singing gibberish. Or saying their favorite word “stinky” or laughing about farts.

(Hey. Don’t judge me. When you throw two little boys in front of a camera, already frothed up on sugar cookies, candy canes and Christmas anticipation, you just never know what you’re going to get.)

Enjoy.