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Posts Tagged ‘children’

Release adding to simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on February 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I feel better.  I don’t know about you, but last night’s post really offered me release.  I know people read it (thank you!) yet even if it had only gone into the great big void of the internet, it helped me.  I think that’s one of the things I enjoy about writing a post.  It can offer a cathartic release for the soul.  Not knowing exactly who will read each post, if in fact anyone does, blogging is a very selfish project.  At least the way I look at it.

Throughout the day, I felt stress leaving my body.  I reflected over the course of the day about the post and felt warmth filling my spirit which worked quite like a hot water bottle for the soul.  I missed Brigs just as much today as I did yesterday, but the emotional baggage I had attached to him is fading.  This is a good thing because then I can begin to enjoy the memories of him and the happiness he brought more purely, without the crap.

I have been asked by several people if we have gotten a new dog yet.  Nope.  I have looked at the listings at our local shelter.  Little yippee dogs-not for us-or pit bulls-also not for us.  You can list it as an American Staffordshire terrier but still a pit bull.  I know that the dog is usually a sweetie and only becomes mean through the treatment it receives from an owner, but you have to wonder why the dog is in the shelter.  I’ve also looked at other pet adoption websites and there are some sweet dogs listed on it, but crying while reading the websites tells me I am not ready.

But at least I am ready to begin letting go of the remnants of hard memories.  Letting go is a lifelong process in my book.  There are always events in a life that cause strife and then you have to deal with them.  Sometimes the way I deal with them is to bury them deep down so I don’t have to work through them right away.  Maybe I’m not ready to, maybe I’m being lazy, maybe I’m scared to process it all.  So every now and then I work through some big chunk of stuff in my memory.  It’s sort of like purging the crap out of my house.  Time often helps process the hard stuff just like it makes the stuff in my house magically become crap that I can get rid of without regret.

Simplicity in life can be hard to achieve within my society.  It can be done but it means going against the mainstream and ignoring mass media and aspects of the consumer-based society.  I fall into the trap of “needing” things that are truly wants.  Then there is either buyer’s remorse or the need to purge items from our home.  It’s challenging to teach this to my sons when I still am struggling with it myself.  Happily, they help me get better at it.  As I try to teach them about wants and needs, it reinforces it for myself.

And so Brigs keeps helping me, teaching me, loving me unconditionally.  Isn’t that the heart of what Uncle Stevie reminded me of a few weeks ago?

“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”
― Stephen King, Pet Sematary

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Big yellow dog

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

If you had asked me two weeks ago how much I would miss my dog, I would have said a lot.  Ask me today and I cannot express how much I miss Brigs, though I’m apparently going to try in this post.  This house feels so very empty without that big yellow dog.  I think I was trying to fool myself that it wouldn’t be that hard because he hadn’t been upstairs for a year.  But even being downstairs, his presence was felt everywhere.  I still see him sprawled out on the family room floor.  I still hear his his metal collar clanging with his dog tags.  I still hear him.  And I have wept like a big ol’ baby, huge wailing sobs.  Not around my sons since I think it would scare them, it’s startled me a few times.

Brigadoon carried a lot of weight.  And I don’t just mean on his body.  I had a lot of emotional history attached to him.  I got Brigs while married to my ex-husband.  It was toward the end of the marriage, I just didn’t know how close to the end when we went to pick him out.  The puppy was next in a series of steps-married? Check.  House?  Check.  Yellow lab?  Check.  My ex even had the name Brigs picked out before we found a breeder.  Had to be a yellow lab and had to be a male.  I had no choice in the type of dog.  This had all been decided by my ex before we were even married, before dating for that matter.  He had set a goal at some point of having a male yellow lab when he was married and had a house.  I did get to participate in selecting the dog and we picked Brigs.

Brigs was positively adorable as a puppy.  Very sweet, very even-tempered.  I got a bunch of books and worked with him every day to train him.  This was not supported and I had an uphill battle ahead of me.  There were a lot of things that happened after we got the dog that shined a light on the major problems we were having.  Until it was more than just us, I hadn’t seen them.  The breaking point happened when I came home one day to find Brigs soaking wet in his crate and my ex watching television with a scowl on his face.  It seems that Brigs played in some puddles in the backyard (water dog) and got muddy.  My ex tried to rinse him off with the hose which the puppy interpreted as play.  My ex lost his temper with Brigs, hit him with the hose, and eventually stuck him in the crate.  The look on Brigs’ face when I had gotten home was so sad.   An argument between the ex and I then happened.

On so many levels I owed this dog so much.  My ex and I had been discussing children by this point and seeing the reaction about a muddy dog made me wonder what type of reaction would happen about a muddy kid, which even then I knew was bound to be a regular occurrence.  The inability of us to calmly discuss matters about the dog made me wonder how we would ever come to mutual decisions about children.  It couldn’t always be his way.  My voice, my opinion, didn’t matter.  While he may have intended some things to seem like compromises, it felt more like ultimatums.

The experiences with this little puppy made me re-examine my marriage and where we were and if we were actually trying to travel a path together.  The reflection brought forth the answer that we were not sharing similar visions except on a superficial level.  There were other factors, but they don’t need to be explored in such a format as this.  The point is that this dear sweet dog gave me the courage to accept that this marriage was not healthy and that changes had to be made.  The changes I suggested were refused so I accepted that it was over.

As we began the messy, ugly chore of separating our belongings, several items became bones of contention.  My Highlander sword.  That practice of ultimatums came out again.  I could have my Highlander sword OR the rest of the weapons I had collected.  I couldn’t afford to start over in my collection and so the crowning jewel of it was sacrificed.  It went this way for many items.  I let many things go by keeping my eye on the big picture.  But when it came to the pets, they all came with me.  The cats and hamster were mine in the sense that I brought them to the marriage.  The dog was technically ours, but I stated I was taking Brigs.  As he challenged me on this, I simply reminded him of the rainy day episode and said the dog comes with me.  My ex agreed.

I walked out of the marriage with basically what I walked into it with, but with a lot of debt added in because of stupid choices I agreed to over the two and a half years we were married.  I walked out without some of my optimism and that took a long time to reacquire.  Brigs helped with that because he was always just so damn happy.  His tail was always wagging and he seemed to smile when I came home to our tiny apartment.  It was a bear to find an apartment in my teeny budget that allowed dogs his size.  I only got into the place I did because I had the crate.

Brigs loved his crate!  He would go into his crate when he wanted a nap and close the gate behind him.  It was his way of saying “do not disturb”.  When he was done having his “me time”, out of the crate he’d come, tail wagging.  During those behind-closed-gate naps he would snore like nothing you’ve heard before.  Lips flapping, whole body wiggling at times, chasing bunnies with his feet running in air.  Brigadoon’s happiness and optimism helped me as I moved forward.

I also lost a lot of trust as that marriage ended.  I questioned motives, I looked for the “catch” from what people offered.  Brigs loved unconditionally and with total trust.  He helped me relearn trust.  He taught me so much about unconditional love.

But, being a human, I still had emotional memories attached to Brigs.  He represented so much about changing my life.  His existence in my life made my marriage today possible.  He helped make being a mommy possible.  And then to top it all off, even though he was four when our first son was born, he adapted to a baby so quickly.  Brigs loved having brothers!  He would position himself in front of the nursery door when I put one of the boys in for a nap.  He would guard the door!  He was protecting them.

He protected me.  Always being happy to see me protected me from becoming cynical.

As he got older, and I started thinking about the fact that he would not actually live forever, I wondered how I would feel when Brigs was gone.  I had no idea how many memories would wake up.  I had no idea how much release would come-a feeling that that marriage was really over.  Done.  Dead and buried.  Brigs was supposed to mark the beginning of that family and instead he marked the end.  And he went on to add so much to this family-to my hubby’s life, our sons’ lives, my life.

Oh, I miss that big yellow dog.

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Welcome to the fungi

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Yep, ringworm.  The boo boo on my youngest son’s forehead is ringworm.  Yuck.  I kissed a fungus. I won’t even eat mushrooms!   The nurse’s office called me this morning.  She heard the concern in my voice and instantly calmed me by saying it was nothing serious, both boys are fine, except did I know the first grader had ringworm?  She seemed somewhat impressed that he reported I had been putting an antibiotic on it.  Pretty good for a six-year-old who typically only half listens to me.  So I took a wee break at work and got the anti-fungal cream and some hypo-allergenic band-aids.  I had put a band-aid on his little forehead the other day and he broke out where the adhesive had been.  I hope this band-aid is gentler on his little fungal infected skin.

I’ve been asking him for about a week how he got the almost perfectly round boo boo.  He stuck to his story that he and some friends were banging their heads against each other during recess.  Yes, I’m sure we could discuss that past-time for hours, but stick to the fungus.  I didn’t believe a perfect little round circle could be formed from banging heads.  Objects in the house began to stick out.  “Did you stick a Nerf dart to your forehead?”  No was the reply.  “Did you wet a marker cap and then stick it on your forehead creating suction and then pop it off to hear the noise?”  Nope he replied.  His older brother offered up the possibility of sticking a popper on his forehead, but that theory was rejected as well.  I really thought it was the Nerf dart.  Same size as the circle, a perfect match.  Alas, it was not a Nerf dart.

Where did he pick this up, I wondered.  The nurse offered up some possibilities.  Dirt.  Well, there’s the most likely answer.  With this wonderfully mild winter the boys have played outside almost every day, including digging  in the back yard and playing in the “lake” otherwise known as the kiddie pool.  They create exciting and mysterious environments in that.  They then rescue dinosaurs and Ian Malcolm from it. Who knows what is living in there.

The worst part of this whole affair?  The creepy itchy feeling I have had all day since 9:25am when the nurse called.  Uber heebie-jeebies.  The world’s most sustainable traveling itch.  And I kissed it!  I feel like Lucy when she kissed Snoopy.   The pharmacist said there was little to no issue with the fact that I kissed this particular fungus.  I will try not to obsess about it otherwise my mouth will start to itch too.  Obviously, this is not the worst part of it…my sweet little baby being attacked by a fungus is the worst part, but it’s still pretty bad.  This will not mark the end of kissing boo boos, but yech…I kissed it.

This will also not mark the end of fungal infections for my sons.  Oh, no, this is simply the beginning.  Yuck.

 

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Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on February 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

Billy was back and I really did enjoy him.  But before I get too far into the post, what was with the tinny feedback on seemingly every microphone?  Or was it just me?

Was that Sheila E. working the percussion in the band?

Why and when did they switch the order of the awards?

Yes, I’m happy for Christopher, but damn, Kenneth got dissed every single time.

I love that so many people kept their speeches really brief.  I loved Billy’s opening number.  I laughed my ass off at the “focus group” for The Wizard of Oz.  Thank you, Catherine O’Hara for saying to millions what I have been saying for years.  Glinda’s got a wee bit of wicked in her for not telling Dorothy earlier about clicking those heels together.

Billy Crystal made it feel like it was a ten or fifteen years ago.  What a difference compared to how I used to watch the Oscars.  With a party, pools on who would win, and I would actually have seen the movies that were nominated.  Now I was just glad the boys were practically ready for bed when it started.

I wonder if I will one day reconnect with the Oscars as I did in the past.  The one nominated movie I saw this year was The Muppets.  Tells you where I am in life.  Now I catch movies on demand as I am able.  Sadly, I still think movies from the 1990s are recent.  The other night I was enjoying my good friend Keyser Soze and noticed the year it was made.  1995?  Really, 1995?  When I realized The Usual Suspects is as old as it is, I realized I need to get some new lines to quote.  How did time fly away and the movies with it?

Perhaps one day I’ll re-embrace my desire to go to a large dark room filled with strangers and watch movies.  I do love the movie theater experience, but there are so many other things to do.  But as my sons get older, they too will embrace the experience.  Won’t that be fun.  As you wish.

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Importance of Literature

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on February 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My oldest son and I were watching last night’s episode of Grimm on demand today.  He asked a lot of questions.  Many of these questions would not have been asked if he was older and more well read.  He’s rather well read when it comes to non-fiction, but the classics, like Grimm, have not stuck to his schema.

I wonder if it is simply lack of repetition or if it is because of his preference for non-fiction?  I have loved Grimm and the like since I was a little girl.  I suppose I figured everyone did or that my sons would at least inherit it.  My youngest son certainly embraces the macabre as I do, but will the Grimm stories and other dark literary classics stay with him his whole life?  Will my oldest connect with them over time?  I enjoy wondering about these things, even knowing that these answers won’t come until they are “all grown up”.  That’s a long time from now.

It also has to happen naturally because you can’t make a kid like anything they don’t want to like.  I’ll see if I can find some graphic novels of Grimm stories.  The boys loved the Beowolf graphic novel.  October is always Poe month, maybe we can make March Grimm month.  In theory, it’s still supposed to be a grim and bleak winter month.  Again, in theory.

He did enjoy the episode.  Perhaps he will like revisiting the stories.

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The Spelling Bee

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , on February 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The Thursday evening ritual in most homes with elementary age school children includes the final review of this week’s spelling words.  Both of our sons are happily strong spellers.  They get it.  This makes our job relatively easy.  My heart goes out to the parents of children who struggle with spelling.  For some children it just doesn’t make sense.  It may never make a whole lot of sense to them and they will have to learn to trust spell check and find someone to do a really good job of proofreading.

For my sons, they enjoy spelling.  My oldest loves showing how well he knows his words.  He stays very focused during this Thursday night ritual.  He keeps a big smile on his face the whole time.  The only tricky part of the evening is to keep my youngest from being a goofball.  He enjoys misspelling words for fun.  The problem is he might then get them wrong on the test.  So tonight I tried something a little differently.  He got to quiz me.

Oh, he enjoyed this arrangement very much.  He chose words from his chart of word wall words with glee.  After I would spell the word, he would tell me I was wrong.  Then he would say “there’s a z at the end” or “there’s an e at the end”.  With a sweet smile, he’d then shout, “No, you spelled it right!”  This got on the nerves of his older brother rather quickly, but he tolerated it well.  He seemed to enjoy listening to our little spelling bee.

No matter how you review the words, it counts.  My youngest went to bed thinking he pulled one over on me by not practicing his spelling words.  And I let him go to bed thinking that.

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Yeah, I know that.

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on February 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Last night during dinner, I asked my youngest about school.  He quickly shared that he had to write a story but he was not sure how because he missed most of writing when he went to speech.   I asked him what he did remember about the story.  He said it needed to have a middle, a beginning, and an end.  I asked if it was possibly a story with a beginning, middle, and end to which he replied, “Yes, that’s it!”

Well, older brother could no longer contain himself.  He had to chime in with his two cents.  He proudly declared that he writes stories with FIVE paragraphs.  He asked his brother if he was going to start his story with a “grabber-you know, to grab your audience’s attention?”  I calmly reminded him that his brother is in first grade and at the moment, the class was focusing on beginning, middle, and end.

My oldest son then asked, with attitude oozing and dripping from his entire being, if I even know what a grabber is and how to use it in a story.

I gently asked him if he remembered that my job is managing a writing lab at a university.  He quickly remembered and acquiesced that I might, in fact, understand the concept of a grabber.  I then told him I hope one day he graduates from the “classic five paragraph essay” because there are so many wonderful ways to write.

It was another rough night for the oldest son.  My youngest received the lion’s share of my time.  We brainstormed some ideas for his story.  He says he doesn’t finish his writing at school because he spends all his time thinking of what to write.  Now he has a plan for the story and he decorated his list with Sponge Bob stickers so I know he was pleased with it.  But this took most of the evening because I wanted him to enjoy the process.  We didn’t rush.  We brainstormed at the speed of a six-year-old.

Eight-year-old was crushed.  The evening was not centered around him.  This has been happening more often and he’s having some trouble with this adjustment of the Mom-time.  Once they were tucked into bed, I called my oldest son out under the guise that he needed to put something in his backpack.  I hoped that would be a boring enough request that my youngest would stay in bed.  Nope, he wandered down the hall about 8 steps behind his big bro.  I shooed him back to bed and called my oldest over for a good old-fashioned Brady Bunch talk.

I asked him why he had been so angry with me all night and he fessed up that he didn’t like so much time going to his brother.  I explained that it wasn’t that I love him any less, but that it was a shift to balance the time between the two of them.  We had a great talk and a lot of hugs.  Then his younger brother came down the hall again.  We three cuddled for a while on the couch and talked about random and wonderful things.  Once they were tucked into bed again, they happily drifted off to sleep.

Yeah, I know a few things.  But with each passing day they think I know less and less.

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Ah, simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on February 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Today was a day of simplicity.  The boys and I went to church.  I was subbing for one of the other Sunday School teachers and my students were the helpers.  This meant I got to teach my youngest son’s class.  He did really well having Mom be his teacher for the day.  I try to teach a grade that neither are in because there is a wee bit more pressure when your mom’s the teacher.

The worship service seemed to be filled with simplicity in that so much of it was prayer.  Prayers for the community as we struggle with the tragedy from Thursday morning.  The words from my pastor filled my heart and I kept adding my own prayer of thanks for my two healthy and happy sons.  The boys helped me put the new curriculum in the classrooms after service and then we drove home.

On the drive we looked to see if the carcass of the deer was still on the side of the road.  It had been several weeks since we sat and watched the turkey buzzards (I think that’s what they were; they didn’t look like a classic vulture).  The bones were still there but no birds were circling anymore.

We came home and had sandwiches for lunch.  We had hoped to go to the museum this weekend but the boys didn’t keep up their end of the bargain.  Chores had to be completed by the time I got home from work on Friday and the chores weren’t done.  There were a lot of tears, a lot of promises, and I’m sure they were thinking “mean Mommy and mean Daddy”, but they had the whole day to accomplish a few simple chores.  What they accomplished was making the mess even bigger.  I hate that part of being a parent.  I love to take them on adventures.  But part of the job is saying no when the time is appropriate.

Without the trip to the museum, yesterday was spent working on the house.  With actual thought and planning, we simplified our kitchen.  We have this pile of stuff that tended to sit on the floor due to lack of cabinet space.  I measured the space and found the two random, funky cabinets we inherited with the house would fit in the space.  I gave them each a quick and dirty coat of paint (theater painting in my vernacular) and we set them up.  Not only does this give us the extra storage we needed, it provides the ever popular extra counter-top space.  Ah, simplicity.

My hubby and I also talked about the fact that we don’t need to buy as much food as we do.  I am dreadfully spoiled since my hubby does the shopping, but the man loves a sale.  He’ll stockpile like a hoarder.  Today he went to get the lunch meat for the sandwiches and did buy some Entenmann’s donuts–on sale.  Today he only bought two boxes.  Yea!

Hubby did a lot of work in his office too.  We also agreed that the more we cleaned out the more there is to clean out.  We agreed it will simply take time and celebrated our little victories of the weekend.  I repositioned my wonderful “Vera” bouquet in a spot that highlights it beautifully.  I used the space it had been in to set up a little bar (when did we acquire enough liquor to require a little make-shift bar?  Wow, we’re like grown-ups or something).  I dealt with several bags of “stuff” that seemed important enough at the time to set aside but now are clearly unnecessary.  Time really does work its magic, doesn’t it?  Things that seem so urgent and important rarely are as important as we make them out to be.

And now I sit looking at my home.  If one of those “staging for sale” shows came in, they would have a heart attack.  But man, it’s our house.  It is fun, funky, and a little bit strange.  It always strikes me as odd when people ask me how the boys handle the office downstairs.  I have to remind myself that to some that’s a weird way to grow up.  To me, it’s not like it’s a funeral home or anything.  It’s a chiropractor’s office.  Sure there are a bunch of spines and x-rays, but what house doesn’t have them?  With my hubby working from home, our sons get to have grand adventures after school and all summer long.  We are in a phase of simplicity yet also a renewing of our shared lives.  It’s quite a lovely place to be.

Our sons bedrooms would also freak out the staging people.  A picture is worth a thousand words. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So our house is our own.  We live life marching to our own drummer.  At this moment, our sons are cuddling on the couch watching their beloved Pokemon.  Then they’ll get ready for bed and they’ll probably fight just a little bit.  Because they are brothers.  And that’s okay for now.  Simplicity.  Spending the weekend together.  Simplicity.  Doing a little bit each day.  Simplicity.

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Just in case you forgot

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

It seems for me that whenever I’m ready to plop myself down and dig into a deep and wide pity party, God lovingly smacks me across the face and says, “Snap out of it.”  I have had a blessed life.  Yes, I have had my own challenges to deal with and battle and overcome.  Some more intense than what others may have faced in their lives, but every challenge has had an outcome of me growing stronger or learning a new way to live my life.  I’ve been mighty whiny in some of my posts the past few months.  (Sorry, but then again, it is my blog.  I get to decide what I’m going to write about, though I truly appreciate you reading my whiny posts).  I also believe that the challenges I face in my life are totally valid and not any less of a challenge because of other events, but those events offer perspective and help me move forward.

A tragic accident occurred this morning in the town where my husband grew up.  My father-in-law lives there still.  We worship at church there every week.  I’m on one the boards of this church because that’s my church family and I believe I can be of some use in this capacity.  We got married there, we were both baptized there, I pray my sons will one day be baptized there.  So while I’ve never lived in this town, my heart weeps this evening.  A family has lost a child.  I can’t even write about that because I can’t fathom how that must rip one’s soul out.  My heart , my prayers, are with the family.  I have friends who lost a child and I am constantly in awe of their strength and love and patience to grow from it and to embrace their family close to their hearts with their child always in their hearts, with lots of love and hope.  I hope for the family who is living that tragedy today that they are able to find their love and strength as my friends did, do, and will.

This is the perspective.  This is what makes me write what I wrote above.  I can’t get the image of Cher out of my mind.  Remember in the movie Moonstruck, she slaps Nic Cage and says “Snap out of it.”  That’s what God does to me every once in a while when I get stupidly stuck in my own experience without looking out to the world to connect to the larger world.  To see Him weeping at some awful tragedy that has happened.  To challenge me to think of ways I could help the world rather than sit and whine at a pity party.

I hugged my sons nice and tight tonight.  I smiled as I heard them saying their prayers.  I thanked God for my blessings.  I asked for comfort and grace for the town of Chesterfield.

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Date Night

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on February 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I had a date this evening with an incredibly handsome young man.  He’s a little shorter than 4 feet, has dirty blond hair, and these blue eyes surrounded by the most amazing (girls are jealous because they need mascara to get these) eyelashes.  I even told my husband about the date.  He was jealous, but he let this young charmer spend the time with me.

My youngest was sick yesterday with a little stomach virus (no, not the norovirus).  We spent the whole day together.  Still, evening came and the boys were tucked into bed.  A few minutes later I heard the footsteps coming down the hallway.  Ah, my youngest, with tears streaming down his face.  He claimed to still be sick (he was using some of those brains in a most manipulative way).  After some deep conversation, the problem was identified.  He wanted more time with Mommy-without the big brother making the choices.  Ah, the root of the issue.

Birth order impacts each person greatly over the course of their lives.  When my hubby and I were gearing up to get married we attended premarital counseling.  It was awesome.  Part of it was to explore our families of origin and how they would impact the family that we were building.  You learn a lot when you look at your family objectively and identify the “roles” you are assigned.  Part of this process helped discover that as a middle child, I knew I would prefer to only have two children.  I also discovered a goal created from being a second child because I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of the older sibling.

There are very few pictures of me as a child.  My interests were echoes of my older sibling’s choices.  My schedule was often dictated by my older sibling’s many because he started his stuff before I did.  Age trumped beauty, I like to think.  😉

Anyhoo, I knew I would not let my second child wonder where were all his pictures.  No, I do not harbor deep feelings of anger toward my folks. Actually, I tease my mother about it.  At least I hope she knows I’m teasing.  But I am intentional in my efforts to level the playing field.  Still, my youngest is beginning to express his discontent about the rank of his big bro.  Big brothers do tend to boss the younger ones around.  It happens rather naturally.  But I believe in nature and nurture.

Tonight’s date included his choice of movie and no big brother.  Big brother was eventually invited to join us and then nature stepped in the picture.  We were watching School House Rock (oh, yeah, Mom was pleased with the choice) and the oldest was trying to tell his brother which one to pick next.  I’m sure you can guess the drama that followed.

Older brother really didn’t like not being the one to make the choices.  He burst into tears because “it’s not about me.”  He was quite troubled by someone else being in control.  The younger brother was delirious with the power.  Pinching was involved.  Parental speeches that echoed the speeches of Mike and Carol were delivered.  Hugs were given.  This was the first step on the road to a more balanced control of power between the brothers.  It will take many steps.  And many more Brady Bunch speeches.

All this generated an interesting declaration at bedtime.  The oldest stated that dad must be the boss of mom, mom the boss of oldest son, and oldest son boss of youngest son.  Whoa.  I quickly corrected him that Dad is not the boss of Mom.  That husbands and wives are partners.  And siblings are not bosses of each other, not are they their keepers.  The complexity of relationships will be explored for decades by these boys.  Of course, their mom is still working on relationships.  That’s the best thing I could teach them about relationships.  They always change and you never become a master at them.  You always work at them and sometimes they are beyond your control.  The only control you sometimes have is to let go of them as gracefully as you can.  And even then you’ll stumble.

Date night.  Way more than I expected.

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