Tough Saturday Morning Lessons

There is not secret it’s been a really long week in our house.  If you are following on social media, the posts I have shared there have further solidified this fact. Lately, I am living for the weekends.  We have a lull in sports before swim team starts next week, there is no true schedule, and there is time for fun.  A three day weekend is sorta icing on the cake, and there has been fun things on our agenda, but this week’s actions and behavior really caught up with this morning.

I give you fidget spinners.

If you aren’t familiar, it’s one of three reasons you wouldn’t be.

1) You have no children or have grown children.
2) You have children, but they are under the age of three.
3) You have entered into your fallout shelter to protect yourself from your children, and therefore have been cut off from the rest of the world for the last eight weeks.

If it’s option three, do you have a waiting list?  Guest list?  I can pay in food and booze.

Fidget spinners are all the rage.  If I had to pick, I would choose them over bottle flipping, so I can’t complain.  I digress.

This morning, in a fit of anger and frustration, LT threw L2’s fidget spinner and broke it.  This basically WW3 level stuff folks.

It went down like this. In a rare occurrence, I saw the whole thing out of the corner of my eye.

L2, “He broke my fidget spinner.”

Me, “Go to your room.”

LT sobbing, exits to his room.

I will be honest, I am parenting and mothering by the grace of God right now.  I am clinging to this.  I would have like to have thrown down half a dozen things, broken them, and called it a day.  I have realized in 8.45 years of parenting, taking the easy road never turns out easy, so breaking things wasn’t gonna get me far.

I do feel like I have been having a tough time cracking this nut.  There has been a lot of crying, and unrecognizable behavior.  LT and I are in unchartered waters. I want to give space when I know I can, I want him to know he is so loved, not matter what, I want to go in my room and cry, and I really want this crossing from little boy to a guy to be over.

I didn’t even know what I was going to say when I got to his room.  He, too has been having a difficult time articulating himself with words lately, so I wasn’t sure where we would end up.

He was still crying when I got to his room.  I just looked at him and asked, “What was that all about?”

Crying, he said, “I just can’t control myself when I am angry.”

Let’s pause for a second.  I really wanted to say, “Ain’t that the truth.”  I have for weeks now been saying, “Anger is real, frustration is real, feeling mad is real.  All of it.  Inside I know it’s a mess, but it’s all real.  BUT. YOU. HAVE. TO. USE. YOUR. WORDS.”

Back in the room.  “Buddy, I get that because I have seen how you have been behaving lately.  I keep asking you to tell me when you are angry, or when L2 does something that upsets you, and you keep heading down the road of ‘I will handle it myself,” and that’s not working for you.”

The staring contests have been exhausting.  I feel like I am staring down a mule.  I think he feels like he is staring down a mom that maybe has stopped loving him because of his actions.

“Bud, here is the deal. If L2 had thrown your fidget spinner and broken it, what is the first thing you would have asked me for?”

“A new one?”

“Exactly.  So, you are going to take money from your piggy bank.  We are going to the store, and you are buying your brother a new fidget spinner.”

Holy sh*t.  The tears, the sobbing, the repetitive, “I just can’t do it.” That’s when I stood up and said, “Get up, get dressed, we are going.”

He did at one point ask if he could get a new fidget spinner, and I told him if that’s what he wanted to spend his money on, I would make sure he had enough from his piggy bank to buy both.

As we drove to the store, the closer we got, I could see the more anxious he was becoming.  “I just can’t Mom.”  What he was really saying, “Don’t leave me, Mom.”

When we pulled in the parking space, he said two things.

“I just wish I wasn’t on this Earth.”

I was pissed.  I know he has no idea what those words really mean.  I was thinking, man, you are just spouting garbage to get attention.  In my irritated tone of voice, I said over my shoulder, “I never want to hear you say that again.”

And then, he dropped the bomb.

“I am just not perfect.”

HOLD. THE. PHONE.

Inside, I wanted to cry out.  I wanted to say I now understand what has been tormenting you for weeks on end, at school, at home, at soccer, when you are doing your homework.  I was crushed inside.  Chef and I have never asked him to be perfect, so where was this idea coming from?  Right inside his head and his heart.

I turned around from the front seat, and said, “I don’t want you to be perfect.  I want you to be LT.  Are you hearing me?  Are you understanding what I am saying?”

A small nod.

I kept going.  “LT!  Look at Mommy.  You will never be perfect.  Do you know why?  Because you are human, and no human is perfect.  Look at me.  I want you to be the best LT you can be.  I want you to try hard in life.  I want you to love, and I want you to have compassion. I don’t want you to be perfect.”

“Okay, Mom.”  And he grabbed his wallet, hopped out of the car, and went and bought a fidget spinner for his little brother, and himself.  He spoke to the cashier without me, got his change without me, and thanked the cashier without me standing right next to him.  I was there, strangely catching up with his pre-school teacher.  God is so good.  He put her there at the same time we were there to give me a moment to be distracted, and to give LT the confidence to correct is wrong on his own.

We all got back in the car to come home, and the back seat was filled with joy once again.  The front seat was taking a moment of reflection. These moments of really understanding my kids, of teaching lessons and love, are fleeting.  Toothpaste in the hair, pee all over the toilet seat, a broken fidget spinner, all fleeting. I know I am learning more from them than they are from me right now.  I am holding on as tight and as long as I can to that.