Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Some snakes bite, some do not...

Can you feel it? Spring. I swear to you - it is coming... the crocuses have reared their little green heads along with the tulips and irises (we think...) There is that early Springy smell. The kids are shaking off (hopefully) the winter malaise by getting out here and there to play. There is the time change with its positive: more light at night and I swear there has been more sunshine since the time change! I might be hopeful in this regard but being hopeful is, you know, all I have. Never mind that in a couple of days they are predicting a rain/snow mix - I still see more high 40/low 50's then anything else on the 10 day forecast so for that I am grateful.

I am also grateful for my son. He has been difficult but he also has moments of glory too. We (I) think he is struggling with, dun dun, "the baby". More specifically with the baby being a girl versus a boy. His little friends have baby brothers right now with very few exceptions so even though some of his little friends are the older sister in the situation, he does not quite get that being a big brother to a little sister is just as cool.

His lip quivers and his eyes fill up with tears and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing because to me it seems silly but to him it is SO real and serious. We have decided to take a break from baby talk. In fact we have even stopped calling the baby's room by its proper name (Baby Pancake's room - what?! you think we have a name already?!??! HA-HA. This child will either be called Pancake or we will be deciding the name on the way to the hospital...) Matthew needs a break from it all. It is weighing heavily on his mind and after consulting numerous books - okay really just the Happiest Toddler on the Block, it seems that my little caveman is in need of some mommy/daddy time with no talk of wee babies to come.

Things that have been good with Matthew:
*He really is getting the hang of saying 'please' and 'thank you' when he is not in a (perpetually) bad mood.
* We have a game. He will say "Mommy tell me a joke, please." I will look around and say "blue cup" then we all laugh riotously at this. Then we go around the table doing this - it is really rather funny and fun to do.
* Matthew received his most recent Highlights High Five magazine which had knock knock jokes in it. He has memorized several of them and will suddenly tell them to you and they crack him right up! (okay we think it is funny too - a little Improv always lightens the mood!)
* He loves to cuddle up with us to read books (STILL!!!) but his favorite thing to do recently his pull his pillow out and put it up against the wall on his bed. All the while he will say to me " this is how you used to do it when you were a girl, right, Mommy?" Then we snuggle on his bed and read the books. LOVE THIS!
* He is in love with puzzles and it is amazing to watch his little face piecing together the puzzle. He even has the patented Van Tol (my mom)'s tongue sticking out on his lip thinking thing going on!
* He loves the games of hide and seek & tag. He will ask to play these games and will go and go. He also took these stacking barrels and made them into Easter eggs a few weeks back and we play hide and seek with those as well.
* He is really into the minute details of things. Like 'Kelly has that book' or 'that is like Lily's coat.' It is fascinating to hear him do this and the things he will pop off and remember from a year ago all on his own. It is like I am watching his little world grow and grow.
* His memory of things that we tell him. He also loves doing sticker books. We recently did an insect & reptile section and we got to talking about which of these critters bite and which did not. I basically told him that some snakes bite and some do not, some ants bite and some do not, and so forth. This was about two weeks ago. Last night he started reciting back to me the conversation we had. That is just cool!
* When he kisses us - some times he will just randomly pick up my hand and kiss it or kiss my shoulder or back. Also, when he calls out to me at bed time "I love you too Mommmeee". That does a heart good.

SO while I know I have mentioned his difficult behavior and how it has consumed both Kevin and I. There is also a lot of times when Matthew is pleasant, loving, learning and calm. All is not gloom and doom over here - my son is charming and loving - just struggling. It is hard for my adult mind to some times remember that my soon to be 3 year old son does not process life the way we adults do and it is only fair to give him props for all the good that he does do. My sweet little peanut!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great post! I also have to struggle to remind myself that Lily is only 2.5 years old and we have to be careful not to expect too much out of her. It's so easy to think of them as older since they communicate so well.

Christina Schmidt said...

Melissa~ SO hard especially when he knows the difference between a robin, blue jay & a cardinal or can sing all the words to his favorite song without the song playing. They are smart but emotionally they are just on a different level then we are and that part is SO easy to forget...

Anonymous said...

I struggle with placing adult expectations on my daughter all the time. It's so hard to remember that she's a kid and it's not fair to expect her to be quiet in church or not have a nuclear meltdown over something I think it trivial. As she gets older and more "person-like" it's getting harder.

Pickles and Dimes said...

He sounds like such a ham! I love when little kids tell jokes and crack themselves up.

Maybe once the baby comes and she's this tangible being, he'll be able to wrap his head around being a big brother. It's hard for them to visualize "the future" right now.

Lisa said...

Well, I'm about 13 weeks further along than you are (with b/g twins) and my 2 1/2 year old seems to have days when he's an absolute doll and days when he's an absolute terror. I think they get really sensitive to the baby coming along thing.

K and J's mom said...

It is so easy to forget they are "just two"...well M is almost "just three", but still. My perspective has changed b/c before I had kids, I thought two was soo young. Now I forget it is all that little. While working as a therapist, we called it "little adult syndrome" when parents expected their kids to be, well, little adults. I catch myself needing a reminders of that sooo often! They are sooo big, yet sooo little!