One Perfect Mess

Archive for June, 2010

Now… I might be guilty of some helicopter parenting. I hover underneath the jungle gym when my 18 month old is on it and even underneath the big one if my nearly three year old is fifteen feet up in the air. But this man at my kids’ pediatrician’s office today was OFF. THE. CHAIN.

I took in the Peanut for his 18 mo well baby visit and just let him run off by himself as I checked him in. He ran over to another little boy that was all of two inches taller than him in an effort to see what was going on and find someone to play with. I didn’t notice until I actually went and sat down that this poor little boy, I’ll call him Launchpad, was being held by the arm by an elderly foreign man. Little launchpad was cute as could be. I assumed maybe he’d gotten into trouble, whatever. I got out the ol’ iPhone and started looking at Twitter, checking in on Peanut every now and then out of the corner of my eye. After about five minutes it became apparent that this older gentleman, let’s call him Copter, never ever let go of this kid’s arm. Then I noticed he was also constantly talking. Constantly. And he was switching languages because while no linguist I heard “bravo” “very good” and “bien” sprinkled throughout. Copter was quizzing this kid non-effin stop. This little boy was at the very most two years old and he was naming every color in the rainbow, hell plenty NOT in the rainbow. I heard him bust out with “aqua” at one point pointing to a teal fixture on the ceiling. And I’m guessing he was answering in several languages as well because for awhile I’d hear English colors, then Spanish and then lots of words I did not recognize. He also counted to twenty several times. In the span of the twenty five minutes or so I was in the waiting room that old dude never let up on this little boy. Poor little Launchpad kept wandering toward my son (with his strange elderly companion in tow of course) who was happily playing with his Matchbox cars. I am not exaggerating. That man NEVER let go of his hold on that boy’s arm. What the what?

I am feeling quite the veteran parent here that instead of immediately texting my husband to say our son is stupid for not knowing how to count to twenty or name forty five colors I just looked at Launchpad and felt horrible for him. I looked at my own little boy who was watching this strange man curiously and gnawing on his car at the same time and felt total satisfaction. Because he is exactly as he should be.

Summertime is always busy. We have so many *major* events going on in the next six months my brain, and to do list, is going around in circles. I have about a dozen half finished blog posts that I need to knock out and get up here before the memories start to fade. I will be back, no worries.

We all know our parents are going to age and that somewhere along the way there are likely to be times that are scary, filled with worry or just plain sad. It is almost like I sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop. This morning marked the first time in my life I have really faced the fact that my dad is getting older. Sure he has had health issues and minor surgeries but for some reason this morning really just kicked me right in the chest.

He came over to pick up my van to take it to get the oil changed. He is resident in charge of car maintenance and everything yard related. Lately he has been complaining more than usual about being tired and not feeling well but I guess I have been dismissing them. He frequently gets tired in the summer because of the heat and humidity. This morning I asked him to wait while I ran the recycling down to the street. I found him sitting in the van with the door shut while my little boy just stood in the driveway looking at him confused. My first reaction was to get frustrated with him (yay me!) and so I yanked the door open and asked if he had heard me. When he said he had I pointed to the Peanut and explained the point of him waiting was to watch the baby while I was down at the curb. He looked sort of confused and just said “oh I’m sorry…” Then as he backed down the driveway he nearly ran in the ditch. Just a year ago he was racing at Virginia International Raceway so to say he prides himself on being a good driver would be a huge understatement. He has never run in a ditch or off the road. I ran over to warn him and again I got the same quiet confused response from him. He said he didn’t know what was wrong today. That he slept well but he woke up feeling exhausted. As he drove away I realized he hadn’t left me the keys to the car he was dropping off for us to use today.

I called my mom and she said she had noticed at times lately that he seems confused. We worked out for her to drive me the keys over this morning without letting him know. I am totally heartbroken to think he might be having problems with confusion. There is nothing that upsets my dad more than thinking he isn’t capable.  If he loses something he will beat himself up for days about it. It will be very hard to watch the pillar of strength in our family (which admittedly hasn’t always necessarily felt like a positive… but that is another story) struggle. Sure, I’m more than accustomed to helping him figure out his Tivo or computer but helping him drive places? Or remember doctor’s appointments? Or even more basic stuff like taking his medicine… it makes my heart all achy. He is such an intense person, for lack of a better word. I have always expected him to go out with a bang. I am totally ill prepared for anything else.

I am kind of embarrassed to admit this as the mother of an almost 3 year old and an almost 1 1/2 year old… I had never done one of those baby classes until today. I have been to the library story time exactly once with my oldest when I was probably six months pregnant and she was just over a year old. At the time I got a whole bunch of comments from the other moms along the lines of “oh.my.gah! you cannot be pregnant again?!?” and “better you than me, noooo way.” That combined with having to dance around in a circle throwing scarves in the air while trying to sing along to some obscure nursery rhyme that I had never heard yet everyone else clearly knew all the words to was enough to scare me away.

But now that I have exchanged pleasantries with the other preschool parents for a few months, spent more time at parks and playgrounds and even braved our first birthday party I felt a little more prepared for some mom to mom socializing. So off we went to Gymboree for our free class. It wasn’t as bad as I feared, but not really as fun as I’d hoped either. It was the first try and so neither myself or the Peanut knew the ins and outs but I think he had a decent time and it was much better than sitting around here playing cars and watching Special Agent Oso. So we’re all signed up for a month. For what it cost I will definitely be going back to the rest of the classes this month and then we’ll see how it goes from there. It helps to have something set on our schedule so the monotony of the days is broken up a bit. Besides, I can always stand to learn some new nursery rhymes…

It isn’t that I have a lack of subjects I would like to blog about, it is that I simply don’t have the time. Now that I have my iPhone, I rely on it almost entirely for checking email, twitter and TMZ catching up on important news. That means far less time at my laptop, some days I don’t even turn it on. As a result I don’t end up in a blogging mindset nearly as often. Sure, I have the WordPress app for my phone, but no way am I blogging from my phone.

I honestly don’t know how other moms do it. Between the laundry, doctor’s appointments, driving kids to preschool and dance classes, grocery shopping, cooking, exercising, putting away the toys again, keeping up with anniversarys/birthdays/thank you cards… ugh the list is just never ending. Half the time my house looks like an episode of Hoarders and on a good day I look like a candidate off What Not to Wear. I constantly feel like I am falling behind on something and occasionally on everything. Those days aren’t pretty. Yesterday was one of those days. Bleh. But today things are starting out a bit better. I really hope to schedule in a few minutes a day to work on the computer. I used to send a picture of each of the children to their grandparents every day. It has been a couple of months since I did that regularly and I really miss it and suspect they do too. But for now excitement calls… time to take the cat to the vet.