I love this age of conversation and reason. He is nearly five, and he has so much to say. He conveniently listens only when it suits him, but that may be what any normal child does.
I love to tease him! Recently he’s shown a sensitivity to boy-girl teases. In Monsters vs Aliens, there is a scene where Susan smooches Derek. Now, if I say, “My name is Suuuuuuusan, and I’m going to smoochie smoochie you,” he runs and shrieks and covers his face and blushes, “NOOOOOOOOOO, Don’t DO that Mommy!”
He also thinks it’s funny that my name IS Susan. He makes sure he tells every passerby, “My Mommy’s name is Suuuuuusan.” And when asked what HIS name is, he responds without missing a beat, “Gallaxhar.” Only it sounds like “Gow-ax-ove,” so I have to translate and explain, because, well, not everyone has seen Monsters vs Aliens. Fifty. Thousand. Times.
He memorizes full scenes. “Derek, you are a selfish jerk.” All the way to “Lime green jello with fourteen pieces of pineapple.”
All I have to say is a few obscure words from the movie and it will send him into giggles. I love that! I especially love his reaction when I say, “What the flagnar!” –He gets very animated and tells me, “Don’t SAY that!” It’s swearing, after all. We’re working on his vocabulary of approved expressions. “Oh shoot.” “Holy Cheezits.” “Darn-it.” “Goodness gracious.” I get severely reprimanded if I say “Dammit,” even when justified after severely stubbing my toe on something.
what the flagnar!
I wonder if I should be concerned that he usually wants to be the villain. Darth Vader. Megatron. Gallaxhar. Maybe it’s just a male leadership testosterone thing, and not the makings of a future sociopath.
He’s very much into make-believe right now. I hear him talking to Susan and Gallaxhar, or about them to an imaginary somebody. He integrates bits of reality. Recently, he was telling an imaginary someone that Susan and Gallaxhar were dead because they got in a car crash from a drunk driver.
Sometimes he gets things spot on. “Daddy is being a selfish jerk.”
I don’t want the grown ups’ differences to wrench at the kids, and I want to keep them shielded from my personal emotional unrest with their dad, which is at times very difficult to hide. So I tell him, “Daddy is just going through a hard time right now and he’s angry, and sometimes when people are angry, they act like that. Hopefully Daddy will feel better soon.”
And I mean that.
It’s a rough ride for him, being forced to grow up and move into the world on his own, my forty two year old teenager. Life is much different when you have to concern yourself with accountability and responsibility, when you have to make your own way, pay your own bills. Anger is probably much easier to work with than fear, uncertainty, and despair. So anger he manifests, but I can see the frightened boy, and my heart breaks for him, but I have to let him go. I have to stay this course.
It’s so very hard, and there’s no easy way through.
