My Purple Hayes Daze

As we know, small children are capable of all sorts of inappropriate behavior.  Mostly they’re doing stuff they have no idea is not OK.  Like when they notice–out loud–how large the man’s stomach is who can hear the words come straight out of your child’s mouth.  Sure, it’s unacceptable and totally embarrassing.  But also innocent.

And as we also know, small children have a natural obsession with boobs.  Probably because they’re hanging out with women for the better part of the day (i.e., mom, grandma, teachers, nanny, etc.).  And since women have boobs of various sizes and shapes, and children do not have them at all…  Well, you can see where the fascination begins.

A fellow mommy-friend and I were recently discussing what happens when innocent curiosity and boob obsession collide.  After all, our children are at the age when they are noticing for the first time that people are sexual beings (i.e., grown ups kissing and “cuddling”).  And by now they know there is a difference between boys and girls.  (Girls have “ginas,” if you let Hayes tell it).  So, inevitably, some innocently inappropriate behavior is bound to happen.  And what’s to be done about it?

Well, being the modern mommas that we are, we decided that a well-written bedtime story could serve as good reinforcement.  You know, something honest and informative like this:

Well, naturally, our conversation ventured further than innocent boob talk.  And we ended it with a big question about where children get some of their ideas from.

And today as I watched this clip on TMZ, the answer was made clear:

Geez!…  Thanks, TMZ!

This year, I have resolved to not make a new year’s resolution.  Instead, I have chosen the more enlightened path… (ahem)… of declaring what I will not do.  After all, I have learned a few lesson’s after having made a year’s worth of mistakes.  So, for the record, in 2009, I will not…

…Let Hayes talk me into letting him play with my cute, expensive electronics.  Because they inevitably end up smeared with food or covered with slobber (or some gross combination of both) or, even worse, broken.  And since neither one of those is a sexy outcome, all the sharing must stop.

…Believe that I cannot have it all–an enjoyable son, a fulfilling career, and a safe and happy home (just to name a few good fortunes).

…Run out of chocolate sprinkles.  They instantly make desert more fun.

…Accept unsolicited parenting advice.  (No explanation necessary because it is what it is).

…Forget that, for now, I am the center of Hayes’s world.  I should relish being important as long as he shows me that I am.

…Continue eating the same portion size as my three-year-old son.  Because after scarfing down half a buttered bagel and a glass of milk, I’m still hungry.

…Bamboozle my child into not participating in anymore national holidays.  (See previous posts).  Since Hayes is almost four years old now, the fact that he has a mom who tries to force every day to come and go in its simplest form could someday be the basis for a small psychological issue later on in his life.

…Prioritize the never-ending-to-do-list over sitting down to eat a solid meal.

…Say that I’m waiting until Hayes isn’t home so that I can really clean the house.  Because it’s just an excuse for not doing chores.

…Forget to pack tissues.  (After all, I am a mom).

Zhang Hui Beijing Wawa, 2007

For about a month, the plan was for Hayes and my father (visiting from Texas) to fly to San Antonio last Saturday for the holidays.  It also included me joining them in Texas tomorrow.  As usual, I was careful to get Hayes super excited about his first solo flight.  (Solo, meaning without me).  And when the time came, we all headed for the airport.  Hayes and I swallowed our tears as we said goodbye.  Then I left my father to brave the lines and the masses alone with my three year old.  But I arrived home to find out that they had missed the flight and were on their way back to Brooklyn.  Hayes was bummed.

Back home, on the phone with the airline, we found out that the original flight had not yet departed.  It was simply delayed–by four hours–because of the weather.  So back to the airport we went.  This time, we braved the lines and the masses together.  It was the least I could do to ease the situation for both my father and my child–who was excited again and kept correcting me when I referred to the airport as a madhouse.  “It’s not a madhouse, mommy,” he would say.  “It’s a good house.”  Alright.  Whatever, Hayes.

This time, when we got to the counter, we were told that the flight had, in fact departed…twenty minutes ago!  Again, we headed back to Brooklyn.  Needless to say, Hayes was not happy.  In fact, we are all leaving for San Antonio tomorrow and he doesn’t want any part of it.  The way he sees it, the plane never should have left without him.

What’s the phrase about the best laid plans?

This is not Hayes. But I

A weird thing happens at bedtime around here.  It has become totally predictable, and it goes a little something like this; Finally, sometime after the sixth or seventh time I’ve asked, Hayes lies down to bed.  He flops around the bed, under the covers, like a fish out of water and tells me that he’s trying to find his comfy spot when I tell him to be still.  Of course, he settles down, but only for a few minutes until he gets the idea to ask me for food.  He tells me that his belly is hungry and that he didn’t eat dinner.  (Even though dinner was prepared, served, eaten and put away just a few hours ago).  When I explain that he his belly can eat again in the morning, all of a sudden he has to go to the bathroom.  Then he’s back in bed flopping around until he gets another idea.  Usually, it’s to ask me if he can sleep with a certain toy.  Although lately, he has changed it up to tell me that his nose is running and that he needs to go get a tissue.  The shenanigans last as long as my patience does–at which point, a final warning is announced; and everything there is to say beyond the warning come out as a sharp yell.  And, of course, he always makes me yell.

But then, and only then, he gets very still and quiet and goes right to sleep.

I find it slightly disturbing that I scare my child to sleep every night.  And I think it’s even more disturbing that he apparently doesn’t mind it at all.

Recently, I overheard a crazy conversation.  A young woman who is lactose intolerant but planning to get pregnant soon asked a guy, who is a med student, whether or not it is safe for her to continue drinking soy milk now and into her future pregnancy.  And the doctor dude actually said ‘no!’  He went on to explain that the high estrogen levels in soy milk will definitely pass the fetal barrier and have an effect on an unborn male fetus.

What?!…Really?  Is this sound advice?  I thought doctors were supposed to be smart.

Don’t get me wrong, I have also heard things about estrogen levels and soy.  But I dismissed the talk as rumor and cultural ignorance.  And I based it all on this fact; folks among us whose diets consist mainly of soy-based products are no more homosexual than those who drink cow’s milk.

Am I wrong?  I mean, I drank soy milk years before Hayes was conceived and all throughout my pregnancy.  I gave Hayes soy formula and he still drinks soy milk to this day.  And, if Hayes is anything, he is very much a boy.  Well, except for his fascination with the color pink.  And the fact that he’s always up for doing the “princess dance” with me, or anyone who requests it.

Of course, it is way too early to predict who his partner of choice will be.  But for now, I believe that if soy-derived estrogen has affected him at all, it has been for the good.  Perhaps it’s responsible for making him comfortable with his feminine side.  And everyone knows that’s a sign of a real man.

If I haven’t already mentioned that I started a new job, I’m saying it now.

Correction; I’m screaming it now, and feel like crying about it all the time, and have basically been having a major temper tantrum over it since Monday when the new job started.

Don’t get me wrong.  I like the new job.  In fact, I like it a lot.  It’s a dream job, of sorts.  (But more on that later).

It just so happens that while I totally love what I do at work all day long, work has suddenly taken over my life.  I mean, I’m already at the point where I can’t believe there was a time when I actually had time to lie down at night and sleep with Hayes.  We used to do the dishes and cook dinner together.  And I would leisurely walk him to and from school.  I would even somehow find time to watch a few TV shows–during the week.  Talk about living in the lap of luxury!  But those are all things of the past.  And by the past, I mean before Monday when I suddenly stopped living what I realize was a pretty luxurious life.  (I’ve always known my life was leisurely.  And I also knew it would someday the luxury would come to an end.  But that doesn’t make the pill any easier to swallow).

(Sigh).

I’m not embarrassed to admit I’m old enough to remember when Christmas time didn’t begin until it was actually Christmas time–like, the day after Thanksgiving and not a moment before.  This year, Christmas began the day after Halloween and has been going strong ever since November 1st.  Of course I blame the crippled economy for the holiday haste just as much as I blame it for everything else in the world that I don’t like.

But with Christmas time going strong for so long, Hayes is going crazy for absolutely every toy he sees.  I mean he’s nuts for everything from trains and airplanes to infomercial-type stuff too, like this.

My point?

Well, a while ago, I wrote about a new, brilliant response I had to the persistent, “Mom, can you buy me that?…pleeeaaase!” question that Hayes has for e-ver-y toy commercial on TV.  (See my August 28th post for a review).  Well, now that toy commercials are on heavy rotation, I have abandoned my thoughtful lesson-learning tactic, because I can no longer make it through an explanation of why I will won’t buy every toy in sight without being interrupted by the next commercial, only to start the explanation over again.  So, the answer is now an unequivocal “yes” to everything.  Which, I must say, works out just great since I get to be as curt as I want to be.  And Hayes gets to hear the only word he ever wants to hear from me.

So far, so good.

Now that Hayes is almost four, the school search has officially begun.  I’ve been told by the experienced mommy masses to start early.  And while I promised in an earlier blog post that I’d start the tell-all with PS 11, last night’s experience at Greene Hill, an independent school, made me realize that, really, I should start with the funnier of the two schools I’ve visited so far.  So, let’s discuss…

Wait.  Allow me to preface this story by admitting that I find New York school culture odd compared to…well, everything else I’ve experienced.  For example, Hayes’s current school was originally located on the ground floor of a brownstone.  And as much as I am convinced it made Hayes’s transition from home to school smother, I also think a private home is an odd location for a school that you pay tuition for–no matter how precious accommodations may be in this city.  What’s better than that is that Greene Hill is housed in a huge apartment complex–in a one-bedroom, to be exact.

And as soon as I walk into the one-bedroom apartment school, who do I see?  The founder/director of Hayes’s current school.  The person I give Hayes’s tuition check to each month.  Talk about awkward.

(to be continued)…

Hayes and I recently shared a big moment that was unlike any big moment we’ve had until now. In fact, it was so big that I cannot even exactly recall the details.  Because everything before the big moment happened, was, in comparison, simply not important.

It started in the bathroom while Hayes and I examined our faces in the mirror.  We pointed out our features and talked about how we are the same and how we are different.  And somewhere in the discussion of it all, Hayes suddenly became sad.  He stood on the toilet seat facing the mirror with his head in his hands and told me…that he doesn’t want to be a boy.

This was definitely uncharted territory for me.

My mind was racing as I consoled my emotionally distraught child.  I remembered an old talk show episode I once saw about young children who were convinced they were born in the wrong bodies and tried hard to recall what the visiting therapist had said.  I settled on the least damaging response I could think of.

“If you don’t want to be a boy, Hayes, I think that’s fine,” was what came first.  Then I braced myself for the next question that I knew would make my son tell me, at three years old, that he wants to be a girl. And then I would know for sure that he was born gay.

“So if you don’t want to be a boy, what do you want to be?” I asked gently.

“A bee,” He said from behind his hands.

Once my brain had come back from the depths in which it was heading, I laughed (a lot) and realized that moments like these are what make kids so incredibly amazing.  Nothing is merely black or white, this or that, boy or girl with them.  To them, this world is full of such wonder and possibility that a little boy could actually someday be a bee.

I’m a parent.  And I totally get that I signed up for the job.  But, really, if I’m going to be expected to model commendable behavior, maybe I should just give up now–on the behavior, not the job.

In an attempt to teach Hayes a firm lesson in patience, I decided that we would plant lavender and sunflower seeds in flowerpots and watch them sprout and grow on an indoor windowsill until…well, until I figure out what to do with them next.  (Yes, I’m that kind of mom).

But, honestly, I wasn’t even sure the seeds would actually sprout, since I certainly was not born with a green thumb–and, well, it is wintertime, even indoors at times.  Although, I suppose it isn’t exactly important that they grow at all, since the whole point of a lesson in patience it to accept whatever the outcome may be without allowing frustration to overcome you (and by you, I mean me).

As it so happened, the sunflower seeds sprouted right away.  And, I must admit, it’s been pretty exciting watching the eight tiny buds grow stronger and taller each day.  But the lavender, on the other hand, is still just a pot of soil.  And, the other day, I actually caught myself complaining to Hayes about how the lavender is not growing.  Not exactly exemplary behavior here, I know.

I am fully aware of the lesson I am suppose to be teaching.  Afterall, I chose it.  And I also know the value of knowing how to be patient in life.  But here’s where I start to mess up and just don’t give a darn: I daydream about those fresh lavender petals swimming in my bath water.  And, for me, that day can’t come soon enough.