Sweet Successes
It is my blessing to watch Adam change every day. He is so funny. Every time someone calls me on the phone and he thinks that I am not paying attention, he sneaks away and tries to find some trouble. One day last week, I hung up the phone and found him throwing a stuffed animal up and down the stairs. Adam loves to watch things fall. Since I know that this compels him, I sometimes blow up balloons and let him launch those anywhere he pleases. The rule we’ve made is that only the balloons–nothing else ever—can be thrown in the house. Adam hates this rule. Years ago now, Adam decided to launch an office chair down the stairs and broke one of the spindles on our staircase. Yesterday, he snuck away while I was helping one of the girls at the kitchen table and I found him launching himself down the stairs, head first, on his belly, wrapped in a blanket, using his hands to assert minimal velocity control. As I am sure that he hasn’t learned his lesson about that one yet, I can unfortunately predict that one day next week I will likely get a picture of him in the process (just for the record) before I throttle him.:)
Anyway, when I caught him throwing the stuffed animal the other day, I reminded him of the rule and told him to stop. Even though Adam had to have expected this, he was livid. I am fine with livid until livid turns into a tantrum, at which point I have to remind Adam that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to express his feelings. After we went through several rounds of how-to-express-your-anger lessons, Adam calmed down. The girls were watching their one and only movie choice of the day, which was actually one I thought Adam would really enjoy. I went upstairs to fold some laundry. Two minutes after I started folding the towels, I heard Adam throwing that stuffed animal again. Compelled or not, my son is extremely smart, and he had to have known I would hear that stuffed animal’s glossy plastic eyes smacking the hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs. This time, I was livid. I took ten breaths and went to the stairwell, where Adam was preparing to launch the bear yet another time. I grabbed the bear, threw it in the laundry room, and turned to make eye contact with my son.
“No throwing toys, Adam,” I said, steel in my voice. In the face of direct disobedience, I gave him three solid smacks on his rear and sat him on the bench at the top of the stairs. The girls were watching their movie, and I went back in my room to finish folding the towels. Adam was alone on the bench in the hallway, and he knew better than to move before I dismissed him. A few minutes later, I rounded the corner, towels in hand.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” Adam said mournfully. It’s the first time Adam has ever verbally apologized for anything without being told to do so. I was thrilled, not just that he had apologized, but that he had done it so clearly and so sincerely. Ahh, sweet successes. There aren’t words to express all the joy that just fills me up in those moments.
I sat down with Adam on the bench and talked to him a bit before sending him back downstairs. He went down and sat in his chair next to the girls and watched the movie. He was fine until the movie ended five minutes later and he realized, as the girls turned off the TV, that he’d missed the whole thing. Then he said with some frustration, “Bye movie! Bye bye TV!”
On Saturdays, the kids wake me up. It’s my one day to sleep in, and I am usually dead-to-the-world when they walk in around 7. Fortunately, they have the good grace to give me that long.:) Usually, it’s just the girls who wake me up. Adam is almost always already downstairs playing with something. Sometimes, he’s still in his room reading books, playing with his remote control bumper cars, or plunking coins in the bank Uncle Scott and Aunt Monica gave him for Christmas. It usually feels that our arrival on the scene is secondary in importance. This morning, about five minutes after Riley walked in my room (“Mom, are you going to come downstairs and make the coffee?”) followed by Zoe (“Mom, it’s morning time. Can you come downstairs?”), Adam walked in and climbed up on the bed beside me. He leaned down, pressed his nose against my cheek (I still had my eyes closed at this point:)), and said, “Kitchen?” I opened my eyes, wrapped my arms around my son, and squeezed.
As Kevin later observed, it seems my son is getting addicted to all of this quality time we’re spending together.
