Most days I wonder if anything I say is getting through to David. Usually I talk, and his eyes glaze over.
But today– proof that some things sink in.
We ate lunch at one of those western-themed steakhouses that give you big buckets of peanuts to snack on. David loves to crack open the shells, and fill up on the contents so he’s not hungry when his food arrives.
He was scarfing down peanuts, and neatly collecting the shells on a napkin.
“David, you know you’re supposed to just throw those on the floor here.”
His head snapped up from the kiddie menu he was studying, and he looked at me incredulously. “What?”
“The peanut shells. You don’t have to do that. You can just throw them on the floor.”
“Huh?” With a confused look on his face he looked down at the worn wooden floorboards.
Silence.
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David looked up. “Throw them on the floor?” he asked suspiciously like he thought I was trying to trick him.
“Yeah. It’s OK. You can do that here. See?” and I tossed a shell down.
When I did that I saw something flicker in David’s eyes. That flicker was the realization that the truth he’d based his entire life on had just been irrevocably altered.
Think about it.
Here was his mother who is always telling him, “Don’t spill that! Don’t get cookies crumbs everywhere! Take you shoes off when you walk on the carpet! Wash your hands! CLEAN YOUR ROOM!” throwing what was essentially trash on the floor. And she was saying it was OK.
With disbelief still registering on his face David gingerly picked up one peanut shell. Slowly he placed his hand down at his side, let go of the shell and it fell to the floor with a plink. He kept looking at me the entire time, half waiting for me to freak out and reprimand him for making a mess.
But no reprimand came, and soon he was tossing peanut shells over his shoulder and left and right like a pro.
I guess David was listening to me all along. And here I thought I was wasting my breath. Beating my head against a wall.
So to all you moms out there who keep wondering, “Does it even matter if I repeat this again for the 557th time?”
Yes.
Yes it does.
That 557th time might one be the one time they actually pay attention.
You just never know.
Until you tell them to throw peanut shells on the floor.
Have you even been shocked to discover that your kids actually listened to something you told them?
I write on here all the time about David’s antics. And sometimes about how crazy he makes me.
But he really is a pretty good kid.
He also has a very big, soft heart for all his bravado. He can be so loving, and even quite sensitive and caring. He’ll just stop in the middle of playing and say, “Mommie, I love you!” Earlier today he told me I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
David did something really sweet a while ago. Something that, at first, I didn’t really appreciate enough. One day he used my cookie cutters to make four little hearts out of Play-dough.
One for him, one for Daddie, one for Mommie and even a tiny one for Wade. Then he took the hearts and placed one on each of our night tables. He told us to leave them there so they would dry.
Today he he reminded us of the little hearts he made. He’s so proud of them. And suddenly I realized how special those little hearts are. He made those for us with love. All on his own. No prompts from me or anyone else. He was actually thinking about us. If you’ve ever dealt with a four year old, you know they don’t have that many unselfish thoughts.
I now count those Playdough hearts as among some of the most prized possessions in our home. Mine will stay on the nightstand. One of the first and last things I see when I get up and go to bed at night.
It’s so precious to know I have my little guy’s heart.
And, of course, he has mine.
Most of us have little bits and pieces that we’ve collected and held on to over the years; souvenirs, scrapbooks, an old favorite T-shirt. I’ve got a few boxes filled with things like that up in the attic. I guess I hold on to it all for sentimental reasons. I doubt my children will actually want the ticket stub from my first visit to the Sears Tower in six grade. Even though I’ve kept these things, most of them I could part with pretty easily if I had to.
One keepsake I have that I do cherish is the china tea set from my childhood. I don’t recall exactly what, but it was a reward for some skill I mastered. I remember going to the store with my mom to pick it out. I think I was about four, so it must be almost 30 years old. I’m kind of proud of the fact that after all these years the entire set is still intact, save one missing plastic spoon.
I keep it in a little cabinet on the wall. (O.K. That’s a little dusty, isn’t it? Good thing this isn’t a post about housekeeping.) I hoped to pass it on to my own daughter someday. Well, the daughter hasn’t come along yet, but David started begging me a year ago to play with it. I said no, of course terrified that he’d break it, and because I wasn’t sure boys should have tea parties.
David asked again the the other day to play with it. I was feeling a little guilty about the lack of attention he’s received since Wade arrived. I thought sitting down with him to have a tea party would be some good one on one time, and maybe a chance to teach a few table manners. It made his day when I told him he could play with my precious little dishes.
Tea parties with boys aren’t quiet the same as with girls. There were no dolls or teddy bears for guests. But we were joined by an imaginary E.T. And David’s idea of setting the table for tea was, in typical boy fashion, to initially line up all the little cups and plates in a neat row.
We sipped water, and string cheese was our main course.
David had fun pouring water from the little pot. We sat and talked. Mostly about E.T. I don’t know that he learned many manners, but he had a good time. And nothing got broken.
You can see above that the dog also joined us. She wanted in on the cheese action.
As we sat there with our little cups of water, I wondered if someday David and I wouldn’t sit again at the same table. Only he’d be grown, and we’d talk over mugs of steaming coffee. Perhaps Wade would join us too. The conversation might be about the antics of their own children.
For now the dishes are tucked away, safely back in their cabinet, waiting to come out again for another special day when David and I need to just slow down and talk over a cup of water.
My 34th birthday was today. I spent most of it resting on the couch and napping, trying to get over a cold.
David was with my mother-in-law. She let him stay over last night and kept him most of today since I was sick. My husband wasn’t able to be home tonight, so when I went to pick David up this evening and she took us out for dinner.
Someone else at the restaurant was having a birthday too, and the staff came out and sang to them. Well, it didn’t take much for David to put two and two together. He informed our waitress that it was my birthday also, and insisted that someone had to sing to his Mommie. Before I knew it, I was being serenaded.
Being sung to in a restaurant full of people really isn’t my thing, but David loved it.
I had a birthday cake and candles at home that my mother-in-law brought over the day before. So when David and I got back after dinner he told me we had to have cake. He put all the candles on the cake. There weren’t 34, but there were a lot. I lit them, and he sang Happy Birthday to me. Then he blew out the candles.
My little boy singing Happy Birthday to me all by himself was pretty sweet. What a great memory.
I was playing with my 3 year-old son this morning when suddenly he grabbed my face between his hands, pulled it close to his and with a big grin on his face said, “Mommie, you ice cream!” Then he stuck out his tongue and licked my cheek. Nothing has ever been so sweet and so gross at the same time.
