Raising Boys

Perhaps it's related to the fact that there are a couple of slightly older boys in F's preschool class, but my darling boy has officially decided that he can no longer sit down to pee. I'd be completely unbothered by the whole thing, but F has also decided that he needs me to show him how and without giving you a mental picture of what that attempt at a teachable moment looked like, I can tell you it's not going to happen.

It's moments like these that I find myself especially frustrated with our situation. As if being a single parent isn't hard enough by itself, the simple fact is that boys and girls sometimes need an older member of the same sex to show them things. I can't imagine how awkward it would have been to ask my father feminine questions growing up. Actually, I can but I think it would have led ol' Papa Bear to a stroke so I'm especially glad I didn't have to get into bras and tampons and all that jazz. Standing up to pee is pretty small on the list of things that F will need help with in his life, but it felt as big as a mountain when he asked me to do it.

By gently explaining that boys and girls are built differently, I managed to help him understand that I cannot show him but I said I'd be there if he needed some help. I asked what he thought he should do, and he managed OK except that he missed the toilet and somehow managed to pee on everything else in my bathroom. But, we celebrate the small victories here, too, so with a change of his clothes and a quick trip to the laundry room with my bath mats, we were ready to try again. And try again we did, with much more success and better aim. (Hooray!)

The challenges in raising a little boy as a bit of a girlie girl are just beginning, and I know that. I feel especially fortunate that F's preschool class has a male teacher - a positive male role model who he can learn from and hopefully turn to. I'm lucky to have a group of male friends who I can turn to for advice when needed, and I'm lucky in that the boy stuff is less gruesome than the girl stuff as things move forward from here.

But, challenges lie in being a single mum with a boy in other ways. It's the moments when I need a few moments to do chick stuff that F is convinced that he desperately needs to be beside me. It's as I change my clothes or put on a bra or he asks why girls have to sit down to pee that I realize we might be hitting the age where F and I just can't do those things together, and it's tricky. I can't lock the bathroom door when I head into the shower. I can't tell him to wait outside the stall as I use a public washroom. I also have to gently explain that no, he cannot paint his nails when Mommy does. It's a learning curve. (And sometimes I let him have non-shiny clear polish on his toes, just because.)

Yesterday's pee-splosion all over my bathroom taught me that, although it might get messy, letting F take the reins and taking a step or two back is the only way we can make it through some things. It's really hard to accept that F and I might be coming to the end of our baths together. Pretty soon, I'll even have to put my foot down over the whole co-sleeping thing, too. But there are some things we can't avoid, so we'll have to learn how to make them work.

And make them work, we will.

Mommy Fear

Earlier this week, I had a big heart-to-heart with F.

It went something like he was eating a bag of pretzels and staring at me while I poured my heart out to him and essentially apologized for being a sub-par Mommy these past few weeks. (I'd get into the whole past, um, his entire toddlerdom but we'd still be in that conversation and I'd feel even worse and he'd have fallen asleep on me anyway.) Whether he understood it or not, we had a hug and a kiss and exchanged a couple of I love yous before he went back to whatever he'd been doing and I stayed exactly where I was just watching him.

I'd always imagined that Mommy was something that just came to you.

The first day of the hardest job I've ever had.

I was wrong. Being Mommy is as much a learning experience as anything else I've ever done in my life, if not more. It's a combination of skills, understanding and a relationship to boot. It requires cultivation, and you are bound to make a million mistakes along the way. I know I have. I made at least one hundred in the past month. I love F, but being a Mom hasn't always been easy for me. Sometimes, I fear that I'm doing it all wrong. I don't want to screw him up.

My impatience combined with my anxiety and Type-A personality made for a tough couple of weeks while F and I were settling into the changes that had happened in our lives. In an effort to do what I thought was best for him, I sent us both reeling backwards - hurt and sad and afraid. I found myself raising my voice and losing my temper when he did that thing toddles do sometimes, defy me. I found myself getting angry and frustrated when I should have been asking him what was wrong. I argued back, instead of explaining why my decision was final.

And even knowing I've done it, I can assure you I will do it again.

In frustration or anger, in tiredness or a rush, my patience and my better judgment will escape me and I'll be that sub-par Mom again - if only for a few moments. Friday morning alone was a test. An hour of trying to wake F up meant we were a whole hour late for his daycare drop off. It meant cutting the things I had hoped to do out of the picture in spite of the mile-long list of things needing doing before 5pm today. It meant that F had a less than awesome breakfast, which he ate in the car, and that I went for a run on an empty stomach and to work with undone hair. We got home with a week behind us, but with no energy left. I snuggled up next to him in bed last night at 8:30 pm, and we didn't get up until after 9am.

For every stressful time, there's a moment like this to wash it away.

 

Today, I vowed I'd be a good Mom. I made homemade buttermilk pancakes and didn't freak out over the toys all over the floor. I made it until about noon before I found my patience beginning to disappear. By the time we'd finished running our Saturday afternoon errands, I was frazzled to the ends of the earth and had the frizzy hair to show for it. Protip: AVOID BAYER'S LAKE ON SATURDAYS. Don't even ask, just listen (see what I did there - momism).

Today was a day when I sat in the driver's seat of my car with that sinking feeling that I'm doing it all wrong, until I glanced in my rear view mirror. Smiling at me, F patted his new (big boy booster seat style) car seat and said "Thank-you for buying me this car seat, Mommy".

Maybe I'm not doing it all wrong.

Racing

I try hard to be patient.

Really. I do. I take deep breaths and count to ten and I've been known to even do it backwards (someone once told me that helped). But I'm not. It's just not my nature. It always shocks me when someone tells me I'm patient, because I'm as impatient as they come. Seriously. Ask my mother about the time I learned to skate.

I defied my own impatience tonight when I realized exactly how ridiculous it was that I was holding my hair dryer in front of the canvas I'd been painting. I put the heat styling tool down and started to laugh. And then cry. And then that awful hybrid of laughing and crying where your face contorts and any beauty you have is totally hidden by your ugly-cry/laugh and you're suddenly incredibly thankful that you're totally alone.

I was in such a hurry to finish that painting that I couldn't wait for the paint to dry.

But it got me thinking: what else am I rushing through? I was in such a hurry to get my career started that I missed more than half of my diploma program. I was in such a hurry to be a grown-up that I left my childhood behind. I drive so fast I miss the scenery, eat so quickly I miss the flavours and I sometimes fill my days with so much that I don't even have a chance to enjoy them.

I'm racing my own life away.

I have no time for a learning curve. I expect myself to start out at expert-level in every skill I try my hand at. When I don't, I tend to give up because it's easier than taking the time to cultivate it. I half-ass things because I don't have the time - read: patience - to do it to the best of my ability. (Unfortunately for my floors and luckily for everything else in my life this generally applies to cleaning more than anything else. Oh, and folding my clothes.)

I put F's hat on his head and carry his stuff because it's more time-efficient than letting him have that bit of independence that he so needs. I rush him through the moments that he's savouring because I'm too busy racing towards the next moment instead of just letting it be.

Have you done it? What's your secret? How do you become more patient? Can you recommend a quick fix (kidding... kind of)?

In the past month, a lot has changed for F and I and I've been rushing to fix it, scrambling to rebuild and replace and rewhatever I can. But why? He's happy. I'm happy. Things are different but they're good. Maybe I should just let them be good instead of stressing that they're not perfect. Maybe I should be patient and let myself figure shit out.

Life takes time, and it takes it as quickly or as slowly as it so chooses. We can't control even half of it. Why not enjoy it, learn from it?

I'm looking forward to the weekend. A long weekend. And I'm looking forward to taking off my watch, wiping my schedule clean and letting each moment linger or race as it will while I enjoy every. single. one.

Patiently.