You Are

Don't Be Fooled!

Dear Simon,

Thursdays are your days. Days when I will try to capture some of the essence of who you are. I'm not sure if I should be writing this Thursday.

You are three and having plenty of three-year-old melt downs. For no particularly good reason, you insist on doing everything yourself and become frustrated. To see where you fall in the family pecking order, you try and push and end up in some sort of trouble. Then utterly insulted by your very breath you kick, scream, throw, glower, pout, or instigate a coup.

You are boy. Using the floor to cross the living room isn't enough fun so you walk on furniture and hop from piece to piece. But you aren't jumping.You are all superhero and king of muscles and picking up my heavy grocery bags. You are all sorts of big stuff.

You are the baby. Those eyes and that voice and the way you rub a cheek are weapons in your get-everything-you-want-and-whatever-else-you-can-plunder guerrilla warfare against boundaries and authority. I've been witness to the conversations about whether your intended plan is obedience or disobedience. I've heard you name the consequences for disobedience during said conversation. I've watched you weigh your options, complete your intended plan, and leave me with the dirty job of applying the consequences.  Consequences that when applied illicit such wailing and moaning as if to convince the neighbors it is all a terrible insult and surprise and a horrible threat to your very existence.

My Son, today you have stretched me. Refusing to wear underwear while moaning about diapers long given up while sitting in the front door way chewing your toenails is a pinnacle in you efforts to best me.

I'm becoming convinced that yours is a strong little spirit, a tenacious little man lives inside you. Let us grow him into one who follows his Creator closely, who will not self-destruct at the slightest frustration, who will not be a bugger to live with. Oh, it is going to take all the year's we've got.

I love you; though I'm convinced you're trying to destroy me, I love you.

Love,
Mommy

P.S. I'm checking out some new discipline books. You aren't the only one who has a will that won't be bucked too often.