Say it, don't spray it

I never realized how easy it is to set a bad example for a child. I guess I should have had some clue because my childhood imaginary friend, Honka, was constantly a bad influence. I distinctly remember him forcing me to misbehave and then disappearing at just the right moment so that I would have to take the blame. But now it seems that I’m the bad influence, and I have a sinking feeling that it will only get worse as time goes by.

When Suttie started blowing raspberries around six months ago, I thought it was the cutest thing ever. So, I encouraged him to do it and would prompt him by blowing raspberries of my own. Now, it’s all he does. We’re in the process of trying to elicit his first real word, with little luck. Every time I say, “Suttie, say ‘Mama,’” he looks me squarely in the eye and blows a huge raspberry. I’m beginning to think that this is a permanent condition. When he’s sixteen, he’ll walk out the door and say, “Bye Dad, bye Bbbwwffff” (which is my interpretation of what a raspberry sounds like).

At this point, we’re trying to undo some of the damage that we’ve done by telling him “no” or “that’s enough” when he gets into a particularly violent episode of mouth-blowing. It doesn’t always work. This morning, as I was feeding him breakfast, I again tried to coax the word “mama” from his lips. He responded by blowing a huge, cereal and slobber-filled raspberry right at my face. So, today we work on “mama,” and tomorrow we work on manners.

"Tell me about the rabbits, George."

“Last Saturday, we went to the Tate Farms pumpkin patch and had a blast!” At least that’s what I would have said if we hadn’t chosen to go on a 40 degree, rainy day with a 20 mph North wind. Now, it’s widely known that the O’Neals are a luckless bunch, so I don’t know why I thought things would work out any differently. Suttie spent 90% of the trip in his stroller buried beneath several layers of blankets. He was so tightly bound that he was sweating. As for the rest of us, the only liquid being expelled from our bodies was the snot that was flowing freely from our frostbitten noses.

Our first stop was the petting zoo. Do you know what will break your heart faster than a 2 lb. fluffy white bunny? Watching said bunny hanging limply in the clutches of a chubby, brown-haired girl with coke-bottle glasses whose lens could easily double as paper weights. Yeah, old Marcie (think Peanuts) had Fluffy in an unbreakable sleeper hold that could only be rivaled by Lennie Small. Fearing the safety of the other bunnies, I instinctively grabbed one to show to Suttie, putting it only close enough for him to brush with his finger tips (any closer and it would have been in danger of a fate far worse than his dangling friend). After the rabbits, we looked at the pigs and a llama. Then we came the goat pen, which we entered to let Suttie get a closer look. Immediately, a goat came up to me and started trying to eat the fringe of my scarf, upon which I said, “Listen, I know everybody likes Ann Taylor, but unless you have a piece of hay made of cashmere in that stack, you best step off.” Or at least that’s what I would have said if I wasn’t too busy saying, “Quit eating my scarf, you f*%& goat!” while standing in the middle of twenty or more impressionable youths.

However, despite the miserable weather and the goat attacks, I did learn an important lesson during our outing: a boy can grow into a man, but he will forever be captivated by excavation equipment and fire trucks. As we made our way to the car, stopping at every gratuitous photo op that presented itself, I noticed that Sutton’s eyes were transfixed on something behind me and to the right. It was an antique firetruck. For the next five pictures, I not only had to worry about capturing the attention of my restless 7 month old (whose attentions had undoubtedly returned to the squeezable quality of the bunnies), but I also had to threaten my husband with a trip to Hobby Lobby or the rental of a Matthew McConaughey movie to get him to look at the camera. Needless to say, by the end of our 20-minute trip, I went home thoroughly exhausted and showing signs of acute pneumonia.

Disclaimer: Our miserable trip was the result of our own stupidity (90% mine, 10% also mine) in picking what was basically a winter’s day to spend time outside. It is no way reflects on the quality of the Tate Farms Pumpkin Patch. In fact, despite the weather, we still had fun and got some great pictures (which was the whole reason for going).

"See, now you're glad I'm friends with Dan Satterfield."

On Saturday night, Suttie spent his first night away from home. A few days before, Sutton and I decided that we would go to Big Spring Jam to hear The Fray (translation: I decided that Sutton would come with me to Big Spring Jam because I wanted to hear The Fray). Here’s how that conversation went:

Me: “None of my girlfriends can go, so you have to come so that I won’t be abducted.”

Sutton: “If anyone abducted you, they’d bring you back pretty quickly.”

Me: “Sutton…you know they’d kill me.”

Seeing the truth in this last statement, he reluctantly agreed. Now, the only hitch was finding someone to watch our child. I called my mom, thinking that, because she has a broken foot, she probably wouldn’t want to handle a squirming, teething six-month old all night long. Wrong! I barely got out the request before she blurted out “Yes” and starting talking about buying a high chair. That kid is so spoiled.

So, the big night arrived. We took him to Mom’s around 4:00 pm so that she could have ample “awake” time with him, although she got far more of that than she bargained for. Apparently, Suttie, seeing the opportunity for getting three times the number of bottles than he usually gets, woke up every two to three hours. That kid is spoiled and smart. And this is when I learned an important fact: grandmothers have a unique talent for erasing unpleasant short-term memories of their grandchildren. As we were leaving the next day, Mom said that, since he’d gotten the first night over with, he’d be ready for next time. If I was her, I’d bolt the doors or move to Boca.

As for our big night out? It reminded me that I’m quickly reaching an age where I’d rather stay in and watch a made-for-TV movie than go out and party it up until the wee hours. Now, don’t get me wrong; we had fun. We started with dinner at Macaroni Grill, where I realized that it’s harder to get a good buzz going than it used to be. Then we headed over to the Jam to slosh through the puddles of a week’s worth of rain, where I found that I’m more uptight about ruining clothes than I was at 18. We walked around the park for a while, past hoards of teenagers who had yet to see one of the stages, thinking about days when we spent the entire weekend without ever knowing who was playing. At 9:30 pm, an hour before The Fray was set to take the stage, I started to yawn uncontrollably. At 9:35, Sutton checked his iPhone and, since he’s Facebook friends with Dan Satterfield, realized that it was about to pour. We sought shelter under the North Hall entrance and waited out the rain, staring in disbelief at the “kids” who got soaked in order to hold their front row spots. And even though I love the band, when they started to play at 10:40, I was counting down the songs and, in turn, the minutes until we were able to head home.

During the performance, we stood a few hundred yards away, at a comfortable distance from the body bumping and the speakers. About twenty minutes in, I wished aloud that we had brought our folding chairs, which we had left behind because we didn’t want to seem old. If we go next year, and that’s a big if, I’ll be toting that chair and, if I can find one, a folding footstool, too. When the band finished at 11:45, I seriously considered flagging down one of the Gator vehicles that circle the event so that I could hitch a ride to the car. At the very least, I grew to appreciate the utility of a Segway. Once we reached the car, we set our sights on Hazel Green. No bar stops for us, not even a late night Krystal run – just home…as quickly as possible. And after sharing the sentiment that we both missed our boy, Sutton and I each fell into a dreamless coma until it was time to wake up and retrieve him.

Momma who?

So, I was talking to my husband on the phone today, giving him the usual “pity me” shpeel about Suttie’s incessant teething and hellacious string of poopy diapers, when he said something that made me think. I was telling him about how Suttie had been fussy all morning and refused to nap, a serious “pity me” moment, when Sutton (that’s my husband) said, “He’s sad because the one he likes the most is the one who’s gone all the time.” Now, he said this jokingly in his characteristic “it’s funny to be a jerk” way, but there was a definite amount of truth to this statement. Suttie does prefer his father. When Sutton comes home from work, Suttie is all smiles and giggles, and his eyes visibly light up. When I come home after a 4-hour absence, he acts like I just ran out to the car for a second. He turns his head to see what the dog is barking at and then quietly resumes whatever he was doing before I arrived.

I have a friend whose child is 4 months older than Suttie, and she says the same thing: Daddy is the favorite. And we both agree that this unfair favoritism hurts our feelings. How are our kids so thick when it comes to who the most important parent is? I mean, who pushed their big heads into this world? Who hooks up a medieval torture device to her boobs four times a day so that they can eat? Who washes off and pretreats their poop-stained pajamas before doing the Mount Kilimanjaro of laundry piles? I’ll give you one guess; the word starts and ends with “m” and has an “o” in the middle. And despite this multitude of self-sacrificing, Suttie’s first word will surely be “da-da,” and Sutton will probably be the recipient of our son’s first real hug. I guess it’s par for the course. I better get used to the fact that moms are often overlooked and underestimated. They’re taken for granted because they are always there, but I think that’s also what’s so great about being a mom. If you’re doing the job right, your kids aren’t going to noticed every little thing that you do for them. If they did, that would mean that you’re not really doing enough and that, when you do finally come through for them, it’s a huge deal. So, if the choice is between being the selfless constant or the acknowledged, but fair-weather mom, then I prefer the former, and I’m sure Suttie does, too.

Postscript: Thank you, Mom, for the twenty-six years and counting of pure martyrdom.

If her name is Adrian, we're outta here!

Last weekend, my husband and I made the biggest sacrifice that a parent can make for a child besides pushing their chunky butts into this world…we went to Chuck E. Cheese. When we walked in, I expected to see a modern day version of Dante’s fifth circle of Hell, with demon children fighting each other for tokens and future Zolofters sobbing over 5 cent “rewards” that require 100 tickets more than they have. However, I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to find the place half empty and to see that the kids who were there were relatively mellow. I mean, they weren’t meditating or anything, but the fact that it wasn’t a scene from the Lord of the Flies is truly saying something. Sure there were a few kids crying about empty token cups or smaller siblings stealing their turns at Whac-A-Mole, but I expected to walk away with hilarious stories of screaming children ripping off the ticket dispensers and toddlers clinging wildly to their father’s heads like rabid spider monkeys, screaming for just one dollar more. The only highlight was one exceptionally creepy little girl with big, coke-bottle glasses who was sitting in a little red car that takes your picture with a plastic Chuck E. She sat there, motionless, for five minutes straight, hugging this lifeless rat with a smile that raised my arm hairs and seemed to suggest that Rosemary had another baby. However, we were there for over an hour and not a single child tried to climb on one of those terrifying robots that sing the same songs on a ten-minute rotation. Weak!

So, what else is new? Well, my son has started to act as all boys do…inexplicably crazy. About four days ago, he started letting out ear-piercing shrieks for no reason. Now, he’s started fake coughing and growling in addition to being a terror in a walker. For three months, I have placed him in what I refer to as the “circular walker,” which is a walker that’s attached to a small activity table so that the walker can only go around the table. Well, this walker has been my go-to for times when I needed him to stay in one place and be entertained. This all ended two days ago. As I was preparing my lecture for class, I heard a rustling sound, only to look over and find my 6 month old dragging the activity table across our living room toward the kitchen, growling all the way. My husband has since informed me that boys are just like that. As he put it, “One day, Kate, he’ll just run as fast as he can at the front door and smash into it. Or he’ll pick up a stick and jab it into the electrical box. Boys don’t think; we just do.” In related news, we spent over $500 on baby-proofing supplies this week, although I’m starting to think that it’s more about proofing the house from the baby and not the other way around.

Why don't those things have brakes?!?!

Well, Suttie is officially sleeping in his room now, and I must say with a certain amount of pride that I did not sleep in there with him - not even the first night. Yes, Suttie loves his new bed...as long as he's unaware that he's in it. But when his well-rested eyes hit that paisley bumper, you better be close by because he's just realized he's behind bars and he ain't happy. It's also amazing how quickly children are to grab the things that can be most dangerous to them in any given situation. On the first night that we laid him in his crib, I forgot to take away a fleece baby blanket that was hanging over the edge of the railing. After only a few minutes of watching him on the baby monitor, we saw him reach over and grab the blanket so that it fell over his head and face. A few moments later, I was in the backyard burning said blanket.

He's also quickly becoming a walker savant, which is exciting but also quite troublesome. As he barrels around our house, he has no regard for any of the expensive furniture that his father and I (okay, who are we kidding)...that his father worked so hard to pay for. One time, I thought I saw him take several steps backward so that he would be able to gain more force before ramming our dresser. In the happy, golden days of three weeks ago, I could put him in the walker, and he would move a couple of feet in about an hour. But these days, as soon as his weight hits that groaning nylon seat, he's chasing after me as fast as those chubby little legs will carry him. Now, for those of you who know me well, you know that, to me, being chased is nothing short of terrifying. So, here I am running and screaming, tripping past the couch and the coffee table, with Suttie hot on my heels, squealing with delight. It's become a part of our morning routine, and after about 30 minutes, with several years robbed from my life, we both need a nap. Then, after a hearty helping of mashed carrots and peas, we're back in the chase...Mommy clutching her chest in fatigue and agony, and Suttie, maneuvering those 22 lbs. as if they were only 21, roaring with a kind of laughter that can only be described as maniacal.

Oh that? That's just spit up...

Well, Thursday marked my return to the adult world as I taught my first class in nearly a year. In the days leading up to reentry, my husband warned me that it would be hard, almost unbearable, to leave Suttie for several hours and then come home to find him asleep, knowing that I had missed so much of his day. But, for the six thousand, two hundred, and eighty-third time, my husband was wrong.

The plan was for me to drop Suttie off at my mother-in-law’s house around 3:30 pm so that I could get to school early enough to make copies and, more importantly, so that I could take a few moments to psych myself up for a room full of skeptical twenty-somethings. As so often happens, we were running late – Suttie picked an inopportune moment to test the durability of his diaper, so by the time I got him and all of his gear loaded up, I only had a few seconds to toss him wildly into his grandmother’s waiting arms before I had to get back on the road.

But once I entered my office, I discovered something wonderful. I was in a room that was entirely quiet. There was no pile of laundry on the floor, no dirty bottles in the sink, no hard plastic teething toys laying around for me to trip on or jump over. No cries for food or clean diapers or attention. Just me, my thoughts, and a dilapidated poster of van Gogh’s Starry Night. And while I love my son and all the signs of his existence, I’m not ashamed to say that I breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude. In that space, I was more Kate than Mommy, more teacher than parent, and it was a fantastic feeling.

And yes, I did miss him, but I was glad for the opportunity to miss him. It was easy to leave, to teach, to be away, knowing that when I got home I would appreciate him more – and perhaps he would appreciate me more – because of the absence, not in spite of it. So, it seems that I’m in the process of merging my worlds. I work on lectures at home while watching Baby Einstein, trying hard not to incorporate a lesson with puppets, and I show up to teach in clothes with baby slobber on the shoulder carrying a bag that contains a stuffed raccoon and at least one pacifier. And I show my class pictures of my son because he’s the most important part of my world, but they’re also taking up prime real estate, and I want them to know it.