Posts
(Pre-Script: To catch a whiff of where this post may be taking you, read is as the song, "Going the Distance," #53 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) 
(...still waiting...)
(...still waiting...)If you don't do a thing, it doesn't get done.
The sock on the floor that annoys me every time I walk by it does not magically put itself away in the middle of the night as I sleep, yet somehow I never give up hope (hope hope!) that it will be gone the next morning by the time I walk back down the hallway. Yet the next morning, when I see the sock still lying there in a foreign place where it does not belong, (unless it is still on a foot that is standing on that exact spot) I am abruptly awakened by a sense that I have been deliberately defied. I am shocked as if I have been slapped in the face.
Curses, foiled again!
...by a sock.
My 5 year old son Ethan gets undressed like some sort of creature shedding it's skin, leaving pieces of itself all over. I would have said "like a snake," but snakes are much neater about the shedding process. They at least leave their entire skin in one spot, for some happy go lucky young child, such as my Ethan, to find and carry home as a treasure, and quite possibly *dazzle* his mother with in the process.
But I digress.
Nothing about Ethan has ever been very snake like. He is much more likely the distant descendant of a kangaroo. This is why he can never leave just one neat little pile. This is why the offending sock is in a random spot where socks currently not on anyone's foot do not belong. Meanwhile, Ethan has happily bounced along to the next thing, and he is not at all bothered by any wayward socks, as the moment it left his body, it was completely erased from his consciousness. Do you hear what I am telling you, people? My own offspring, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, is definitely not mind of my mind, completely NOT bothered by that which bothers me to the point of near itchiness.
Nothing about Ethan has ever been very snake like. He is much more likely the distant descendant of a kangaroo. This is why he can never leave just one neat little pile. This is why the offending sock is in a random spot where socks currently not on anyone's foot do not belong. Meanwhile, Ethan has happily bounced along to the next thing, and he is not at all bothered by any wayward socks, as the moment it left his body, it was completely erased from his consciousness. Do you hear what I am telling you, people? My own offspring, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, is definitely not mind of my mind, completely NOT bothered by that which bothers me to the point of near itchiness.
Ahem.
So I can either remove the offending sock myself, or, more annoyingly but ultimately more important, (at least this is what I, and every parenting magazine I read, [which is none, but I catch a whiff of here and there] have been telling myself) I must remind him.
Blink
Blink
This is not easy to do, since his entire focus has been recaptured, and whatever now has his attention has completely swallowed it, and is not going to willingly give it up to anything resembling his adorable mother, especially if she is the same one who tends to tell him to do adorable things, like pick up his socks.
This is not easy to do, since his entire focus has been recaptured, and whatever now has his attention has completely swallowed it, and is not going to willingly give it up to anything resembling his adorable mother, especially if she is the same one who tends to tell him to do adorable things, like pick up his socks.
"Socks? What socks? I don't know of any socks."-so says Ethan's unconsciousness to his consciousness; for his unconsciousness DOES remember the sock, it does, it DOES!! But it does not WANT to remember, does not WANT to have to concentrate on anything beyond that with which it is currently consumed!
Yes, BUT!
After all, I am his adorable mother, and I understand this train of thought!! For I am 33, and it has taken me, yes, 33 years to derail my own train that I used to ride gleefully down that same track, back and forth, happily WOOT WOOTing along, (Okay, so I still ride the train from time to time, let's not kid ourselves.) and as such, I know that if I don't call his attention to his piles and piles of "stuff," and require him to pick it up himself...well, just imagine a fast moving freight train picking up momentum and speed as it leaves piles of junk in it's wake of dust, with a bouncing kangaroo conducting at the wheel. Woot woot indeed.
Go pick up your sock, kid.
After all, I am his adorable mother, and I understand this train of thought!! For I am 33, and it has taken me, yes, 33 years to derail my own train that I used to ride gleefully down that same track, back and forth, happily WOOT WOOTing along, (Okay, so I still ride the train from time to time, let's not kid ourselves.) and as such, I know that if I don't call his attention to his piles and piles of "stuff," and require him to pick it up himself...well, just imagine a fast moving freight train picking up momentum and speed as it leaves piles of junk in it's wake of dust, with a bouncing kangaroo conducting at the wheel. Woot woot indeed.
Go pick up your sock, kid.
-XOXO,
No comments:
Post a Comment