Carbon Copy

It's been so long since I blogged, I'm almost afraid I've forgotten how. I get so caught up in the everyday tasks of life that I forget how much I need to remember.

Jonah is a walking talking social butterfly of a boy who is so fierce it makes me want to scream and hug him at the same time. We'd thought vaguely about potty training him . . . I'd like to get it done before school starts again. When I walked in to his room the smell of poop hit me in the face and before I said a word he told me, "I don't need a diaper change!" Oh my little guilty and stubborn child! I reminded him that his bottom would get burned if he didn't get a diaper change soon, to which he replied, "I want to sit in the poop. I want my bottom to get burned." What do you say? What do I say when he tells me that he's not a big boy, Joshua is the big boy. Jonah is a baby. When he really is still my baby? Only babies don't wear underwear, only big boys wear underwear. I tried that, it didn't work.

Joshua seems to be . . . well, status quo might be the right word for it. I know that he's growing since his clothes fit differently and he takes up the whole bathtub now, but his classmates and friends are all so much bigger than he is that I wonder why he hasn't grown in the last few years. When the other kids are running outside and playing tag, or climbing onto the top of the fort, why is Joshua alone in the living room reading a book? Why can't he be more like . . . well, more like me? I want so badly for him to fit in, to be the cool kid, to have the answers when the teacher asks . . . and I can't do any of it for him. And I can't stand around and coach him as to what to say or do, because it's something he has to figure it out on his own. I just never imagined that he'd come up with different answers than me. I never imagined that he'd end up being his very own little person. So I hug him tightly and whisper in his ear how wonderful and how special he is. He seems to already know this, which is good.

I've enrolled Joshua in swimming lessons this summer. It's his first summer for them . . . he'll be five. What kind of swim coach am I that my son is almost 5 years old and can't swim, right? I'm hoping for him to not be scared, to not cry, and to be the best and bravest in the class. At the same time, I don't want to set him up for failure and make my expectations so high he'll never reach them. Will my desires show? My frustrations? I hope not . . . I'm working on it. Letting him be himself and not my carbon copy.

Jonah might well be my carbon copy in some ways. I'm coming to realize that it's not all it's cracked up to be, since he's so fiercly independent and stubborn. I'm reluctantly admitting that he gets it from me. If I open his cheese stick, he has to put it back and pretend to do it himself. If I lift him out of the car he has to climb back in just to get out on his own. If Tim buckles his carseat but he wanted mama to do it . . . watch out world. If the birds fly too close to the backyard he runs out yelling his reprimands. And then after all of it he turns his chubby cheeks toward me, looks into my eyes and wraps his arms around my neck and it's all worth it. Every impossible minute.

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