Independence Day

I hadn't planned on taking Nathaniel to any fireworks display tonight. I didn't think he'd notice or care, or even know what a firework was. Halfway through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a friend called to encourage me to go out to see the fireworks. I asked Nathaniel if he wanted to and was surprised how eagerly he said yes and then how he went on to warn me that they would be loud and scary. Where does he learn this stuff?

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It was fun and I'm so glad we went. I've never really struck out on my own to do things like that...too shy, too self conscious. How will I know where to park when I get there? What should my posture look like when I'm standing around? What if people look at me? While Lexapro helps with much of this, there are still times when I am reluctant to try something new and that's where Nathaniel comes in.

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It was such a cool feeling just the simple act of pulling my car out at the end of the night, joining lines of other cars driving over the grass field down to the highway and then a long, long line of us heading back to town. It felt "grown up," while at the same time feeling nostalgic...a hundred half remembered nights driving home in the back seat from some event, windows open, summer.

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All these small rites of passage from child to adult that I'm only now beginning at 42. What an odd and interesting experience.

Frontline

Leeloo caught fleas the last time she was at the vet's. I can hear her even now, wimpering a little as she tries to scratch her itches. Earlier in the day, I vowed to go on line tonight and buy her a batch of Frontline...budget be damned. And then, oh the simple yet much appreciated gifts from the cosmos, I found half a dozen treatments of the stuff in her doggy supply box left over from some previous time I'd used it. These are the victories I measure.

The bra

One good consequence of having hubbie move out is that I now get the occasional opportunity to go shopping ALONE while he has Nathaniel. I reveled in wandering down the aisles of Walmart a few days ago, dawdling here and there. Chance brought me to the Ladies Department and I celebrated my newfound shopping freedom by trying on a pile of braziers. I wear only granny bras. It is my plight in life. Not only am I a full cup size different on each side, I have absolutely no natural "lift." Push-up bras look hideous on me, creating not rounded valleys of tempting flesh, but an unappetizing décolletage of jiggling jello.

I was delighted to find a $9.00 that fit nicely and was a little more tailored than my usual. I chose one in black and, on mad impulse, a second one in an animal print. I hesitated, wondering if that was really "me." And then I shoved it into the cart thinking "it COULD be me, I could be that person."

Still, it nagged at me. Finally, I felt compelled to show it to a friend. "It's animal print," I confessed sheepishly. "I don't know what exactly, leopard or tortoise shell maybe." She looked at it and then looked at me with pity. "It giraffe print."

I returned the bra.

Night Time Trials of an Abandoned Woman

Okay, this latest experience tops the one I had in the middle of the night during the last rain storm when the door that leads to the outside had blown open and it was actually raining ON me in my BED. I stumbled out of my dank blankets, across the wet floor to reach Nathaniel who was standing up in his bed, intermittently illuminated in the great shocks of lightening, crying "Mommy, I want to sleep in your bed! I want to sleep in your bed!" It was all pretty dramatic, yet has been topped now by just the absurd discomfort and horror endured as I awoke in the wee hours of dawn to a bed full of macaroni and cheese, spilled juice and blood from baby's nocturnal nose bleed.

The Child Catcher

During this first week of my husband's and my separation, Nathaniel and I have now watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang about 14 times. My three year old now knows it so well that we can play out the menacing Child Catcher scene together. When I'm The Child Catcher, I skip around the house in my best imitation of Robert Helpmann in the movie, brandishing lollipops in my hand.

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"Children!" I croon evilly. "Lollipops and candy! And all free today!"

Nathaniel has interpreted the character of The Child Catcher a little differently. First of all, he calls him Fuzzy Wuzzy. He doesn't find him at all scary. When he plays "Fuzzy Wuzzy," He creeps around the house calling "Children, children," but then when he finds me he simply offers me a lollipop and then merrily says "Goodbye!" before going off somewhere to eat the rest of the candy by himself.

I can't say my take on the character is "better" than his. I mean, we just have different artistic visions, no doubt equally valid. It's like William Makepeace Thackeray developing Becky Sharp as a very flawed - and often unpleasant - character in Vanity Fair, but Focus Films totally changing her into a honest, plucky and charmingly irrepressible heroine for the 2004 movie.

Koko's Kitten

What a mean thing I inadverntantly did today. We were all getting into the car for a family drive when Nathaniel insisted on getting into Daddy's car instead of mine. When I told him to get his butt into my car only laughed maniacally. "Fine," I called. "We're going in Mommy's car. See you later!" and with a merry wave, I started my engine.

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Oh, the look of horror on his face. He immediately came tearing out of the back seat yelling "No! You no leave! I scared." Then, as Daddy scooped him up and tucked him into the carseat in my car, he looked at me seriously and added "I sad." Speech patterns much like a verbal form of gorilla sign language. "Good hurry you. Candy give. Koko love kitten." Simple but completely eviscerating in getting the point across.

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Could I have felt like a bigger piece of sh*t? Here you go, kid. Your very own abandoment issue. No need to thank me.

I love Nathaniel in the morning. He always wakes up smiling and speaking with a sing song kind of lilt in his voice. "Good morning," he says over and over, grinning. So different from the little demon he becomes when his 8 PM bedtime approaches.

In the best case scenario, we retire together to read some books and he falls asleep before we're done. I should say that that is what's best for me. Popular wisdom would say, and no doubt be right, that it would be better for his sake if I allowed him to learn how to put himself to sleep. In anycase, this scenario is a pleasant one and how it goes a third of the time.

Another third of the time, we read the books but he does not fall asleep. Then, I either put up the baby gate and leave him to his own devices or I fall asleep myself, dimly aware of him roaming around the room, scattering toys, getting into my nightstand, breaking Daddy's alarm clock....

The final third of the time represents the true ying-yang, bi-polar, biorythmic extremes he can progress through between waking up and going to sleep. A day that begins with his sweet little smiles can turn, by 8 o'clock, into a nightmare of angry outbursts and irrational, contradictory demands. "I want my bike!" Okay, here's your bike. "NOOOO!!!! Don't touch it!!!"

On my Birthday last week, this process was succinctly exemplified. That morning when he very first woke up I said to him, "It's Mommy's birthday today." He was so cute. "You're birthday coming today?" he kept saying in response. Flash forward to that night. "Hey, it was Mommy's birthday today." "NOOOOO!!!!! It's NOT your birthday today! It's NOT your birthday!"

More on the family bed...

"Sometimes working parents permit (or even promote) the family bed as a way of compensating for inadequate time spent with their child during the day. Then feeling less guilty because they have nighttime togetherness, they make less of an effort to try to make time for daytime togetherness." (What to Expect…The Toddler Years)

In the list of "possible negative side effects" of sleeping en famille, this was the only one in the "What to Expect…" book that struck a surprising cord. While not intentionally replacing time spent together during the day with that at night, I recognize that I sometimes do feel like letting him sleep in our bed is an opportunity to spend a little more time with him. Add to that the calm, cute cuddliness of a toddler asleep versus a cranky toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of the Dollar Store and suddenly these nocturnal visits seem like an opportunity for some real quality time. In any case, I think the warning to not feel so satisfied with spending time asleep together that you find it easier to ignore your kid the next day is one worth contemplating.