Confessions

I am so tired of being touched! Paulo's sick. Massive ear infection, severe pain all night Sunday and all morning Monday until we got into the pediatrician and she gave him a dose of the hard stuff-Tylenol with hydrocodone. That finally took the edge off the pain. He's been out of school for over a week. The cold that preceded the infection kept him out last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It's been a really rough week! My sweet boy is very affectionate, I love that about him. He will sit and snuggle with me, he has this thing about earlobes, he like to play with them. He always has, he used to do it when he was nursing, I assumed he'd outgrow it, nope. I suspect that he'll be doing that someday to his wife! But when he's sick it all gets amplified. I feel like I'm being touched 24/7! I know he needs me, I know he's my sweet baby, and really overall I'm fine but sometimes I just need to vent. Phew...feel better now!

You know, sometimes you just need to get it off your chest, so now when he wakes up I can let him sit on my lap and play with my earlobes! But while I'm at it, I'd like to clear the air about play. I play with my boy A LOT! Always have. I do not have memories of my Mom getting down on the floor and playing Barbies with me, somehow being the youngest of 4 I suspect that did not happen. I do have memories of story time and playing pretend make up, we'd give each other make overs with our fingers, good times. Anyway, I have always made a point to play with Paulo. I could play board games, Uno, Go Fish or ping pong until the cows came home but I really do not enjoy playing cars! I used to, I did. But that was back when all we had to do was make motoring noises and drive around in circles and he was happy. Now he wants me to reenact scenes from the movie Cars. And create new scenes from it that involve Sally renting a cone to Chick Hicks, but only after Sally has scolded Chick for being so mean and he's promised never to be mean again...over and over and over....His all time favorite thing to do though is to play "Pretend People". Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that he embraces imaginative play, but I'm his preferred playmate for pretend people. For the last three days I have been Captain Gantu from Stitch, The Movie, and he's Stitch. But it's a mix up, he's Stitch but he's still the one making me sandwiches. If you've seen the sequel to Lilo and Stitch that might make sense to you, there's a sandwich making "cousin" of Stitch...anyway, I'm the big Captain and he's Stitch making me sandwiches, egg salad to be precise. His creative license though allows him to make them toasted with eggplant and dressing! Mmmm good! I do get to the point where I have to tell him we're taking a break. I get tired of being called by every name other than MOM! I worked too hard to get that boy to not be called Mom. This too I thought he would outgrow, but he hasn't. He loves it. I tell him I am going to enroll him in a kid's theater class and he gets nervous about that. Says he'd be too shy, which I frankly think is a crock, the boy does not have a shy bone in his body! So someday my friends you may see that boys name up in lights on Broadway! He really would do well in a theater class, there are two local groups that I know of that do offer classes for kids his age. I really need to get him in there to try it out. I think it would be great for him to be around peers that play pretend as much as he does, and as committed to it. He's made himself cry before! Freaked my mother in law out, cause at that moment she was playing the supportive role to him. She'd crushed his sandwich, she was Pinky Dinky Do and he was somebody he'd seen on that show. He started to cry about the sandwich. She vowed never to play pretend people with him again. The boy's got skills!

Overall his endearing qualities far, far, FAR outweigh the frustrations of parenting. He's a great kid. He's funny. He's smart. He's loving and empathetic. I'm a lucky Momma.