Perception

Last night, Cole and I were watching tv and he pointed to a Hispanic man and said, “What’s that black boy doing?” I was taken aback and responded, “Who told you he is black?”

“I don’t know”

“Well, what color are you?”

“White.” (Okay, he’s right there.)

“What color is Daddy?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

“What color is Mommy?”

“Brown.” (I would have to get a lot tanner for that.)

“What color is Chloe?”

“Pink.” (Aww, so cute.)

So I’m thinking about the perception of a 3 year old and how this funny conversation will make a good status update today. Then this morning, I started to tell Kevin the story, and Cole chimed in.

Tell Daddy what color you are. White. And what color is Daddy. White again.

What color is Mommy? He looks at me and says blue. Hmm, that’s different. And what color is Chloe? 

Pink, no, purple.

I looked down at myself wearing a blue robe and Chloe in her purple pajamas. Then I realized that Kevin was wearing a white shirt and so was Cole. And then I remembered that the man on tv last night had on a black shirt and black pants. So it hits me that my sweet boy wasn’t looking at the color of anyone’s skin but rather at their clothes. What a way to view the world. 

Johns Hopkins

Last night, Cole and I were playing in my room, and he tackled me on my bed and gave me a big kiss. Then he said, "We married!" I laughed and asked him what that meant, but he didn’t seem to know. I pointed to a wedding photo of Kevin and me that hangs above our bed and told him, "That’s when Mommy and Daddy got married." I should have anticipated the next question.

"Where I'm at?"

“You weren’t born yet.”

“But where me?”

“There was no Cole yet.”

“I was at home?”

This went on for a few minutes. Then I explained to Cole (in 3 year old terms) how Mommy and Daddy got married and then they wanted a baby, so we prayed and God put a baby in Mommy’s belly and that baby was Cole. He seemed happy about that explanation and stopped asking questions.

Shortly after, we were watching the Hopkins/Syracuse lacrosse game on DVR. (Cole’s obsession with lacrosse now has us recording college games.) I wanted to find out what he had retained from our conversation, so I said, “Cole, tell Daddy who put you in Mommy’s belly.” His answer…

“Johns Hopkins!”

Letting go

Like many working parents probably feel, we like to spend as much time as we can with our kids at night and on weekends. I wouldn't say that we are necessarily trying to make up for the lost time (although I guess that’s true, too), but we just genuinely like to be with our kids. However, this sometimes causes conflicts in our parenting.  We let them stay up later than we probably should because when you don’t get home with them until 6, it’s hard to put them to bed at 7:30. And Cole probably eats more hot dogs than he should because prepping and making and fighting with him to eat a more elaborate dinner takes time out of playing and cuddling. The other two facets of this: we don’t let our kids go many places without us, and we like to be there whenever they do something for the first time.

So when my mother-in-law asked if she could take Cole to his cousin’s birthday party at a bowling alley, I panicked. But we won’t be there. And he’s never been bowling. So we won’t be with him, and we won’t see him bowl for the first time. Irrational thoughts? Probably. But when it comes to parenting, we can’t always be rational. However, there comes a time and place when we have to set aside our hang-ups as parents and realize that it’s okay to let go. We had plans that night anyway, so it’s not as though we would be home with him. And I knew that he would have fun. So I had to be a big girl and let him go.

He was sick that day which made the whole situation even tougher, but I got him ready and packed his backpack. He definitely wasn't feeling like himself, but we had been building up this day all week, and he was determined to go. I cried a little when it was time to say goodbye and even more after he left. But he had a great time as I knew he would. And we will have many more weekends. And many more firsts. And we can take him bowling for his second time.

My big boy ready to go to the party

Funny Guy

Cole is at the age where he is really developing a sense of humor and the kid seriously cracks me up. I hope to always remember all of these one liners of his and stories he tells me, but as I’m sure I will start to forget them as time goes by, I thought I would blog about some of my recent favorites.

Said to me while in the car one day:

“I’m going to be a witch. A good witch.”

And then:

“I’m going to put you in a trash bag.”

While playing with the Virgin Mary from his Little People Nativity set:

“This is Uncle Sean.”

After I called him out for acting silly:

“I’m not crazy. I’m a man.”

Out of the blue before Christmas:

“I don’t like the holidays.”

Then another day out of the blue:

“I love Mommy. And Daddy. And Chloe. And Elmo. And the holidays.”

His new favorite saying which is a reminder that I have to be careful what I say:

“I’m just like my father.”

And my favorite recent conversation:

We were lying in my bed together, and I was wearing a World Series Phillies shirt. Cole recognizes the P when he sees it, so he said “Phillies!” Then he asked what else it said.

“World Series Champions. 2008,” I told him. “That’s the year Mommy and Daddy got married.”

“Did you wear this or princess?”

Assuming he meant did I wear the shirt or dress like a princess, I replied, “I didn’t have this shirt yet. I dressed like a princess. I’ll show you pictures one day.”

“I already saw them. Daddy showed me.”

“Oh really? Where?”

“On Facebook.”

What's it going to take?

After 9/11, I remember seeing a lot of people putting flag bumper stickers on their cars and talking about patriotism and even being nicer to each other, especially in NYC. While all that was great, all I could think was, why didn’t everyone act like this sooner? Why did we have to endure a national tragedy for our citizens to be proud of their country? And why does it take something awful like hundreds of innocent people dying to get those of us living to treat each other with kindness?

This thought occurred to me again on Friday as news broke of yet another school shooting. All day I saw posts on Facebook about how the events that happened in Connecticut made parents want to go home and hug and hold their kids. What I don’t get is… don’t you want to do this every day? Don’t get me wrong; I get it. I know that when an awful tragedy like this occurs, it makes each of us take a second to really appreciate what we have and we realize how fragile life is. But we need to remind ourselves of this all the time; not just when something bad happens. I can’t wait to get out of work every day and get to my kids. Their faces are my little piece of heaven and make me feel like I have a purpose in this world. I don’t wait until I hear about a school shooting or a kid getting abducted or a massive hurricane to love them. I smother my kids with hugs and kisses every chance I get. They hear “I love you” from me and their dad constantly.  In several years, they will be “too cool” for all of this, and I will still make sure that they never question how much they mean to me.

A Facebook friend posted that her kids’ school contacted the parents to let them know that starting this week, they were putting more security measures in place. Why did they wait until now? We have been hearing about this type of thing for years now.  I recently posted a status about the security when I had to visit a few local schools. What I didn’t comment about was the one school that I was able to walk right into. No buzzer or locked doors or anything. That is scary. Unfortunately, we live in a world where these things can’t be ignored.

And what about our teachers? I am seeing posts about how wonderful teachers are and how they should be appreciated. Shouldn’t they have been appreciated last week? Before we had to be reminded how wonderful they are by losing someone like Victoria Soto who died trying to protect her students? How about we all take the $1 we would have spent on a lottery ticket and buy a box of pencils for those amazing teachers who every year purchase supplies from their own money. Or we could stop overpaying professional athletes and put some of those millions into retirement funds for our educators. Just a thought…

Now that I’ve probably made a lot of people mad, I’m going to step down from my soap box and go home and hug my kids. Just like I do every night.   

Church Talk

I am not the most devout Christian in the world, and I don’t know everything that the Bible says, but Kevin and I were both raised Catholic, and we are bringing our children up that way, too. We try our best to attend church every week, and we are slowly teaching Cole (and one day, Chloe) about religion. He knows the Sign of the Cross (kind of) and that we take turns standing and sitting and kneeling (Catholic Olympics, as a friend calls it) and that he blesses himself with holy water when we leave. In his growing quest for knowledge, Cole threw me for a loop in church this past Sunday.

“Who is that man?” Points to the large Jesus on the cross at the front of the church.

“Jesus,” I say, hoping that is all he wants to know.

“Why is he standing there?” Hmm, good question.

“He’s on the cross.”

“What’s that stuck on his hands and feet?” Points to his own hands and feet.

“Nails to keep him on the cross.”

“Why they do that?” Oh, boy. How do I handle this one?

“Well, a long time ago, people were upset with Jesus, so they put him on a cross with nails and he died there. But he didn’t mind because he loves us. And it was okay because he woke up 3 days later and went to live in heaven with his daddy.”

“Oh. I want a donut.” End of conversation. Thank God. (No pun intended.)

I’m looking forward to many, many more questions in the future about religion and a ton of other topics that I won’t be fully prepared for. Kind of.  

How is he?

Since Chloe was born, a question that we get all the time is “how is Cole with her?” This is a relationship that was much anticipated for us, and we have found the answer to be quite simple.

He absolutely loves and adores her.

I have to admit that I was a bit worried about issues like jealousy or my rough little boy not knowing how to be gentle with a baby. Yes, sometimes he wants to be picked up when I’m holding her. “You can have 2,” he likes to tell me. And sometimes he thinks it’s funny to poke her in the face or try to pick her up. But while these things do come up, I couldn't be happier about how sweet and loving Cole is towards Chloe. And she just adores him. Everything he does makes her smile and stare and now she has started actually laughing out loud at her big brother. It’s the best sound in the world. I know that as the years go on, there will be plenty of fights, but I hope that they will always love each other as much as they do now.

Meeting- Love at 1st sight!

He loves giving her kisses.

She loves looking at him.

She thinks her big brother is pretty funny.

And a little bit of torture.