Lest you think that I have perfect, angelic children (I was surprised to find that my dear friend Christy was actually under that impression during her most recent visit! She was relieved to discover that Judah is in many ways a typical four-year-old boy--and I become, on many days, a typical, over-tired, frustrated mom), I must share with you a few stories from this week about Judah, My Judah.
Judah gave himself a haircut on Friday. He found some scissors, locked himself in his room, and proceeded to cut his hair. Then, he started on the fur of his stuffed animals. He was working on the necktie of a bear when I walked in. "Aghast" is the first word that comes to mind.
Scanning the room, I noticed the necklace that Amanda gave me for being a bridesmaid in her wedding lay on the floor in two pieces. I started to cry. I went in the bathroom to collect myself (so I didn't blow up at Judah). He came in and tried to comfort me by assuring me it wasn't broken. Right.
I told him to go to bed (mostly to protect himself from getting into more trouble). James went up and dealt with it while I cooled off and found the vacuum. The next hour was spent trying to get the mess cleaned up. What a mess. What made it worse is that I was PMS-ing and didn't realize it.
Later that night, I put Judah in the tub and tried to fix his hair a bit. He had a couple long pieces of hair left, which I snipped off and tried to contain by doing it in the bathtub. When I asked him to change clothes, he got pretty upset. He even made a fist. I asked him what he was planning to do with it, and he started to snicker a little bit. I thought we were going to be able to laugh through it, but then he hit me in the face. Not hard, but just enough for me to react. And react I did.
At the risk of sounding like a total child-abuser, (I'm being REALLY transparent here), I smacked him back. I didn't even think about it. We were in each other's space, and as soon as I felt his hand on my face, I swung at him. Hard. He fell on the floor, crying. I just sat there, in shock, for a few minutes. He got up, went into his room, put on some new clothes, and waited.
I walked in and kneeled down in front of him. Our conversation went something like this:
"Judah, are you angry with me?"
He shakes his head "No."
"Do you think that Mommy made the right choice?"
He shakes his head "No" emphatically.
"Do you think that Mommy could have made a better choice?"
He shakes his head "Yes."
"Do you think that you could have made a better choice?"
He shakes his head "Yes."
I apologized for hitting him and asked if he was ready to make it right with me. He said that he was sorry for hitting me, too. We embraced. I wept. Before we left the room, we were both laughing.
Later, in the laundry room, I sat him on my lap and said, "Judah, even though sometimes you make bad choices, no matter what how bad they are, you know what?" And he responded with the sweetest smile, "You still love me."
"That's right. And I will always love you. No matter what."
Which reminds me, I received a letter today from my incarcerated 29-year-old cousin who has a son the same age as my daughter (they're only four months apart). He's serving time while his mom raises his son. If you have any desire to write to him, I'll gladly give you his address. He wrote me back the same day he received my letter. He thrives on outside communication.
Back to Judah . . . I heard from his most recent babysitter that he tricked her into letting him watch The Pirates of the Caribbean. When she got a clue that he wasn't allowed to watch it yet (something he said about not being scared), she turned it off. Last night, he was chanting in the car, "Captain Jack Sparrow" over and over again. He said to his daddy, "Did you know that Captain Jack rescued a lady even though she wasn't a pirate?"
At least two days in a row, Judah reminded me that he had watched The Pirates of the Caribbean and wasn't scared at all. Never mind that he doesn't like to sleep in a room without a grown-up. Yeah, we won't mention that.
The same day he watched part of the movie, he dropped his food on the floor when Mary offered him some lunch. When she asked, "Why did you do that?" He said, "Because I didn't like it." The next day (or maybe it was that day after that), he was telling Miriam that he had more tea in his mug than she had in hers. Whenever that kind of thing happens, he gets whatever he's comparing taken away from him, so James took his tea and dumped out most of it. Judah stood there and cried for a minute before he turned it upside down and let the rest of it spill on the floor. I couldn't believe it. I don't remember him ever doing anything like that.
Incidentally, I feel as though I'm living with a different kid when he's had a lot of "screen" time, and he's had more screen time in the past two weeks than in the past six months combined. First, he watched several movies at Miss Paula's house while we were in the Bahamas because she was trying to get her house renovations completed. He also watched movies at Mary's, at Grace Center, and at a yard sale last Saturday. After the yard sale, he started saying "I hate you, Daddy," or "I hate (fill-in-the-blank)." I'm 100% sure it was something he picked up on the cartoon he was watching at the friend's house where the yard sale was being held. After a couple conversations about it, he played with the phrase for a day or two before he finally quit saying it.
I thought that maybe he was just in need of more "Mommy time" until I realized that he had so much screen time, and then I remembered a conversation I had with some farmer friends about how their son behaved after watching even 30 minutes of a simple show. Another friend said the same thing about her children. We've all found a direct correlation between screen time and deviant behavior.
Regardless of the cause, I do know that more Mommy/Judah time is necessary to get us back on track. Judah thrives on reading together, cuddling, positive encouragement (words of affirmation), imaginative play, storytelling, and letting him help me. I try to be cognizant of those needs and incorporate them into whatever we happen to be doing.
Today, while driving to Target to pick up toilet paper, I agreed to tell a story about a brave knight, a beautiful princess, and a fire-breathing dragon. Sometimes it's just easier to say no, that I'm too tired, that I don't have the energy, that I'm trying to focus on something else . . . . Today, however, I forced myself to go there. Pleased with the twists on the story (a blind princess with a keen auditory sense who heard the dragon's breath, warned the knight, and co-rescued the kingdom when the dragon stepped on the sword like a thumback and whimpered back to his cave to nurse his wound), I got to the end and realized that it didn't take as much energy as I originally thought. Judah was thrilled.
Tonight, I feel as though I have my Judah back. Is he an angel? No. But he's unbelieveably fabulous. Oh, and he and Miriam sat quietly through Lipscomb's beautiful production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat this afternoon. Well, Miriam did try to sing along toward the end, but other than that, they were fantastic.
Before putting Judah to bed, I read him a couple of Bible stories. When we were done, he asked while sitting on my lap, "What is the name of the first character I'll play on stage?"
"I have no idea, Judah."
"Mommy, just guess."
That boy is just itching to be on stage--just like his mama.
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