To my surprise, I suddenly wished he could find a friend who loved him that much.
My son is such a sweet little boy. He tries so hard to make friends at parks and everywhere we go. And it has been quite a learning experience moving here and realizing how important his friends are to him. He's had a few experiences with mean kids that have first broken my heart and then made me SO proud of my confident little boy. I think I've written about a few of them before, but the last one was different:
We were in the pharmacy waiting for some medicine to be ready for Lily. A little girl of about 7 or so was there with her mother. She liked Lily (who wouldn't?) and liked to give her things to make her happy, talk to her, clap her hands, and just smile at her. But she disapproved of Jack's exuberance and his way of running around and singing to entertain himself. She rolled her eyes at him many times and said "Oh! He is SO annoying!" but it had no effect on him. She got bolder and told him to his face "You are annoying everyone here!" And that hit home. He crumpled and cried on the floor. I kept shaking or nodding my head at him, trying to be encouraging but I wonder if maybe he thought I was saying the little girl was right?
Her mother was mortified, gave her daughter a stern lecture in another language and picked Jack up and brought him to me and put him on my lap (I would have picked him up myself but Lily was in my lap!). I held him and told him I loved him and he wasn't annoying me. I told him I liked watching him run around and I thought he was very cute. I told him that other people thought he was cute, too, and that one of the grownups had even told me so. And he looked up at me with wonder, and stopped crying. I told him that if any grownups were annoyed, then they just looked away, and that's what anyone should do if they're bothered by anything. And he was back to normal! He ran and skipped and danced and sang, and Lily did too :D
We passed the little girl once and Jack told her "If you're annoyed you need to just look away!" And she tried to hard to roll her eyes at him but he was past her and never saw.
A woman approached me to tell me how wonderful she thought my children were, and as she walked away I told Jack what she had said and he just wriggled and squeaked with joy.
That was the first time I've ever seen anyone be able to hurt Jack's feelings (outside of his immediate family). He's had kids be mean to him before at it was as if he didn't even hear them. Part of it, I think, is just part of growing up, noticing and desiring the approval of others. But I also think I need to work on how I praise him; give encouragement for how he acts and what he thinks, praise accomplishments less. I would love if he could somehow manage to grow up without worrying about whether the world approves of his actions and instead focus on whether God approves of his character.
So here's a tribute to my Jack, a little over a month after his fifth birthday:
He loves to look at the pictures in books, but he loves even more to have books read to him. He still loves the Narnia books, so much so that we bought the audiobooks and he listens to them in the car every time we drive anywhere. He loves Lily to pieces, still, and they play together every day. He teaches her how to play with his toys, and he covers her with blankets and plays peekaboo with her. He hides with her and tells her to be quiet so they can hide from me, and shrieks with joy when I find them. He gives me rubs on my feet and arms and wipes away his slobber when he gives me kisses on my arm. He loves to play games and can play, understand, and even win games rated for 8-year-olds (as long as they don't require reading).
He is finding the happy medium between always doing what Lily wants, and resisting so that she can learn that she doesn't always get what she wants. (As in, if she's taking something out of his hand, should he let her have it to make her happy, or should he keep it so she learns not to take things from people?) He loves to help her be happy by bringing her toys or books she loves when she's sad (in the middle of a diaper change or getting strapped into the car). He loves to cuddle her when she wakes up, and is pretty good at not getting his feelings hurt when she wants him to stay back until she's fully awake. He loves to tell other kids on the playground that she's his little sister.
He resists being taught to read; one night he was fussing b/c I told him that I needed to get everyone ready for bed as soon as I had completed a task, and he wanted me to read to him before we went to bed. I told him I could give him a lesson in reading if he wanted to, or we could get ready for bed. He chose bed! But no matter how much he resists being formally taught, he is picking up reading skills: he knows almost all the letters and the sounds they make, he can recognize a few short words and he is VERY good at finding words by the letters they begin with, and he can read symbols and pictures. If he sees a list of picture instructions, he loves to "read" it to you: "Step one: set up the walls. Step two: put icing on the roof. Step three: put candies on the icing. Step four: all done!"
I have not tried to formally teach him any math, but he knows how to count past 10 and add and subtract one. He can also add two reliably and he's starting to add three and four to small numbers (lower than 5). Today when we played a board game, he was splitting up every five he encountered into two and three, and he split a few sixes into two threes as well. (I hope that wasn't too confusing!) He told me almost a year ago "Mommy, two twos is four!" and has never forgotten that. He recognizes the symbols for numbers, and is starting to recognize all six faces of a die ("a die" as in what you roll when you're playing a board game, the plural of which is "dice") without having to count the dots every time.
He loves to learn about how the body works, and is always happy when I find books about the body at the library. Like mother like son? He also loves to play computer games, but that is such a universal trait in children that I can't really blame Tim! He's allotted an hour a day and I am so pleased at how well he budgets his time. He plays while I nurse Lily down for her nap, and as soon as I come out from my room he logs out and we play games and read books until Lily fusses for me. If his hour runs out and I still haven't come out, he plays quietly or comes softly into my room and just lays and cuddles; he occasionally falls asleep there but only if he hasn't had enough sleep the night before or if he's sick. He really is old enough now to not need a nap; he doesn't even fall asleep in the car most of the time.
He can reliably watch his sister on a playground for a minute or two, long enough for me to run to the car to grab a toy or shoes. I know this b/c I've tested him a couple of times! He can also watch her in our front yard, but only for a short time, and he gets less reliable after the first couple of minutes. (Hey, he is only 5 still!) He has learned how to defend himself against her when she wants to bite or pinch him, and he almost always succeeds in stopping her from hurting him, without hurting her in the process.
He can say prayers now with no help. His prayers almost always include a request for another baby! He is getting better and better at telling us scripture stories at night (our nightly routine is that we first watch a scripture story, then ask him to tell it back to us so we know he understood it, then we each take turns talking about our favorite part of the story). He gave his first talk in Primary on Sunday! It involved jumping down from the stand and running to the other side of the room (he was Samuel the Lamanite), so of course it was a hit. He was actually a bit shy at the beginning but I encouraged him and got the talk started by telling them he was going to be Samuel the Lamanite. After he had done his act, he happily repeated after me the words we had discussed the day before. Lots of people told me he did a great job, but sadly, nobody told him (that he remembered), so I told him after church how many people loved it.
I love going out with him. He's so well-behaved most of the time, and is very good at staying close so I don't worry he's gone. When I don't know where he is, I call out "Where's my Jack?" and he always hears and says "Here I am!"
Yesterday was a hard day of many lessons. At the grocery store, he asked for a treat, and I told him he could get it. He asked for another and I OK'd that one too. He asked for another and I said no. This pattern continued, with some yeses and some nos, until he whined and fussed after I said no to something. I said "Oh, so if you fuss at me for saying no to you, then you must not be getting enough nos so you can be used to them. I'll put back one of the treats I said you could get." And of course he screamed and threw a fit. So I repeated what I'd said and put back another treat from our buggy. As I was rummaging in the cart for the treat I was putting back, my arm was right next to where he was sitting, and he angrily tried to hurt me by poking me hard with the buggy's seatbelt. I swatted his hand and scolded him, and he cried piteous tears. I apologized for hurting his feelings and slapping his hand, but he had to walk from then on instead of getting to ride in the buggy. And he whined and fussed all the rest of the shopping trip. We went to the next store and I was picking out some chocolate chips to make cookies with, and he excitedly asked if he could pick out some candy chips too, and I told him that since he threw a fit the last time I told him no, he was going to be told no a lot more often, including now. And he threw a fit. I put back the chocolate chips I was thinking of getting and said "Oh that's a shame, I really wanted to get those." He proceeded to yell "Not fun day!" (as in, "I'm having a not-fun day!") while I finished my shopping. I asked him to consider the things he had done to contribute to his not-fun day, and he glared at me.
We got to the register and I asked him to put the things from the buggy onto the sliding belt, and he said "You haven't earned any help from me!" I picked him up from the buggy and deposited him on the floor, where he threw another screaming fit. At this point I looked for some encouragement from the person standing in line behind me; I found none. She looked at me in disgust, with a "I can't believe you did that to your child!" look on her face. Oh well! I was rather proud of myself for keeping my cool, but I wasn't going to be able to keep it up much longer. I was racking my brain, trying to think of a logical way to handle his refusal to help and his comment about me not earning his help. I paid for my items and walked out of the store, purposely not looking at Jack or calling to him to follow me. Of course he did follow me, and we made it safely to the car. Thanks to our audiobook, we didn't have to speak to each other or drive in silence.
When we got home, Jack saw the cereal we had gotten and said it looked yummy. I pointed out to him that I had gotten it for him, and reminded him he had said I hadn't earned his help. He said over and over how yummy the cereal looked, and even asked me what he could do to help! We repeated that with a few other foods I'd gotten, and as he was helping put them away cheerfully, I asked him if he was helping to make up for what he had said. He said he was, and I told him the best thing to do was to tell me he was sorry for saying that. He did, and I told him he could hug me, and he jumped into my arms. I told him he could tell me he loves me, and he did, and I hugged him and told him I loved him too, and we ended up having a fabulous evening.
(Monday was also a hard day of many lessons. We started doing chores again, and every time he complained about a chore I gave him another chore to do. At one point he actually had a list of 8 chores tacked outside his room that he was not allowed to leave his room until the list was done. Luckily Tim came home and intervened, or I think that list would have grown all evening! Tim held him and soothed him and they got started on the list together, and in the end the list was done almost entirely by Jack. And the next morning when I told Jack it was time to get started on chores, he did so with gusto and no fussing!)
THAT is my son. He is passionate and intense, but he loves and forgives easily with that same passion. He loves to learn as long as he doesn't realize he is, and he loves to help if he feels like he can do a good job. He has a gift for being kind and loving, and I am so glad he is my son!
Our newborn, brown-haired boy. Born April 22, 2006 in Texarkana, TX.
3 1/2 months old, on the boxes as we were moving from our house in Texarkana, AR.
6 months old in our condo in Richardson, TX
1 year old, still in Richardson. See those beautiful curls!
18 months old
4 1/2 years old, in California
My big 5-year-old!
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