My boy loves to roar. He loves Dinosaurs that roar, lions that roar, tigers that roar... you get the picture. He also is not great at knowing when is a good time to roar and when is not. We had a rough twenty-first week of the year, with lots of boundary testing and little patience. Our boy stomped one minute and was in tears the next. Whether it was in the lead up to Saturday's full moon (Clark was born on a full moon) or just something in the wind, it was not helped by being snuffly and blocked up. While you and me may become a bit hard of hearing when we are all blocked up with a cold, Clark's unilateral hearing loss means he really does struggle more when sick.
I had a rough week myself and on Thursday when picking up our most precious bundle from childcare was informed that Clark had been playing fairly roughly most of the week. It was being noticed more when he playing with toys of animals that roar. Clobbering another child in the head with a big heavy plastic lion while roaring is generally not considered appropriate. Mind you, he had been on the receiving end of the same thing earlier in the week. In an attempt to curb this behaviour, the teachers in his room at childcare have decided to not let Clark play with the animals that roar. Hoping it will calm him down perhaps. While my husband and I have been joking about how Clark may now only play with mice and bunnies, I have been feeling a little sensitive about it. Because my boy loves to roar. And he is great at roaring. He adores dinosaurs and knows their names. It is something that he is confident with. And I do not want to take this away from him. So the Mama Lion in me comes out and I want to defend my boy. Yes, we work with him on appropriate behaviours and inside voices, but I also want to make sure that his environment is appropriate to his hearing ability. I will follow through on removing Ryan the Apatosaurus when his tail is repeatedly used to fling a lesser (but usually harder) toy across the room, but I also will ensure he has enough quiet time at the end of a busy day of straining to hear above the general ruckus.
Sometimes it is hard to know when to accept other's assessment of what is happening for my child, and when to push back knowing that I know my son and what he needs. I have many years of this ahead of me, and have been so grateful this week for the other mothers-of-boys around me who have given me good advice on trusting my instincts and that we know our boys best.
And let's all be honest. Who doesn't want to romp and stomp (and roar) like a T-Rex sometimes?
The cold has truly set in this week! And this weekend we lapped up as much of the (almost) winter sunshine as we could. It was a big gardening weekend for us, and Clark really loved helping us. He raked and dug and followed us around all weekend. The leaves have almost all turned and this Japanese Maple has the last of them. Not for long however as the wind blew them off faster today than we could rake them.
It was also a very social weekend, surprisingly. We went to a lovely 1st birthday party on Saturday, and my shy boy made an appearance. Snuggled in to Glenn for the first half an hour, and then sitting with me quietly to the side while he had some afternoon. After a while he warmed up and was running around playing with the balloons happily. For we did learn this week just how much our boy loves balloons! A few friends commented on how he seemed like a different boy from when he arrived, and each time I made a joke about adding sugar and giving him a chance to warm up. However the thing is, our boy is shy sometimes and that is ok. I read a blog post this week by the lovely Kelle Hampton (http://www.kellehampton.com) and she wrote about her girls and allowing their beautiful personalities to shine, be that shy or otherwise. While I encourage Clark to come out from behind my legs or from being buried in my chest, I think sometimes that this is more for the benefit of others. Yes, I want Clark to feel comfortable and to not be nervous around others, and I do not want him to miss out because of his shyness, however I also need to accept that this will happen in its own good time. Shy should not be seen as a negative or lesser part of Clark's personality, but just another layer that makes up the wonderful boy that he is.
Clark loves Manny and Ryan. They roar and they stomp. Manny uses his trunk to throw things. Ryan likes to sweep toys off the table with his tail. One or the other goes with us everywhere (and sometimes, as in this case, both). I wonder what it is that draws Clark to specific toys, but with these two I think it is simple. They are tall and roar/trumpet loudly! Clark also loves
his boots, hence the very stylish trackies and boots combination. We went outside on Wednesday afternoon to check the mail and take a few photos and when I asked Clark to stand against the wall with Manny and Ryan, he chose to sit. And lined them up behind him. It was a very precise process of lining up on the line in the concrete!
I feel we are finally over the first of our winter colds and hope that we manage more than a week this time with out sniffles! We have been trying to soak up the warm daytime sun and enjoy the ridiculously blue skies. This was definitely the case with the warm Mother's day weather today, when we played in the leaves at my parent's house. And so I decided to include an extra picture this week... my boy in a nest!
Happy Mother's Day!
I was far away from my boys for a good part of this week, and missed them terribly. When I returned home I walked to childcare with the pram to pick him up early as could not wait until my husband returned home with the car. He was thrilled to see me, and me him. Since my return, he has seemed a bit more clingy, and then ended the week with a cold. I have also felt a bit clingy to this boy as a result of my absence, and even more so following his late night asthma attack on Friday night that had us all shaken. Thankfully, Clark is fine now apart from a stuffy head and a runny nose!
I have not wanted to be behind the camera much these last few days and instead have just wanted to hug my precious boy. It has been an emotional week for a number of reasons, and I have been pondering how things can change in the blink of an eye. We spend so much time worrying about things of little consequence when what we should be focusing on is actually spending time with those we love while we can. And on that note, I am off to the couch to spend some time with the other love in my life.
