Every so often a mama has to enshrine the kid moments, even if they’re not any more witty, hilarious, or indicative of genius than any other child in the universe. Today it’s Michael’s turn.
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“Mommy, Mommy!” he cried as we turned past a convertible onto a quiet residential street the other day. “I saw a dark blue car that, that had, that WOST its TOP!”
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The next day, he had his first major spill from a bicycle. Major, I label it, based solely on his reaction. Normally he shakes off all owies. Or he’ll come to me and say, “Mommy, my ____ hurts,” and I kiss it a couple of times before I go in for the chew, and he giggles and it’s done.
Not so with this. It was the most minor strawberry you can imagine, but he would not calm down. I was beginning to wonder if there might actually be some internal injury, he was so uncharacteristically hysterical–although I dismissed that possibility, because he was moving just fine, and he kept laughing when I told him not to smile.
Finally I said, “Hey! Are we going to have to go to the doctor and cut your whole leg off?”
He knows my sense of humor, so he giggled…and then returned to wailing and crying. And that was when I realized: he needed a nap. Badly.
Fast forward 24 hours. After everyone went to school I checked my calendar and realized I had (stupid unnecessary waste of time) well-child visits today. So when I picked him up from school, I told him, “Guess what? We’re going to go get the boys and go to the doctor today.”
“But I don’t WANT to go to the doctor!” yelled Michael.
Michael’s not one to panic about a doctor visit, so this gave me pause. “It’s no big deal, it’s just a ‘let’s see how you’re doing’ visit,” I said.
He spun around and got right in my face. “Are they going to cut my leg off?????”
I’m sure you will not grudge me the uncontrollable giggle I had to indulge before before I could reassure him.
I let the van get way, way too low on gas last week. I had the overhead display on Distance to Empty and we were all watching it jump up and down depending on whether we were coasting, sitting at a stoplight, or accelerating onto the interstate. And suddenly Michael called, “Mommy, I see thirty-six!” I was like, What? I glanced at the display, and sure enough, it said: 36.
“How do you even KNOW that number?” I said. “You are FOUR!”
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He spent the gap between lunch and nap time yesterday “helping” me with yard work. I was digging dandelions when he came running down the hill. “Mommy, I want to tell you something!”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“When we go inside, I want to snuggle with you.”
Now you know there’s no proper response to that except a good long snuggle in the long spring grass. And after that, he stuck with me. He spotted at least a dozen and a half dandelions that I would have missed. And when I had to get to work, he pushed his pop mower around the yard until he got bored, and then he climbed a tree.
There are days when motherhood is very, very sweet, even amid the madness.
I have things to say about madness, too, but this post was nearer finished, so it takes the spotlight today.
Kathleen M. Basi 
Too cute!