Oh, and of course, Mr. Cakes was out of town for work yesterday. Save for the extremely important exception of our recent miscarriage, he generally is out of town when anyone's sick. Including himself, which bites, because then I can't even take care of him! It's totally out of his control, so don't think for a moment I'm kvetching about him. Honestly, I think he has a harder time of being away and alone than we do missing him... at least the three of us keep each other occuppied. If I didn't know better, I'd think there was some Cosmic Conspiracy to keep me from having help with the "hard stuff" of raising our boys. Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch!!!
So, round about bedtime, Cakes the Younger shows up in front of me, a cup of water in hand and an impish grin on his face. "Hey Mommy! Guess WHAT!?!?!" says he, "I can blow water out of my NOSE!" Semi-coherent and feeling rotten, I guess I didn't actually comprehend what he'd said, although I was aware that he'd spoken to me. "Oh, ok," said I, "That's nice sweetie." And off he went.
A few minutes later, he's back in front of me, grin and water cup apparently unchanged. This time however, he demonstrated his new-found "talent," jettisoning a fine, but still rather profuse, mist of combined water and nasal secretions into my face and all over my blanket. Ok, that got my attention.
"EEEEEWWWWW!!!!" I shrieked, "Oh GOD, that's GROSS!!! Get... YUCK... go empty your cup into the sink NOW, and please PLEASE don't EVER DO THAT AGAIN!!!" Of course, I snatched up a towel and proceeded to de-slime myself and my surroundings, all the while muttering and grumbling my disgust. I suppose being zonked on Benadryl may have been a good thing in a way, because I wasn't quite as sharp, and therefore as pissy, as I'd maybe have been on a good day.
Obedient (mostly) little monkey(always) that he is, my little one walked quickly in the direction of the kitchen, and I didn't hear from him for about five minutes. When I did, it wasn't pretty.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Little Cakes came and stood at the threshhold between our kitchen and living room. He then shouted, "I don't WANT THIS CUP any MORE!!!" as he hurled the (thankfully now empty) vessel into the living room, behind the couch I'd occuppied most of the day. Alarmed, I turned to him and asked, "Honey, what happened?" His response? Both hands flew up and covered his face, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh, DAMNIT, it was suddenly all clear to me. "Come here, Babylove," said I, in my most soothing tone, "Tell me what's wrong."
After a little more failed coaxing, I went over and scooped him up and brought him to the couch with me. He was crying so hard that I couldn't make out precisely what he was trying to say, except, "
My poor, poor, baby boy, reduced to this sobbing, hiccuppy emotional wreck, and it was every single bit MY FAULT! Gross? Um, yeah! Weird? Absolutely! But it was his NEW TRICK, and he came to me brimming over with pride at his accomplishment, and what did I give him? Certainly not the pat on his back and congratulatory attaboy he'd anticipated.
I scrambled to think of what to do and say... and here's what I came up with, once I'd calmed him a bit:
"Little Cakes, I am so very very proud of you for using your words to tell me how you were feeling just now. I hurt your feelings pretty bad, huh?"
He nodded emphatically at this, looking at me with impossibly wide and teary eyes, his bottom lip still aquiver.
"I am VERY sorry for that! It makes me very sad to know that I hurt you."
At that, he reached around my neck with both arms and squeezed tightly, stifling a sob.
"Were you trying to show me the new thing you can do?"
Another nod.
"I'm really glad you learned something new today, and I understand you're probably proud, since you learned it all by yourself! It's just that I don't like water and snot on my face, ya know?"
That got him going again, and I had to rub his back and SSSHHHHHHH in his ear to settle him again.
"If you and Brother and Daddy do gross stuff like that together, hey, have fun! But it's really kind of a guy thing, huh?"
A dawning look of understanding shone on his face then, and just like that, the world felt like it had returned to normal.
When I uttered Mr. Cakes' name, I remembered that he was actually on the ground, and might possibly be reachable by phone, so I called him for back-up. Upon hearing about his littlest child's latest, um, milestone, he responded much the same way as he had the first time the boy dropped trou' and urinated, unassisted on our front lawn, in full view of the neighbors, "YYYYYESSSSS!!!!!"
Uhhh... yikes. After hearing a quick synopsis of my reaction, he said in a rather urgent tone, "Wow. Put him on the phone, quick, so I can do damage control!" As if I didn't feel awful enough, thinking about the thousands I'd already cost us in psychotherapy, thanks to my lame handling of things.
Well, Little Cakes did not want to talk on the phone right then, and so instead ran off to his bedroom, where Elder Cakes was busy playing cars. LC crawled into his bed, hid under the cover, and insisted he didn't want to talk to Mr. Cakes. I tried my best to convince him to at least listen, but he was having none of it. So back and forth I went for a few minutes, talking to both LC and the Mister, assuring them both that I'm really not evil, and was simply unaware that such feats are praiseworthy. All this time, I was sure that Elder Cakes was so engrossed in his game of cars that he hadn't heard a word of any of it. WRONG!
Elder Brother looked up at me, completely serious, and in a tone that all but screamed his pity for me declared, "Aw, Mom, it's ok, don't worry so much! You just don't speak Boy."
How and when did my six-year-old become so astute in his observations? I checked with Mr. Cakes, and neither of us has ever used that expression, the thing about "speaking Boy." So, it was a fully independent, totally innocent, and completely accurate an assessment of the situation. I like to believe that mostly, I do speak Boy. I'm just not particularly fluent in some of the finer nuances of that tongue. I guess it doesn't matter so much. What does is that neither of my sons decided overnight that I'm so ignorant that I should be shunned. Thank God!
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