Wednesday, October 18, 2006

this aint no thursday thirteen

As a parent, you know many moments of powerlessness regarding your children. Im used to the poignant ones. Today I had my first experience with another type of powerless moment. Being behind a glass wall at swim class with a row of parents watching Norm standing in full view of everyone, slowly and deliberately picking his butt. For like two solid minutes. You think "two minutes? ha, thats not so long!" but look at your clock now. Ok now imagine yourself being stabbed with a needle continuously for the next two minutes.....see what I mean? You just dont see those moments in the parent books.

Ok since we are on the topic of disturbing things involving my children, let me throw this out there for my lovely blogosphere friends. Norm has been obsessed with the idea of getting a big sister lately. Its all he talks about. For some insanely stupid reason, I told him that we are considering adopting an older child at some point in life. (something we've always talked about) To explain why we arent doing it now, we explained that we dont have the money. So now he thinks that when we get the money we are going to "buy" a big sister. Ive had a sense of low-grade anxiety about this for a while but today he brought home a piece of art from day-care that showed a depiction of him in a hot air balloon and guess who was with him....you got it...big sister. I remember wanting a sister very badly when i was little and growing out of it. But Im still sort of alarmed by all of this. Am I over-reacting?

5 comments:

Canada said...

Norm is four. Remember that, and be thankful he wasn't playing with anything else. Clara has turned into quite the flasher. And likes to point out her nipples. Why did I think that it was a good idea to teach them the proper names for things. Why?

As for the big sister, I'm an only child. I wanted a big sister or brother, never a younger one. Once I realized it wasn't going to happen, I managed to find friends that had older sisters who treated me like a little sister. I mean, much easier to talk to someone a couple of years older about boys and makeup than my mom!!! (love my mom, but I think she still hopes I was a virgin when I got married. HA!!!!). I'm sure you can try to explain that it isn't buying a sister, that it takes a long time and lots of money to pay for all the "lawyer stuff". Maybe that will help.

Jesse said...

Read him 1984, but replace every instance of big brother with big sister.

Pippajo said...

Okay, we need to arrange that summit for My Boy and Norm post haste!

I'm sure My Boy would have a lot to say about the perils of living with an older sister! He wants a younger brother and would probably suggest a trade.

Whatever you do, don't let him in on the fun he can have with an older sister when she starts dating. We've made the mistake of pointing that out to our kids and My Boy is just biding his time until the first potential boyfriend comes to visit.

Don't sweat it. I think we always want what we don't have. My Girl always wanted a baby brother until she actually got one. Now she wants sisters which makes me laugh because I had three of them and they drove me just as crazy as My Boy drives My Girl! I always wanted a brother, friends of mine with brothers always wanted sisters. It's normal and he'll grow out of it.

Incidentally, I always tell my kids they need to be nice to each other cause someday their father and I are going to go out of our minds and they're only going to have each other to help deal with us. When I say that I can just see them thinking, "You can't possibly get worse!"

crse said...

Thanks for the input folks...We had a little breakthrough tonight. We went the whole night without mentioning her (it was spontaneous, we are trying to keep the conversation as normal as possible...) so Im hoping the intensity of this fades a bit. I never knew you were an only child Canada!
Jesse, Gill and I discussed it and believe yours is the approach we are going to take. I dont remember the book all that well but I think the cage of rats on the face should be very deterring for Norm. If its not? we will provide the education needed so it becomes a deterrant! You should really consider a job with children, either in education or mental health. You have a gift.

Pippa, I think if they got together they would renegotiate the whole family! Im leaving you comments are you getting them? I have so much beta remorse, its painful....

nancycle said...

Aren't kids great.

Omar went through a stage of wanting a little sister. He didn't realize it involved a partner, once he did he began soliciting men for me. :-o In hind sight, he was thinking he'd have a built in play toy I suspect.

I just posted a blurb about wishing I had a sister, to which Canada did step up to the plate.

:)