kiwords

One of the many gifts of having kids is their ego-deflating ability. Not that I’m in danger of having my perspective skewed by the adulation of thousands or jaw-dropping successes, but if I were, my boys would save me. They reliably put me in my place.
This morning, as I was reading my email, Max came up next to me. He rested his hand companionably on my knee. Moments later I glanced down to see him running both hands up and down my shin, brows knitted in concern.
“Max, what are you doing?”
“Mama, you’ve got about a thousand slivers here! That must hurt! Want me to get a tweezers and needle?”
Slivers? I ran an exploratory hand over my leg.
“Oh, honey, those aren’t slivers. They’re hairs. I need to shave my legs.” He hunkered down on the floor and brought his eyes within about an inch of my leg.
“It looks like a little forest,” he said dreamily.
“OK, Max. Enough.”
“Does it itch, having all those pokey hairs sticking out all over?”
“ENOUGH!”

Raphael, of course, is a natural at helping me keep my self-image in perspective. If he’s not adorning my clothes with handprints or shrieking in the middle of church for “Dee Dee,” he’s pulling down displays in stores or yanking the hair of another child in the baby pool. No matter how good a mom I think I am, Raphael is there to remind me that I don’t have it all together. Not yet.
But my favorite instance of ego-deflation came from Tre. About six months ago I was tucking him in bed. He had recently gone to a birthday party at Build-A-Bear. He and his friend had both chosen these soft fluffy teddy bears that they had dressed as policemen and named “Fluffy.” Both bears. Two cop bears named Fluffy. I dunno.
Anyhow, that night Tre was explaining to me the difference between Fluffy and his beloved stuffed Monkey named (ready for this?) “Monkey.”
“See, Fluffy’s kind of tough. He’s a police bear, so he’s not scared of anything. But Monkey sometimes gets scared.”
“Really? What’s Monkey scared of?”
“Oh, the dark, a little. And roller coasters. Being left alone.” Now, these are all things Tre happens to be scared of. A little light bulb went off in my head. This was not just chat about his stuffed animals. This was a Psychologically Important Moment. I sat down on the edge of Tre’s bed and picked up Monkey and stroked his brown fur.
“You know, as Monkey gets older, he’ll probably start to feel better about those things. Everyone’s scared of something, but if you keep taking care of Monkey and loving him, he’ll start to feel better. He’ll learn that you love him and you’re not going to leave him.” I smiled at my sweet boy, who was looking at me very soberly.
“Mama?”
“Yes, Honey?”
“You know Monkey’s not real, right?”