kiwords

I took Tre to buy new jeans tonight. What is it about eight year old boys that causes them to erupt out the knees of their jeans? Sheesh, I swear the fabric weakens while he’s just sitting serenely, gazing out the window. (Like that ever happens!) In the morning I glance at him and notice, hey, I think there’s a hole in the left knee of his jeans. By lunchtime both knees are sporting tears of at least two inches, and by dinner one pants leg is entirely gone, the other is hanging by a thread.
What is that?
Anyhow, it was time to buy his week’s allotment of jeans, so we went off to the store. Max and Raphael were home with Amma and Appa, so this was a doable expotition. We charged into the store and found the boys’ section. I grabbed a selection of jeans and we were off for the dressing room. Now, I learned my lesson last time I took him shopping, and didn’t head in there with him. No need to earn that withering look again. I handed him the stack and positioned myself at the door of the changing room. He turned to go in the little stall, and then turned back.
“Wait right there,” he instructed. I nodded, leaning against the wall. Department stores just suck the life right out of me. I think it’s the lighting or something, but after five minutes inside one I can feel my will to shop just draining away. He was not satisfied with my cavalier assurance, and fixed me with a steely look. “Don’t. Move. From. That. Spot.” By this point I got it. He was getting a little worried. I looked steadily back at him and said in what I hoped was a reassuring tone, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.”
“Stay right there.”
“I promise. Right here.”
“Don’t move.”
”Honey, I won’t. Go try on your pants.”
He went in and shut the door behind him, only to yank it open a second later to glare at me. Just testing. He went back and proceeded to try on jeans.
Tre is…well…a touch intense on certain matters. And ever since his dad left, being left alone is a huge fear for him. If he comes in from outside and I’m not in the room he expectes me to be in, he panics. We even have a rule around here, “if you can’t find Mama, look in the basement, the garden, and the garage before you freak out.” Because if he can’t find me in 2.3 seconds, he freaks out. By the time he does find me (4.3 seconds), he’s screaming “Mama!” and tears have filled his huge brown eyes. He races over to me and hollers, “You scared me!” and when I hug him, I can feel him trembling. When he goes to bed at night if he can’t hear us talking in the living room he comes tearing down the stairs, wailing, “Mama?”
Tears. Trembling.
He’s gotten better, he really has. Right now he’s up there, awake in his room. I’m typing at the computer and Mom and Dad have gone down to their room in the basement. It’s quiet. But he’s just come down to check on me once, and it was very calmly. He’s made real progress.
But I’m going away this weekend. A girls’ weekend away, with a dear friend in California (hi, Amy!). This is a good thing, I think. Healthy for me…right? But I worry about my boys. I’ve done everything I can to make them feel secure. Heck, until a few months ago I didn’t even make Max sleep in his own bed. Their fears seemed like a natural response to the unexpected turn our lives took. So I did what I could to bind up their broken parts.
The question is when is it time to remove the cast? If my kids didn’t have “abandonment issues” a weekend for me away wouldn’t be that hard to imagine. Stressful, sure, but not unreasonable. But now, in our situation, I watch them and wonder. Am I stepping gingerly back, letting them get their own strength? Or am I removing supports too soon?
I suspect this is a good step. I am, after all, leaving them with their Amma and Appa (my parents), so I know they’re in good hands. And hopefully by this time Sunday night my boys will have seen and believed what I told Tre when he came out of the changing room.

“I’m here. Even if you can’t see me for a little while, I’m here.”