On The Other Hand...

Yesterday I blogged about wanting my son to find good friends. I was talking about boys, of course, since my son is a boy. I never gave a thought to how Zane treats the girls he meets, and I should have.

We went to a party for a beautiful girl, Maggie, who turned three. The very first thing Zane did was ask about the cake, because he is genetically programmed to like cake. Larry and I began attempting to do some mixing and mingling while scoping out the house to locate the bathroom. (First rule of going to a new place: ALWAYS locate bathrooms before you need them.) Zane had other plans; he wanted to see Maggie, a child he has only seen three or four times. We had to postpone our bathroom hunt while we searched for the Birthday Girl.

Zane approached Maggie, told her 'happy birthday' and tried to hug her.

Maggie, who probably saw Zane as a complete stranger, was having none of it. Her expression clearly said "Ew! A boy!" I didn't blame Maggie one bit for her reaction; I certainly would not want a strange boy to hug me without provocation.

Maggie walked off.

Zane followed her.

We followed him.

"Maggie!" He followed her.

"Maggie!" And followed her.

"Maggie!" And followed her.

Maggie kept turning around and eyeing Zane, but kept moving. My son was a man on a mission, but so was she.

At this point, I am getting pretty tired of doing all this following. It made me hungry, and also, my feet hurt. On my third time past the buffet table, I stopped to get some chips and salsa, and then some more, leaving my husband to continue following Zane by himself.

In my defense, it was really good salsa.

By then my quarry has disappeared, and I realize that I would be a terrible stalker. This depresses me for a moment, since I'd like to think of myself as relatively competent at something so simple as keeping my own child in sight.

I distracted myself from my general unworthiness with some more salsa.

Maggie wandered by, followed by my son. I picked up the trail.

"Maggie!"

"Maggie!"

"Maggie!"

My son is relentless in his determination to speak to Maggie. I start to intervene, to tell my only son that the way to a girl's heart is NOT repeating her name over and over until she likes you. But Maggie has been stopped in her tracks by the many adults around the food, and Zane finally catches up to her.

He grabs her hand. I cringe.

"Maggie! I your friend!" Zane said emphatically. Then he dropped her hand and wandered off. I looked over at Larry and Maggie's mom, and stifled a giggle.

Zane had said what he wanted to say and he was done.

Maggie stared at the back of Zane's head as he walked off. There was a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

I swear I saw her roll her eyes before she wandered outside.

Just Plain Good Advice

My husband spent most of the day with Zane today, while I attended a sixtieth wedding anniversary luncheon. Just before the food arrived, I received a text.

"Zane says that if you have to pee, try not to pee on yourself."

That text resulted in a "LOL" moment. I actually guffawed.

Fun, Games, and Memories

Zane will often come to Larry or I and ask us to play with him. We usually oblige, and thus we both have put puzzles together, played with trains, and played with Lincoln Logs. We each have our way of play that we share with Zane. I think that it is important for there to be special memories of each parent, and play is the way that kids acquire those special memories.

My personal favorite game to play with Zane is "I'm Gonna Get You". In this game I put my hands up like claws and say "I'm gonna get you!". (Yes, this is a variation of the Tickle Monster game I mentioned in an earlier post)

If I catch Zane I get to tickle him.

Zane shrieks, and runs off, laughing.

I "hide".

Zane gets curious, and comes to look for me.

"RARRRRGGHH!" I jump out from behind whatever I am hiding behind.

Zane shrieks, and runs off, laughing.

Rinse and repeat.

Every now and then, Zane will try to turn the tables on me. He will run at me with his hands up, doing his imitation of a growl. I then make a big deal out of acting scared and running away. Zane's laughter fills the house. Which is the whole point.

When Zane plays with Daddy, he will try to explain to Larry what he needs to do to play the game.

"Daddy, you go hide in the doorway so I can see you," I overheard Zane telling his father the other day. After attempting to play the game "like Mama", and after failing to meet Zane's expectations, Larry wisely offered to play on the Xbox with Zane. They played some Lego Batman and Robin game for a good 20 minutes. It was nice to hear Larry talk to Zane about how to move his character, and it was nice to hear Zane asking questions about what to do.

It was a great Father-Son moment. Even for me.

Idiot

It was my own fault. I have no one to blame but myself. Zane was playing and didn't want to come and eat, so I'm the one who started it.

"Zane, if you don't come and eat your food, your dragon is going to eat it," I said. This is his dragon:



It's the 'big' dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, one of Zane's favorite movies that he has seen seventy-billion times. In the movie the 'big' dragon eats the little dragons who don't bring him food. This particular version of the 'big' dragon comes with three little dragons that you can put in his mouth. The little dragons travel to the belly of the 'big' dragon, and there's a hatch to open so you can retrieve them and do it all over again.

I thought that Zane would become interested in his breakfast if I told him the dragon would eat it, and I was right. Sort of. Zane came to the table and sat down and picked up his fork, and I turned away to get my own plate of eggs. I heard a giggle, and turned around. There was Zane, his fork of eggs inserted into the mouth of the dragon. My son was feeding the dragon his breakfast.

"Ack!" I screeched. "Zane, no!" I moved quickly to the table, and pulled the fork out of 'big' dragon. I explained that the dragon was perfectly capable of eating his own eggs without any help from him. And I emphatically asserted that under NO circumstances were dragons supposed to eat bacon. They're allergic, you see.

I don't think Zane bought it, but at least he stopped. It took me about thirty minutes to clean all the eggs out of the dragon's belly. And I have no one to blame but myself.

Double Take

I was at the mirror in the bathroom this morning, about to dry my hair. I did not look at my son when he walked into the room. Mentally I was still in my bed fast asleep.

"Mama, I got your balls here," Zane said.

It took a couple of seconds for those words to compute, my face to register "Huh?" then a couple more seconds for me to turn in his direction.

Zane was holding a bag of colorful plastic balls from his toy box. He smiled at me as he held out the bag.

It was at that moment that I decided that I needed a cup of coffee.