Are We Bad People Mommy?

Sometimes I utterly fail as a parent. While that is a highly uncomfortable realization, it's even more devastating when I get brought up short by the tiny human I'm trying to help succeed.

Maybe you've had something you really wanted to be good at, only to discover you've done a complete nose-dive instead of the triple twist you were attempting. 

Just so this morning.

Espen and I are standing in the kitchen after breakfast. He wants to open a banana like a monkey. I've been thinking alot about how to be as kind as possible to the Earth, given its state of disrepair caused by over-consumption and exploitation. So, I'm a little unenthusiastic about opening a banana right on the heels of a big breakfast.

"Are you going to eat the whole thing?"

Espen nods and grabs for the banana.

"I'm asking this because I don't want to waste food. It hurts mother earth when we waste food because it takes a lot of her energy to grow it."

Espen nods again and starts opening the banana.

He holds it in his hand and studies it for a moment before making it dance across the table.

"Ok, Boo. Why don't you eat it and we'll get going."

He turns it into a bridge and looks at me smiling.

"Oh! A bridge." I say. "Now eat it."

He holds it over the ground.

"No. Espen, just put it on the counter if you don't want it."

He turns away from me and dangles it provocatively over the ground.

"Espen. Don't do it. Stop."

I move towards him and just as I reach him, you guessed it, he opens his hand.

Plop. 

The banana lay on the ground in the suspended silence as I felt the anger rising up my body.

"Espen!" I raised my voice and put him on the ground. I took him by the hand and marched him to the back porch. 

"If you can't respect mother earth and your own mother by following directions, you need to play outside for awhile." Not super clear logic, I know.

I shut the door, fuming and walked back to the banana. Washed it. Ate it. Breathed. Went back to the back door where Espen was whacking the glass.

"Buddy, I'm sorry I lost my cool, it's just upsetting when you waste food and don't listen."

Espen danced away.

"We're bad people, mommy?"

My guts froze.

"What did you say, Espen?"

"I'm a bad person, mommy."

There was my sweet little boy, without a malicious bone in his body, saying he was a bad person. That was NOT what I was trying to evoke in my little sermons on taking care of the earth.

I felt like puking.

"Oh, Espen. You are a GOOD person! Sometimes we do things that aren't kind, but that doesn't make us bad."

"What do you do, mommy?" he wanted to know.

I was scrambling from the shame of having anything to do with giving him the impression that he was a bad person.

"Well, sometimes mommy says things that she means to be kind, but then she realizes they hurt someone...like you thinking you were bad because you threw the banana down. I'm really sorry I gave you that idea."

"It's ok, mommy!" he said happily and ran off to play some more.

But I can't stop thinking about it. Not because I want to punish myself and wallow in shame, but more because it was an unintentional result of a style of communication that has been going on long enough to make an impression. And I didn't really even see what kind of seed it was planting.

So now, I'm pondering, how do I change my language and behavior to reflect the good kind of person I want to be? 

It's difficult to accept that I have unconscious programming that carries this kind of message. You are not a good person. I no doubt picked it up from a variety of places growing up, but I'm not interested in investing energy in figuring out WHERE it came from so much as discovering an ALTERNATIVE to it.  

Because if there is one thing I am damn sure of, it's that Espen is a wonderful human being. And despite my failure to embody that belief, I will begin again, with a new intention to uplift, encourage and gently instruct so he can experience what it is to fail within the arms of a loving parent, rather than a condemning one.

Oy Vey.

Oh Mommy Pet My Hoom!

This morning Espen met a beautiful human named Gabriel, who, upon seeing Espen and I, raised his hands in namaste.

"I'm Jaime and this is my son, Espen." I said, holding out my hand. Yes, enchanted. 

He took my hand and immediately bent down to Espen and chanted something under his breath before asking if he could shake Espen's hand as well. 

Espen was suitably overwhelmed and transfixed. 

I recognized the chant.

"Did you just chant Om Mani Padme Hum to Espen?" I asked, secretly hoping.

He smiled and nodded. I did too.

"It's one of my favorite mantras." I confessed. 

"Mine too." He smiled and we parted ways, Espen reluctantly loading into the car. He kept trying to look back at the midnight angel, Gabriel.

"Mama, what did he sing me?" Espen demanded to know.

"It's the mantra I sing to you sometimes, remember this one?" and I sang it to him.

He smiled. "Oh that one!"

Later that afternoon I heard him happily humming around the backyard.

"What are you singing, Boo?" I asked.

He smiled at me and sang louder.

"Oh mommy pet my hoom, oh mommy pet my hoom!"

All hail, Wesp. Keeping even the most ancient of mantras relevant in today's times.

Though I didn't ask him in the moment, I am deeply curious as to what a "hoom" is. Any thoughts, please leave them below. 

Great White Poo

There are moments that occur as a parent which belong in a Hall of Legends of Things You Survived.
Many times, you don't know these experiences will gain legendary status until after you have weathered the storm.

Just so with the Great Norovirus Epidemic of Eld-Mathis.

Our tale begins on a blustery Thursday night, with my arrival home after an exciting gathering that left me too inspired to sleep. "Not a problem" I opined, "I shall catch up somehow in the night."

That night, however, was never to arrive.

At 2AM I heard a sob emerge from Espen's room. Sometimes he has night sobs, which, while heartbreaking, often resolve quickly.

This one, however, built into a cresccendoing, "Mooooooommmmmmyyyyyyyy!!"

I bounced out of bed, still fresh from my illuminating evening and trotted into his room.

Whereupon he said, "My tummy hurts!!!" and then started making strange sounds in his throat.

You can easily see where this might be leading, but I did not have the advantage of the Omniscient Reader. I simply thought, "That's a strange, mid-chest kind of sound. Huh." And began to stroll with him in my arms towards the kitchen to make him tea.

Whereupon, Espen began to vomit. And sob. At the same time.

It cascaded down my neck, rolling gracefully over my chest as I tried to race to the sink.

Tobias slept on, in spite of the violent retching sounds of a kid tossing his dinner out his mouth and freaking out because it feels so disturbing.

I yelled. "Tobias! Get up RIGHT NOW!"

So he staggered out to find a vomit encrusted wife holding a vomit drenched 3 year old standing in a puddle of vomit all over the kitchen floor.

We processed to the shower where Espen and I washed the puke down the drain and Espen got his second wind.

Seemingly no worse for the wear, he bounded out of the shower and threw himself nudie onto our bed, shrieking with glee. Almost as if to say, "We're up for the day now so might as well PARTAY!"

The clock read 3.30AM.

We coaxed Espen into jammies and tried to ply him with treats of plain toast and tea, but he was ready to get cracking.

Until.

"Mommy! My tummy hurts aga....".

And that was the next many hours until daybreak. Back and forth between dry heaves, racing around the house like a maniac between vomiting sessions, and passing out face down on the floor, bum in the air when his body demanded a quick re-set.

I gotta tell you, I was just trying to keep up with him so I could try and force water down him and have a pan and hugs at the ready for the inevitable hurking.

When daylight broke, he raced into the bathroom and started shrieking. "MY BOTTOM HURTS!!!!"

He ripped off his diaper, clambered onto the toilet and had the most spectacular poo-ah-rea ever.

His little face crumpled. "WHY, mommy? Why is this happening to my body!!!!!"

Why indeed. Espen has been a remarkably healthy child and until this fateful day, had never experienced this kind of violence within his body. No puking, no crazy diarrhea, nada. So I could only imagine how baffling and frustrating it must feel to have your body ejecting things from every conceivable orifice without giving you forewarning.

That whole day was spent in a daze on the couch. I'll admit, we watched Youtube liberally and I was damn grateful for the thousands of videos on the International Space Station and amphibious vehicles.

Our story does not end here however. Oh no.

The weekend was just beginning, and Saturday was a day and a night away.

By Friday evening, Espen was starting to eat solid food and show some spirit in a sedentary, couch bound kind of way. By Saturday morning, he was reading to go hunt for spawning salmon in the Columbia River Gorge so we headed off for adventure.

About 3 paces up the trail, his strength and good spirits deserted him and he began demanding to be carried. Tobias and I were glad to oblige for awhile and then decided the salmon could wait for another day. After stopping for lunch and checking out Logtoberfest in Carson, WA, we headed back home for bed.

Espen ran to the toilet again. I waited for the tell-tail wail. Nothing. I looked at him closely. He was crying.

"Oh buddy, what's wrong?" I asked, concerned.

"My bottom."

"Awww, Wesp. Let me see."

He slid off the toilet and I peered in, expecting mayhem.

What I saw blew my mind.

White. Poop.

As in, Albino Shit.

For those of you who are thinking, "Was it pure mucous?! Did you take him to the doctor?!?!" let me just say, No.

It was just white, white poop.

I ran into our bathroom where Tobias was making a poop of his own.

"WESP JUST MADE A WHITE POOP!" I yelled, excited in a way that can only be described as The Most Amazing Thing I've Never Imagined Has Just Happened.

Tobias looked at me meaningfully.

I collected myself enough to stand on the other side of the door and talk rapidly about every aspect of the Snowy Poo.

Tobias emerged and walked to the potty. "He's been eating all white things."

I thought about it for a moment. Bananas. White Bread. Rice. Applesauce. Thank you BRAT diet for this wonderful opportunity to re-define bowel possibilities.

Thinking the day was over, we tucked Espen into bed and shortly after, hit the pillows ourselves.

Only to find myself awakened at 2AM with a strange rumbling in MY tummy.

And oh sweet Jesus, what a rumbling it was.

For the next endless hours of the night, I crawled, staggered and oozed between bathroom, bedroom and the floor.

Somewhere in the midst of this Apocalypse of the Gut, I recalled Espen on his hands and knees, heaving into the bowl. His bottom thrust skyward as his forehead of cheek rested on the cool floor. While this had seemed uncomfortable and tragic at best from my healthy perspective, it now appeared to be excellent advice.

I tried it.

To my everlasting delight, I discovered that it was in fact easier to projectile vomit from a hands and knees position and that when the world began to spin from dehydration, elevating the bum and putting your face on the floor really helps make the world stop rocking. I made a mental note to thank Espen when I could swallow.

Imagine now, if you will, Tobias staggering into my room around 9AM saying, "I don't feel so well."

And now, imagine that there are not one, but TWO adults covering every available surface with their puky-poopy bodies while Espen is feeling perfectly grand.

At one point, I recall being horizontal in bed, listening to the sounds of Tobias sicking it up in the bathroom while Espen said, "Sure, mommy, I can make you toast. You want a Popsicle and some applesauce?" And thinking, "I'm ordering from my 3 year old. He would survive without us! Amazing!"

And boy would he.

When Tobias and I emerged far enough from our stupor to look around we discovered that Espen was capable of opening new yogurt containers, eating close to a dozen Popsicle in a 10 hour period and making lots of toast.

I've never been prouder.