Threads of connection

As summer turns into fall my thoughts are transitioning into school and routine and cooler weather. As this is the week before school starts our kids are in what we like to call “full school mode”. This means their bedtime is pushed back to 8 pm and they have to be up and moving by 7:15 am. I remember last year we started this several weeks before school started but we have been having so much fun and doing so much in the evenings that we put it off until the last week this year. For me there is always something a little melancholy about the passage from summer to fall. The warm weather fades, the carefree no schedule kind of attitude shifts, the green in the trees and grass slowly turns and dies.

I know I’ve mentioned before that my daughter is a “mini-me.” The things we butt heads on are because we are so similar but sharing things that we like together makes our relationship special. One thing about her that is NOT from me is that she is a “morning person.” (Just like dad). Unless she gets to bed super late she is up and cheerful by 7:00 am each morning. As a result our first few years of school with her have been fairly smooth. In fact, many times she will be up, dressed, and have breakfast before I get up out of bed. My son, on the other hand, has never been an early riser. Part of the reason is that he stays up much later than his sister at night. They both go to bed at the same time at night and I can rely on Abbi going right to sleep and staying asleep. Isaac does not. He will stay awake and play, or look at books sometimes until 10 o’clock. As a result, 7 am is a bit of a hard sell for him. All through Kindergarten mornings could be counted on for tears, yelling, frustration and drama. It took me half a year to figure out that Isaac likes to snooze. Abbi will hop right out of bed without lolling about as soon as the alarm goes off. Isaac likes to lie about a bit before stumbling out of bed. It took me over half a school year to figure this out. It took me another couple of months before I realized that he was just like me in that regard. I have 3 alarms that go off in the morning and they are set 15 minutes apart. I don’t like to get right up in the mornings either.

I tell this story because it’s one of the things that Isaac and I share. As a mom, and having a girl first, I’m afraid that I had an unrealistic expectation of how Isaac’s and my relationship was going to be. Abbi and I have always shared a bond. We have what I would call an easy companionship most of the time. Isaac left the baby stage and it felt like he hit the ground running...away from me. I know that is not actually the case. I know that boys react very differently than girls, and I think I always knew that, but the only thing I knew to expect was what I had already experienced with my daughter. So the morning personality thing that Isaac and I share, I hang onto that. And I work really hard to make sure that I’m treating him the way I want to be treated in the morning. I wake him up 15 minutes before I need him to get up. Then I go in again and coax him out of bed and into clothing. Usually he wants me to help him with getting dressed which I’ve told myself he’s really too old for my help in that way, but I do it anyway because it’s another thread that connects us. I don’t know what it is about being a mother to a boy that changes how we react, and what we do. But I do know that I treat my son differently than my daughter. I feel like I have to work a little bit harder to have a close relationship with him. What I have to work on most of all is accepting his love and affection, even though it come to me soooo differently than Abbi’s.

Working on Motherhood Out Loud has helped be to see, not only through the stories that are in the play, but also from the stories that the cast members have shared with me, that this is normal. Well, as “normal” as anything in motherhood is. Boys are really different than girls, but it doesn’t have to affect how you feel about them. So much of being a mother is universal. I’m sure others can identify with my stories, because they have gone through something similar. And that comforts me. Just as the “not a morning person” thread connects Isaac and I, experiences like mine are the threads that connect us as parents, as mothers of boys, as human beings.