Archive for Battles
A cat terrorist that is. He’s obsessed with our little cat Astro. Where is he? What is he doing? Big J has no need for an imaginary friend. He has Astro. Astro is a bit of a reluctant friend to say the least, but he regularly finds himself pressed into service, having to perform duties that mostly consist of watching various TV programs and being carried from room to room. He really bugs the poor kitty to death, and on the one hand I feel sorry for him and think maybe I should stop Big J from pestering him so much, but that’s just a battle I am unprepared to fight right now. There are so many other battles that I’m fighting at the moment.
The thing is, Astro could stop the insanity if he wanted to, but I think he secretly enjoys it. He must, or he would hide under the bed all day like our other cat. He’d rather have too much attention than very little (which is about what I give him these days). He also clearly thinks that Big J is the Alpha Male, because his body language is very submissive. So, I let the terrorism go on, even though it is fraught with “teachable moments” about being kind and self-control. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn those lessons.
I am going to end up with a major injury sometime in the next couple of years. It’s inevitable. They don’t mean to hurt me, but by the end of almost every day, I feel battered and bruised by my two boys. Little D can’t do much, but what he can do, he makes the most of. He gets a death grip on my hair and in particular, likes to get ahold of those little hairs at the nape of the neck and brings me to my knees. Prying his little fingers open is more challenging than it ought to be it seems – he is only (almost) 7 months old after all. One of the upsides to not being able to breastfeed (I tried. I did. My mammary glands failed me. Or rather, failed them…) is that at least he’s not biting me now with his new little razor sharp teeth.
Big J has nearly broken my nose a couple of times and given me a fat lip. Okay… that’s a little teeny exaggeration, but it FELT like he broke my nose with that hard head of his, and I had to go check the mirror to see if my lip was swollen the other day after an accidental head-butting incident. He is just so physical- lots of excited flailing around and jumping on me unexpectedly. Then there are the times he wants to play catch and doesn’t warn me ahead of time, kicking while on the changing table, stepping on my feet… I really had no idea that being the mother of boys was such a dangerous occupation. Or, do little girls do this kind of stuff too?
I get this look about 100 times a day:
This is Big J and he’s 3.5 years old. While 3 is oh-so-much better than 2, it’s just another year of round after round of the Battle of the Wills. Big J and I are both “strong-willed children” but my will as a child doesn’t hold a candle to his. When things don’t go his way, which is like every other second, he gives me the evil grumpy look after he’s done screaming about things a little bit. He wants to get right in my face so he can shoot daggers directly into my eyeballs, and when I won’t look at him it infuriates him! He then yells, “it is not in porn!!!!!!” This is his warped imitation of me saying “it is not important.”
This is who he really is, when he’s not demon-possessed:
When the demons go to sleep, my sweet boy comes back. This is really who he is, and I’m looking forward to the day when we see this boy a little more often. It will be soon. Right?
