Somebody

My son just turned seven years old. About three years ago, we had the following exchange:

"Mom?"

"Yeah?" I ask, only half-listening as I change his little sister's diaper.

"When I was a baby, I wasn't a baby."

"Oh yeah, what were you?"

"I was somebody." 

Somebody. Do you know how long it has taken for me to really understand what he means by that? At the time, I just thought, "So true! Here I thought he was just a baby with a lot of room to be molded into what I imagined he should be, but already he had his own personality."

I am slowly learning that he is completely distinct from me. We can be in the same room, eating the same food (well, he's just picking at it), and listening to the same knock-knock joke from one of his sisters, and we are each having very different experiences. I spent a lot of time over the years telling him what he should like eating and what he should enjoy doing, but I wasn't very interested in encouraging the things he truly does like doing and eating.

I  referenced in 2016 his penchant for making toilet paper balls. Well, he still does that. He also likes to smash things with paver stones in our backyard. He is getting better about not tearing apart my flowers when they finally bloom. Dirt and mud are at a premium in our backyard, so he maximizes every conceivable mud hole location. He tries out hitting, kicking, and punching when he loses his temper with his sisters, which is why they start Tae Kwan Do today, to level the playing field, if you will. 

Oh, and he loves to smash water bottles. One of those little moments of ecstasy in December nearly cost him his Christmas presents. It was $3 worth of water bottles, but I was so offended by his wastefulness that I was prepared to ruin Christmas instead of letting him have more Legos, which are meant to be destroyed and rebuilt over and over in a mess that never dries up, costs me $3 every time I vacuum, and could actually kill someone.

He now refers to these moments of compulsively doing unusual or unacceptable things as "going dumb-dumb." They also coincide with times that he is not medicated for ADHD. My heart breaks a little more every time he refers to himself or his activities this way.

My husband and I described some of his behaviors to our family therapist. We were glad we hadn't brought the kids when the therapist responded, "Well, it sounds like you need to find a way for him to earn some time to do these things." We haven't scheduled a return visit.

Because his suggestion worked out so well!

My son always gets an afterthought-of-a-birthday celebration. It often falls on Memorial Day weekend or the last day of school, so I was really proud of myself when I began planning a Super Hero party and it wasn't even Easter yet. 

But when it came to what we would do at the party, I had to think really carefully about it. You see, when I asked him who he would like to invite, he said, "My whole class," and because I imagined that he could practice his handwriting by writing out 22 invitations, I immediately agreed.

I managed to trick him into writing the first letter of each child's name, but I called it a win.

What on earth would I do with 20+ kids? We've never had the packaged birthday parties at venues that decorate and provide a cake and hand out flyers suckering attendees into their program. We just play games at home, open presents, eat cake and ice cream, and send kids away with a little prize bag with less candy than most doctor's offices offer now. They might only get a sticker and an invitation to come back and see us in a year. 

It all came together over the last week of school. Richard followed his recipe and used 12 rolls of toilet paper to make these little cuties.

We found that baking them at 200 F for several hours produced light, hard toilet paper palls.

We'd had our lawn aerated the week before, and I had this notion that in order to break up the dirt plugs, I could just use the lawn mower and its vacuum/chopping action to get the job done. But all that did was smash all these wet dirt plugs into my already fragile grass. I decided to pick them all up, but my rake mostly skipped over them, so I did it by hand. 

[Just a little note: If you ever see a giant horsefly land on a dirt plug, don't laugh at it and say, "Haha! You thought these were all poop! Well they're not you big germ monger!" Because the next day you'll pick up that plug with a bare hand and notice an odd curl at the end because it really is poop.]

Eight buckets full and two days later, he had a little dream come true for his birthday: dirt pellets designed specifically for the rigors of bulldozing and excavating.

Three of mine plus nine guests, and I had a dozen super heroes ready to attack the first bad guy they saw. I gathered them at the top of the basement stairs and told them that all those things they never get to do because it is "neither the time nor the place" for such things, they would now get to do.

All photos of other children used with their parents' consent.

We began with hitting and kicking a bad guy.

Then we smashed things and wasted water.

We divided into teams and threw toilet paper balls, much to my delight. I pegged several kids and felt not the least bit guilty. This young lady had it out for me after I hit her in the head, and her aim suggested she'd been wanting to punish a grown-up for some time now.

  

A latecomer had the privilege of tearing apart some flowers. These superheroes could moonlight as flowergirls they were all so good at scattering petals. 

After my superhero hung up his cape and removed his mask, we got into the best part of the day: playtime. He patiently reminded me that Lego creations are built one piece at a time and don't have to actually serve a purpose to be worthwhile. 

After church the next day, he enjoyed some time in his Smash Lab. We found a kit online for smashing your own geodes. He and his sisters said it was a real hit.

We haven't quelled his need to create and destroy on his own terms, but he knows for sure now that his mom can be taught how to have fun his way. Those toilet paper balls are perfect for an indoor snowball fight, and I could use a good reason to peg a few kids now and then. We're beginning to speak a bit more of the same language. It's amazing how much more of a somebody I am to them when I let them be their own little somebodies. 

[The hyperlink for "somebody" takes you to my newest favorite kid-friendly music video. One part Napoleon Dynamite, one part catchy music.]