How’s your summer going? I haven’t written in awhile for reasons. School being out and having no time to write or think or breathe, etc. etc. You get the idea.
I’ve been floating in a shame cloud again lately. Continuously telling myself I need to be more positive in my interactions with the Ninja and trying to eliminate negative feedback and reactions to our absurdity. Recently I told myself that I was going to spend the entire day only reacting with positivity and curiosity, eschewing as much declination of proposed activities as possible. Most days this time of year the dog gets me up between 5:30 and 6am, and I take her for a walk. Post walk is usually the one time of day I can plan to do 20-45 minutes of work in the flower field before I have to head up to the house and begin Ninja duty. Depending on husbands work schedule and demands, some days I have up to an hour to work and some days I have no time at all to work. Today I was hoping for 45 minutes. Instead, roughly 10 minutes into my plant inspection and seeding session I hear “Hi Mom!”. I look over and see Ninja on his bike riding down our shared road, and he shouts out to inform me that he is going to wish the neighboring farm a happy Family Day (his most recently declared previously never heard of holiday) while wearing a white button down dress shirt that he has written a name and number on the back of, like a jersey. This is not to be confused with the other white shirt that he wrote FBI on the back of yesterday. It is 6:45 am.
Husband drives down the road and intercepts him, to much protest. I meet them up at the house and proceed to remind Ninja for approximately the 57th time that it’s not okay to just drop by people houses uninvited, especially not before 7am. Then I tell him to take the piece of pizza he is eating on the couch over to the table, an instruction I have repeated at every meal and snack time since he came out of a strapped booster seat roughly 4 years ago. I am totally NOT nailing this exclusively positive interactions thing. Before 8am there are 4 yogurt wrappers on the table along with a peach pit and some pizza crust. The last time I bought two of the 8 tube yogurt boxes at once I was hoping they would last to the next grocery run. The 16 tubes were gone in less than two days, so yeah. When he is home during the summer we legitimately cannot keep enough food in the house because he eats all day long, and we don’t have an option to lock up the entire kitchen, so that’s fun. If he likes something he eats all of it. Quickly. We ask him to stay out of the kitchen. He doesn’t.
He pulls my hand and leads me over to his bedroom, which I’m informed is now his house. Last night I forgot his melatonin and so he stayed up and got his general contractor on. He first pointed out his Art Room, which consisted of a pop up teepee filled with paper and coloring supplies that he smuggled from a hall closet. His closet was now a music room, with his keyboard and toy guitar. Over behind the teepee was his storage area, which is apparently just a dumping ground for all of the items he removed from his bookshelves and chest. Speaking of bookshelves, those were now in front of and at the end of his bed, meant for holding various treasures and mementos, and the previous book occupants were now split between his storage area and his chest. The chest which was previously on the floor and holding costumes and dress up things is now on top of his bed next to his clothes hamper and filled with books and a globe. Costumes are now in his storage area, aka the giant pile of random shit taking up half his room. I’m informed that the pillows on the floor are his couch, and the chest/hamper setup is his living room. The sheet hanging from the top bunk separates the living room from his actual “bedroom”, which consists of half of his actual bed and every blanket and comforter he could find in the house. He is very proud of himself so I commend his work and head off in search of breakfast.
A bit later I am trying to get him together and out of the *literal* house. He had been asked to get dressed and handed clothes, but emerged wearing half the clothes I had given him, with a regular shirt on top and his pajama pants on the bottom, forgetting that his lower half was a thing that also had to leave the house at some point. I ask him to brush his teeth approximately 12 times over the next several minutes, though I know this to be a fools errand because I will likely end up escorting him to the bathroom and brushing his teeth myself, I remain steadfastly optimistic. When he heads back to the bathroom I think that this may be one of those rare days where he manages to complete a task individually. A few minutes later he still had not emerged, and so I went to check on him. The lights were on and the water was running, but he had ventured into another room, drawn in by whatever it was that distracted him at that moment. After leading him back to the running water and getting the teeth brushed, I undertake the next major task of getting shoes and socks on his feet. I bring both his socks and his shoes to where he is sitting and drop them on the floor next to him. I head to my own room to attempt my own effort to get ready. A few minutes later I check in on him and he is wearing one sock and wrestling with the dog. I ask him again to get his shoes and socks on and continue getting ready. I check on him again a few minutes later, and he is now wearing no socks and no pants and eating a yogurt.
Now I really try, whenever possible, to not take Ninja with me when I run errands. His attempt to run away into the back storage area and climb ladders in the store I had to pop into was justified because “he works there”. On our second stop I gave instructions (immediately ignored) to stay in the car while I paid for a bale of hay I needed to mulch some flower beds. That obviously meant he would be following me into the farm store, attempting to convince me that the wildlife at our place NEEDED a very lovely and expensive had painted bird house that he tried to convince the cashier to charge me for, then took off into the hay barn while I loaded up. When he finally emerged he proceeded to chastise the poor teenager working there about what an utter mess that hay barn was. We returned home after that, I had decided to abandon any other foolishly planned productivity for the day.
Within an hour our entire floor was covered by bits of cardboard and wads of tape, in what looked like some kind of Amazon box massacre. I was informed that he was trying to build a Lamborghini, and he was very, very upset that it was not in fact working out for him. He could not fathom why the engine wouldn’t run, despite the fact that there actually was no engine. I know by now that any attempt to reason only compounds whatever feelings are happening, so I just told him I was sorry it wasn’t running very well and tried to change the subject. I honestly don’t remember what else happened after that, other than reminding him that popsicles are not a food group and asking him to eat them at the table no less than 15 times and offering actual lunch food many times over a few hours. When he is home for the summer I cannot for the life of me get him to eat a meal. He grazes all day long and wanders about, completely unable to sit down and focus long enough to take more than two bites in a row. He legitimately forgets he is eating while he is eating.
I am attempting to return an email from a customer when he asks for help cutting some fruit. I set the phone down on the counter and turn around to get a knife. In the 2.3 seconds it takes me to grab one and turn back around, he has picked up my phone and sent an email to the customer, since it was open to that screen and he saw a button that said send. I yell, because STOP TOUCHING THINGS THAT DON’T BELONG TO YOU, and I am exhausted.
Later that afternoon we head to a friends house, and he insist on bringing his motorcycle. It’s actually a small green kids bike, but don’t you dare try to convince him of that. He is upset that the other kids don’t acknowledge that it is a motorcycle, despite it’s clear lack of, you know, a motor. He yells angrily and argues but keeps his hands to himself and doesn’t seem to be a cop in his head at the moment, trying to arrest others, so I take the win. Once back home, he is examining a dog toy and asks why it says China and for dogs only. I answered that it is intended specifically for dogs, and made in China. As soon as the words left my mouth I remembered that our puppy had been gifted the dog toy from Santa two Christmases ago. Because he is smart and misses nothing, he asks how it could be made in China and not the north pole if Santa brought it. I quickly explained that kids are obviously Santa’s #1 priority, so most of the north pole energy and resources go to making toys for kids. Santa realizes that pets are important family members and doesn’t want to leave them out, so he outsources a lot of the pet work out to China because the north pole is pretty tight on time and resources, and man there sure are a lot of kids in the world. I spew off something else about the cost of raw materials and differences in labor laws and then say something like “let’s Google how plastic is made”, and before you know it we are actually Googling pictures of panthers because those are another top of mind recent fixation.
That evening he asks when we can have a baby and I tell him there is no chance we are having another baby. He tells me I look like I have a baby in my belly, which is super uplifting and I make a mental note to burn the dress I am wearing. He asks this every so often and I explain for the 93rd time that some families have lots of kids, some families have no kids, and some families have one kid. I don’t tell him that delivering him literally almost killed both of us, because that seems like the kind of thing adults talk to their therapists about when trying to pinpoint where their childhood went wrong.
The Ninja does not accept the no baby situation, and decides we are having one whether I agree to it or not, logic and biology be damned. He selects a dog stuffy from his vast collection as the chosen one. He brings me his baby wrapped in a blanket, and I am subsequently informed that the baby is named Kyle and I have to help take care of it. He gets very angry when his Dad does not let him take the milk from the refrigerator back to his room in order to feed Kyle. Given that he is triggered by the word Pretend, or any insinuation that something is not 100% real, I know better than to try and convince him that this is a stuffed dog. So I inform him that I will not be caring for Kyle because he is not MY baby, I never agreed to having and caring for a baby because oh-my-God-the-burnout, and if he wanted a baby he would have to be responsible for it on his own. He argues, and proceeds to tell everyone he sees for the next two days that we have a new baby in the family, which leads to many surprised looks and akward conversations and him being upset when I do not confirm his claim. My brain fantasizes about a future Maury Povich episode where I celebrate gleefully when DNA tests confirm that I am not the mother.
When evening arrives and it is time to take a bath, Ninja must suddenly and urgently build a golf course. We find him outside with a shovel, ready to dig out what will undoubtedly be a par 3 next to the driveway. Why he had to build a course in that exact moment, nobody knows. He didn’t even bother to get the proper permits or anything. I’m pretty sure we are not zoned for private or municipal course erecting, but I don’t have the energy to argue. We lure him back inside with promises to start planning our golf course in the morning, and have to chase and catch him so we can drag him to the bathroom to brush his teeth. My brain is fried from answering no less than approximately 7 dozen questions in the 14 or so hours he as been awake. Deep, burning questions, like where was I 21 hours ago? (outside, I think); was I alive 15,000 hours ago? (yes); where will you be in 108 years? (dead); what do lightning bugs eat (soft bodies insects, snails, worms); would you rather have a BMW or a Honda? (are those the only two choices?); would Derrick Henry eat this? (probably not); would you rather be on the Titanic or 32 miles from the sun? (is Titanic before leaving port an option?); is this taller than Derrick Henry? (it’s an oak tree, so yes); what’s 100,372,586 times 284? (I don’t know, you stole my calculator off my desk); are Cyber trucks rare? (not as rare as they should be); Is a bear stronger than Derrick Henry (almost certainly, though maybe not a little sun bear?). The questions are random and numerous and encompass various areas of expertise. Also, a certain NFL running back is different than the other current fixations, because Ninja references him as his own unit of measurement. Suck it, metric system.
My favorite thing about summer is the late sunsets. I put Ninja to bed and pour a glass of wine or a sip of bourbon and sit out on the deck looking at the sky as it changes colors. I shut off the constant vigilance tab that opens as soon as he gets up in the morning and runs all day on high alert whenever he is out of my direct line of vision. All I can say is that Kyle had better sleep through the night. So yeah, I haven’t written as much lately as I’d like. Because reasons.
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