On September 20th, 2004 I went to the hospital to have a baby. This would be my first and I was anxious and excited about the whole event. They induced me on a Monday and after 46 hours of labor and little progress I ended up with a C-section. My life with Max started out with me drugged up on morphine and not really knowing what was going on. My husband and the nurse brought my baby into the recovery room for me to see and I stared at him like any new mother, and promptly burst into tears. So, here I am this brand new mother and in my morphine haze all I can see is that my beautiful baby boy is covered in hair like a monkey. I became upset that I gave birth to a monkey and really tried to work out how this could happen. These are the lasting memories that I have of my son being born; 46 hours of torture, quasi-vivisection, and all I got was a monkey. I think that these memories have set the tone for everything that I do with Max. Our relationship is energenic, intense, can be painful at times, and is interjected with a gigantic dose of humor. For the first 3 years of his life, Max was "my little monkey", then he began to protest the fact that I insisted he was a monkey when clearly he was not! Max and I would have these great conversations about why he wasn't a monkey or a tree or the local pizza store. I would try and convince him why liking bananas, having hair on your head, and loving to scream really loud just might make him a monkey. He never bought into my argument. Flash forward to Max at 4 and three quarters, he is counting the days till he turns 5. He starts kindergarten in September and is brushing up on all of his base knowledge. He is fascinated with math so everything is a math problem. Yea, you have your standard number equations but now he has added pictograph equations. I love these things! He might draw a person and add them to a sandwich and they equal a piece of candy. If you can follow the 4 year old logic then when he eats his lunch all gone he will be given a piece of candy for the completion of this task. Brilliant! He is also drawing things that he says are hard for him to explain with words, like that Dad gives him too much salad to eat before he gets his hot dog. And writing tickets! Yes tickets, like an officer of the law.......the law of Max! The problem is that the law of Max has, thus far, not been documented in a hard copy, making it impossible to not break the law. Example: I am lying peacefully in bed on a Sunday morning and Max comes in with a pad of post-it notes. Standing next to my bed he looks at me with a disapproving eye and proceeds to scribble on the pad. The next thing I know, I am having a "ticket" stuck to my forehead!..."What is this for?" "I am writing you a ticket!" " I know. What did I do?" "You broke the rules Mom." "OK. What did I do?" "You are suppose to be making me breakfast and you are not. Ticket!!" You can see how this all plays out. So, life with Max is nothing if it is not a wild river ride. I am not talking about the Peshtigo or the Wolf rivers, I am talking about the Colorado at flood stage. I love the unpredictable behavior of something with so much energy but sometimes find myself looking for a calm eddy to dry off a little and take a deep breath. I want to remember my trip down this river and decided that a blog would be my river diary.
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Year of the Monkey
On September 20th, 2004 I went to the hospital to have a baby. This would be my first and I was anxious and excited about the whole event. They induced me on a Monday and after 46 hours of labor and little progress I ended up with a C-section. My life with Max started out with me drugged up on morphine and not really knowing what was going on. My husband and the nurse brought my baby into the recovery room for me to see and I stared at him like any new mother, and promptly burst into tears. So, here I am this brand new mother and in my morphine haze all I can see is that my beautiful baby boy is covered in hair like a monkey. I became upset that I gave birth to a monkey and really tried to work out how this could happen. These are the lasting memories that I have of my son being born; 46 hours of torture, quasi-vivisection, and all I got was a monkey. I think that these memories have set the tone for everything that I do with Max. Our relationship is energenic, intense, can be painful at times, and is interjected with a gigantic dose of humor. For the first 3 years of his life, Max was "my little monkey", then he began to protest the fact that I insisted he was a monkey when clearly he was not! Max and I would have these great conversations about why he wasn't a monkey or a tree or the local pizza store. I would try and convince him why liking bananas, having hair on your head, and loving to scream really loud just might make him a monkey. He never bought into my argument. Flash forward to Max at 4 and three quarters, he is counting the days till he turns 5. He starts kindergarten in September and is brushing up on all of his base knowledge. He is fascinated with math so everything is a math problem. Yea, you have your standard number equations but now he has added pictograph equations. I love these things! He might draw a person and add them to a sandwich and they equal a piece of candy. If you can follow the 4 year old logic then when he eats his lunch all gone he will be given a piece of candy for the completion of this task. Brilliant! He is also drawing things that he says are hard for him to explain with words, like that Dad gives him too much salad to eat before he gets his hot dog. And writing tickets! Yes tickets, like an officer of the law.......the law of Max! The problem is that the law of Max has, thus far, not been documented in a hard copy, making it impossible to not break the law. Example: I am lying peacefully in bed on a Sunday morning and Max comes in with a pad of post-it notes. Standing next to my bed he looks at me with a disapproving eye and proceeds to scribble on the pad. The next thing I know, I am having a "ticket" stuck to my forehead!..."What is this for?" "I am writing you a ticket!" " I know. What did I do?" "You broke the rules Mom." "OK. What did I do?" "You are suppose to be making me breakfast and you are not. Ticket!!" You can see how this all plays out. So, life with Max is nothing if it is not a wild river ride. I am not talking about the Peshtigo or the Wolf rivers, I am talking about the Colorado at flood stage. I love the unpredictable behavior of something with so much energy but sometimes find myself looking for a calm eddy to dry off a little and take a deep breath. I want to remember my trip down this river and decided that a blog would be my river diary.
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