My Eeyore

I'm sure by now I've mentioned that Josh is my dramatic child. He's always had a way with words and a penchant for seeing the negative more easily than the positive. For example, as we were getting ready for church on Sunday he told me he doesn't like his head because it's not round; it's too pointy. What? It's not pointy at all. Well, he doesn't like that his chin prevents his face from being a perfect circle. Apparently, he wants to look like Mickey Mouse. If he were a girl, I'm convinced he'd be in the "depths of despair," right along with Anne of Green Gables.

Friday was a particularly woeful day. First, I wouldn't let him buy a skull-and-crossbones adorned SICKLE he saw in Party City. (I know, right? What kind of mother am I?) Can I just say how much I hate that his birthday is in October, so every year when we go to get birthday supplies we are surrounded by blood and vampires and all manner of goul and gore? Of course, Josh loves it. He says it's his favorite store (one he goes to 2-3 times a year, mind you) and that the aisle with "all the axes" is his "favorite aisle!" So, when mom said no to this particular axe (I decided not to teach him about sickles just yet. I'll save that for after machetes and kidnapping.), his world came crashing down. "What if we take off the skull? But I have swords and light sabers! Why can't I have an axe? When I'm an adult, I'm going to buy it . . ." After a discussion about how he needs to stop trying to have the last word and drop this subject before he experienced some unpleasant repercussions, he snuck in one last question. "What about when I'm M & G's age?" (my 14 and 12 y/o niece and nephew) "Not another word, Joshua." Pause. "I thought for that you'd at least say maybe."

By this point in our fun-filled afternoon (seriously, it really was . . . we were at Party City in the first place to determine what supplies we need for his Star Wars birthday party, aka Jedi Training, and were then headed to my mom's house to swim. A fact he knew nothing about when he'd left for school that morning, so this was a total fun Friday afternoon suprise, and David even took off early from work to come swim with us. Sounds like a great afternoon, no?

As they say, all good things must come to an end, so after FOUR hours of swimming and fun at my mom's, I said it was time to wrap things up and head home since the boys had their first soccer game at 9:00 the next morning. Well, you know how when it's time to leave kids have inevitably "JUST STARTED" doing the one thing they had really wanted to do the whole time? Nothing they had done the previous four hours was any fun at all . . . THIS was what they really wanted to be doing. Apparently, the swimming and bike riding he'd been doing for four hours were all just time-killers while he waited for the opportunity to go inside and play coyotes. What this involves, I do not know, but alas, it was time. to. leave.

And leave we did. After a few miles of enduring the sobs and laments coming from my almost 6 year-old Eeyore in the backseat, I let him know that it needed to stop and fast. If this is how you act when you have to leave a fun place, you will not go the next time, I said. He mustered all of his resolve and got his sobbing under control as we were pulling into our driveway, and this conversation ensued:

Me: Ethan, carry this bag inside. Josh, carry these vitamins inside. (We had stopped by the Vitamin Shop.)
Joshua: Mommy, I wish I could go ahead and take my vitamins becuase I feel like I don't have any strength left. [I turn my head so he doesn't see that I'm about to burst into laughter.] I don't have any strength at all.
Me: Then, by all means take 2 vitamins.

When I relayed this story to a friend, he said, "Apparently, he doesn't know about Scotch yet, huh?"