Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
William Makepeace Thackery said that but if you’re anything like me you might remember it better from “The Crow.”
Niko is still in that stage where he thinks I know everything and can do everything. If he asks me a question and I don’t have an answer, he thinks I am holding out on him and gets angry at me. I gave him some blueberries and didn’t pluck a dried bit of leaf off one of them, and he was offended. “Why would you even think I like this?” He asks me to draw an Ornitholestes and takes it personally if I draw it “wrong” (holding an egg/not holding an egg/too big/too small/too happy/not happy enough/dancing/not dancing/etc). He had a hilarious looking pratfall the other day out of NOWHERE (usually you know why a kid falls down. They slip on a piece of paper or step on a floppy sock or stumble over a toy or slide on that slippery patch of floor they’d rubbed butter into earlier or something. He just flew right down.) that ended up fairly serious, with a badly bitten lip. He clung to me, sobbing, upset that he was crying so much and unable to stop. Then he blamed me. “You should have SAVED ME. You should have CAUGHT me.” It was my fault he fell, you see. Because I should have intervened. Like lightning. Like god.
I can’t save him. I can’t read his mind and make him happy. I can’t make everything all better. He’s still grappling with the idea of mortality, of death; with the idea that some day he might not have a mama and a tata, that he’ll be alone. I can’t just make that better.
He has nightmares, and night terrors. Maybe this is the side effect of a medication he’s on, or maybe it’s just his age or his relation to me (I get nightmares frequently, as in several times a week… during times of high stress they can hit every single night multiple times a night. It’s… not restful.) He screams and cries and thrashes and he’s seriously upset, and it just kills me that I can’t make everything right. I hold him, I try to calm him down. One particularly bad one I tried to reassure him that he was in his own little bed and he was safe. “I’m not safe. I’m not! I’m not safe anywhere!” he wailed. It was like a knife through the heart. He didn’t remember it at all the next day.
“Why didn’t you save me? You should have saved me!”
I’m trying, kiddo. I’m trying.
Oh poor little guy. I’m making sad, sympathetic, understanding faces for both of you.
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Sidenote, can we TALK about The Crow and how effed up it is?! E’s super into it, which…I respect…. he saw it in the pre-formed youth stage of his life and bonded. But really, the girl has just as much right to come back and be vengeful as the dude does, hmph.
I’m sorry he’s struggling with the existentialism of life. He’s awfully small fry for that. I hear you on the night terrors – I wake up halfway across the room or scrabbling for something imaginary that fell down the side of the bed or from a dream that I’m trying to scream my way out of sometimes.
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ONG I BONDED SO HARD WITH THAT MOVIE!!!!!
Part of the reason the dude comes back & not the woman is that 1) duh, it’s a comic, MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN 2) it’s written by a dude 3) in the 80s 4) after the sudden and unexpected death of his fiance at the hands of a drunk driver. It’s so obviously personal that I give it a huge pass when it comes to that.
I totally love your blog(s). The quote up there from the Crow is my all time favorite quote ever, and I, too, bonded really hard with.
My dad will text me and say “I’m listening to your favorite soundtrack” and I’ll Immediately know what he’s listening too.
I’m sorry your boy is going through such a scary time… I hope he starts to feel safe in his own skin, and it sounds like you’re doing everything you can to help him. It sucks that we can’t just take care of it, but he’ll be in a much better head space when he’s thru working thru it with your help.
I recently subscribed, and I’m SUPER glad I did. :-}
brigid
Twitter: brigidkeely
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March 7th, 2013 at 5:09 pm
Thanks for reading & subscribing… and commenting! “The Crow” came out on the big screen when I was in high school and just BAM! One of those formative things, you know? I loved the comic, too.
Apparently some kids just become aware of their own mortality around this age and don’t cope well. He’s totally fine most of the time, and absolutely hilarious. We’re just doing the best we can to keep him comfortable until he’s done, which hopefully will be soon.