This week, while busing is still being sorted out, Dave and I have been shuttling Andrew to school and back on the train. His school is in the next neighborhood over, about 20 blocks away. Dave has been taking him to school in the morning, on his way to work, and Isaac and I pick him up in the afternoons.
In our travels, we've discovered that there is a set of twins in Andrew's class that live on our block. We wait with them in the station and sit near them on the train. The kids start off smiling and giggling at each other. Sometimes Andrew tries to give one of them a hug. He calls them the "girls with the same backpacks".
On the train the twins sit next to each other and swing their legs back and forth as they chat and laugh and talk with their mom. They are really, really cute.
Andrew, sits next to me, and while the girls are chatting and giggling, Andrew turns into a robot. He tells me to push buttons and pull levers and when I do, he makes crazy sound effects while his arms flail around. I think it's funny and cute, though I can't help but wonder what the other mom is thinking.
Lately I've been feeling very different. I feel like our family is very different from a lot of the families around us. And I think that I'll probably feel quite different from the people around me, for various reasons, for a long time. What I've realized is that I'm mostly okay with feeling different. I realized that I don't necessarily need to fit in, but I do need to feel like it's okay for us to be who we are. And maybe that seems obvious...wanting to feel okay being who you are is nothing new. But seeing the distinction between wanting to fit in and wanting to feel okay being who we are has been helping me wrap my head around the differences I feel.
So, it is my kid on the train acting like a robot. And it's not what the other kids are doing. But it's stinkin' adorable. And, I think, that that's okay. I'm getting there at least.
Yesterday's after-school snack: apple scones! Always a big hit.
7 comments:
Yum, do those scones have cinnamon in them?
I don't know... Andrew's behavior seems perfectly normal and age appropriate to me, even if it was different from his peers at the time. But I really like what you're saying about journeying towards a place of being okay with who you are.
If it helps, I like who you are, too. ;)
A very thoughtful post. I'm always thinking that why is it my boy who has to behave differently to the others? I'm trying to embrace his 'differences', but I do find it hard. I do love popping over to your blog to see how you deal with things.
I can totally relate to that struggle even though I come to it from a different place. It seems like one of the hardest struggles as a human.
I miss robot Andrew. It's been too long since we've seen you all!
My youngest often pretends to be a cat out in public
Trust me, I've seen far worse than 'robots' being acted out. What a great imagination your boy has! My daughter was once obsessed with the Australian Soap opera 'Neighbours' and would only answer us if we spoke to her in an Australian accent!
I wonder if most moms of boys feel that way. I feel that way. I often feel like other moms, especially of little girls, are judging me or looking down on me. Because my boys, especially Brice, are just crazy. And super silly. And generally disobedient. And mostly difficult. I get embarrassed. And from talking to other moms of little boys, I find they feel similarly. Oh well. I secretly think we moms of boys have a little more fun.
...and all other moms make it look so easy. Could it be that they too feel exactly the same way?
We humans are pretty strange really. We have the ability to communicate so we have developed a way of living that doesn't use it...
~sigh~
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