A present for Nate from my mom and dad for his very first birthday.
I glowed, bright and warm with an idea. I spent hours last night laying awake, not unusual for me, but so frustrating. I worried (oh how I can worry in the middle of the night) about many things, but in particular this time, I worried about Nate's birthday. Matt and I got him not one thing for his birthday. Well, to be fair, not one material thing. We threw a BBQ for close friends who love him and we sang to him and passed him around one to the other and kissed him and hugged him. We surrounded him with love and that is enough.
I absolutely, one hundred percent believe that is enough and I try to live it. Still. Still and all and the same, despite the basement toy room full of playthings and children that most often would rather make up elaborate games involving cardboard, I long, sometimes, to give them things. Things that are not in our budget, (and we have a good life, with plenty), things that are not necessary or needed, but just fun. For them and for my heart.
Matt's mom and dad gave Nate a bright red, plastic, light-up, walk-along car for his birthday. That red plastic car was the very first brand new toy all his own that he had ever received. He didn't really even get to play with it. His brothers and sister were all over it in minutes, claiming buttons and making up games and laughing and pushing and dancing while he sat, awed, taking in their more advanced play.
In a quiet moment, the music played, sharp and mechanical and annoying, and he swayed suddenly and bopped his head, grinning a huge smile in the direction of his oblivious siblings.
With those images in my head, I lay awake all night thinking about a year, a whole entire year, before our fourth child had a toy of his own. Here was this new gift and the older kids played in the basement.
I thought, I'll open it with him and let him play with it for a while all by himself. We ripped the shiny red paper gleefully, pulled out the ball popper inside and he watched, clutching the squashed blue bow, while I assembled it and fitted it with four huge batteries.
Proud and excited, I turned it on, waiting for him to revel in the ecstasy of having such a cool new toy to himself. It whirred loudly and the first ball shot up from the chute and into the air.Nate's face crumpled and he sobbed and scaled me like I was the only tree on a vast savanna in a hundred-year flood. Nothing, not coaxing or begging or crackers or immersion therapy would get him within feet of that toy without sad, rumpled-face wailing. You would have thought that the damn thing was made of grass.
(That is horrendous and terrifying and I shall climb you with my claws extended.)So. Then. Fine. Operation let Nate play with a toy of his own was not a success. Might as well let the toy-locust hoards descend. I called Saige and Garrett and Quinn up from the basement to see the toy that Grandma sent Nate. Nate consoled himself on the far side of the room by ripping apart a stack of magazines while they squealed and pressed every button and chased balls and made up games and fought and sorted it out and fought again and settled into an elaborate game involving the color ball that flew up and a rotating turn for button pressing.
Half watching them and half playing with the computer, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that Nate had made his way under the table to watch the big kids immersed in their game. A few minutes later he hovered, perched for flight, on the very edge of the open floor space where they played.He crawled forward several times and then reversed himself, startled by the toy, but their loud shrieks enticed him. He smiled and clapped where he sat.
"Saige," I said softly. Saige is my gentle child. It is a stereotype, I suppose, to see your daughter as nurturing, but she is patient with him and kind and she delights in his successes. "Saige, see if Nate-Nate wants a ball."
"Here you go, Nate-Nate," she held one out to him. He took it in his chubby hand and then stretched out to hand it back to her.
"He wants me to do it, momma." I nodded.
The next time I looked, he sat laughing in the middle of the chaos, right next to the whirring ball popper of terror.
"Let Nate try," I asked them again. Quinn handed him a bright green plastic sphere. "Right there, Nate. Put it in, Nate. You can do it, Nate." They all spoke at once, a chorus of chirpy life coaches. Their little pupil reached up and placed the green ball in the tray.
"Yaaaayyyyyy!!!! You did it, Nay-Nay!!!! You did it!!!!!" They cheered.
Oh, I forget so easily. I learn these lessons and I try to remember them and then life twirls me around and hangs me upside down and I can't hang on. I lay awake at night because I forget that every pro has a con and every negative has a positive. I forget that we chose this family, this joyful, tumbling gaggle of children, for a reason.
Siblings aren't just rivals. They don't just divide resources and attention and time. They are also comrades in arms. They are teammates and cheerleaders. They are idols and safety in numbers and liquid courage. They are friends.
And nothing is quite so scary with a friend by your side, is it?
(Nothing scares me now, I am mesmerized by the purple floating ball.)******************************
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