The person my two-year-old thinks I am

I’ve heard a saying to the effect of, “I strive to be the person my dog thinks I am.”  Having never owned a dog, and without any significant pet experience beyond a parade of caged critters, I’ve never been particularly able to relate to this.  It’s a nice sentiment, sure, and cute pictures of puppies can make me all sentimental as much as the next person.  However, it recently hit me that this statement can absolutely 100% without a doubt be applied to my two-year-old son.

I strive to be the person my two-year-old thinks I am.

I walk into my son’s room in the morning, eyes half open, sporting mismatched pajamas and hair washed two days ago.  When he sees me he immediately smiles and says, “Mommy!”  He climbs out of his bed and runs over to give me a hug.  I’m the most beautiful woman in the world, and I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.

After a full day at work I’m trying to get dinner on the table, second guessing my meal planning and wondering whether I’m offering the right ratio of fruits, vegetables, and grains.  On a whim, I pull out the jar of green olives to serve as an appetizer to lure my son to the table.  When I announce dinner is ready, he comes running excitedly.  His eyes light up when he sees the jar and he giggles, “Olives!”  I’m a gourmet chef, and all I did was open a jar.

As my son busies himself playing in the front yard, I absentmindedly pick up his discarded plastic bat and start tossing up whiffle balls and hitting them across the lawn.  When I realize he has become silent I look in his direction and see that he is staring at me in awe, mouth open.  “I wanna do that, Mommy!”  I’m a professional athlete with a neon orange bat.

My son is working on a particularly challenging Winnie the Pooh puzzle and struggling to get a few pieces in place.  He asks for my help and I explain to him that he needs to look for all the different Eeyore pieces and try to put them together.  We finish the puzzle together and he exclaims, “We did it!”  We have conquered art, logic, and reason in the form of a cardboard cartoon.

And sometimes I strive to be the person I hope my son thinks I am.

After a week of our son being a little under the weather, the whole household was exhausted.  Waking up several times during the night and needing comfort is not characteristic for him, and I admit at times I lost my patience.  I resented the fact that a two-year-old could be waking me up as much as a newborn.  When he protested endlessly at bedtime I started to wonder if he was just gaming us to stay up at night.

And then, as I was putting him to bed one night at the end of that long week, he crawled into bed without begging to stay up.  He snuggled onto his pillow, then turned his head and reached up to put his arms around my neck.  He gave me a hug and a kiss and said, “I love you.”  He waved at me as I left the room. 

I know it’s too much to think that he was acknowledging how rough the previous week was for everyone, but in a small way it made me feel like he understood.  He was grateful.  I immediately forgot the inconvenience and found myself hoping he would wake up at 2 am so we could cuddle.  And I vowed to myself, yet again, that I will never fault him for needing me.

He's watching every move and waiting for me to be a hero, but it usually takes a lot less than I think.  I strive to be the person my two-year-old thinks I am and to see myself every now and then through his eyes.