Two nights ago, Jon and I were awakened by Matthew's cries piercing the 2:00am darkness. Jon went in to check things out. He found a half awake/half asleep combative little boy- ferociously kicking his father away while crying out about something being thrown in the garbage. When it was clear that daddy couldn't calm him, I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed for one of those wonderful "only mommy can do it" moments that mothers of preschoolers know so well. By then Matthew was completely awake (and Caleb was now half-awake too). He was much calmer with me, but still crying. Clearly he had had some kind of nightmare- something we aren't yet very experienced with but I am sure this is changing. Between his sobs I was able to figure out what terrified my little boy. Daddy had thrown his play food bin in the garbage and he was afraid his play food was gone forever. No wonder he was combative with Jon- he was angry at him for throwing away one of his favorite toys! After reassuring him that he had just had a dream and that his play food bin would be there to play with in the morning, Matthew rolled over and went back to sleep. Though clearly not happy with the disruption in our precious sleep, the next morning Jon and I talked about how wonderful it is that the scariest thing in our sons' little three year old lives is the thought of losing a favorite toy. I'll admit it- we were a little proud.
Fast forward two days. It's Wednesday morning and Wednesday is story time at the bookstore. The boys are playing beautiful, creative things with their Duplo blocks on the living room floor when I try to herd them up to get dressed and out the door so we can make it to story time in time to get a seat. They are not happy to be disrupted. Not happy at all. They ask, then beg, then cry for just a few more minutes with their blocks- they are building trains and race cars and trophies. Nope, gotta go I tell them and by the time we are out the door we are all rather flustered- bordering on angry really, each for our own reasons. Luckily we are all settled down by the time we get to the bookstore and we even arrived in time for the boys to get a bench seat up front with the other kids. Except that in order for this to happen, it then means we have to wait another 10 minutes for story time to start. My kids are good at a lot of things. Waiting for more than two minutes isn't one of them. But we passed the time by each making guesses about the kind of stories Miss Andy would read to us today and I managed to keep my two bundles of energy sitting on their bench with their hands to themselves until Miss Andy arrived. And then she announced what kind of stories she would be reading- and I was a little more than just a bit taken aback. Today was monster day! She had four monster stories and then she had monster masks that the kids could color and "use to scare each other". And by scare each other- she meant that this would be the interactive socialization part after we've all sat and listened to the stories. You've got to be kidding me. Story time at our bookstore is specifically designed for 2 to 5 year olds and I can't for the life of me, no matter how hard I try, figure out why books and stories and cartoons and gosh darn grown ups in general find it appropriate to introduce kids this age to the concept of monsters and scary things. I can't even tell you how many kids I had in therapy who were afraid of monsters. Kids who couldn't fall asleep alone, kids who couldn't even be alone after dark because they were afraid of monsters. Kids whose parents were sleepless and distraught and whether or not this was the pressing issue that brought them to therapy- there we were talking about monsters. Hey- I've got an idea! Let's not teach our kids about monsters before they are developmentally and cognitively able to process such fiction! My three year olds know nothing about quantum physics. Not because they are not capable of understanding such concepts- because believe you me I think we'd all be surprised if we were to introduce such things to them. But no. They do not know anything about quantum physics because we have never introduced them to quantum physics. We do not talk about quantum physics. We do not read books on quantum physics- not even cute adorable children's books on quantum physics. We do not watch cartoons on quantum physics. Therefore- we know nothing about quantum physics. It's a really simple concept folks. And I can also tell you that we know nothing about monsters. We don't cry at bedtime or when the lights go out. We don't have nightmares about monsters under our beds or in our closets. And that is because we have not introduced such a concept to our children. Instead we have nightmares about things that are wholeheartedly appropriate for three year olds. Like daddy throwing away our favorite bin full of play food. Because I am acutely aware that we are entering the cognitive phase of nightmares. And I am acutely aware that it is my job as a parent to surround my impressionable children with appropriateness. And most importantly- our next nightmare will most likely be about losing a toy again- because we didn't stay for story time. Instead we played at the train table for a bit, then came home to play with our Duplo blocks- which maybe we should have continued to do in the first place. Maybe my next post will be about taking cues from our own children instead of from the outside world, because the more I reflect on our experiences like these, the more I'm coming to believe that maybe my three year old know more about their own lives than I do.
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