Over the span of two or three years, you go from coming out of a human being’s body to becoming a talking walking full person with opinions and feelings and desires of your own. At age 2 or 3, you are a little talking, communicating, human being trying to figure out the world. This is where I find myself with Kingston right now.
As you probably know, Kingston lives at both my house and his dad’s house. He is with his dad two nights during the week and every other weekend. I’ve always wondered how he feels about living in two homes but I also realize it’s all he’s ever known so it’s just regular life to him. At 18 months, this wonderful young boy still said no words and I ended up I taking him to a speech evaluation. Being a preemie, we was evaluated at 16 month milestones and didn’t qualify for services. Little did I know, though, the child was listening and observing and saving up all his speech to explode out at once. Within a few months he went from no words to full sentences.
Recently, he’s been engaging in full conversations with me and even being the one to initiate the discussions. He talks about anything and everything he sees and questions his whole world. According to my parents, I also never shut up at his age and asked “why” to everything.
This morning, at 5:45am, Kingston and I were in my bed, waiting for the Ok-to-wake light to turn on at 6am. Here was our conversation:
Kingston: Mama, do you like me?
Me: Of course baby, I like you and I LOVE you. You’re my baby and my big boy.
Kingston: Ok… Mama, do you like pancakes?
Me: Yes, I do like pancakes.
Kingston: Mama, do you LOVE pancakes?
Me: Yeah, I do.
Kingston: I do love pancakes too. They are delicious!
In that short, self-initiated conversation, Kingston was exploring the difference between like and love and checking in on our relationship. His dad told me that when he picked him up today, Kingston said: Daddy, are you happy with me? What an intense question for a two year old to ask. He’s sorting through feelings and relationships and asking some wonderful questions as he affirms his place in this world and in the non-traditional family he exists in.
Yesterday, I picked King up from daycare and brought him home. I had set out two different activities. Then I made tacos for dinner. He doesn’t eat much but he loves tacos. No taker on this one. He did my activities for 10 minutes and only ate watermelon and water for dinner.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he went a bit wild. I had a FaceTime call and then a phone call with a friend. Kingston threw things around the house, ran and yelled, jumped on the couch, jumped OFF the couch, rolled on the floor, and shouted to me “Mama, you’re misbehaving!” This was very out of character for him.
I tried to talk to him, calm him down, cuddle with him, and not much worked. After about half an hour of trying different things, I asked if he wanted to build with Lego Duplo together and he said yes. He sat calmly and we built “a shield,” “monster house” and then “a tower” that we knocked down and rebuilt many times. As we built, he happily told me about his classmates at school: who likes to play in kitchen and dress up, who has to take a time out sometimes, who fell and got hurt the other day, how he wishes they had Magna Tiles at school, and who he would build with if they did. He told me what he likes for lunch and why he doesn’t like to attempt to go potty at school. He’s 2.5 and I got all that information about his life from playing together. And not just playing, but playing something HE wanted to play. I often put out activities, invitations to play, explore, or create for when he gets home. I set out two great activities yesterday. It wasn’t until he figured out what HE wanted to play that he calmed down and just connected with me. It wasn’t until I was off the phone that I realized that he just wanted to be with me and have my attention. About 15 minutes into building with Duplo, I asked him, “Why were you yelling and running around and jumping on things earlier? Why weren’t you listening toMama?” His response was the most clear, concise, and self-reflective response: “Because I wanted to play with you Mama. I want you to play with me. I want you to build with me Mama. I’m sorry Mama.”
I told him: Baby, you don’t need to say sorry. You made some mistakes. Next time, just tell me, Mama, I want you to play with me. We love each other and in our home we say what we need and we help each other. It’s me and you and we always have to help each other.
I am thankful that this small firecracker of a person who has only been with me for 2.5 years but is thoughtful and creative, intelligent and kind, communicative and loving. He’s my guy.
