I once read an article in a magazine that claimed women were more likely to ask their children to do chores around the house than their husbands.  And it’s probably true.  After all, what could our husbands possibly know about keeping a house clean and running?  Probably best to let them do their “husband” thing while we become more and more frustrated at their lack of interest as we load the dishwasher, start another load of laundry, step on toys left all over the living room floor, and get dinner on the table.  Right?

Turns out, no.  Not at all.  But, in most cases, it’s really not the fault of our husbands.  We don’t want to turn the control over – or, at least, I don’t.  I like to know that the dishes are all in their right places and the laundry is sorted into three laundry baskets to make putting it away easier (or, to be totally honest, grabbing clothes in the morning because we didn’t put them away).  I don’t know why I do; I just do.

Except I don’t anymore.  Slowly, over the past eighteen months, I’ve lost control of our house.  Although he travels for work quite a bit, Justin actually runs most of our house now.  It’s a bizarre sensation, asking Justin where certain dishes are or finding the bed made almost every day – and not by me minutes before climbing into it again.  It really hit home last Sunday when, as I finished breakfast, Justin undecorated our tree and packed up the ornaments.  Then, he put all the rest of the Christmas decorations away, taking care to pack them all in the ginormous “Christmas box” he’s had since he was little.

I’ll admit; this was hard for me.  I have certain boxes for my ornaments, certain boxes for Robbie’s.  But this year, they were all jumbled in together with Justin’s childhood ornaments.  In random boxes.  And our Christmas decorations weren’t put into the plastic bins I painstakingly labeled “CHRISTMAS” with green Sharpie years ago.  It took every ounce of willpower in me to not correct the job Justin was doing.  And you know what?  It felt pretty good, especially because within an hour, all the decorations were put away and in the basement.  And I didn’t have to do any of it.  I’ve also figured this will make decorating even more fun next year because I have no idea what I’ll be unpacking.

A beautiful thing happened when I didn’t correct the job Justin was doing; he continued doing other things around the house.  And let’s be clear – there was nothing to correct, which is the key here.  Just because Justin’s way isn’t mine doesn’t make it wrong.  Hard to believe, I know.  Yesterday, for instance, I got a text while I was at school.  It simply said, “What can I do to help you today?”  Funny thing: I did need help.  The rabbit in my classroom desperately needed a new water bottle.  And so Justin stopped (at two stores) to pick one up for me.

Today, he stopped to buy fabric we (read, I) were supposed to pick up over a month ago for a chair I want reupholstered.  And while he was in the neighborhood?  He stopped to buy new shoes for Robbie.  Tonight, while I was putting Robbie to bed, Justin cleaned the kitchen.  All of it.  Later, when he could have been watching TV or puttering around on his iPad, Justin clipped coupons while I wrote a grocery list.  Did I mention that I don’t go to the grocery anymore?

Don’t get me wrong; I still do a lot around the house (especially when Justin is traveling).  However, as Justin would be more than happy to tell you, when he is in town, he does a lot more around the house than I do.  So, give the husband a little more positive reinforcement when he makes the move to help out.  For goodness sake, don’t correct him.  In the scheme of things, he’s not doing anything wrong; it’s just different.  And, when you don’t have to do it and can spend a little more time having fun together, different is a wonderful thing.

Remember those long, luxurious hours spend soaking in a hot bubble bath?  Good book in hand?  Maybe a little music playing?  Yeah.  Me, either.  After a long run tonight, there was nothing my body wanted more than to soak in a near-scalding bathtub, letting my mind unwind after a long first day back at school.  And then the bathroom door came flying open.

It was all I could do to not slide under the water.  I knew it wasn’t Barkley; the intruder had used the doorknob to enter.  It could only be one person, since Justin was watching the Sugar Bowl.  It was he-who-should-have-been-sleeping-but-wasn’t.  Robert Gaetano Manna, himself.  Fortunately, between the incredible bath bomb from my sister and the powerful tub jets, I was completely covered with bubbles.

Robbie stood there, taking it all in.  “Mom, are you dirty?”

“Yes, honey.  Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I need to take a bath, too, Mom.  I’m dirty,” Robbie declared as he started to take off his shirt.

“Wait!’ I screamed – we’ve reached the age where this whole situation was about to get extremely awkward.  “You’re not dirty!  You don’t need to take a bath!  Go back to bed!”  And, I’ll admit, my voice got a little more high-pitched with each sentence, envisioning all of the therapy sessions that were sure to occur somewhere down the road when Robbie remembered taking a bath with his mother.

But then I remembered what I wrote yesterday – about cherishing every moment – and sent Robbie to go get Justin.  Ten minutes later, Robbie and I were both in our bathing suits, enjoying bubbles that covered Robbie when he sat in the tub.  We pretended Robbie was a snowman – a melting one, as he watched the bubbles fall from his shoulders down his body and back into the water.  Robbie slipped all over the place, pretending to be a merman (after a brief lesson in gender, as he was declaring himself a mermaid initially).

All of a sudden it happened – the moment that makes giving up a moment of tranquility completely worthwhile.  Robbie grabbed my face in both of his hands, stared into my eyes, and said, “Mom, we’re having fun together, aren’t we?”  Before I could respond, before I could even fully hold onto the moment, it – and Robbie – had slipped away.  I sure am glad I was paying attention.

I went in to 2012 doubting that I would survive it.  We had just lost Justin’s mom and spent all of Christmas closing up her apartment and moving everything into storage.  Justin was just starting his grieving and we moved blindly from day to day.  With a husband working on functioning on a day-to-day basis, we decided to put our house on the market to make the move to Kentucky.  A decision that caused us agony for the next eight months.

We made the move with one deal having fallen through and another still hanging in the balances.  I moved to a job in a middle school, leaving the best job I’d ever had in Lawrence.  We lived with my parents for almost three months, working to make new connections and get adjusted to life in a new (although familiar) place. We were nothing short of a disaster – literally and figuratively.  Our bedroom, much to my mother’s chagrin, was never clean.  Laundry was never actually put away.  Bins were stacked.  All our worldly possessions were stored in four different places around town.  And our only conversations were about real estate.  For a few months, I think we all forgot how to be nice to each other.

And then, all of a sudden, everything was OK.  We were rid of the condo in Arlington and able to move into our new home.  Justin was able to have everything under one roof and take the time he needed to sort through his mom’s belongings and fully grieve.  Despite all odds, we were able to be nice to each other again and establish new family routines and traditions. And we even started to be happy on a regular basis.

So it was with some hesitation that I watched 2012 slip into history last night.  It started as perhaps the worst year of my life.  But, 365 days later, I can tell you that I’ve never been happier.  I’ve never been more intent on living my life to its fullest and making every moment count.  Well, at least every day.  Some moments just slip you by, and that’s OK, too.

As so many of you know, Justin and I had a difficult time adjusting to Robbie’s sensory processing difficulties.  It seemed like we were never going to have a “normal” child.  We were never going to make it through a meal at a restaurant or a church service.  We would always have to leave playgrounds because Robbie acted aggressively toward other children.  Bedtime would involve epic meltdowns for all eternity.  And Robbie would spend the rest of his life running around like his pants were on fire.  And so, desperate for some sort of reprieve, we started Robbie in occupational therapy.

I was skeptical.  How well could this really work?  Robbie was going to go once a week.  We were supposed to brush him and perform joint compressions every two hours.  And this was really going to change our lives?  Brushing was going to make Robbie calmer?  No way.  Not even possible.  But we did it anyway.  Justin and I saw some changes but then, as soon as we thought we were good, there would be a setback.  A page-long letter from his pre-school teacher about three trips to the school office in one day for kicking kids, climbing cabinets, and leaping from cot to cot during nap time.  Or the phone call asking us to come pick him up because he had slapped a child.  Which is how we headed into Christmas vacation.

But, all of a sudden, something changed.  I’m not sure if we were more consistent about brushing and incorporating a sensory diet into our day or if things just started to click with Robbie, but the past twelve days have been wonderful.  Sure, we’ve had our moments.  Like maybe when I told Robbie he couldn’t get a gun as a prize at Gattitown and he threw a fit, so we left without a prize at all (one of my strongest parenting moments).  On our way out, he punched me in the face twice.  But, this gave us the opportunity to be firm in punishing him, and I think it’s the first time he’s realized that his actions have implications.

This break, we survived (barely) a Christmas Eve church service.  Robbie went shopping with me and held my hand the entire time – not running around and making the entire experience a nightmare.  He wants hugs and kisses and snuggling.  He talks about how happy he is and how much he loves us – without prompting.  And he seems so much freer to just be himself.  Which I think is the most any parent can ask for.

All last year, Robbie waited for snow.  It makes sense, right?  We lived in Boston.  There should have been lots of snow; the year before we had endured over 100 inches of the white stuff.  But not last year – there was never enough to even make a good snowball.  As soon as Thanksgiving was over this year, Robbie started asking for snow again.  In his mind, it made sense.  December means Christmas and Christmas means snow.

Finally, after waiting almost two years for a decent snow, Robbie’s hopes and dreams came true.  It wasn’t much – maybe three inches – but it was more than enough to make a certain three-year-old happy.  As soon as I walked through the door from the gym, Robbie ran to me, thrilled to tell me that it had snowed.  We raced through the house, collecting one Spider-Man snow boot from my closet and another from his, gathering gloves and winter coats.  And a carrot.

Then we were off, racing outside to see if the snow was right for snowmen.  It was perfect.  We rolled huge snowballs, stacking them on top of each other to create a snowman.  Robbie proudly handed me the carrot he had remembered to bring for the snowman’s nose and then we collected rocks for the eyes, mouth, and buttons.  We stood back to examine our handiwork, and Robbie declared that we needed to make more snowmen.  He ran back to the house two more times to get carrots and helped me find just the right rocks.

As I took pictures of Robbie near the snow family, we talked about who they were.  I said, “Look, Robbie!  It’s you, Daddy, and me.”  Robbie quickly corrected me.  “No, Mom.  This is you, me, and my new baby sister.”  And, no, he does not have a new baby sister on the way.  He has also informed us that he only wants a baby sister if it can be a boy.  Otherwise he wants a brother…

Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays but never as much as it was this year.  Christmas with a three-year-old is like nothing I have ever experienced in my life, except for maybe my own Christmas as a three-year-old.

It was the first time Robbie really, truly understood Christmas – and not just the Santa Claus and gift part.  He spent a lot of time at pre-school talking about baby Jesus being born.  His class’ part of the Christmas program was singing “Go, Tell It on the Mountain”, and Robbie ran around the house for a week singing, “Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ in born!” – complete with hand gestures.

Robbie was ready for Christmas as soon as the tree went up, counting down the days on his Advent calendar and watching a Christmas movie every night.  He begged for snow, near tears when it rained two days before Christmas.  We baked cookies on four different days, including Christmas Eve.  After all, how could I refuse Robbie’s earnest request to “make children’s cookies.”

Christmas morning was, well, magical.  Robbie woke up around 8:00 and climbed into bed with us.  He wasn’t quite ready to go out to see Santa yet; he wanted to talk about it.  As I asked him if he thought Santa had come, his eyes got big and a huge grin spread across his face as he nodded his head up and down vigorously.  And then, half an hour later, he was ready to see what Santa had brought.

All month, Robbie talked about a rocket ship.  He was determined that Santa was going to bring him a blue rocket ship.  They are nearly impossible to find at the North Pole.  Fortunately, Santa was able to perform a last-minute Christmas miracle and, sure enough, there was a Mickey Mouse rocket ship waiting for him under the tree.  I was sure it would be ignored – after all, there were two train sets all set up under the tree as well.

It was the first thing Robbie went to – “Look, Mom!  My rocket ship!”  He zoomed it all over the living room, thrilled that Santa had made his one wish come true.  And, miracle of all miracles, Santa left a different rocket ship at Nona’s house – and inflatable one he could ride.  Cynical mother that I am, I figured he would toss the rocket ship aside after he opened his other presents.  But no.  At the end of the day, Robbie went to sleep with his Mickey Mouse rocket ship tucked in bed behind him.  Two days later, when saying his prayers, I asked Robbie what he wanted to say thank you to God for.  Any guesses?  His rocket ship and his dump truck.

There was more than just Robbie’s age that made a difference this year, though.  For the first time in a decade, Justin and I weren’t traveling for Christmas.  We woke up in our own house, opened presents around our own tree, had our own Christmas breakfast.  Started our own Christmas traditions – things we had never been able to do before.  In fact, this was the first Christmas I didn’t wake up in my mom’s house.  And the first Christmas in seven years that didn’t involve 1000 miles of travel each way.

Now, a mere six days later, Christmas is packed up and put away (ladies, don’t get jealous, but Justin did all the work himself while I ate breakfast).  But the magic of Christmas lingers on a little longer, and Robbie is still checking in to make sure that Santa is back at the North Pole waiting for next Christmas – because Robbie is ready to start his countdown again.

I find myself fighting irrational thoughts – terrified about leaving my child at Chinese school, forcing myself to walk away and leave him in a classroom; nervous about the hour he was in Sunday school while I was fifty yards away at church; paranoid about a full day at pre-school, even though I have difficulty gaining access to the classrooms, even with a key.  All of these places I didn’t think twice about before last Friday.  Before someone stole the safe haven of elementary school, making even pre-school feel like a risk.

I know it is all irrational.  I know the chances of something happening to my child at school – be it Chinese, Sunday, or pre – is near minimal.  But the fact that there is still a chance is something I cannot shake.  The panic that any moment I leave my child could be the last that I see him will not leave me.  I find myself trying to imagine what those parents must be experiencing, but then the thought of anything happening to Robbie sends me into a new wave of terror.  When did our children become targets?  And what can we possibly do to protect them?

I’m working to make the best of all this terror, though.  Mornings, always so hectic, have to be a time of togetherness and fun.  This morning was a challenge, since Robbie work up screaming and didn’t stop for twenty minutes.  Normally, this results in me losing my temper and a swat on the bottom.  Then tears and both of us feeling terrible.  Finally, attempts to salvage the morning.

But today, I just tried to be grateful that I had a child who could scream for twenty minutes.  Silly, isn’t it, that this had to be my perspective?  That I am so much more fortunate that the poor parents who have no child to console, even for something as ridiculous as wanting to wear pajamas instead of getting dressed for school, all while standing naked in the bathroom.  So I tried something new.  I knelt down and held Robbie while he cried, not worried about the precious minutes this was costing my morning routine.

Suddenly, without reason, he stopped and started singing Christmas songs – something I would have completely missed if I had jumped to losing my temper.  And then he blew bubbles from Halloween, still stark naked, in the bathroom, delighted that the heating vent shot them straight up in the air.  All I could do was stop and watch Robbie, taking in the pure joy of his adventure.  And then my mind spiraled to that dark place again, wondering how I could function if these were the last moments I had with my son.

I know that in time these feelings will fade, this panic when I leave him or think about leaving him.  But I hope I never start taking all of the moments for granted and rushing through my mornings, panicked about walking out of the door in time to be five minutes early for work.  As minute as the chances are, they aren’t worth a potential lifetime of regrets if it really was our last morning together as a family.  I’d much rather have spent a few minutes singing Christmas carols and blowing Halloween balloons.

When I picked Robbie up from pre-school today, he was in time-out.  Then there was a note in his cubby from the morning teacher.  A long note.  Detailing every single transgression from the day.  Kicking and hitting friends.  Trip to the office.  Throwing bean bags and rugs.  Climbing cabinets and wiping all the contents on top onto the floor.  Trip to the office.  Accident in the office.  Leaping from cot to cot while swinging his blanket in the air during nap time.  Throwing shoes and socks at friends during nap time.  Trip to the office.

My first inclination was to drag my child out of school and have a stern talking to the entire way home.  And then he coughed.  And he felt a little warm.  And so I bit tongue and headed to the Little Clinic.  Only one thing could be happening: Robbie had another ear infection.  It was the only reasonable explanation.  Confused?  So was the nurse practitioner.  Our meeting went a little something like this:

“So, what brings Robert in this evening?”

“Well, I think he has an ear infection.  Again.”

“OK.  Has he complained about his ears hurting?”

“No, but I got a letter detailing all the terrible things he did at school today and he only acts that way when he has an ear infection.”

“But his ears don’t hurt?”

“Not that he’s told me.”

“Is he pulling at them?”

“No.  He can’t feel ear infections.  We can only tell from his behavior.  And his behavior is crazy.”

I could tell we weren’t getting anywhere and she obviously thought I was crazy for bringing my child in simply because I got a letter from his teacher telling me about his horrible day.  It was becoming apparent that she was worried about sending Robbie home with his crazy mother.  And then she examined him.

His lungs sounded bronchitis-y.  And, yes, his ears were red.  The beginnings of an ear infection.

It’s funny how things change.  Three months ago, I waited and waited to take Robbie to the doctor for a possible ear infection because he never complained about ear pain.  And now, well, I’m the crazy lady taking her child in based on erratic behavior.  This is exactly why learning about Robbie’s sensory issues was so key.  It’s allowed me to look for other clues when he acts like a crazy person.  And it’s taught me to think before I react to something he has done – unless, as determined earlier this week, it occurs in the middle of the night and involves heating up milk.

I’m glad to hear that Robbie is learning about the real meaning of Christmas at school.  However, the manifestation of all this knowledge is a little, well, Robbie-like.  As I was getting him out of the bathtub last night, Robbie asked me to wrap him up tight.  As I was wrapping him, he instructed me further.  “Mom, wrap me up like baby Jesus when he was born.”

The rest of the conversation went a little like this:

“You want to be swaddled?”

“Yes.  Swaddled.  I want to be swaddled in a manger.”

At this point I picked Robbie up and held him cradled in my arms.  “Like this?”

“Yeah, Mom.  Like this.  I’m swaddled in a manger.  You’re the manger, OK, Mom?”

We all have those moments, right?  The ones we know will still make us cringe years down the line?  I can think of my first one, when Robbie was only two weeks old.  We were struggling to get out of the house for a post-partum group – after all, at two weeks, everything is a struggle – and I couldn’t find my car keys anywhere.  Robbie sat in his car seat by the front door as I frantically searched the house  for my keys.  Eventually, his wailing and my inability to find my keys got the best of me.

I can picture it even now.  I was on the second floor, standing at the side of the open stairwell.  Robbie was in his carrier facing away from the front door, his face growing redder with every wail.  I grabbed the railing, leaned over it, and yelled, “Shut up!  Shut up!  SHUT UP!” to my screaming infant.  And then, I sat on the floor and cried with my child. 

Hours later, I found the keys – locked in my car.  I stopped looking for them after my meltdown and figured this was all a sign that I needed to stop and breathe.  So I did; I took a nap with Robbie.

Fast-forward three years to last night.  Robbie woke me up at midnight, crying and demanding that I put a movie on.  Already irritated to be woken up – and because it was the middle of the night – I told him no.  And then Robbie lost his mind.  He had to go to the bathroom but didn’t want to.  He wanted milk.  He had an accident while trying to get his pants down to go to the bathroom.  He wanted hot milk and I gave him cold milk.

That’s when I lost my mind.  Hot milk.  Cold milk.  Ridiculous demands in the middle of the night.  And so I screamed back.  Unkindly.  Making Robbie scream even louder.  After I finished my tirade about the temperature of milk and middle of the night shenanigans, I asked Robbie, sarcastically, if there was anything else he wanted.

My poor child looked at me, hiccupped, and said, “I want my daddy!  He’s nice.  I don’t like you.”  This should have broken my heart, and, in a way, it did.  But I just couldn’t let go. 

I believe I said something along the lines of, “It wouldn’t matter if Daddy was here or not!  He would have slept through the whole thing anyway and you’d still be stuck with me!”  And then, just like three years ago, I stopped to breathe.

I gathered Robbie up, finished with being a terrible mother (at least for the moment) and determined to make both of us feel a little better, and headed to bed.  After all, the best thing to possibly do after a situation like that is hold the people most dear a little closer.

Robbie and I talked about what had happened, as he took two sips of the milk that caused the whole ordeal.  I apologized and tried to explain my side, making sure to tell him that the way I reacted was not nice.  After five minutes of talking, I asked Robbie if he was OK.  He rolled on top of me, buried his head in my neck, and said, “No!” as he burst into tears.  He asked me to hold him tight while he cried.  So I did, feeling as terrible as I should have.

And the whole episode has made me think about how parenting evolves.  When Robbie was born, it was my job to make sure he had everything he needed – regardless of the time.  Up every 45 minutes?  For a diaper change the first time and milk the second?  I was all over it. 

When did all of that change?  When did I get lulled back into my eight hours of sleep?  When did I suddenly go off-duty for eight hours of the day?  Robbie is still a little boy.  And, although he’s not a baby, if he needs me in the middle of the night, I need to be there and not be angry about it.  It’s the best third shift job I could ask for.  And maybe, just maybe, I need to remind myself that Robbie is more tired than I am and in far less control of his reactions.  So the next time there is milk drama in the middle of the night, I need to take a deep breath, make the milk, and cuddle up.