Dear Miles,

School started today and I happily pushed you out the door to embark on your next journey.  You’re moving in to the three’s classroom despite turning four in October so that makes you the oldest in the class which quite frankly, isn’t that bad.  I was a lot more emotional yesterday with Olivia starting kindergarten and I feel a little guilty that I’m not as sad as I should be to see you go.  With Olivia starting kindergarten, suddenly the fact that your child is growing up is right there in your face.  Those moments of tantrums and tears seem so far away and there is even a small part of me that misses those moments with her.  I tried really hard to keep this in mind when I prepared you for your first day in your new classroom but I’m not quite there with you yet.  Perhaps it will be a much different story on your first day of kindergarten.

There are days when I question if we will ever fully be over tantrums–will tantrums just make way for aggressive or moody behavior?  I love you tremendously, nothing will ever change that.  There are just times when I don’t like you.  I feel a tinge of guilt because a mother should think their children are amazing all the time and knowing firsthand how fast time flies by, these moments of rage will seem like nothing when we look back but the wounds are still so fresh so therefore, you’re not always my favorite person.  We’ll keep working on this though.  I won’t give up.  You might break me but I won’t give up.

I can’t quite figure you out because there are moments when I question whether you might be possessed and then there are moments when I catch glimpses of a rather funny version of yourself.  When you stop screaming and rolling your eyes in to the back of your head, you’re actually quite enjoyable.  You make the most awesome facial expressions and the way you move your body and talk in strange voices, it’s as if I’m living with a comedian in the making.

For my birthday a couple weeks back, your dad and I decided to take you and Olivia to Santa Cruz, specifically the Boardwalk.  This is when I can connect with you–you like rollercoasters and various other fast rides.  You are brave, confident and eager to try anything and everything.  The problem with you, you do want to go on all the rides but you always seem to fall just short of the height restriction.  Your sister, who is tall enough to ride most everything, would rather sit on a bench with the bags.  We had fun with the rides but the real gift was you playing on the beach without tears and without screaming for either one of us to hold you.  You were running, giggling, screaming with joy and I just couldn’t believe it.  You were the boy who treated the ocean like acid.  If seaweed washed past you, you clung to us like a shark just washed ashore hungry for a little blond boy.  You were so excited and having so much fun that when your dad asked me if I was ready to pack things up, I looked at him and thought, are you crazy?!  I was planning to stay until it got dark if it meant allowing you to finally enjoy yourself at the beach.  That is really all I’ve wanted this whole time–well, one of a few.  I love the beach and now knowing that you are comfortable with it, we’re buying a beach house.  Ok, not really but we can go to the beach a lot and judge those that have beach houses out of sheer jealousy.

In the weeks leading up to you starting school, we decided to move Olivia in to her own room which allowed you to have your own space with all your toys.  You indeed miss Olivia quite a bit and you have yet to allow us to close your door at night.  According to you, you want to be able to see Olivia’s room from your bed.  I did get emotional with this move because despite you two staying up way past your bedtime, playing and talking to each other, I enjoyed knowing that you two had a special bond in there.  It was very sweet to hear you two talking or singing to each other and I miss that but it was a change that had to happen.  You two go right to bed now and despite having your toys in your room, you rarely get out of bed at night to play with them.  The wonderful outcome of all of this is you staying in your room in the morning to play with your toys.  Forget the 6am wake up calls.  During the last week of summer, I was sleeping in until 8!  Had I known this would have been one of the perks, I would have had grandma and grandpa sleeping on the couch so we could have made the move happen at the start of summer.

This past weekend marked a very important milestone for me–I took both you and your sister to a baseball game all by my lonesome.  It was a soldout game and there were fireworks after so the stadium was beyond crowded.  I wasn’t initially planning to undertake this feat but certain circumstances came up, i.e., poker, so I decided there was no reason why I couldn’t do this on my own.  I was fine with the idea until roughly thirty minutes before we had to depart and it suddenly dawned on me that I was about to bring two children to a soldout baseball game.  I’m not at all worried about Olivia because she can handle herself just fine.  It’s you, the ticking time bomb.  Sure enough, you didn’t take a nap that day so of course you fell asleep on the ride over.  When we arrived and I attempted to wake you up, I sensed I would be waking up the not so pleasant version.  Your eyes flickered open and I saw the glossy look in them and I knew we were in for a bit of a rough patch.  You woke up screaming and arms flailing and I quickly reminded you that we were at a ballgame and a hot dog and cracker jacks were on the line if you couldn’t pull yourself together.  That seemed to work for the moment.

We arrived early to ensure I could find a parking space but I figured I could take you and your sister to the kids area to allow you to play and run around.  We arrive at the first kids area to discover it’s closed.  You have that look that you’re trying really hard to suppress the rage so I quickly assure you that we can go to the second kids area.  We arrive at the second location where a coliseum worker explains to us that the kids area is closed for a Chevron family and friends event.  When you realize that we will not be entering this kids area either, you lose it and throw yourself on the ground.  Yup.  Thanks coliseum worker.  In my best attempt to distract you, I find a lookout spot nearby that allows you to see all of the ballpark and also allows for great photo ops.  After seeing how high we were, I decided given your delicate state, probably having you in an area where you can fling your body over the side in a fit of rage probably isn’t ideal.  I typically don’t like letting you eat until the game starts because you two will actually eat for three hours straight but given the circumstances, I gave in.  Despite my best efforts to make you use the restroom before, within three minutes in to the first inning, you had to go to the bathroom.  Since our seats were dead in the middle and I couldn’t leave our bags, we packed up everything–bags, food, a tall fresh beer and we trekked to the bathroom.  Thankfully things got better after this.  The irish fire was extinguished and we enjoyed the rest of the evening.

 

It is true that you are on the rather difficult side and I can’t wait for the day when you can work through issues with just breathing.  Seriously, just take a breath every now and then and chill.  Olivia getting an orange vitamin while you get a purple vitamin should not be the breaking point for you.  I get it, you’re three years old but in two months, you’re going to be four.  FOUR!  I know boys mature later than girls but there are times when I feel like I’m being punk’d–you can’t seriously be throwing a tantrum over not being able to go to school at 8:00 at night.  Am I on camera because I know this outburst can’t be for real.  Your temperament is nothing new.  You’ve been crying since the day you were born and I have voiced my disdain over the matter since.  Now I’m just getting annoyed because you’re preventing me from being the parent I always imagined I would be.  I was going to treat you and your sister for ice cream the night before you both started school as a way to send off summer but you decided that was the night to take a stand against cleaning up toys.  Ah, the irish fire strikes again and once again there we are, fighting.  I’m hopeful after catching a rare glimpse in to a new Miles that we can still salvage this relationship.  I may not kill you after all and now that you’re back in school, your stock just went way up.  Obviously, you can’t see me but I’m totally doing a happy dance right now.

Love,

Momma