This morning, Dan and I got a taste of the Leatherkids that our parents see regularly... pleasant, nice, cooperative, whine-less. There were no fights about selecting clothes to wear and actually getting dressed, no insisting that pants that actually fit are too long or have strings, no whining about socks being "squishy" or just not liked. No one insisted I carry her down the stairs only to cry when I said, "no." No one begged for a "bar" (Zone nutrition bar) when a graham cracker was offered. And winter gear went on when asked and without a struggle.
Coming off of yesterday (and the day before... and the day before that... and the day before that... and so on), this was shocking. And suspicious. If I didn't think that Dan and I were owed a morning like this morning, I might have purposely started a fight just to feel normal and trusting. What was up with my kids?
Cal was probably the worst. The same dinosaur t-shirt he had fought me tooth and nail about wearing on Sunday was his shirt of choice this morning. I won the battle Sunday and figured it might be weeks before I'd see him in it again. He was disappointed when he didn't see this shirt in the stack of newly folder t-shirts I had put in his dresser; but lucky for both of us, it landed in the pile of things to wash last night and simply required a trip to the dryer to retrieve so he could wear it. I couldn't get downstairs to the laundry room fast enough fearing his enthusiasm for this shirt would surely wear off soon.
Then there was the pair of socks. With a drawer full of clean socks, he chose the style of socks that just yesterday had caused him great discomfort, of which he made the rest of us fully aware through shouts and many tears. This morning, he saw me watch him put them on. He must've seen the shock and confusion plastered all over my face and reassured me that wearing a similar pair yesterday, he had learned that he actually likes these socks. My shock and confusion stuck around but I managed a pleased, proud "that's great, Cal" in response.
He then pulled a pair of pants from his four-pair supply of pants that he wears regularly and proceeded to thank me profusely for having washed them for him. I wondered what he would have done had the four-pair supply not been in his drawer. Part of me wishes they hadn't -- could Cal have actually overcome this and selected a pair from his don't-like-for-reasons-not-understood-by-Mom-and-Dad supply? Without complaint? Methinks not, but we'll never know for sure.
The next thing I knew, Ella was running to me fully clothed and yelled, "Surprise!" She, too, had gotten dressed pleasantly. No buttons or jeans (two items of clothing she never wears for reasons not understood by Mom and Dad), but she was dressed without my having heard any fighting from her bedroom and without a frustrated Daddy following her out of it.
The three of us (Ella, Cal and I) walked downstairs hand in hand, Ella talking about something discernible but not memorable and Cal talking about how Ella learns things from him, so she's learning good things from him this morning. Wow, that didn't take long, I thought to myself. Just recently, we had started taking this angle to correct some of Cal's poor choices in behavior or words.
"You know, Cal, Ella learns things from you. You're her big brother, and she looks up to you," we'll say. "When you say mean things, she hears you and does the same thing. When you don't listen, she follows you. If you say nice things, and if you listen to Mommy and Daddy, she will, too, and we'll ALL be happy." It's true.
So this morning's "see, Mommy, I got dressed and Ella got dressed" was encouraging that our words -- our teachings -- were heard, understood and maybe even acted upon by Cal.
Once downstairs, the morning went as I said at the beginning. The kids got a graham cracker as their morning, heading-out-the-door snack and were happy with it. I don't remember whose boots were on first, but I do remember there being no repeated requests to put them on. Cal was bundled such that only his eyes and nose were visible; and Ella was less bundled with her coat zipper pulled most of the way up and without a scarf, a compromise we had made leaving school yesterday.
"I don't want to wear a scarf," she told me then.
"Okay, if you don't wear a scarf, you do need to zip your coat up further when we go outside," I told her. Scarves and zippers pulled all the way up make her choke one of those dramatic fake chokes, like she's got a fur ball in her throat.
She agreed with my proposal and let me zip her coat all the way up only when we were heading out the door. So she offered it up the same way to me this morning, and I couldn't disagree.
And as easily as we had gotten downstairs and bundled up, we were heading out the door to our cold garage (day two of sub-zero temps) to hop into our cold car and head to school, Cal talking about how cold it is and Ella talking, again, about something random. As we turned off of our street, Dan announced that we'd have some quiet time until we got to school, a solid three minutes of potential peace and quiet. Cal was into it, calling it the quiet game; Ella just accidentally obliged Dan's request but was the first to break the silence with, yes, something random.
Was our morning too pleasant? On the one hand, it really wasn't. We have had too many mornings with too many battles and too many tears and too many shouts and were due a morning of gross niceness where everything went just right, where everyone said and did exactly the right thing, where we were all just happy. I credit all of us for making this happen, too -- Dan for proactively getting the kids going and using the perfect motivational words on Ella to get dressed quickly and quietly, Ella for responding well to Dan's motivations, Cal for being open to trying new things for a second time, and me for providing Cal with the clothes that he wanted to wear be they a newly-liked t-shirt or old stand-by pants. We don't always all make those types of choices.
On the other hand, it really was too pleasant. My Leatherkids are head strong and stubborn. They know what they like and don't back down when asked to just be accepting of a situation. Not that I believe everything needs to be a battle or that we shouldn't be open to trying new things -- goodness, I've lived my life avoiding battles and trying new things -- but a battle here and there is healthy. Our battles over insignificant things today are practice for their meaningful battles in the future.
On our way out the door this morning, after my having gone on and on about how wonderful the morning was, Cal said, "and that makes you happy, right, Mommy?" I told him it did, but his asking that made me a little uncomfortable. I don't want him or Ella to make choices and behave a certain way to make me happy. (Okay, some days I do, but only selfishly to give myself and Dan a break from their misbehaving craziness.) I want it to make him happy. In the end, I think our fantastic morning probably did make him happy. I'm sure we all feed off of each other. I know we're miserable when they are; conversely, they must be happy when we are.
Will this be repeated? Perhaps it will tomorrow since it's still fresh in their heads after I told them again just before I kissed them goodnight how good our morning (and incidentally the whole day) was. Will it be sustained? I doubt it and, frankly, hope not.
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