Growing Pains

I came home on Sunday afternoon to find dear hubby and dear son having some… communication issues. In short, Kaman’s feelings had been hurt and hubby didn’t quite understand how or why. It’s kind of the place we are in right now. My son is quite expressive and articulate, but at age six, especially when you are the “baby” of the family (believe me, I remember) it is sometimes difficult to get people to take you seriously.

I think of it as a little growing pain for the whole family. Sometimes, as parents, we miss a beat in our child’s maturational process. We get accustomed to things as they are and forget how quickly these little people are growing up and the constant adjustments we need to be making to stay on the same page with them.

I could see that both parties were trying hard to understand each other, and I figured the best I could do was to make sure they didn’t stop trying. All that was entirely evident was that my son had his heart set on pizza and he had pulled out his own money to buy some. So that was our first order of business… to look at all our pizza options and his resources, and then to drive to the store to buy some.

On the way to the store, we had the following conversation:

K: Mom? I think I figured out that grown ups get to do more than kids.

M: Yeah? I guess they do have more autonomy. A grown up doesn’t have to rely on someone else to drive them places or get permission to do a lot of things that kids do.

K: But I also figured out that kids have a lot more fun than grown ups.

M: You think so?

K: I mean. What kind of kid would do this? You sit around playing games all day, having lots of fun, and someone says, “Let’s get pizza!” and you say, “No way. Can’t get pizza today.” No kid would ever do that. No kid would ever say no way.

That’s when I really started to see what had happened. Kaman and his dad had been having a moment. They were playing. Having nice little chats about their game battles and strategies and, in Kaman’s mind, the perfect topper to a great afternoon would have been pizza. He even knew he had money and could buy the pizza himself. So he offered, and that’s when Dad got practical.

They went from two buddies playing a game and having a lovely afternoon, to a Dad advising his son to save his money. Dad knew that Kaman had a trip coming up. Dad thought he might want to save his money for the trip. Dad has been focusing on keeping our budget together, and pizza, as well as other meals out, has long gone on our list of things we shouldn’t do.

What I think Dad missed was that Kaman understood all this. He wasn’t asking for Dad to buy pizza, he was offering to buy pizza for the two of them. This was going to be his contribution to a great Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t that Dad’s suggestions weren’t good ones, but sometimes going with the moment is what is important. Why put off a good time when the time you’re having right now is also good?

I remember having that feeling. Being in that place where you are moving and grooving with the world and someone suddenly reminds you that you are still just a kid…

I think we managed to recover at least some of the magic of the afternoon. Kaman bought little mini pizzas and he cooked up three and served them to his dad and I. It took me a while to get to this place. My first impression was that he was just hungry for pizza and that we should put the pizzas in the freezer for his enjoyment alone. But as he was pulling the pizza from the package, he looked up at me with his big blue eyes, “Don’t you want one, Mom? Do you think Dad would want one?”

I was still digesting what I had learned in the car. Sometimes we grownups have to do the math the long way before it becomes clear that one plus one equals two.

So we had ourselves a little pizza party, and hopefully gained a lot of understanding. This whole being a family thing… it’s a team effort. We just have to keep in mind that our smaller players are deserving of equal consideration. Just because we’re the adults in this relationship, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remember how to have fun.