I Don't Want To Stay Here

As in, “Mama, mommy, ma – Idunnawannastayheeere!”

This has been the perpetual complaint, the perpetual wail in fact, of the Giant Three Year Old today. Apparently, time alone with me has lost its luster for him. His sisters were both out with friends; one will even be gone until morning on a sleepover. The extent of his adventures were a couple of neighborhood visits and a trip to the library. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. My face and this place are intolerable for him now.

(Just ask the neighbors: they were victim to his vocal opinion most of the day. I am grateful to live on a street where this nonsense passes with some sympathy. Afterall, the sight of me chasing the screaming wailing kid down the sidewalk, screaming “Idunnawannastayheeere!” might have alerted the authorities in some ‘hoods.)

His displeasure is nothing new really. In the past, he has found our car to be insufficient. He would prefer any giant truck, and since I would prefer a Mini Cooper, I feel his pain. Our house has also not met his needs – it is “old” he says, which is true, more than 100 years old in fact, but I think by old he is not expressing his genius in antique architecture, but instead implying that hanging out within these walls is passé. He’s over it.

He is a classic third child. He was born into a house of siblings – they were barely three and four when he was born – so naturally, he has grown up used to the constant presence of people in his life. As a result, he alternates between loving the game-playing and chatter of us and wanting to escape from it all. When the girls were home only three days after the end of school, he implored, “Why are they still here?”. Now, five weeks later, it destroys him when they leave.

He’s my riddle, such a funny joke, and I never know what to do or what to make of him. He can play for hours making voices for a million inanimate objects alone and wanting no one, or switch to the raging social monster of today, incapable of finding anything worthwhile that involves being here, alone with me or himself.

“Idunnawannastayheeere!”

That Man suggests a nap for him, which almost makes me choke on my ice coffee. I have considered locks on his door and used a host of bribes, but for the last few months that Big Boy will only snooze when we are in the car, about ten minutes away from Target or the grocery store or wherever it is that I cannot legally or ethically let him stay alone. Since I do prefer him alive actually and would rather not be splashed across the front page of the Globe or in jail, I haul his half-asleep ass out and carry on.

(Still, don’t you believe the world would think more kindly of the parent who left her sleeping baby or toddler outside the grocery store than the one who left her kid outside the Casino? Neither is good people, I get that. But c’mon: priorities.)

I digress, and that’s a good thing (and the strange and welcome benefit of writing it all down…)

I concluded this wretched day the way… well, maybe not the way some Professional Mother would, but the way I would. I threw some ravioli in a bowl and sent him to watch TV in another room. His eyes were still puffy from his most recent distress (having to leave the neighbors at 6:00pm – late by any standards I think) but he was quiet. In that moment, he was the beautiful green-eyed, long-haired, long-lashed hunk of a Giant Three Year Old that I love. He said “sanks Mom” for the grub, sniffled, and then squeezed my leg. It wasn’t quite sorry, but for now, with him gone and not screaming in my ear, I’ll take it.

I don’t care if he spills the food or if he eats any of it. Also, if he returns, food uneaten and whining for ice cream, I will, just for today, give it to him.

Sue me. I don’t fucking care, because today, after this day and the way I feel now, when I don’t really want to be here either, his ice cream eating might buy me the ten minutes I’ll need – to breathe, to remember he’s just three, to remember he is the last baby I will ever have.

It’ll be the ten minutes I need to find my way back to loving this shit.