big kids

Big Brother mentioned that he was getting hungry and wanted to fix himself some lunch. Though I'm working to get around the trap of what I would usually have said, my first instinct was to suggest that perhaps he be a bit more patient and that I'd get to it.

My first instinct as a parent has not always gotten me into great situations or prepared the way for great relationships with my boys. I can be a bit anal in that I'd too often rather do it myself to get it done more quickly and right, but doing for doesn't give kids any experience. Experience watching your dad do everything for you is technically a kind of experience, but it's not the learning from kind that I want for them.

So I shout down the voice in my head, the one that wants Big Brother to just be patient and let me do it in a minute. I tell him to go ahead and start working on it. He can fix what he wants. And that's a little scary because it further reinforces that there are so many things that he doesn't need me to do.

This isn't the first time Big Brother has fixed his lunch, though in the past it's been confined to the classic pb&j, the easiest sandwich ever. We have a nifty cheese cutter with no sharp edges, so that's not only easy for him but for all of us as well. Side items are easily taken care of with banana chips for The Boy and banana peppers for Big Brother. Oh, and since we are out of mayo and vegenaise, and because neither son likes mustard, they get ranch dressing as a sandwich spread today.

So my patience and allowing Big Brother has saved me having to fix lunch. I did wash the cheese cutter while he worked, and I cut the cellophane wrapper from the loaf of bread for him. I also poured some ranch into a small dish so that he wouldn't end up with a torrent of dressing from the bottle when a little spread was what he wanted.

All this is further proof of them growing. I have that torn between feeling so many parents get, wanting them to stay sweet, innocent little babies that we can easily forgive anything and everything versus knowing that they are inevitably growing, learning, becoming more and more able, having opinions and asserting themselves.

For the record, there certainly are plenty of growing up kinds of things that absolutely thrill me such as the fact that, seemingly suddenly, the diaper bag is not quite as necessary as it once was. If we are going to be out for a while, we carry it with some back up clothing, though we now refer to it as a just in case bag since there are no longer diapers in it.