The Art of Becoming

This morning Sean was "nursing" Pooh bear.  He was sitting in an over-sized tupperware container (one that would house camping gear or blankets or large toys - a big container) in the living room with Pooh cradled in his arms.  When I double checked to make sure I heard him right, he clarified. me: You are nursing Pooh? Sean: Yeah! me: (hiding all misgivings vocally) That's great!  Thank goodness I was in another room so that my face could allow curiosity, confusion, and humor to cross it. Sean: I'm giving him honey! But of course!  If a man could nurse a small creature, and if a stuffed bear could receive said nutrients, then clearly that man would produce honey from his body in order to supply said bear with exactly what he craves.  This is all coming together now. It makes sense that Sean would explore the world of nursing.  He sees me nurse Audrey multiple times a day.  In fact he recently raised a question about this activity while ...

We sat outside playing with sidewalk chalk and soaking up the abnormal 60 degree weather in March in Minnesota.  We drew bulldozers, backhoes, bowls of fresh berries, refrigerators, and flowers.  You know, the normal stuff.  I received a text, picked up my cell phone (because of course it was but inches from me outside - must be always accessible), quickly read it, answered it and put the phone back down.  Sean stopped drawing with his chalk. Sean: Can you turn that thing off? (though coming from him it sounded like "fing" instead of "thing.") me: (nervous laughter) Sure... why? Sean: I don't want to hear it. While speaking, he'd left his place on the driveway and walked towards me.  I was sitting on the ground, and he was level with my eyes but staring at my cell phone.  He clearly sensed, as he does so frequently, how important my cell phone is to me.  The text message was completely unimportant and mundane, there was no rush, and yet I respo...

Sean shows a great deal of restraint.  When I gave him a snack to eat "while watching Sesame Street," he sat there staring at the TV, watching the end of the previous show. me: Sean, do you like your snack? Sean:  huh? Oh, yeah. me:  Are you going to eat it? Sean: (nodding his head, as if teaching me a point) Yes, Mama. I am just waiting to eat until Sesame Street comes on. Five minutes later, when I hear the Sesame Street song start, I see Sean reach into his bowl to eat his snack.  Clearly he's gotten this trait from the Bushlack side of the family.  Similarly, just the other day, he showed amazing restraint concerning a napkin.  After taking a bite of his PB&J, he looked down at his sticky hands, ran to the dining room, grabbed a napkin and brought it back to his stool-by-counter set up (some days there's no sitting for lunch.  Don't ask me why).  As he continued eating his sandwich, he chose to wipe his mouth with his sleeves - b...

Building up to Sean's surgery last week, we had a number of busy days planned with some fun activities to make the week exciting and keep him distracted.  One day we made sugar cookie dough, rolled it out, cut cookies into fun shapes, baked them, and then the next day we decorated them.  A big hit.  We had movie nights, a special jello breakfast before his surgery (code word: clear liquid diet), and I even tried to make his pre-op physical at the doctor seem fun (that was a huge failure, though we succeeded in getting the physical - a blog for another time).  Last Wednesday, we planned a trip to the Minnesota Zoo. We were venturing out with my friend Kate and her daughter, Charlotte, who is roughly Sean's age.  Kate explained to me that the highlight of the trip to the zoo would be the dolphin show, so when I began talking this up to Sean last week, he quickly glommed onto the dolphin show idea.  On the car ride down to the zoo, Sean remembered other ...

When Sean was born and we discovered he had a cleft lip, the medical professionals explained that the reasons he was born with a cleft lip were 'multi-factorial.'  One nurse explained that multi-factorial was a fancy way of saying "we really don't know the cause."  As I've pondered the recent events in my life, this word keeps coming to mind.  For example, a month ago why did Sean run through the dining area of a restaurant screaming, "I HAVE A BUTT RASH!!" when he did not, in fact, have a butt rash?  The reasons are multi-factorial.  In a juvenile and impulsive move recently, why did I, a 30 year old woman, rip a sticker off the front of Sean's fleece during his tantrum and throw it in the trash can? Multi-factorial. (not my proudest moment as a parent... one in which I felt myself become a toddler again, frustrated with a fellow child, instead of acting like an adult.)   Or why was I woken this morning to the sound of Sean screaming in my ear ...

While driving our car into work one day, a cyclist hit Tom.  The cyclist was so mad about it (blaming Tom, even though Tom was stopped at a light and the cyclist ran into him) that he slammed his fist down on our side mirror breaking it.  Had the guy used his backpedal, perhaps he could have avoided the incident and we would still have our mirror.  Of course, hHindsight is 20/20, but the backpedal is not something to be ignored.  Even if this guy had backpedaled after hitting Tom and seen the error of his ways, I'm sure they could have spoken cordially to one another before going on their way.  However, this guy was so angry that he broke the mirror, screamed at Tom and then kept biking.  No backpedal used, either literally or figuratively. Over Christmas Sean and I had some conflicting moments.  Not that it's surprising.  He's two and a half, it's the holidays, we were traveling across the country to St. Louis, it makes sense that there would b...

We like to celebrate the achievement of goals.  Some in our culture might call that being pro-victory.  Regardless of your political views, being pro-victory in the Bushlack household means celebrating accomplishments.  Some major ones for the adults are Tom completing his PhD and my last day of work on August 1, 2011.  Some major ones for the kids are Audrey rolling over (to which we respond with clapping and shouting "hooray, Audrey!") and Sean beginning to show more signs of wanting to potty train.  In September I thought Sean was ready to start potty training after we hosted a string of visitors who had 3-year-olds who were potty training (thank you, Victoria and Mia, for shining a "light' in the bathroom, a 'light' on the training potty).  He showed some minimal interest then and I jumped all over it: I bought Disney's Cars stickers from Target, Sean and Tom drew a 11X14 picture of a road, and we encouraged Sean that any time he tried sitting on the...