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Before we get to that, it’s important to know the conversations we’ve been having at our home with the oldest. We’re teaching him about sensitivity, how we shouldn’t take others -- or ourselves -- too seriously.
If a nice kid at school decides to show off and spouts something mean, don’t let it get to you. Shake it off. Be the bigger person. By all means, don’t pummel him with a kickball at recess when no one’s looking.
Say a girl he likes is being extra nice to another boy and he gets jealous. We tell him to walk on by and smile. Know that it’s OK to be nice to people and it doesn’t have to mean everything. Maybe he doesn’t have to declare, in the sixth grade, that he’ll never, ever, ever get a girlfriend.
In a nutshell, don’t take things so seriously that they make you feel or behave in a way you don’t want to. Let things just roll off.
Because the oldest has always been a tad sensitive these are good lessons to start the sixth grade. He wants to be a little thicker skinned.
What’s that saying about apples not falling too far from the tree?
I’m as sensitive as they come. I’m always overreacting, over-declaring and over-dramatizing.
So just imagine how I first reacted Saturday afternoon, when toddler sees me naked and says …. “Yuck.”
No joke. There I was, getting out of the shower and walking into what I thought was my deserted bedroom. Instead of being deserted, there were husband and our little one enjoying a little book reading on the bed.
My eyes grew wide out of surprise and his got just as wide apparently out of … disgust, I guess.
I mean this is a boy who gets a dirty diaper and yells “Yuck.” He smells the diaper bucket and again, “Yuck.”
Sees mom getting out of the shower and well, what else can he say?
My first reaction was to be crushed. To yell out, what, is it the thighs? The belly? The bottom?
But what was I just telling our 12-year-old? Don’t take things too seriously? Don’t take yourself too seriously? Walk on by and smile.
I actually laughed hysterically. I couldn’t stop.
Husband took this as a sign he, too, could laugh, though I must say his chuckle may have been a little too hearty, too quickly.
And toddler just jumped down off the bed and ran toward me and threw out a few “Yuckies.”
Oh well. So the sight of me naked makes my kid want to say “Yuck.”
I can take it. I’m thick-skinned.
Just like my oldest.
Loved your blog! Thanks for the morning laugh. I just took my last bath with our toddler the other night - he was looking a little too much & kept wanting to wash my "bobo's" :op No more quiet baths together - my baby's growing up :o(LOL, funny! Reminds me when my then 6 yr old DD asked me if I dated anyone other than dad. When I said of course she said "Eww, you wer'e pretty then?" Look at the future DD.Oh no! LOL! Okay, I'm not laughing at you... Don't you just love it when they're painfully truthful? My boys are forever going, "Well, it's not that you're FAT, Mommy... I'm just saying it's just that you're... well, you're not FAT exactly... You're just..." and it takes all I've got to not scream, "I'm hideous! I know! Jabba the freakin' Hut, okay?" and rush off to join Weight Watchers. Sheesh.This reminds me of something my daughter said to my mother when she was spending the weekend with her. My mother (who is "lacking" in the upstairs department, was getting ready for bed and noticed her two-year-old granddaughter was mesmerized by her...lack of dress. Dear, sweet granddaughter said to her Grammy, "You have nice t#ts Grandma!". My mother had to leave the room to keep from busting a gut. She later told me no one had ever said that to her before. We still laugh about it some 20 years later.Yikes! When I was 13 or 14 years old--you know, that incredibly awkward age when you're embarrassed about EVERYTHING--my cousin (2 at the time) pointed to my chest and said, "You got somethin' stickin' out there." Naturally my aunt doubled over with laughter, but at least it was her job to "educate" him and not mine!
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