The age of the adverb

Having a four-year-old is a very special experience. The transformation from toddler to boy is mostly complete, but I am still amazed by my little guy's verbal skills which are increasing daily.

Felix will come out with a saying we don't use at home, and it's clear he's learnt it at school. So his big thing at the moment is "practising my jump", which he does off the wardrobe in front of our bedroom windowsill and onto our bed. He demands an appreciative audience ("Mom! Did you see fire from my feet? Did you see me use my superpower? Did you see the blades on my back? Mom! Mom! Mom! Watch my jump!") until as he told me the other day, "I'm all puffed out of practising my jump., with dead sincerity, like being "puffed out" is a literal phrase. I expire of the cuteness.

Felix is starting to use adverbs. During his birthday party period, he knew the birthday party was not on "my actual birthday" and that the Monday was "actually my birthday".

We were driving in traffic and I complained about it. "Yes," agrees Felix. "Seriously? This traffic."

Seriously? Really? Mostly. These are words entering the house.

Richie is imitating everything he hears so a tiny boy in our house is also coming out with long words he may or may not understand. "Are you doing EXcercise?" he will ask me if he spots me in my gym clothes.

Felix is also emotionally labile and vulnerable - we get loads of storming out of rooms, only to find Felix curled up into a ball in a bedroom, sulking or sobbing, five minutes later. This morning I was hustling him out of the house when Richie figured we were going to school and started crying a bit. I told Richie he could come to school if he wanted, or he could stay home and play with Auntie Queeny. Riche was still weighing this up when my anxious four-year-old interjected, "Richie doesn't want to come to school Mom, Richie doesn't like school..."
"Wait, Felix, let me hear what Richie chooses..."
"Mom, no, Richie must stay home with Auntie Queeny..."
"Felix, Richie can decide my boy."
"No but he doesn't LIKE school, Mom."
(Felix gets quite anxious indeed at the thought of Richie joining him at what I imagine he feels is his "safe" space, his school, I wonder if he feels he will have to look after his little brother there, at the one place that's just about Felix.)

Now I am really quite impatient with my kids, and I'm not a parent who can keep stating a rule or an expectation calmly over and over and over and over and over again. Perhaps unreasonably, I get all, "You're a rational human being or you soon will be, harden up and work with me here for goodness' sake."
So I said, "Felix! Let Richie finish his sentence, man!" which is not quite enough to have me hauled off by Social Services but it is enough to let Felix's eyes fill with tears. "That's rude!" he accused his treacherous mother, and I had to apologise expansively and extensively.

I did the whole "It must have felt so hurtful to hear me cut you off" nine yards, half-cringing as I always do when I spin out the pop-psychology talk, I keep feeling like I'm reading the dialogue out of a self-help book when I do this script. Because it's not me. I want to actually be saying, "Yes, I snapped at you Felix, get some freaking perspective dude, it's okay."

I could do that with Richie, no problem (he hears me shout at him many nights, in the middle of the night, when he demands "more boob!" and I tell him "No" in way more than so many words). It's the only way that little thug knows I'm serious, sometimes. Felix would still be picking up the shattered pieces of his ego if it were him, Richie, he goes, "Ah fuck, I guess she really means it" and rolls over and goes to sleep.

I will always have to be different with little Felix.

Turns out I'm actually damn impatient. Who knew?

And I always thought I was like Felix: (over)sensitive, emotional, intuitive.
Turns out I'm a little bit like Richie too: hard as nails when need be.

Does anyone else out there struggle with the patience thing?

Kids' school photos by a photographer I'd never heard of called Katie Miller. She's good, though, hey?