Listening

“Finny, listen to me.”

“Finny, you’re not listening.”

“Finny, I’m going to start counting if you do not listen to Mommy, right now!”

Last Monday, after no sleep combined with the stress of showing the house combined with a Finny who wanted nothing to do with anything that did not involve pure mischief, I was at my wit’s end.

I was pulling stuff off the table left and right.

“If you don’t listen on the count of three, you’ll get no shows for the rest of the day!”

By the end of the day, he had lost all shows, all treats, and all bedtime stories.  And he still wasn’t listening.  The next day was better, but still included lots of running from me when I asked him to come and lots of harassing Charlie by taking his toys or just stalking him like a Puma until he burst into tears.  Finally, by the third day of no shows, no treats, and my incessant reminders of how important it was to listen to me, he started to fall in line.  In fact, he woke up that day talking about it.

“Okay, so Mommy, I’m going to listen to you today.”

“That’s great, Finn.  Then we’ll have a really good day.”

“Okay, so since I’m listening to you, can I watch Tarzan?”

“If you do a great job of listening to me all day, you can watch Tarzan tonight while I make dinner.”

“But I want to watch it now!”

“First, you have to show me that you are going to be a good listener.”

The whole day he listened, and he pointed it out.  It reminded me a little bit of someone else I know. (“Jill, did you notice I emptied the dishwasher this morning?”  Yes, yes, pat, pat, pat.)

“Mommy, I’m listening to you!  Mommy, I’m being so helpful!”  Yes, yes, pat, pat, pat.  Kiss, kiss, kiss.  “Such good listening, Finny.  That’s helping us to have a good day today.”

He watched Tarzan that night before dinner, and since that day, he has been better at listening. 

But then, last week, he was listening so intently that it caught me off guard.

On Mother’s Day, David’s mom and I had been talking in the car about what my career would look like when the kids are all in school.  I talked about how difficult it would be to go back to teaching, but how I really wanted to figure out a way to do it part time.  Finny and Charlie were on either side of me while I was squeezed in the middle.  I thought they were watching the cars go by.

And then two days later, sitting at the kitchen table waiting for his breakfast, tears gathered in Finny’s eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks.

He scooted around in his chair to face me as I was peanut-buttering his toast, and just as I was noticing the big tears and the sad, sad look of concern, he said, “Mommy, when you’re a teacher again, will you still be my mommy?”

I put down my knife and I scooped him up and bathed him in kisses.  “Of course, of course, of course.  I will ALWAYS be your mommy.”

And when a big smile appeared on his face and he wiped his wet cheeks, I put him down to eat his breakfast.

But as I went back to the kitchen sink, I was marveling at him.  At the thoughts in his brain.  This kid takes a half an hour to pee because on his way to flushing the toilet, he gets distracted by a toy lion on the ground.  I’ll pop my head in five minutes later to see him standing on his stool, pants around his ankles, bathing his toy lion in the sink.  This kid won’t put his shoes on when I ask, never leaves the park when I call, and dips his hand in his milk cup even though I’ve begged him not to a thousand times.

And before I could finish marveling over his worry about me going back to teaching, a few days later, as I was just fastening his sandals to head out the door to Aunt Laurie’s house, he says,

“Mommy, I don’t want you to die for a long, long time.”

“Oh, Finny, I don’t want to die for a long, long time either.”

“Because I love you so, so, so much and I just don’t want you to die.  But everybody dies, right?”

“Well, yes, everybody does die someday.”

“But nobody wants to die, right?”

“No, nobody really wants to.  I guess everybody really likes to be alive.”
“Yeah, like Evy and Jane and everybody wants to be alive.”

“Yeah…”

“But we all have to die because we made Jesus die, right?”

“Finny, has someone been talking to you about dying?  Why are you thinking about this?”

I asked this as I put him down, shoes fastened, and he ran off to make his toy lion attack his toy gazelle.

And again I was left to puzzle at him.  Three years old.  Ponders life and death in one moment.  Launches plastic jungle animals off the couch the next.  Three years old.  Trying to understand Christ’s crucifixion in one moment.  Begging for Goldfish crackers the next.

He might not be obeying me.  But he is listening.  And he is processing.  And he is worrying.   About stuff I didn’t even know he could understand.  And so maybe I’m the one who needs to start listening…to the thoughts in his brain…which seem too big for a three year old to carry with him out the door to a play date.

Which is why he leaves them with me, I guess.  Lets them settle into my brain…while he goes off to chase Charlie around the room with a baby dinosaur in one hand and the letter z in the other.