I was going to give a recap of our busy weekend but decided to keep the mundane to myself, this time. I have learned a lot about my son and myself in these past few days. Max has always had a limit to how much activity he can be expected to participate in civilly - as most of us do. Sometimes, however, when his seasons shift and grow, I fall in between the cracks of knowledge about my son. During those times when I am out-of-sync, he gives a lesson to update me. Usually, the lesson comes in the form of a full-blown melt down approximately one hour after the time we should have gone home, as it happened on Saturday. Yes, one full hour, folks. And in case you don’t have children… this is a huge time frame to pick up on signals. Lots of kids have maybe 15 minutes after their “done-time” before they fall apart. So, I've been updated. Dually noted, Maxamilian. Thank you.

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I’m of the mindset that both parent and child have to find a way to respect one another’s needs and learning curve. As Max is patient with me when I’m learning life lessons that he teaches, I offer the same respect to him. I don’t expect him to behave in any particular manner other than what comes naturally to him. If he isn’t acting in a way that is socially acceptable (for example, throwing a fit because he can’t have a second ice cream cone), when all is said and done, I don’t just look for ways to correct his behavior. I also look at what I could do in the future to help bring him to the mind-set he needs to get to… like, respecting his play-time limitations.

My responsibility in his recent mid-day “melts” is that I unknowingly pushed him to do too many activities and then gave the tired child sugar. Yikes! Hello melt-down, here we come! Oh, and by the way, this past Saturday’s episode was handled very well by me - we made it home without hearing my angry voice.

Something else I’ve discovered about myself…

I don’t push manners. Its not that I don’t teach the “please and thank-you’s,” it’s more that I don’t enforce them in all situations. It seems humiliating for the child to constantly be corrected in public, like he is being spoken down too. This is just my gut reaction and I know I could be way off on this. Yes, I could be raising a rude-ass-mother-fucker kid.

I'm concerned with raising a child who behaves in all the right ways but ignores his own feelings in the process. Or, doesn’t recognize his own feelings. Or, is more concerned with acting correctly than expressing and naming his feelings. I know teaching manners is important, don’t get me wrong. In my family, manner teaching is very casual and most of it is done at home. I don’t mind, however, when other folks gently correct my child in his speech. It’s good for him to know that everyone has different expectations and for him to learn how to navigate through those differences. I figure as he is placed in different situations - school, family, activities and such - he will start to figure out why mommy is always saying, is there another way you can ask me for that?

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I'm a little fuzzy on the appropriateness of the terms, Mam’ and Sir. I don’t like them. They seem archaic to me. It makes me think of a time when children were expected to be seen and not heard. It also seems degrading. Again, could be wrong about this. My reaction is probably a testimony to my class, or lack there-of.

On Sunday, we all went to Lowery Park Zoo. Hal and I are starting to do a family outing every weekend and are very excited about it. Bella is old enough to enjoy her vision and healed enough to not be distracted by her eczema. Max listens well enough to be enjoyable company and is social enough to play with stranger kids in all environments. Life is so much fun with two children!

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