Mercy. What a week it has been.
Tonight before dinner it all came bubbling over when Owen (who is 4 going on 14 these days and marches to the beat of his own drum) quite calmly detailed his plans to be rid of me, and his imaginings are both hilarious and innocently grim.
Don’t know whether to laugh or sleep with one eye open, haha.
And because of his epic imagination this gets its own fancy quotation:
“Mom, I’ll put you in a big box and tape it and put you in a delivery truck. And it will go to the postal station, and you’ll sit in the box room FOREVER. You won’t see me ever again.”
Oh my.
“A-a-and I’ll drop you off in the Hundred Acorn Woods, and you’ll be lost since you haven’t been there, and Tigger will pounce you.”
Ha!
“Or-or I’ll take you to the police station, and you’ll be in jail, but then you’ll escape and be on the run.”
Where does he come up with this stuff?
“Or I’ll go live in a junkyard BY MYSELF with junker cars and an old junk bus. That’ll be SO fun!”
Owen Eddleman – Age 4 or maybe 14
Words for this … I have none. Well, maybe some. I’m just as confused as you at this point.
Then, like nothing had happened, he skipped away to find his toy tow truck and left me to seriously question our TV entertainment and book selections.
I’m pretty sure his post office scheme is from a Team UmiZoomi episode, and the Hundred Acre Wood reference is easy enough to track. Honestly, I don’t have a clue how he came up with the jail break or big move to a junk yard, but he has been obsessed with the dump here lately. Clue. Less.
And what did I do to earn such treachery?
I had to explain that Daddy and I couldn’t fly to Mars and bring back the “rover robot with the laser” just for him, and then I also refused to drive 25 minutes to Whole Foods and purchase for him a “nilla cupcake with rainbow sprinkles right now.”
He was very specific and apparently very hungry because we ate a little later than usual tonight. Such dreams and expectations, friends.
Owen and I had a good chat and some dinner and all is well again.
As it turns out, that was just his way of saying,
“Mom, I’m so sad and disappointed and sleepy and hungry, and I can’t vocalize all that right now but still need you to understand exactly how awful I feel. So, I’m telling a story that I know will be sad to you.”
Bless him and his big 4-year-old feelings and his big ideas and his big way of bringing me down to his level when I’m up too high on mine.
But bless him also, after a long week, for reassuring me as only Owen can that he does know how very much he is loved and cared for.
It’s something I’ve prayed for him and his brother since before they were born, that they would always know our love and their tremendous place in our hearts and that we would show it in ways that speak to them as individuals.
Goodness, if Elizabeth Stone wasn’t truth telling when she wrote,
“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Elizabeth Stone
Owen’s own precious, big, little heart knew instinctively that the saddest thing in the world for me would be to be without him … whether stuck in a box, lost in the woods, tunneling out of a jail cell, or NOT with him in a junkyard … FOREVER (so dramatic).
At the end of our chat and a long hug, he said, “Mama. Don’t worry. I’ll climb over AAAALL the junkers and come back to you, and you’ll be SO happy!”
Joyful. Joyful is the word, son.
“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.”
Psalm 47:1
Feature photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash
