Isn't It Too Early For This?

When I was pregnant, I thought about all the cute little baby time, the exhausting toddler time (except that I had no idea just HOW exhausting these years would be), the funny tween years, and the rebellious teenager I was going to give birth to.  I spent 12 weeks on bed rest and spent a lot of time thinking.  I thought about how I would flawlessly implement time outs and never ever resort to corporal punishment, but I’ll be darned if swatting a little dimpled hand is not the first reaction when I’ve said, “no, that is mommy’s” 25 times and he reaches for the kindle anyway.  I thought about parent teacher conferences and how LJB was certainly going to be the smartest, most well-behaved kid in his class: Every teacher’s joy.  Of course he gets that from me : )  I imagined how heartbroken I was going to be when he asked me not to hug him in front of his friends for the first time.  I even planned out every syllable of my speech I was going to give when he broke curfew, or gave in to peer pressure, or God-forbid, he was the peer pressure. 

I thought I still had a few years before all that teenage angst stuff came. But, folks, I think this is one milestone we are going to hit early…too early.

LJB is picking up language pretty quickly these days.  He has started responded to questions at least 50% of the time.  This is great improvement, except I’m not sure I’m so fond of the attitude.

“LJB, give mommy a kiss.”

“No, no, no, no…” 

His voice trails off at the end of the sentence, all the while he is waving me off in a perfect talk-to-the-hand-motion.

“LJB, look at the _____.”

Without even turning his head to look, “Cool.” In a whatever tone.

Then, to beat all, he is IMPOSSIBLE to get out of bed in the mornings.  The routine is that Mr B and I get ready for work and then about 20 minutes before we need to walk out the door, We open LJB’s bedroom door so that the noises will help to rouse him.  If that doesn’t work in about 3 minutes, Mr B flips his light on.  LJB’s overhead light in his room is an old compact fluorescent and takes about 5 minutes to warm up to full brightness, so it’s not that abrupt.  Anyway, one morning this week, Mr B turns on the light.  About 30 seconds later, as I walk around the corner, I see LJB with squinty eyes and bed head, carrying his blanket Linus style.  He’s walks up to the light switch throws me a go-to-h-e-double hockey sticks look, flips off the light, and climbs back into his bed.  Isn’t it too early for this?

I was laughing so hard, tears were running down my face.  Never a dull moment.