To Comb or Not to Comb...

Sam is sleeping, sprawled out with his incredibly long body flung across the middle of the bed. He hasn't brushed his teeth, or taken a bath, or even washed his hands. And certainly has not brushed his hair. I save all these grooming rituals for the evening, in the time before sleep when he begins to move a little slower and may be more agreeable. But mostly he rejects all attempts at making him look civilized. And this night he has fallen asleep unexpectedly early, which gives me hope that he will rise early and we might get back to a sleep schedule that allows us to get out of the house before the scorching hour out here in the desert.

There are nights, like this one, when I feel as though I am truly making peace with my son's grubby fingernails and unkempt hair. I don't want to live a life with him that is based on me forcing him to submit his body to these grooming rituals that make no sense to him. I won't hold him down for any reason, it's simply not worth the feeling of rage that surfaces when he struggles, and he struggles mightily. He is a little lion of a person with a ferocious will, and I will do everything I can to nurture that strength of mind.

I don't know where that rage comes from inside me, but it comes rushing up, floods me, takes me over, if ever I lay a hand on him in any kind of restraining way when he is trying to escape my ministrations. I have learned to respect his no when he says no, and for that, I have learned, too, to appreciate this rage for the gift it has given me. For if I felt calm and patient through this sort of thing, perhaps I might have become comfortable holding him down, forcing him to do these things which are really all about my own comfort (because it's embarrassing for people to see his hair such a mess, but I really can't find any true way that it's bad for him, I really can't).

But, says the little voice in my head, what about his teeth, what about cavities? What about the tangles in his hair? What about the dirt under his fingernails?

Well, what about them? I have decided to make a tremendous leap of faith and believe in the notion that a grubby but joyful childhood will give my son so much more of what he needs to succeed as a human being than a clean but coerced existence. Sometimes this is a commitment I remake daily, or even several times a day, because there is a lifetime of conditioning in my thought process about dirt and cleanliness and freedom and joy. And I realize that I always believed keeping a child scrupulously clean was how you showed you loved him. And I have come to understand that it's true, this IS one way I could show the rest of the world, whose standards are quite different from my own, that I love my kid. But it's not how I show this to my son.

And the rage, well, I have begun to do some thinking about where it comes from and I don't much like the answers. These are thoughts I would rather just not have. But in this life as a mother, in this life lived in partnership with my child and my husband, I can no longer afford to keep that little stash of things I just don't think about. Because in this life we are living, there is nowhere for me to hide and when I'm pushed up against something I didn't want to deal with, I respond like any cornered animal.

And what I want is to live large and free in a round world without corners. And this world must be of my own making and so I will shine a light on the old dark corners of my mind, the place where the worst memories, the most reactive feelings, the dysfunctional default behaviors are stored. I will unpack them and release them and smooth the corners round until all that is inside me flows like water in a continuous circle of love.

Things We Did Today...

Had a tea party (Sam poured out from his Noah's Ark teapot.)

Painted pictures (they are so lovely!!! One is a glittery blue ocean where the mermaids live.)

Invented a new way to play golf with his Sam size golf set

Went for a run up and down the driveway

Sam visited in the back yard with His Jim

Made dirt soup in the wading pool

Ate lots of good food

Read books

Watched Movies

Laughed

Cried

Snuggled

Did NOT brush out teeth or comb our hair (well, I did after he went to sleep)