No Maternal Panic Necessary
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:00 PM
This is not a slovenly pre-teen shirking work.
It’s a pre-teen enjoying the fruits of his labor, having just literally made his bed.
Well…ok, not made, assembled from one of those furniture kits.
The convertible crib/toddler bed which has seen us through four children had become a hazard—its center sagging and about to give way after years of being used not only for small children’s sleep, but also as a sofa and daybed for persons of any size who felt like plopping into it.
In my head, I was going to assemble the bed when it arrived—methodically, neatly—but I had not considered the possibility of the bed arriving while I was out, nor the eagerness of our eldest to have his own bed (he’s trading with his youngest brother, who moves to a berth in the bunk).
When I returned home from the office yesterday afternoon, it took actual grace and every fiber of my will not to freak out over the sight that met my eyes. Packaging everywhere. The kit was too heavy to carry, so our son opened the box in the kitchen and carried the pieces upstairs one by one, strewing styrofoam and plastic.
Upstairs the scene was no better. JP had not (as I would have) cleared the Legos and other boy detritus before embarking on his project. Furniture was displaced to create some semblance of working space, but toys, books and pieces of the disassembled crib were everywhere. If my son made a mistake or got frustrated and didn’t see it through, no one would be able to sleep in the room that night. The maternal know-it-all in me was positive that various screws and fasteners would be lost in the mess so the bed couldn’t be completed.
I felt vaguely sick. I was in the midst of getting a major mailing out on a deadline (I’d brought the pieces to work from home) and had no time for this additional project today.
Having no other option, I decided to make an act of faith. Not so much in God as in my son. Deep breath. Don’t hyperventilate, Woman. I resisted the urge to bawl him out about the mess or lecture him about not losing the little pieces. I heard a strangely self-possessed person unrelated to the banshee inside me say, “JP, you can handle this without help?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” I returned downstairs to work on my mailing. I put the chaos and potential for disaster out of my mind. Except for the occasional sound of hammering above me, I wasn’t even aware of any complicated bed assembly.
You know what? He could handle it. He did handle it. He built his bed and hauled all the packaging out to the garbage by himself. And he had that wonderful look of accomplishment and satisfaction on his face all evening.
No panic was necessary.
Of course, now I’m panicking that he’s growing up too fast.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
