It's been a frustrating and busy week at work and Derek's been so edgy for the past few days that coming home doesn't feel like much of a break. Almost anything can set off a full-blown meltdown right now and I'm just about ready to follow suit. Last night he said, "I love you" and I responded "I love you too." He went nuts. Apparently I had missed my cue to quote Rapunzel from Tangled by saying "I love you more." Tonight I answered his "I love you" with "I love you more" and he went nuts. "That's Rapunzel," he protested in a near scream. His teacher told me it wasn't a good day when I picked him up from school tonight. It was his first "not good day" since he moved to the threes a few weeks ago. She told me he had a hard time following directions today and then she laughed and said he wasn't the only one. She blamed the full moon.
Whether it's the fault of the moon or not, I feel frazzled.
But even in the middle of the craziest day, there's magic sometimes.
I'm trying to focus on the magic: when he reached up and stroked my hair with a hot little hand and sleepily whispered, "you're pretty" ... or when we curled up next to each other in a blanket on the living room floor and took turns drawing dinosaurs, for instance.
Drawing can be a dangerous activity when Derek is tired or edgy. His dinosaurs sometimes look too much like crocodiles and his crocodiles turn into whales and the penguins never turn out quite right and I end up with a sobbing boy and a pile of crumpled up scribbles thrown all over the house. But not tonight. Tonight everything was what he wanted it to be. Tonight we drew two dinosaurs together, a boy and his mom, and then he checked my ears and measured my face and gave the mommy dinosaur earrings. He let me draw the eyes and teeth and then he filled the space between our two dinosaurs with baby dinosaurs--tiny little scribbles with eyes and teeth and tiny legs and tiny tails--and he narrated his actions and told me about each baby, what they liked and how they cried, and it was magical and sweet and my day was suddenly a million times better. One of his baby dinosaurs even danced "like a dog in the shower" and Derek pirouetted to demonstrate and it was so perfectly ridiculous and lovely that I immediately wished I could somehow capture the moment and hold onto it forever. And then he drew a long purple line from the boy dinosaur's mouth and he growled and cried and told me his dinosaur ate all the babies and we squealed and laughed and ran around the room trying to save and capture all the little scribbles come to life.
When I feel completely worn out and invisible, this is the kind of magic that makes getting up and doing it all again tomorrow seem possible.
I'm always too dramatic, I know, but I love this boy so much it scares me sometimes.
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