Snapshot of motherhood right now: dinosaurs, Octonauts, neighborhood friends, and a positive mantra

Ash turned four last month. Crazy, his life thus far has all been in the disastrous Trump era. Every time he sees a peaceful protest on T.V., he points and looks at us. His eyes saying, “Like we did, right?” Brian or I usually proudly confirm this memory. He thinks wearing a mask is as normal and apart of life as wearing his seat belt.

‘Big man,’ that’s what Papa says every time he gives Ash a high five or fist bump. And I didn’t think Ash paid much attention to this nickname until he randomly brought it up at home one day after I gave him a high five, “Papa says Big man.”

Ash says, “watch this” or “look” a billion times a day. For real, a billion. And sometimes, those little hands will grab my head or chin in whatever direction to make sure I am indeed “watching” or “looking.”

He is quite the little charmer, “Mommy, you’re so pretty… I like your hair.” Random kisses and “I love you’s”—he knows how to keep my heart soft.

Me saying “ow” under my breath from banging a pinky toe or some random body part into a wall or something, thinking no one heard my frustrated boo-boo. Then here comes Ash, no matter if we are on different rooms or floors of the house, always instinctively coming to check, ‘Are you alright?’ I hope his heart stays this caring.

He is still into his Hot Wheels, but now more obsessed with dinosaurs. I’m not sure when exactly this happened. But we’ve watched lots of Dinosaur King and Jurassic Park and YouTube dinosaur videos. He can identify them all, Pterodactyl, Indominus Rex, Stegosaurus. Ankylosaurus is one of his faves. He also has this weird thing of randomly acting like a Pachycephalosaurus.

Octonauts is another thing he is wildly obsessed about. If the T.V goes on, you can put money on it that he is going to say, “I want to watch Octonauts.” And I don’t mind it because it is quite educational. One evening while watching one of the nature documentaries, ‘Dolphin Reef,’ on Disney plus (which I also highly recommend), Ash impresses me, “It’s a humpback whale…” The voice of the narrator echo’s him seconds later, “Moraia, the humpback whale….” Ash looks at me and proudly boasts, “See…”. Some days later, while we were watching another documentary, he impresses Brian, “That’s a whale shark.” Again, the narrator confirms. Ha, clearly there is some benefit of watching hours and hours of those Octonauts.

I think our potty training phase with Ash was prospectively short-lived and painless. He ‘peed in the potty’ for the first time while at Disney World for his third birthday (September last year) and was wearing “big boy pants” for months before his fourth birthday hit. I canceled my monthly subscription for the Bambo Nature training pants back in July because we were only using them at night (for precaution). Yeah, he has had a few accidents from waiting too long before deciding to take a bathroom break (you know how playing takes precedence in a toddler’s mind), but I would say we were lucky and overall had minimal potty training woes.

He now has friends in the neighborhood that ring the doorbell asking if Ash can play. I mean, when did my kid become popular?

I can do it. A positive mantra I started with Ash some time ago when he came to me discouraged about not being able to do something, his little voice saying, “I can’t do it.” I made him dismiss that thought and repeat instead, ‘I can do it.’ And I kept making him repeat it every time he needed the reminder.

Now, if he hears me say, ‘I can’t…’ no matter if it is preluding something as insignificant as not being able to reach the sugar on the top shelf, he is swift to remind me to dismiss that negative energy. He’ll say, “(Mommy), I can do it.”

In my bedroom, he was off writing letters one Saturday evening at his makeshift desk while I worked down the hall in the office. He comes in the office, pouting about not being able to write Ws. I began the mantra, “I….” He finished it, as he always does “… can do it.”

I go into the bedroom to find his Hot Wheels pencil on the floor across the room from his desk. I chuckled to myself. He had thrown his pencil across the room out of frustration. ‘Asher, did you throw your pencil?’ He answered, “Yes.” I covertly approved of his little display of mild fury at trying to perfect something that wasn’t coming outright. I picked up the pencil and prompted him to try again, talking him through it. Down, up, down, up…. W. The joy from his success was everything a mother loves. He shouted, “I can do anything!” My heart could barely take it.

Every night he prays, ‘Thank you Jesus, Amen.”

But how does he always manage to get a hole in the left knee of all of his pajamas? Only the left side. Boys.

I love motherhood with him right now. He can sometimes wear me down with all of the talking and questions and the repeated ‘mommy look’ and ‘see,’ but I every time I look at that sweet face, sound asleep at the end of the day, I feel so incredibly blessed to have this precious little Noodle.

What does motherhood look like for you right now?