getting in the way

After two well-meaning checkers leaned over their registers at the store this afternoon to quiz Gabriel on his plans for Halloween, and he - with a world-class pout on his face, arms crossed, and eyes downcast - mumbled something about being a superhero named Bug Boy, we walked off across the parking lot and I asked him how he felt about talking with grown ups he didn't know.

I don't like it! Grown ups should not talk to me.

Why not?

Then came a moment, as he climbed into the backseat, replete with a weariness that a four year old should not yet know: silence, then a deep, heaving sigh, followed by eye-rolling. With these gestures he basically said must I explain the obvious to you? Again? ...and then resigned himself to the task.

Mama. I only like to talk to kids my own age who are my friends. Younger kids hit and kick because they don't know better. Older kids tease and taunt. And grown ups are just...annoying.

A world run and inhabited by four year olds! Can you imagine it? I sort of can, after a day of apple-picking with Gabriel and his friend Wyatt yesterday. There would be a lot of bathroom humor. I mean, a lot. Playing with sticks would be required for at least 2 or 3 hours a day (consequently half the citizenry would be missing an eye). Most of the time would be spent in make believe, everyone's clothes would be impossibly dirty, and hugs would abound, whether or not both participants were interested in a squeeze just then.

Gabriel and Wyatt hadn't seen each other in a long time and so the excitement level was high for our orchard adventure. On the way there, the boys talked pee and poop and cracked each other up for nearly an hour, after which point (thank goodness) I successfully introduced a game of 20 questions. That worked for awhile, until they started asked questions like "Is it an animal who...poops on your head?"

Oh man. Funny stuff. I admit, it was hard not to laugh, watching them delight in each other. They sprinted past the Braeburns and Staymans with sticks, pretending to be ninja samurai warriors and occasionally diving under trees to avoid enemies invisible to these old eyes. They spent an hour chasing each other through the straw maze, guffawing like mad. And the only challenge on my end was keeping their impulses towards naughtiness in check.

They seemed to want to push the envelope with me constantly. They'd encourage each other to disobey. At first I was a little baffled. What were they getting out of it? Then at one point Gabriel wandered over and sat down in my lap, clearly needing a break. Wyatt looked at him with horror, as if he'd been betrayed. Gabriel!! Come back here! he called from the lip of their pretend witches' stew pot, bunches of grass in his hands. Come on!!

Then I got it. I was a threat to their twosome. When you want to identify so completely with a friend, parents really get in the way - even if they're not literally in the way. The very fact of a parent's love can cramp your style, even at age 4.

And so it begins. We provide the security, the unconditional safe space in whose confines they can grow and hopefully become the people they are meant to be - yet part of that becoming will inevitably involve a thousand moments of distancing, rejecting, and separating from the love we offer. They come back and go away, over and over, practicing.

I am tickled by Gabriel's capacity for friendship. So much so that I didn't mind being the bad guy yesterday. But oh my, did it ever feel good when he snuggled up next to me for a story at bedtime!