Grow Up, Please!

It’s late on Monday, the dreaded Garbage Night. I’m marching down the front steps with a week’s worth of dirty diapers at arm’s length. Eight trips later, I see the neighbor’s kid hauling their trash out to the bins. My two-year-old, Alex, in the meantime, is creating more trash, shredding junk mail all over the couch while Dad is watching his favorite show “Deadwood” on DVD. What’s wrong with this picture?

I wish my Alex could do things like the neighbor’s kid. Ten-year-old Jason is a miniature man, with a spare tire around his middle that could save someone from drowning, but I’m telling you, the kid can carry garbage.

Don’t get me wrong, my son is the best two-year-old you could have. My husband suffers from repetitive strain injury and right now he’s semi-disabled. When his hands feel like a pair of burned-out oven mitts, he’s not much help with Alex. That’s why Mom can’t wait for Junior to grow up.

Of course I want to get my son into a good preschool. But right now I’m an advocate for child labor. Yes, put that child to work! Scrape up prehistoric layers of oatmeal baked into the hardwood floors, sweep out the runaway balls under the couch, suction up the crumbs from the carpet and Zout out the dried urine from a failed attempt at potty training.

I can’t wait until Alex can drive a car. He can take his Dad to all the doctor’s appointments, get groceries and return those “Deadwood” DVD’s. Right now, even when Mommy loses her mojo and gets sick, she has to rise from the dead like Jesus. Last week, when both my son and I got slammed with the stomach flu, I still had to take care of him when he called for Mommy in the middle of the night. I mentioned this when I went to pick up my newly made orthotics. The technician had kids aged ten and twelve. I felt a bit deflated when he said, “Two seems like it was easy; you have other things to worry about when they’re older.”

The guy’s right. Give a teenage kid wheels and you’re begging for trouble. What if Alex goes cruising all over town with his friends and never comes home? What if he has a girlfriend and they’re having their kicks in the back seat? Maybe I don’t want him to grow up so fast.

Alex’s favorite word from watching “Cowboy Pooh” is fast. The train gets hijacked and it’s speeding around the mountain at high speed, about to get derailed. Life feels like that sometimes and I wish we had more hands on deck. Maybe the lesson for me is to go slow, because I can’t do it all. My son won’t grow up any faster than he’s meant to and that’s a good thing. As much as I feel compelled to be a Do-it-all Mom because of my husband’s condition, I also have the privilege of spending time with Alex, watching him take things at his own pace. Alex has only just started drawing objects in recognizable form: variations on a delivery truck resembling a whale on wheels. It’ll be years before he’ll start asking for the car keys. I can wait.