Letting Go of the Balloon

The difference between my kids can best be described by these two pictures.








Max has always been, well, easily provoked. Emotional. Sensitive. Maeve, on the other hand, is smiley, easy going, and predictable.

Max also seems to be the one who worries. A lot. Everything in his complicated three-year-old life is a drama. Even the most seemingly insignificant things cause a ridiculous amount of anxiety. And that usually leads to him screaming. And that eventually results in me screaming. As for Maeve, she looks at us like we are nuts. Like she doesn't really get us or care to get us for that matter.

I'll give you a few examples. Max is newly potty trained. He's doing a great job. But, the practical and sometimes messy reality of the bathroom oftentimes causes him to lose his shit (sorry, I'm a sucker for puns). In particular, he finds it very disturbing when he misfires and pees on the toilet seat. And he doesn't just say, "uh oh." He stops midstream and insists that I give him toilet paper to clean it up. He laments. He looks at the toilet seat with this tragic expression, as if he just discovered a dead rat in the toilet. "Oh, NOOOO! There's pee! Oh no oh no oh no!" Maeve stands in the background with this look on her face, and though she doesn't say it, I imagine that she's thinking, "Who cares????"




Here's another one. I bought Max several balloons for his 3rd birthday last March. A few days after the party, I agreed to let him take them outside. Even though I knew better. Even though I knew he'd let them go. I knew he'd freak out. And I hate letting balloons go. I worry that when it pops, a duck might peck at it and choke or that a fox might eat it and get a bowel obstruction. For the record, I have NO idea where Max gets his fretful personality from. Well he did exactly what I thought. He laughed gleefully for a few moments and I thought, "maybe this will turn out okay." But then the unimaginable happened. The balloons got stuck in a tree. "Oh NO!!! Look, mommy," he shouted, pointing at the balloons. "They're stuck!!!" I tried to console him. I made up stories about how the balloons actually WANTED to be stuck in the tree. How they LIKED it. Max believed none of it. Every single day since that fateful morning, every single day, when we go outside, Max asks about those damn balloons. He can't even see them anymore because they slowly and painstakingly deflated and are hidden in dense leaves. But he knows exactly where they are. He asks about where the mommy balloon is. He asks if the balloons are sick. Sometimes he tries to get Maeve involved in his worry over the balloons. She looks up into the tree, and very much unimpressed, gets that look on her face again. "I just don't care," she thinks.




Let me give you more evidence, even if you are already convinced. I bought Max a blue water bottle for school. Ever since then he has been very particular about the color of his sippy cups and pacifiers. He acts as if the very color of the cup affects the taste of the drink. And he doesn't ask pleasantly, "Mommy, can I have the blue cup please?" He demands it like his life depends upon it. As if I'm secretly plotting NEVER to give him his blue water bottle ever again. As usual, Maeve stands idly by, looking at the scene unfolding, not giving a damn about what color her sippy cup is.




Okay, one more. I really don't mind bugs. Especially dead ones. But even living ones are fine as long as they aren't crawling unexpectedly up my leg or biting me. I've never shown a fear of bugs to my kids. In fact, I'm more likely to gather the little critter up for closer inspection. Max did not inherent my love of creepy crawlies. He flips out over a bug rivaling the stereotypical mom at a park with a bee buzzing around her head. He screams like someone is chasing him with a family size bottle of sunscreen. When he sees a dead bug, a new level of angst emerges. He still does the freaking out part, but then when I reassure him that the bug is fully and everlastingly dead, he quiets down and begins his typical rhetoric. "Oh, NOOOO. It's dead!!" he says, pointing at the bug, circling the motionless crispy body like a preditorial preschooler. We then have to gather the dead bug supplies, including a paper towel and a cup. I pick up the remains with the paper towel, place it in a cup, and then Max very quickly carries the cup to the nearest bush (aka mass bug grave) and tosses it to its final resting place. Sometimes I will say a few words. "Oh little beetle, we love you. And I'm sorry you were mauled to death by our cat this morning." Maeve will watch this charade with mild curiosity and obvious disdain. Very obviously not caring too much about the bug funeral.



I love both of my kids for their individuality. I mean, I'm obligated to say this right? I also have to admit that sometimes Maeve is easier to appreciate. Easier to understand. Max takes so much work. Uses up so much energy. But after the day is over, and I'm thinking about all that we did -- thoroughly cleaning the toilet, making up stories about balloons in the trees, hunting all over the damn house for a blue cup, and bidding farewell to a sun baked beetle friend -- I realize that although not easy, Max is very rewarding to understand. And never, ever indifferent about anything.

Tonight, Max came home from the grocery store with a balloon. I felt the physical symptoms of a panic attack -- my heart started to race, my throat narrowed, my palms became sweaty. I took deep breaths, calmed myself down, and prayed really hard that when he let that balloon go, it would keep on going, all the way to beetle heaven.

What do your kids stress about? Do you have a worrier in your crowd?

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