Holding hands to a balcony

01 Sep Holding hands to a balcony

A glorious vacation in Florida.  Beach, best friends and the boy-child.  (thanks Trudy for that term.)

We geared up for a 3-hour drive through a torrential downpour to get to the promised land.     Disney World.  On the entire ride my son corrected every adult who made the verbal mishap of saying “Disney Land.”

He and his new best friend Tesla in the back of the car.  They did so well on the drive.   Things got a little tense at times as I sat wedged between two car seats.    I showered attention on both of them as I tried to keep my eyes on the horizon to calm the belly.

We arrived to an amazing hotel.  Quite shocking actually.  Beautiful.  On the way in there are couches and the ceiling has LED lights that are stars.   Every once in a while there is a shooting star.  We flopped ourselves down on the couch (in a sleeping position) and the kids oohed and aahed at the ceiling.

Then something happened.  I comforted Tesla who was looking for her mommy.  Sebastian repeated something with a boo-boo lip he had said before, “You talk nicer to Tesla than you do to me.”

Now, he had already said this to me earlier.  I told him he was right about part of it.  I did notice I was being ‘corrective mommy’ a lot.  I told him I’d work on my voice and be mindful of it.

He isn’t used to sharing me.   He was turning a little green as he went on to point out other things that were not fair.

I started to distract him with something else.  We were waiting for the rest of our party to finish dealing with the luggage and the car.  I then sat between them and stroked Sebastian’s hairline.  I did what I am learning works really well with kids, I told him a story.   A story about how when I was little I was very jealous of my sister.  She was better at everything than I was and my dad loved her more.  He took her to special things, like the ballet, and would write poems with her.  Me?  He referred to me as the “mouth of the south” because he hated my southern accent.  He also didn’t like how prissy I was.  I was very girly-girl.   (Please know, my dad was an amazing dad for me, there was a time when I was little that I just didn’t know him very well.)

I told the story at a very low level of context with a lot of detail.  Sebastian got a furrowed brow.  I held his hands and I said, Mommy had to make a choice.  I could choose to be unhappy and sad OR I could choose to love my sister, your Auntie Li, MORE than my dad did.   I have a little picture of her in a ballet outfit posing for our dad.  It became my favorite photo and every time I felt sad about my dad I would just love her more.  I ended up loving your Auntie Li more and she became my best friend.  Love is like that.

Sebastian, I love you and you are my baby (although I’m not supposed to call you a baby anymore) boy.  I also love Tesla.  She is a part of our family.  Can you love her too?

He didn’t answer.  Tesla jumped up to go to the fountain.. Sebastian ran and grabbed her hand and started singing “Let’s make a wish.. Let’s make a wish.”   After many pieces of coin thrown in the fountain, Sebastian asked me what I wished for.   “A happy family.”

He wished to be a Ninja.

It was time to check-in.  Sebastian grabbed Tesla’s hand and they walked to the counter.  They walked all over holding hands.  Sebastian kept hugging Tesla.  She hugged him.

Lorianne was having a lovely conversation with the woman behind the counter.   I watched her from afar just loving how she can talk to anyone.   I watched the kids walking around holding hands.

I walked up to the counter and the woman said, “Your children are adorable. “   It seems she liked them so much she upgraded us to a balcony room just because we had cute kids.

I held hands with my best friend Lorianne as we walked to our upgraded room.  There is something special when you see the love you feel for each other on the two kids walking in front of you.  Precious moment.

We choose what we do with our hurt feelings.  They can define us, destroy us or even be the adrenaline that succeeds us… what I hope Sebastian learns is not to ignore them.  Feel them.  Feel them.  Feel them some more.  And then.  …Then choose something.   Choose happiness.