Bleah

Happy April Fool's Day!

So, I tried to play a joke on my son. Some background: I was born 6 weeks or so premature, so spent the first 6 weeks of my life in an incubator. After my mother took me home, she was careful to sterilize everything because she was afraid my immune system was very weak. One day, she took me outside to sit on the grass in front of the apartment building we lived in. I ate dog poo. I survived. She stop sterilizing everything.

I made the mistake of telling my son this story. Since then, he often confirms, "Mommy, you ate poo, didn't you?" and also likes to say, almost every day, "I want to eat poo." So since it's April Fool's Day, I thought I'd serve up some peanut butter poo on a plate for his breakfast. My daughter, husband, and I were eating breakfast when he came down and said, "What's this?" I said, "You always say you want to eat poo, so here's some for you." His face was a funny mixture of disbelief and humour and he asked, "Is this real?" I couldn't keep a straight face and burst out laughing. He went away from the table and lay down on the floor in front of the heater. I told him to come and eat his real breakfast, but he wouldn't. I had to take the poo away and apologize to him for the joke. Then he came to the table.

A little while later, I said, "This poo is going to waste! Does anyone want it?" The husband doesn't like to waste money, so said, "I'll eat it." "Mommy should eat it," said the boy. Both husband and I tried it. "It's good," I said; "It tastes like peanut butter cookies." The boy ended up trying it after all. He also thought it was good.

Before leaving for work, I did as I always do, kiss the boy on the head, kiss the girl on the head, kiss the husband on the cheek. The boy started complaining, "Why does she always do things I don't like?" The husband asked what things. Things like poking his bare skin when his pajama top rides up; things like kissing him, things like threatening to bite his bum when he comes out of the shower and prances about naked.

I felt like crying when I got to my office. Sometimes I envy birth parents and the easy physical relationship they have with their children. The boy wouldn't let me touch him for the first six months after we adopted him and still doesn't like hugs and kisses from me, although he'll climb all over the husband to get affection. If I stand behind him, he'll lean on me, and he likes to check my heels for cracks (this is called "foot check"). He also likes to entwine his legs with mine when we're reading together, but no hugs, and no kisses. "Japanese people don't do it," he says.

Sigh.

Still, I will persist in doing what I want. I won't stop. He'll hate it now, but he'll miss it when I'm dead. Yeah, that's what I'll tell him.