Potties & Pirates

On Thursday, I took Henry for a mini-interview at the Y for their Preschool Summer Camps. Kids are supposed to be at least 3 years old and potty-trained. When I told Henry on Monday he could go to Pirate Camp if he used the potty, he spent the next two days running around naked or in underwear rushing to the potty and proving all I had to do was dangle “Pirate Camp” in front of him to do away with diapers. Each time he went I gushed over him. When he’d catch me using the “big girl potty” he told me how proud he was of me. A week of no accidents and 1/4 the diapers was lovely, if not homebound.

At the Y, we interrupted play time. Henry ran in, saw what the kids were doing, then ran back to the door, took off his shoes (although every other kid was shoe-d) and hung up his jacket. Then he ran back to the trains and dug in. Because we came in the middle, there was only ten minutes left to play and when asked to clean up, Henry was not quite done with these new toys. He eventually got over it and helped put things away. The other children watched him with tilted heads and squinting eyes. “I’m Henry,” he’d tell them when he made eye contact.

We were invited to stay for snack time and Henry sat in between a little girl with curls, Molly C, and a hyper boy in a striped shirt, Gus. The kids talked as they ate their pretzel sticks, popcorn and watermelon. I helped insert straws into juice boxes. Henry tried to contribute to the conversation and, for the first time, I felt protective of his emotions.

“I watched a movie yesterday,” Henry added when they talked about watching Finding Nemo.

Molly C eyed him frowning and I thought, You think your shit don’t stink, Molly C?

“You weren’t here! I don’t know you!” Gus yelled. Back off, kid! He's trying to connect!!

A stuttering boy from the other table leaned back in his mini-seat offering, “I…I…I…I w-w-w-atch movies, t-t-too.”

I wanted to move Henry from the big table to next to this awkward boy, but I took two steps back fast-forwarding my brain through middle-school and high school imagining my child.

“Is he going to be the weird kid?” I asked Jared later as I recounted the story.

“He’ll be fine,” he reassured me.

It’s hard to picture your two and a half-year-old – a boy obsessed with saying “Poop” who runs around naked with his hand up his bum – a part of a school community, having friendships and being in a classroom. My heart already hurts a little for my big boy. The girl that might say “No” to him for prom. The elementary school boys who will make fun of him for ever watching (and loving) Sophia the First and Tangled. The team he won’t make or the part in the play he won’t get.

And the silence. The silence I’m sure I’ll get when all these things happen. I can’t imagine silence from him at this point. He tells me when he’s mad at me or nervous or thinks I’m being mean or when something is fun. He remembers everything and brings things up randomly. He is… always talking. Any quiet now is when he’s hiding behind the chair with the dry-erase board erasers making the carpet camouflaged with black smears. Or barricading himself with chairs under the kitchen table while he practices with scissors. But even then he’s snickering.

I’d thought of summer camp as a chance for him to get out of the house and for me to nap. Who knew I’d go Breakfast Club on the poor kid!?