The Never Normal

Jonah is the lord of self-admonishment.  By this I mean he will do things like shout “NO SHOUTING!”(particularly fun in crowds), repeat recently-declared edicts: “no hitting mama,” or even dole out such specific pretend punishments as “two minutes in your room!”

…but he is also the prince of self-permission.  Gazing longingly at my black soda, he’ll widen smiling eyes and say: “go ‘head!” — as if he’s simultaneously both the one who wants the soda and the one who may bequeath it.  He knows that in the real world he can only have black soda when he does poopy on the potty (which he is getting better at, though he still squats with both his hands and feet on the toilet seat, knees doubled up to his chin, skinny little butt poised over the water – and more often than not he’ll still just poop whenever and wherever he wants, black soda temptation notwithstanding)…

…but when you don’t give him what he has just given himself permission to have/or say/or do, he follows up with the most annoying sound in the world – this screechy, whiny, bitch-boy noise that grates on you in milliseconds, usually resulting in a time-out in his room where he’ll retreat to admonish himself once more:  “Time OUT!  Be QUIET!” — and, as Kurt Vonnegut liked to say, so it goes.

Therefore, it’s especially nice when what Jonah wants is what he’s about to get anyway.

“Go see Barkley?” he asked this morning; it just so happens we go see Barkley, Andy’s parents’ dog, most Sundays.

We are next to one another on the couch and I look up at him.  Before I can even answer, Jonah is nodding and smiling, eyes big with anticipation of Barkley-fun.  “Go ‘head!”  he says brightly. “Uh-huh!”

“Yay!  That’s right!  We’re going to see Barkley!” I answer with all the cheerfulness I can muster for 8am Sunday morning.

“Yup!”  he agrees, grinning around the thumb in his mouth.

Punk-ass.