My Little Pirates
They’ve raided my silverware drawer again for pirate swords. I find irritation creeping into my voice as I bellow down the hallway for someone to PUL-ease bring the butter knives back so I can swipe peanut butter across the hollow body of a celery stalk. “But, mom…” the oldest protests, “the foam ones are broken and these are the only swords we have left to defend the ship!”
Everything is a pirate sword. Or light saber. Or rifle. There are not enough foam swords on the shelves in all of the greater Chicagoland Target stores to keep my boys in the business of being brave. Sticks from the backyard are carried like guns, and butter knives are confiscated from the silverware drawer right after I unload the dishwasher in the morning.
It all drives me sort of crazy—this constant need and desire for battle that’s seemingly engrained in their biological makeup, their genetic codes.
When I get wild and demand knives be returned to my lunch-making hands, I lose sight of who they are. When I deep groan internally after the oldest has been carrying on about the complexities of fighting an imaginative Darth Vader. When I instruct them to stop light sabering the old My Little Ponies my mother dug out of the basement instead of treating them how I did—combing and braiding their hair before frolicking about in the grass and building relationships between them.
When John is away, it is harder to sleep because I feel like I can’t really ‘turn off.’ It wasn’t just because the dog—who now needs therapy—took his growling to the next level each time a car passed our house at night. Rather, it was because I was thrust into a role I felt somewhat uncomfortable with. Sure, if someone were to burst into our home, I would get all ‘mama bear’ and go into a blind, flesh-ripping rage to protect my children. However, the desire to do battle doesn’t seem to come as naturally to me as it does to my boys.
One night while John was away, I prayed for God to watch over us as we rested. Not a full second after we’d said amen, my oldest son turned his eyes to me and said I didn’t have to worry about that because he would watch over us, too. As he boldly proclaimed his intentions, I briefly glimpsed the kind of man my four and half year-old will one day become.
Thankfulness now coats the irritation that emerges while watching the scenes of good versus evil that unfold daily in my living room. Every time I read the headlines, I am reminded that the world needs more good pirates defending the ship. And every pirate needs a reliable butter knife, right?
Hyacynth W. writes almost daily about faith, motherhood and healthy living at Undercovermother.
