I don’t have much on my mind. That’s intentional. It’s been a Monday, a work day that started too early, included a less than professional email from a coworker, which just irritated me. Maybe because I was reading it at 5:45am. Few things can be awesome that early in the morning.

I’ve been thinking, however, about impulse control. Or the lack thereof. Mac has been helpful in bringing these thoughts to the forefront of my mind.  Mac has none. And it gives me grey hairs. Which, if you knew much of the genetic line I come from, this would be even more impressive.

Anyway, I was visiting with some ladies after church, in the cry room. One of them was nursing her baby. The kids all trooped in to find out why we hadn’t left yet and why in heaven’s name would we want to stay there any longer than absolutely necessary .  Mac aired his grievances, or about half of them before glancing around and announcing “Oh, a baby.” He promptly walked over, lifted up the blanket and admired the little one. And I asked the floor to swallow me whole. 

I realized that this would require some extra discussion later on in the evening. Mac’s now five, and well, that just isn’t ok. Not to mention with our own small person en route, it might be wise to set some ground rules. So I was talking to him about appropriate behavior when a mama is nursing her baby. He stared at me with a blank face, which, by the way he informed his grandfather is the look he has when he doesn’t know. So, he finally said “are you talking about the baby at church?” Wow, progress! So I said “yes, that’s exactly what I am talking about.” “Oh, yeah I didn’t know the baby was nursing.” So then we moved on to if the baby is under a blanket for any reason, you should just leave the baby alone.

He was matter of fact about the whole thing. He explained simply that he wanted to see the baby, since babies are cute. Fair enough. The whole situation did benefit from the understanding of the lactating mother of eight, who has five boys of her own.

Mac keeps me on my toes. He is the child who ran onto a soccer field, just last fall to kick a soccer ball that was indeed heading towards the white line, making it out. However, it hadn’t actually crossed that line. In fact, it was about three feet from it. People laughed, told me how funny it was. I responded, through clenched teeth “It’s easy to laugh when it’s not your kid.”

I have more examples, but Mac just walked in and handed me a pillowcase with the explanation “This was on my bed, I don’t know why but I think it’s weird. Should I wear it on my head?”