Skip to main content

The surrogate parent

That would be Lucas. Yes, my soon-to-be 8-year old is turning into a little parent. For those of you who have multiple children or have girls in the mix, you would know this phenomenon only too well. For me, it's been quite eye-popping.

On the way back from getting Lucas from school one day, I told Liam that I had to hold his hand because there were a lot of cars about. I heard a voice chirp up.

"You don't want Mama to hold your hand? Ok", here Lucas is nodding at Liam and looking down at him with this earnest and concerned expression on his face, "Mama doesn't have to hold your hand right now, but when we get off the grass and on the sidewalk, Mama has to hold your hand, ok?" And I wasn't even absent! I'm getting ousted by my own son! All I could do was just stand there, snapping at air for a moment.

In the evenings, Lucas looks upon it as one of his "rights" or perhaps duties (as the surrogate parent that is), to do whatever is in his power to get Liam up to his room and ready for bed. I am not quite sure how it happened, but it seems to me there has been a subtle shift from what I had intended as playing with Liam to Lucas feeling it is his responsibility.

Lucas makes me feel like I have to act differently towards him now, like he is more mature? Responsible? I am not sure either of those words completely works, but the point is I can feel the move into another phase of his development, and I am waiting patiently for the other wonders it will bring.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Food as Medicine & Vitiligo Update

Before I talk about food, a quick: Vitiligo Update It still pisses me off that the hyperactive immune system that attacks my own pigment cells just let cancer sail right on through. Enough rant. Since my cancer diagnosis, my vitiligo has just exploded. It's spread from knees and elbows to legs, face and neck. It bothers me more now. Picture from 2009 Hands now  2016           The growing spread of vitiligo Treatments Topical steroids weren't working and while Latisse (the eyelash drug) worked on one spot above one eye, it does not seem to be helping with the other spot above the other eye. There is a pulsed light treatment I have yet to try, but before I go that route, I want to try the food route. Food as Medicine I've blogged previously as viewing Food as Fuel , the next step is to view food as medicine with the potential to heal some ailments. I've read a couple of books, It Starts with Food and The Paleo Appr...

Weeks 15, 16; Cycles 6 & 7

Another two-in-one post. I think this may be considered my "challenge" post.  The good news is that I have now completed 7 of 12 cycles, so I am looking at the end of chemotherapy. As I look back on my initial post , I realise that I had neglected a key piece of information about the kind of cancer I have.  Some women have cancers that are responsive to hormones, (quite simply, it appears that hormones make the cancer grow) and some women don't. I fall into the latter category - I am what is called triple negative. This is not a good thing. On my most recent visit with my oncologist we talked through "the numbers" that is, the survival rates and we assessed again how well my tumour is responding to chemotherapy (not as well as we'd hoped).  So these last two weeks have been quite a challenge mentally. It doesn't help that one of the side effects of all of this is a decline in disciplinary standards at our house.  Over the course of the summer I w...

Talking with Lucas on climate change

This is my post for Blog Action Day . This is an annual event where bloggers everywhere in the world post about the same issue on the same day to spark discussion around an issue of global importance. This is part of a conversation I had with my 8-year old. Mama : Do you know what climate change means? Lucas : I think it means when it is like 90F and it is hot.   And the change? It's when in the daytime it might be 90F and sunny and hot, and then you go inside for dinner and then right after dinner and it might have dropped to 70F Well, yes it is that in a way.  That describes what is happening in your area, but when people use the term "climate change" they really mean something more global, like affecting climate around the world Have you heard of the team "global warming"? What global warming is that it is made up of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and when they burn stuff the smoke releases CO2 and it's like a blanket covering the earth and if it k...