I don't like it when you are nice to me

I should have known that advice about courtesy and kindness would be thrown in my face. How can being nice be thrown in your face? You might ask, alas this is how it happens.

Did you know that being eleven is hard? I remember 13, and 15, and 7, and probably 17 being hard, but don't really remember much about eleven. Maybe its a boy thing, maybe its a now thing, maybe its just my kid thing, or maybe it was awful and my Mom'll be calling me after she reads this. Because eleven is hard my husband and I have been having the same conversation with my oldest over and over and over.

He is having some struggles right now. Some are of his own making and some are being brought on by other people. Mostly he is working through the process of finding out who he is, what he likes, and who he wants to be. I'll also admit I have some pretty high expectations of him too. Mean old mom wants him to be a productive member of society. I want him to be able to cut up his own pancakes and butter his own potato as well as occasionally sweep the floor, clean a toilet, and tidy his room. All said I'm sure you can see why it's pretty hard to be 11.

Part of this growing pain experience is having lots of talks about what to do when someone isn't the nicest, how to talk to people around you, and my most very favorite. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TODAY? I've heard and even occasionally said before "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times." I always thought that saying was meant for things like "Turn the light when you leave the room. Don't forget to flush. Wash the soap out of your hair BEFORE you turn the water off." I didn't realize that it was really for whole conversations you'd be repeating, the entire time wondering what you could possibly say this time to make it all sink in.

It was during one of these conversations that I realized my son might be a little more like me than I previously thought. At one point he started to cry and when we asked why he said "I just don't like it when you are nice to me" Yep, very similar words have come out of my own mouth. Sometimes when the tears are close to the surface or have already overflown their boundaries niceness just makes everything worse. So my husband and I pulled our meanest silly faces and I was reminded that even though by the end of the year he'll be taller than I am, and he has already developed the dreaded "man feet", he is still my little boy.

The things he is dealing with right now are the first of many hard things I won't be able to take away or fix. I want him to know that home is a safe place to feel the way you feel and, no matter what, a place you are loved for exactly who you are. So even if we've already had that conversation a million times, I'll gladly have it a million more because he is worth it.