My hair is peacock teal.
Well...it was. I've let the color go out because I'm going to go batshit for my next coloring, but I'm STILL getting compliments on it. It's dulled into a really cool, bluish-green that just about matches the color of the ocean here. I'm going to be sad when I bleach it all out to do something that may or may not work, because I think this blue has been the color best received by the general public.
Second thing isn't first:
Gabriel has been here since June 24th, and it's been lovely.
We've been working on getting him into healthy habits, working on his portions, being active, we go to the beach and the pool and we hike, and it's been fantastic. It's gotten me out of the house, as I am a true homebody that would rather laze around in pajamas and be antisocial, watching Pose until the world ends (if you're not watching Pose, you are sleeping on the fucking best show that television has to offer, in almost every single way). I'm better about getting out of the house when Derek is home, but when he's gone, I'm a dull little bird, but I don't really mind. I go out when I want to go out, and I stay in and enjoy being alone the other 98 percent of the time. I'm much more fun when there's someone else around, and having Gabriel here has given me a lot of energy and a lot of drive to do hikes and go to the beach and the kicker is I'm not even taking my camera. I'm just enjoying time with my kid. It has also been the summer where my legs are in all of my photos because I can.
Gabriel enjoying his new full face snorkeling mask at the pool, barely seen because my legs.
Legs, but more different legs, also whilst Gabriel tries his older full face snorkel mask. Summer of my legs, 2019!
I got rolled up in a wave and smashed my foot right into some coral.
Not seen here: My son. At all.
Here's where we get back to Gabriel, and he's why I'm writing this blog, because I scared the absolute fuck out of him tonight and I am still laughing over it an hour later.
Here we are, on our various hiking adventures around the island. In no specific order of adventure.
Gabriel despises going to bed, and because it's summer, I'm inclined to let him stay up. I don't care, that's the fun of summer. Plus we both went HAM on some shit yesterday, needed a two hour nap in the middle of the fucking day, and STILL went to bed early. He had energy to spare today, so when 11:30 rolled around and I told him he had to go brush his teeth and get to bed because he has a doctor's appointment in the am, he was busying himself with everything but teeth brushing and bed going. Earlier in the evening, he said something and I misheard it as "deez infinity nuts". I kind of assumed it was something maybe he and Allen had as an inside joke, but Gabriel thought it was hilarious, so "deez infinity nuts" was said all evening. As I was trying to make sure he was doing what needed to be done for bedtime, he was hollering down to me to not forget deez infinity nuts. Naturally, when he asked me what I was supposed to remember, I pretended to draw a blank, so when he reminded me of deez infinity, I interjected with BUTTHOLES, and he thought that was fucking hilarious, so I kept yelling buttholes at him. We were both laughing over buttholes, and i heard him making his way across the top floor to come downstairs, so I jumped out of my chair where I had been reading Mad in America, and he had seen me not five minutes prior reading in my chair, and hid in the corner where he couldn't see me from the stairs.
He got halfway down the stairs and was like, "mom, don't forget..." and he trailed off, because he didn't see me in my chair, though my book was on the table and my chair was still reclined. I could hear him shifting uncomfortably on the stairs, wondering where I was, and I Assume he was craning his neck to see if I was maybe in the kitchen.
"Mom..."
"Mom don't forget infinity BUTTHOLES...."
"......mom?"
And I am silently laughing in the corner, waiting for Gabriel to come downstairs so I can leap out at him and shout BUTTHOLES!, I can hear him shifting his weight from one foot to another, unsure of where his mom is, and I can almost hear the gears grinding in his head, torn between this being a prank, or him having something real to be scared of.
This is where my maternal skills just never developed.
I know my son.
My son has anxiety, and I think it can be quite crippling for him, as it can be for me.
I KNEW, the more quiet he got, and with the last tiny cry out of "mom...infinity buttholes" that my son was absolutely TERRIFIED. I hadn't even needed to leap out from the corner to shout at him, I had thoroughly scared him by being silent. I heard him turn himself around, and he absolutely charged up the stairs and ran directly into his room, slamming the door with the quickness, and I was shaking with laughter. I really thought Gabriel could hear my body as it rattled against the keys on the wall because I was laughing so hard and trying to be silent.
When I heard him in his room, I knew two things to be true:
One, he had locked his door because he was so scared;
two, I know how to bypass his lock.
I pulled myself together and silently crept upstairs, making sure not to put too much weight on the stairs because I had to be quick, but stealthy, and I got to his room, tricked the lock, threw open the door, and screamed "BUTTHOLE!!!!!!" with as much glee and loudness as I could muster.
And he turned around and SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. He screamed so fucking hard and so fucking loud, and then he covered his mouth and sobbed. He covered his mouth and sobbed like some mother on Maury who just found out the man she brought on the show is NOT the father. He covered his mouth and sobbed like he just won Miss America, but with absolutely none of the joy.
I watched several things happen to him in the span of about a quarter of a second.
I watched him realize that something terrifying was happening that he didn't understand yet;
this melted into realizing his room was not safe because the lock had betrayed him;
this turned into realizing his room was not a safe space at ALL;
this turned into "oh my god I just screamed at a decibel unheard of previous to this";
which ended at "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY CUNT OF A MOTHER".
And then he got the joke and he laughed for a long time. He laughed because he was relieved, he laughed because I was doubled over in hysterics and laughter is infectious, and he laughed because he was genuinely panicked and I know it.
My son is so easy to fool, and I try not to exploit it very much because like him, I suffer from crippling anxiety that doesn't really let me have fun with pranks like that as often as I'd like to.
However, as Derek said to me as I was telling him I'm a terrible mother for enjoying this as much as I did, these are the little gems that make parenting worth it.
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