Naked Laugh

It's bed time.

Tyler's brushed teeth, gone potty, cleaned up the counter, jammies on, picked a book and is waiting patiently for Maija and story time.

The kid loves structure.
The more clearly defined the expectations, the better.

If he knows what you want him to do, he'll exceed the expectations every time...we call it "extra credit" just for fun.

Maija, is wired a little differently at the moment.
We lovingly call it shiny object syndrome sometimes.
She can be easily distracted from the task at hand.

An example... She starts putting tooth paste on her tooth brush and then sees an earring in the bathroom drawer and starts searching for it's lost mate. Eventually she finds it, and then meanders around looking for jammies to match...
Know anybody like that?

When she was little it drove me nuts.

As she's grown older, I'm learning to accept how she's wired and be responsible for making our life work well without putting pressure on her to hurry up.

I build in more time for tasks... Start her earlier than Ty on a task that I need them to finish at the same time. Playfully, spur her on...Sometimes spanish works. "Ondale'! Ondale'!", but sometimes that adds pressure and she melts...depends on her energy level.

On this particular night, I was prompting her verbally with the next task to keep it on the forefront of her mind.
"Excellent teeth brushing! Now, jammie time."

She adds drama to it, "no," she wines, "I don't want to change my clothes in front of Ty."

"What? Why don't you want to change in front of your brother?"

"Because he laughs at me and tells me I'm cute whenever he sees me naked."

"Okay, Ty, close your eyes. Maija, jammies." I direct.

Then, "Ty, is that true?" I ask under my breath so as not to distract shiny object girl, "do you laugh at Maija when you see her naked?"

"Yes," he says, "cause she's so cute!", he says innocently.

"Out of love?" I clarify, "not to be mean?"

"Yes, out of love," he assures.

Okay, I've got the info I need. I dive in to "clean up mode".

"Maija, I'm sorry it's made you sad in the past when Ty's laughed while you were changing. He didn't mean to hurt your feelings. He was loving and appreciating how cute you are," I explain.

"I don't like being cute, I like being called pretty." she objects.

"They are the same thing!" Ty defends.

"Sorry Mai, he was loving and appreciating how pretty you are and he meant to make you feel good not bad. I'm sorry it didn't feel good."

At that, Maija seemed to have completely moved on and forgotten that she was upset at all, but remembered suddenly that she needed to pick a book for Dad to read before bed, so off she goes to the toy room to get one.

I was satisfied. It was complete for me.

Good thing parenting is a team sport.

Tag team "in"...Dad.

Peace was clearly established for Maija, but Chris comes close and looks in Tyler's eyes and adds in all seriousness, "Ty, sometimes you need to be responsible for the delivery. HOW you say something is important and impacts people. Especially when we're talking about girls and their body's. If you see a woman, like your future wife, and she's naked, you can tell her how beautiful she is, but you probably shouldn't laugh, okay?"

"Okay, why?"

"Well, because it might hurt her feelings, like it did with Maija, and it's important to be sensitive during times like that when they're feeling vulnerable."

"Okay", Ty agrees.

I'm sitting next to him on the bed throughout that whole last conversation with Dad, but I had to turn my head away, because for some reason, it just made me giggle.

I didn't want to ruin the moment, so I just did that silent-parent-laugh that we do when we know we're supposed to be teaching instead of laughing, but it's just so darn funny that it is our job to have THESE conversations with them.

If WE don't teach them, who will?

Seriously though, how many of you know some brilliant guy out there in the world that's great at his tasks, but has the social awareness of a rock?

CPA's...engineers...computer programmers... (sorry to single you out, but you know who you are...)

How many times have you wished that his parents would have taught him JUST A LITTLE about how to interact appropriately in sensitive situations?

Well.... THERE.... we've done our part for the day.

We've taught our mini geek, how to NOT laugh at the naked woman in front of him, but instead to comment on her beauty....

our work here is done...

for this moment....

someday, his future wife will thank us.