By Lynne Leite
Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.
~Author Unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby
It had been a long Christmas day at the in-laws and I knew my nine-year-old son's patience was wearing thin. We had done everything except the one thing Joshua had wanted to do — open presents. I was preparing for a tantrum intervention when my mother-in-law said the magic words: "Let's open presents!"
Thank goodness, I thought. And then she said, "We got you all the same thing!"
Now I had to pause and wonder — why would she get us all Power Rangers? No way was my daughter going to like a Power Ranger. I mean, what other present could she possibly get that my nine-year-old son would want?
"Here they are!" She excitedly wheeled into the living room four carry-on sized suitcases in four different colors. Just as she said, there was one for each of us. Panic rose in my gut and now I really prepared to do an intervention, expecting my son to have a meltdown at the sight of his long awaited present — which turned out to be a suitcase. He spoke before I could get my hand over his mouth.
"Wow! That is so cool!" he shouted. He quickly picked the navy blue suitcase for himself and began opening up the different compartments — the removable net bag for your delicates, the luggage lock and key, the retractable handle — it all fascinated him. I let out a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. Clearly I had a quirky young son who liked a nice piece of luggage, but if he was happy, I was happy.
All was well until he went back to school after Christmas vacation. The teacher told all the kids that they could bring in their favorite present from Christmas for show and tell.
"What are you going to take, Josh, your White Tigerzord?" I asked.
"Nope," he said, with confidence and determination.
"Are you going to take one of your video games?" I checked his expression in the rear view mirror as he sat in the back seat — it was nothing less than smug.
"Nope. I am going to take my suitcase. And, Mom, can we put it in a big bag so no one can see until I take it out of the bag?" Again, I checked his expression to see if he was serious. He was. I could feel the blood drain from my face. Visions of my son standing in front of the class, building the suspense with his suitcase hidden away in the darkness of a trash bag, preparing the big reveal while kids sat on the edge of their seats expecting... a puppy, a remote control car, a snake... anything more exciting than a suitcase! I began to imagine the years of therapy it would take to correct the emotional damage caused by the trauma he was sure to experience if he took his suitcase in for show and tell.
"Really, Josh? Your suitcase? Are you sure you don't want to take your super cool, totally awesome Tigerzord? I bet the kids would think that was really rad!" I tried to throw in every kid adjective I could think of, but to no avail.
"Nope. I am going to take my suitcase. It is so cool! They are going to be so surprised!" Oh, my sweet child, you don't know how much they are going to be surprised, I thought.
The big day came and I had given up hope of changing Joshua's mind, so I found a big trash bag, put in the suitcase, and closed it carefully with a twist tie. I dropped my precious son with his surprise cargo on the school curb and I could hear the kids as I pulled away, "What's inside, Josh?" "Wow! That's a big bag — what did you get for Christmas?" My son beamed with his secret safely nestled inside the bag. I reluctantly drove away and spent the day doing what any mother would do — I prayed!
The day passed without a call from the school, which I took to be a good sign. I pulled up to the curb to pick him up and he stood looking no worse than when I left him. In fact, he seemed to be in good spirits with no visible signs of emotional damage. But still, I decided it was best to proceed with caution.
"How did your day go?" I asked, spying in the rearview mirror again.
"Great!"
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"The whole day?" Of course I wanted to come out and ask him about show and tell, but if it had gone badly, as I suspected it had, I didn't want to open a tender wound.
"Yup! Great!" Well now I had no choice but to ask point blank.
"Even show and tell?"
"It was awesome, Mom! My friends were so surprised!"
"Really...?"
"Yup! They thought my suitcase was so cool!"
"What did they like?"
"Everything! They thought the handle was really neat and Eric really liked the lock and key."
I was dumbfounded. Who knew? And I was also relieved. I really didn't have a lot of extra money for therapy.
"Hey, Mom, I have a question," my son continued.
"Yes, Josh?"
"Do you know where Nana got that suitcase? Eric really wants his mom to get him one."
I learned something that year about parenting and control, about letting go and realizing that you can't put bumper guards around every area of your kids' lives. My fearful thinking had convinced me that my son was heading for some emotional pain — but I didn't know that for certain. I did everything I could to control the situation and prevent him from being hurt. It's what we are supposed to do as parents; but sometimes our overprotective tendencies might actually keep our children from experiencing some pretty cool stuff — like being the big man on campus with the rad suitcase. I'm glad my son was determined to take his favorite Christmas present to school that year for show and tell. I'm also glad that second graders think luggage is cool.
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