Mothering three Dudes has its challenges.
I think mothering any amount of kids, regardless of sex has its challenges of course, but you know, I can only speak on what I live.
When we started having children, I really wanted my kids to be closer together in age. My goal was to get in and out of the baby making game as quickly as possible. Not because I don’t enjoy babies, just that I liked the idea of clump parenting (totally made up word), which I imagine is a great way to categorize parenting kids that are all in similar stages of life. Like babyhood, and toddlerhood, and elementary school, and adolescence, and so on and so forth.
Sadly, my uterus and the universe had other ideas about this plan and conspired to space my Dudes out more than I’d anticipated (they are all approximately 3 years apart, give or take a few months) creating a close in age situation that brings with it a whole host of challenges.
Basically, I created a situation where each of my children has a pretty distinct birth order affiliation (something I think you kind of eliminate when you have kids so close together they don’t have any recollection of life sans siblings). We have an oldest who got over three years of mommy and daddy time to himself. We have a youngest who we wished for and ensured would be our last.
And. We have a middle. A middle who embodies basically all of the stereotypical things that a middle child is said to embody.
So, challenging. But also awesome. His personality is full and engaging. He is exciting and brave and eager to be different and all of that makes him the most interesting and complex human I have the pleasure of knowing.
But, he also spends a lot of time shouting NOTICE ME!
So we try to.
Which is why I started Dude Dates.
I wanted to make it a point to spend time with him (and the others too, but not quite as much), only just him, so he feels heard and special and loved and full.
I plan things, things that I know he will like, things that are maybe too expensive to do as a family, things that will give him and I something to talk about, rich experiences that help us create memories and moments that only we share. And sometime I make DudeDad do it too (he took him to see The Golden State Warriors this winter and got THE BEST tickets!).
We make them all about him, sans brothers, sans extra parent, sans worrying about whether or not he will be heard.
It’s been a while since the two of us have been able to escape and I sensed he was feeling needy for alone time, so when we got the opportunity to go into the city and see a play (thank you, thank you, thank you Arena Stage for inviting us!), I took it.
We got all dressed up (meaning he didn’t wear his holey shoes or his basketball shorts) and went to see Dear, Evan Hansen.
It was perfect because the star, Ben Platt, is also a main character in one of his all time favorite films, Pitch Perfect 1 & 2.
We had such a lovely time driving to DC together, getting lunch, walking around, taking elevator Usies…
And posing with random city murals…
It was such a perfect day…
And, the play was spectacular too.
Not to give away the plot, but the topic is a mature one involving teen suicide. For tweens and teens it provides a perfect opportunity to discuss all sorts of things the average adolescent is facing: bullying, difference, social media use, finding a place for oneself, drug use, dating, and parental relationships. It was such a deep and full production that we both enjoyed. You can read more about it here: Broadway Team Develops Evan Hansen
But, to give you our official take on it, I loved it because it was real and thought provoking, Ben Platt can blow, and I thought the music was great. Dude 2 loved it because it was funny, Ben Platt can blow, and they said the F word at least 10 times.
We both cried.
He held my hand when we walked back to the car.
Right in public where everyone could see.
I cried again.
Best. Day. Ever.
*sniff* Such a sweet date with your dude.
Love this.