The Love of a Boy

My son has a crush on his preschool teacher. While taking a bath last night, he told me, “I want my hair to be all clean, so Miss Rebecca will say, ooh, that smells good.”
I’m not sure how much hair-smelling Miss Rebecca does, but I know she’s luckier than last year’s teacher, who was rather well-endowed. At the end of the year, Miss Sheila said, “We love our Nico. I call him our little perv.” As in pervert. Because each time Sheila would offer him a hug, or a snuggle, she’d feel his little hand sneaking under her blouse toward her breast.
My 3-year-old son, copping a feel off his pre-school teacher. I thought he only did that to me.
My son is the funniest person I know. Like all kids, he’s a sponge. He throws back my phrases and admonitions daily, making me feel like a shrew. “Mind your business!” he yells at his sister. “You take care of your own self!”
Some things I assume he learned in preschool, like “Zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket!” The other night at dinner, we asked him to say the blessing. He sang in his adorable off-key rasp: “Listen carefully, listen carefully, hear my voice, hear my voice. We are getting ready, we are getting ready, to clean up toys, clean up toys.”
I have three children, and Nico is the middle child. Last year, when we brought home his little sister, it pretty much ruined his life. I had anticipated the chaos of having three children; I had anticipated that life would be crazy, that I wouldn’t have as much time to myself, that I’d cook less and read less and do more laundry. I didn’t anticipate Nico’s complete and utter grief. For months, he was the saddest child I had ever seen.
He likes to measure his love for people, and those closest to him, he loves “five.” Sometimes he even loves me “ten.” When he’s mad, he loves me one.
For a long time, he loved his sister zero, though now he loves her more since he gets sent to time out if he doesn’t. Forced love.
One night Nico didn’t want to go to bed. I finally resorted to yelling at him, and he yelled back. “You go to jail, Mom! Go to jail!”
I said fine, I’ll go to jail if you’ll go to bed, and he agreed. But he snuck out of bed to see where I was, and when he found me on the couch, he started fussing again. “That’s not jail!” And so then I felt obligated to have a heated discussion about why it’s inappropriate to send your mother to jail.
Finally, I wore him out, and tucked him for the final time. “Give me a kiss,” I said, and he did. “That makes Mommy so happy,” I said.
He pulled my face close to his, looked into my eyes, and whispered, “I don’t want you to be happy.”