Lessons in Boundaries

Jacob teaches me something new everyday. Many of these lessons are about boundaries. For example, recently, we went to the Nutcracker with Joanna and Olivia. It was after Jacob and I left early to dance around outside (and to wait for our friends, who actually made it through the whole show) that I learned that pants were optional in public.

You see, we were prancing around wildly and laughing, and when I went over to him and tickled him, he wet his pants. The kid was drenched. I asked Joanna, who had just emerged from the building, if she might have a towel in her trunk. Fortunately, she did. Jacob, however, is not a kid to wait on anybody, so the trousers, underwear, socks, and shoes flew off while we collected the towel. Judging from the looks on the faces of the people streaming out of the Nutcracker matinee in their Christmas finery--silk, satin, and velvet--with all their small children, he apparently removed his clothes in some kind of wild strip-tease. How nice that they were all confronted by Jacob, the nudist. (Don't think that whole "Nutcracker" irony was lost on any of the adults.) Jacob was undaunted, and kept a-dancin.

Lesson 1: Pants = optional, even in public. There are often things we think we need that we may not.

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I've also learned that mental illness respects no boundaries. It is, in fact, contagious. Today, Jacob was in a great mood when I picked him up from school. There's pretty much only one thing at school he doesn't like, and that's naptime, and I get an earful about it almost everyday. Today, however, his story was different.

"Whew! Naptime was just crazy today."

"It was? Why?"

"The other kids were wild."

"They were?! Why is that?"

"I guess they caught my madness. And, really, I don't want to listen to a bunch of screaming kids. [I swear he said this.] Thankfully, I got a few minutes of peace anyway."

Now, in some ways, I knew this already. You hang around crazy people long enough, it affects your relationship to the world. It can make you crazy too. Fortunately, in this case, Jacob had finally gotten his sense of peace, and he wasn't about to be disturbed by those around him, even if it was a bunch of screaming kids.

Lesson 3: Madness is contagious, but you can still find your island in the midst of it--even if you have been the one who was mad before.

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The next lesson Jacob gave me was one I didn't want to learn. From the very first day of school, he kept coming home and complaining about the behavior of a child we'll call "Q," the gorgeous (and I mean gorgeous) charming, dainty, son of two smart people I know. Jacob said the kid was mean. This child has the doe eyes of a Bratz doll--and they are matched by a smile of angelic innocence. He melts people with a glance, and he's so polite. I just couldn't imagine it. Jacob told me he pushed people down. I will say it again. I was a doubter.

Then Joanna said that Olivia didn't want to go to school because she didn't want to see Q. That shifted something in my mind.

Today, when I picked up Jacob, I casually asked one of the teachers, "What's the deal with the other kids and Q." I didn't even get the whole name out of my mouth, and she was already smirking. "He's like the big brother," she said. "Big brother?" "Yeah, you know--he's the one who grabs things out of their hands, yanks their papers off the desk and throws them on the ground when they're working, pushes them around, makes remarks--you know. The other kids are really starting to stand up to him--they're realizing they don't have to put up with it--but he is just the troublemaker in that age group." Q? Not Jacob (who I adore, but, as we have established, is a mountain of sass)? Just as she said these words, Q--clearly intentionally--drove a giant dump truck right through a volcano Jacob had been carefully building up in the sandbox, crushing it back to the ground. "Hey!" Jacob protested, but his creation had already been obliterated. Q looked at Jacob, batted his long eyelashes, and smirked.

Q, that little nymph with the face of saint, was also a mountain of sass. Jacob was right--he isn't an angel; he's just a kid.

Lesson 4: Appearances do not always represent reality. Here was a gorgeous, apparently angelic boy, being a normal kid. In fact, he is the "class troublemaker," just as Jacob had said.

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Finally, I've learned something about holidays. Today, Jacob carved a Christmas pumpkin. I didn't even know there were Christmas pumpkins. Jacob taught me.


We got two pumpkins and made spicy pumpkin soup with one, and carved the second. It's a pie pumpkin--only about 5 inches tall. He drew the face, then carved out the eyes. We carved out the mouth that Jacob had drawn, and Jacob and I supplied the Christmas accoutrements. (Don't miss them in a first glance.)

We laughed our butts off doing this.

Lesson 4: You can carve a pumpkin for any holiday you like. Rules that seem to keep fun parceled off into neat, little, "things should only happen like this" bits don't apply.

All good lessons, I say. I'll be on the lookout for more.