Archive for the ‘Parenting’ Category:
A compliment 14.2 years in the making
My daughter and I went on an impromptu, quick shopping trip today for a few things she needed. After she’d tried on no fewer than fifty items to arrive at five, I suggested we meander through the store just to see if there was anything else either of us desperately needed.
“You know,” I said, “I have a craving for a purple purse.”
“Purple?”
“Yep, purple.”
She walked through the aisles holding up bags that ranged from mulberry to eggplant and every edible color in between. Nothing was quite the right shade, the right quality or the right style. We checked another part of the store and I tried on something marked as blue but was clearly more dark lavender.
“Whaddaya think?”
“It’s weird,” she said. “You would never carry this.”
I set the bag back on the shelf. I wound through racks of clothes and met my daughter in an open space and we headed toward the check out.
“Hey,” I said. “Was that a compliment?”
“You mean that the purse was weird so you’d never carry it?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh huh.”
Obviously my sense of style, often disguised under a hair clip and oversized White Sox T-shirt, has not gone undetected. Not to mention, she was spot-on about the purse. It was weird.
My work is (just about) done.
Where were you on September 11, 2001?
I was in the house I live in now, getting dressed and standing in front of The Today Show on my bedroom TV like I had done every morning for as long as I could remember.
I watched the plane hit Tower One.
I canceled my plans and moved to the family room where I watched TV for the rest of the day. And night. And the next day. And probably days after that.
I kept my kids, in 4th and 1st grades, away from the news but I told them what happened. Sort of.
Where were you?
Back to normal
With my daughter home from camp, things are back to normal. Even without Tucker. Even though I sneezed yesterday and the other dogs just looked at me with their canine mental ‘bless you’. Tucker would run into another room if I even thought about sneezing. I spent the past ten years apologizing for every achoo. I didn’t mind.
But it still feels normal.
I credit the fact that this is still a house full of dogs and the routines and supposed-to’s are meandering back into place with my son on the golf team and school starting Wednesday, with three people at the dinner table instead of two, size five purple Converse high tops by the garage door, extra laundry (extra extra due to camp), the sound of Teen Nick coming from behind a closed door and the shrill of girly laughter trailing after it.
It even feels normal that my daughter will start high school and my son will finish it.
Important things are as they should be.
Can’t get more normal than that.
It’s a shame she’s not having any fun at camp
And as thrilled as I am, I’m also SO over it.
The paci princess
My daughter wasn’t the baby I expected. Oh, I knew she was going to be a girl and I knew she would one day play with Barbies. I assumed she’d have blue eyes and blonde hair. What I didn’t imagine was, as an infant, she would be nothing like my son in more ways than toys and wardrobe. I thought she’d coo and cry when wet — like he did. I assumed she’d swing when it was time to swing and sleep when it was time to sleep — like he did.
I did not think she would have colic and reflux and never nap for more than twenty minutes at a time. And I never ever thought our family would single-handed support the pacifier industry.
But we did. And we did it for more than three years. That’s right, my daughter was a Paci Princess until four months past her third birthday.
She became our paci princess almost immediately. And we were her obedient court. Paci’s in every room, diaper bag, purse, drawer and suitcase — sometimes paci’s on my fingers just in case. She was stuck on the hospital paci’s at a time when you could only order them from the manufacturer, in Boston, and on a limited budget I could only manage to get six at a time.
But those pacifiers not only soothed my daughter - they soothed our family. We knew what worked for her and made it work for us. I am a quintessential Type B mom, I go with the flow even when it throws me for a loop. I was never against pacifiers, I just never considered them. But, I sure did once I knew that a piece of silicon made her happy and helped her sleep.
Bringing the pacifier on board made my daughter reliable. She reliably carried her ba-ba, paci and baby everywhere she went. She took it out to eat and drink and eventually to talk a blue streak. She put it in her cubby at preschool, along with her Baby.
Much to the chagrin of many, we were unwilling to take the pacifier from her until she — and we — were ready. And that came one sunny, warm December day when we lived in Tucson, and she removed the paci and I saw a rash around her mouth. That was it. That night, the Paci-Fairy came and took all the pacifiers away and left a green talking Teletubby in their place.
My daughter never looked back — she only looked at that Teletubby. Luckily that was an obsession that didn’t last as long as pacifiers.
Even though my daughter dons braces, she didn’t get buck teeth from years of worhipping at the Temple of Paci Perfection. She didn’t go to kindergarten with pacis in her pocket. And now — she’s fourteen. The memory of the Paci Princess is a happy one. We smile when we look at old photos - our (my) favorite being the one where she’s asleep in the carseat, paci securely in place, and a piece of Kix cereal loosely at the tip of each nostril. That’s a keeper — added to by newer memories like that of the Pink Hair Princess.
And yes, my dedication to the parenting philosophy “whatever works,” continues.
Alone time
December 2002
The house was empty and silent, but not sad. When my ten-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and both dogs left home embarking on their first weekend at “Dad’s house,” I thought the world would collapse and I would dissolve. I shut the door behind them - my kids, dogs and my ex-husband — and leaned my back against the closed door, the way a leading lady does in a romantic comedy when she’s just come home from meeting the guy of her dreams. I waited for tears, for a weighty sense of failure and longing for my role of irreplaceable parent. And then I waited some more, shifting my eyes from the living room to the dining room to the rug beneath my feet. I tapped my fingers on my thigh. Then I walked down the hall toward my redecorated bedroom. The bed was still neat, not a ripple in the quilt. The throw pillows were in place. The bones and squeaky toys were still in the dog bed. I plopped down and clicked on the TV. Nickelodeon. I changed the channel.
Thirteen years before I had moved from my parents house to my own with my husband, and since, had shared seven homes with a variety of familial and pet configurations. I had never ever lived alone — even for a weekend.
So far, I liked it.
To be continued…
My love/hate relationship with overnight camp
I dropped off my almost-fourteen year old daughter at overnight camp today. She’s the one kneeling in the green shirt you can sort of see and the blue hair you cannot really see at all.
It’s not a difficult drive if you’re talking logistics. I wind my way to the highway for fifteen minutes and make a right. I drive about 100 miles or so and make a right off the highway, and then less than ten minutes later I make a right into camp.
But if you’re talking something else…it’s much more than three right turns and straight on til the middle of August.
I love that when my daughter was ten she wanted to go away to a camp where she knew no one.
I love that she had the wherewithal to do something brave.
I love that she wanted to go back.
I love that she can rock climb, canoe, sail and shower with cold water.
I love that she loves to get dirty.
I love that she wanted to go to the four week camp and that she wanted to go back again.
I love that she met her friends today with big hugs and how everyone commented how she cut her hair, and not that it was streaked with blue, although I’m sure that story will come later.
I love that she meets girls and counselors from all over the world and from Chicago suburbs.
I love many of the girls are Jewish even though it’s not a Jewish camp, because she doesn’t have a lot of Jewish friends at home.
I love that she takes the teddy bear she named after the Jonas Brothers.
I love that she took the same sundress for socials that she took last year, but all brand new socks still attached with those annoying plastic tags.
I love that she takes fishing every year as one of her activities.
I love the smile I see when she turns to leave with her old friends.
I love that she told me not to forget to write her every day.
I love being able to give her this experience - one I never wanted and still don’t want.
I love sending her packages and seeing photos on the camp website.
I love that she loves camp.
But I love and hate that she is gone for four weeks.
Fat Tuesday
In the poorly lit dressing room of a local department store I heard a mom talking to her daughter.
“I look so goddamn fat in this,” the mom said.
“No you don’t Mommy, you look good. Pink is nice.”
It was a little girl’s voice, not a teenager’s. I imagined her eight or nine on the little triangular wooden seat in the corner of the two by four foot room, swinging her legs and holding discards on her little lap.
“Oh you think so? What do you know?”
“I know you look nice in pink, Mommy.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. My ass is so fat I don’t look good in anything. Damn, look what time it is, I have to go to work.”
“It’s your new job right, Mommy?”
“Uh huh.”
“I heard you talking about it on the phone.”
“Yeah well I won’t like this one either.”
“Sure you will, Mommy.”
I rattled the hangers in my room just across the narrow hallway. I coughed. Maybe if she knew someone was there, listening, the woman with the fat ass and fat mouth would be kinder to her daughter. If only for a few minutes, I figured it would be something. She was obviously having a bad day but I wondered if she ever had a good day. If she talked to her daughter this way in public, how was she talking to her in private when there was no coughing across the hall. With so many negative messages about herself, what was she teaching her daughter about the way she felt about herself? I bet it made the little girl sad to hear her mom talk that way.
I checked out an outfit in the three way mirror and waited as I heard the duo scrambling to get out of their box. I wanted to smile at her or say “Hi sweetie” to the little girl. But instead I was speechless.
The woman and girl emerged from the room. Extra large and round, the mom with bleached blonde shoulder-length hair was followed by an extra large and round little girl no older than nine, with long golden curls, twinkly blue eyes and tanned skin.
I’d been wrong. The mom did not just expose her negative feelings about herself, but by genetic and grocery default - she was talking about her very own daughter.
And for that I wanted to kick her in her fat ass.
