Flipperandmore

Little House in the Corner

2010-02-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Flipper's parent-teacher conference. I love these talks (kind of) because Flipper is too young and too much of a people-pleaser for me to have any serious worries about her school life. So it was just me and her teacher, whom we both adore, flipping through her main lesson book, exclaiming at her artwork, admiring the neat, even stitches she knitted for her flute-bag, and generally having a happy little love-fest. She was a bit concerned that Flipper occasionally drinks a teeny cup of coffee in the morning-and when I say teeny, I mean from a child's tea set that has a cup that is literally less than two inches high-and I refrained from pointing out that her coffee consumption was much greater when she was three. Then it was every morning.
I mentioned that Flipper inadvertently confessed to being sent to "the little house" after practicing karate kicks with a friend in the classroom, and her teacher jumped up, eager to show me "the little house." Wow. How I wish that when I was young and in trouble at school I was allowed to go-with my partner in crime-to sit on a soft sheepskin pelt on the floor behind the teacher's desk and nibble on a few almonds from a teeny little table, all nicely laid out with a linen napkin. And, how I wish I had a teacher that is so utterly unruffled by anything, and sees "time out" as just that, a moment to compose one's self before returning to the group that you were disrupting in some way. Really, couldn't we all use a "little house" in our lives?? I sure could. Especially one with snacks. All this is to say how satisfied I feel right now, and how utterly, endlessly grateful just to have a good old normal average kid. Even if she spends some time in "the little house."

Dick and Jane and Snow and Ice

2010-02-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

Snow days meant a lot of time outdoors romping (and then crying when little feet began to freeze) but it also meant a lot of time INSIDE with a little person that rapidly got "boreder and boreder." And then...with no teaching from me, it came. The black marks in an old Dick and Jane primer finally fell into place, and "Go, Jane, go" was a mystery no more.
What I find so amazing about Flipper's ability to slowly and laboriously pick her way through what might quite possibly be the most maddening books ever written is that it came from within her, set on a foundation of storytelling, art, music, form-drawing (straight and curved lines) and creating pictures with words. She hasn't received any traditional instruction in learning to read, but a whole lot of peripheral work. It has been a little hard for me, who learned to read so young, to NOT jump in and buy her books and workbooks and sit at the kitchen table with her night after night, encouraging her to "sound it out" (do they even do that anymore?) and basically try to NOT jump on the earlier-is-better bandwagon, and while I had faith this this method would, sooner or later work, well, to actually SEE it was amazing. And while I found reading Dick and Jane aloud more than I could take, for Flipper, they have been the perfect books to start with. It is a lot of work, she becomes exhausted from the sheer effort involved and yet sticks with it until the 4 page chapter she is on is finished. And then we go back outside to chip away at the ice on our deck, or something equally as pointless and fun.
As she has aged, one of the ten jillion things I miss about her babyhood is the huge developmental leaps that caused such excitement and wonder in me, the thrill of rolling over, sitting up, the first smile, the first step. As she got older, such leaps and accomplishments are fewer and farther apart, the first bicycle ride, swimming, the first day of school. Watching her really truly read, not just recite something from memory, brought much of those early thrills back, along with massive, chest-expanding pride. But this time, instead of me placing the phone calls to friends and family, she did it.

Hair Today...Gone Tomorrow

2010-01-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

So, as time has moved on and Flipper has rapidly moved from 4 to 5 to 6 (and a half!) and therefore has learned about a million new things. I have changed and grown and learned about two million new things right along with her. But there is something out there that continually eludes me: hair. Her hair, to be specific. At this point, after a few YEARS of "practice" (lots of screaming from her), I can brush her hair out with only a few squeals of pain, and even make two braids. But that is about it: braids and ponytails. How did I miss learning all the fun and cool hair styling tricks when I was young? Surely not everyone had a horse to practice on! How are my friends-and even my mom-so good at something that I am so bad at? And how can I get better? Her hair is entering a longish phase right now, and I see little girls with gorgeous French braids, adorable buns on either sides of their lead, little crowns of braids...all utterly adorable. And I want this for my own. But their moms seem to have some inborn or left-over-from-childhood ability in this department that I am utterly lacking. Perhaps it was the Barbie-Ban in effect in our house when I was young, and the reality that I was way more excited about performing open heart surgery on a menagerie of stuffed animals than learning the intricacies of barrette placement and perfect part-brushing on myself or anyone else.
Flipper, as you might imagine, is miles ahead of me on this score; those cursed American Girl dolls tend to arrive with tons of hair for the brushing-although she broke the special doll hairbrush after a week of vigorous brushing. And, perhaps more importantly in terms of success: she isn't bored out of her mind with it. Here is my Achilles Heel: the desire to be instantly good, braids evenly woven, parts stick-straight with nary a hair out of place without practicing on some overpriced doll. Or my screaming child. So if you want to show me how to be instantly good at French braids, or a cornet, or anything else...come on over.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise...

2010-01-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

Since the New Year, we (I) have taken steps to attempt an earlier bedtime, and therefore a slightly better morning wake-up-and-head-to-school-time. So I (we've) been relatively successful, meaning that we actually stop everything promptly at 7 p.m. (instead of starting to put away painting supplies) and head directly to bed, no passing Go, no collecting 200 dollars. Lights out at 8 p.m. with no exceptions. And I've discovered two things: one, that getting ready for bed takes longer than I originally thought, quickie bath, teeth, pyjamas and a chapter or two really does gobble up an entire hour, and two, wow. Does 7 o'clock ever sneak up on me! It comes so fast! It feels like we have barely put the dishes in the sink before I look up and 6:59 is glaring at me from the microwave, and we are heading up the stairs.
And, it is working. Flipper wakes up on her own more and more often now, in a decent mood, and gets alert enough to actually eat breakfast, something she has been loathe to do in the past, and arrives at school early, which she vastly prefers to arriving late. But it is hard! It is hard to do this every single night without pushing our 7:00 start-time back, and it is hard to arrive home around 5, finish eating a little after 6, and starting something either fun or work-related, and then 7 sneaks up on us without warning. And there has been an unexpected side-effect: I, too, pass out at 8 or shortly thereafter. I simply cannot stay awake. Then I wake up at 1 or 2 a.m., read for an hour or so, then fall back asleep until 6. But it is hard to get up after falling back asleep. So far, this is the only downside, and one I can live with. I read more and more about how sleep-deprived many children are and how it negatively impacts their health and their ability to focus in school, and I'm glad she is getting the recommended 11 hours fro her age, but it's hard. But worth it. And I can't wait for summer to come along so we can toss this schedule right out the window! Until then, though...7 it is.

Ice, Ice, My Baby.

2010-01-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

We are in the dog days of winter, if that term applies to more than long, hot, miserable days. It is COLD out there, really cold, too cold even for me. I like winter, but only if there was a fair amount of snow on the ground, and apres ski most afternoons. This lingering, bitter cold isn't really cutting it. There has been one beautiful side-effect to days that don't have a high much past 35 degrees: ice. Ponds, puddles, streams and creeks, they are all sporting a beautiful layer of the slippery stuff right now, and one person in my house could not be happier. The dog and I are less than thrilled. Flipper is in winter-heaven. Our daily walks with our surviving pooch (sob!) are no linger a long whine-fest; instead they are joyful jaunts over hill and dale in search of ice. And more ice. Ice to walk on, to slide on, to "skate" on, to throw stones upon. She is memorized. And I get to relive, briefly, one of those flashes from childhood that having your own can bring about. I watch her, while forcing myself not to hurry her along so we can GET BACK INSIDE, raptly playing on the ice, balancing carefully, thumping it with a stick, and I can remember, with total clarity, doing the exact same thing. My sister and I would hide icicles and snowballs and chunks of pond ice in the deep recesses of our parents' chest freezer to pull out on a hot summer's day, only to watch it melt away, but how we loved it! And now she is doing the exact same thing. So until this extended cold snap ends, we will keep bundling up and heading outside every day, I will quell my impatience and desire to be back in my reading chair, book in hand, and the poor dog will continue to stand by the bank of the creek wondering when, oh when is she going to get bored and let us all go inside, and I can pet poor Sophie on the head and tell her never. She is never going to get bored of it.

Love is a Many-Humored Thing

2009-12-31T12:04:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I am not sure what people find to laugh at when they don't have children. Right now, I have been working on maintaining a perfect poker face, and am happy to report that it only gets better with time. Only once have I had to turn away so Flipper wouldn't catch me laughing! Sadly, she now knows that it is AT HER and I can no longer fob off my snickers as "just something I heard on the radio"-as though NPR is a big barrel of laughs. The reason for this recent merriment all at my own sweet innocent angel's unknown expense? SHE IS IN LOVE. Flipper has a MASSIVE crush on a 6th grader at her school, and while it has been developing for many months, it has reached it's zenith over Christmas break. And for anyone that thinks I am cruel to laugh at all, even inside, I challenge THEM to keep a straight face when she says things like this: "Have you noticed that X and I have the same color hair? Because we do." (Strokes hair, looks in mirror, smiles). Or, try to resist the hilarity that followed this comment at a solstice bonfire: "Did you see X light a match and then throw it to the fire? He is so courageous. AND BRAVE!!" No, I tell you people: it is impossible not to laugh, but wow, have I done a good job of it if I do say so myself! I fear that she will calm up and not share anything with me if I laugh at her now, and I have vowed to treasure what I call "the open years" before "the closed years"-adolescence-comes along, as it will soon enough.She will tell me she is in love, and I have only had to crush her a tiny bit, when she referred to him as her boyfriend. I had to inform her that unless he considers her his girlfriend (something I devoutly hope is not happening) then he really isn't her boyfriend after all. She was crestfallen for about 2 minutes, and then returned to stroking her hair and expressing amazement that they have the same hair color; perhaps in her eyes brown IS very rare, and so the coincidence is remarkable. Or maybe she's just in love. And inside, quietly, silently, I will keep laughing.

It Will Come Just the Same

2009-12-24T09:55:00.000-08:00

Flipper is obsessed with the original animated "how the Grinch Stole Christmas"--the one that came out in 1966, not the More recent Jim Carrey travesty. She LOVES it. Watches it daily, tries to song along to the Whos and their carols, just loves it. As a child, I hated how mean the Grinch was to his poor dog, Max, and even now I cringe when he picks Max up by the scruff of his neck and glares at him. This bothers Flipper not at all; she is more concerned with the poor Whos (literally, as their homes are stripped bare).
But the message behind the whole Grinch thing really resonated within me this year; the message that Christmas isn't about presents but something more, and, more pertinent for me, it is going to arrive, no matter what. A week ago, it was hard to imagine being chipper for Christmas, my very favorite holiday. My best, most amazing, friendly dog died in the middle of the night, unexpectedly. I sat with him as he got colder and colder and his breaths came farther and farther apart until he finally took no more. It was awful. I had to get his body out of the house, call Flipper's father (Seamus was his dog first), make a million muffins for school, wake Flipper up and tell her (sobs, then "where's my Advent calendar?"), go to work, exhausted as I had been up since 1 a.m. and then come home to a house without him. The phone rang, and it was a close friend with the equally unexpected news that she has cancer. Then, a day later, the head gasket on my car cracked enough to leak coolant like mad, and, well, we all know how expensive THAT is going to be. I lay on my bed-without the dog that has slept here every night for years- and tried to drum up some enthusiasm for the season. Even the brief but beautiful snowfall, while sending Flipper into a frenzy, didn't work it's usual magic on me: he loved snow and would run around in circles, snapping up mouthfuls as he cavorted. My worry about my friend was-is-impossible to shake. Night came, and Flipper and I headed up to the graveyard in our neighborhood for an evening snow walk. Luckily, she still likes to hold hands, and she said, "Something bad happened today; Seamus died. But something good happened too, it snowed!!" Right she was; how wonderfully she summed up this crazy old life of ours.
And so tomorrow is Christmas, and it will come with packages and stockings and cinnamon rolls. It will come even despite the loss of our dog and the hopefully temporary illness of our friend, indeed, it will come just the same. And now, at this moment, on this day, I will be happy. Very, very happy. Cheers to people everywhere on this special day!

A Beautiful Self-Deception

2009-12-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

I was reminded, recently, of not just the capacity that children have for magical thinking, but their ability to not just believe but to HOLD ONTO those beliefs in the face of any evidence to the contrary. It is amazing and slightly disconcerting all at the same time. On the evening of December 6, Flipper belatedly remembered St. Nicholas Day and insisted on placing one of her clogs by the front door in the absolute, concrete belief that he would magically fill it overnight. These are the things that throw me into total panic, since I desperately WANT to support her magical beliefs. BUT...some things require planning ahead, and some things require the ability to leave the house to purchase tiny treats. This cannot happen at 8 p.m. on a school night, not in a million years. Here is where a tendency towards pack-rattishness comes in handy: I waited for her to fall asleep, then jerked one drawers and looked on closet shelves, under sofas and in the kitchen all-purpose junk drawer. After some heart-pounding, stressful moments, I gathered some trinkets, and one of the hastily-grabbed presents was a little barrette I purchased the day before at our school's annual Holiday Faire. A tiny niggling doubt intruded; would she connect this particular one to the display yesterday, a display I am not even certain she actually saw? I decide that I had to take the chance, some grubby coins just weren't cutting it. The next morning she flew down the stairs to behold her little clog, the traditional tangerine and nuts spilling forth, hiding the tissue-paper wrapped barrette. With some real trepidation I watched her slowly unwrap it, and then her face break out in (thank god) joy, not disappointment. But then..."This came from the Holiday Faire!! I saw it there!!" While I struggled to form a quick response that keeps the magic but avoids an outright lie, she solved it for me, "He must have been there too!!"
And that, my friends, is the magic of childhood, of good old St. Nick, and the power of imagination.
As I am sure you can imagine, there are no questions of Santa not being real in our house. At least not yet. I'll enjoy it while I can!

To Change...or not.

2009-12-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Remember the frightful stuffed chihuahua Flipper was going to work so diligently towards? The very creature I had to practically to sit on my hands to keep from buying for her spontaneously and therefore making her ecstatically happy and avoid any kind of money lesson at the same time? Well, finally, after a few weeks of sporadic work but a lot of scrounging for change, the hideous thing is living at our house. My plan to have Flipper work for the money to buy "Goldie" was a partial success, disappointingly derailed by her sadly accurate statement that, "I can find enough change on the floor and in the car that I don't have to keep doing dishes," but beyond that, I will chalk this up as a success. I have long struggled with the whole "chore" thing; our life is consistently inconsistent, which means it is hard for me to even conceive of a chore chart, let along make it and actually follow it. She's good at helping when I ask, although she can get frustrated with clean up; luckily a task that felt overwhelming at times has become much more manageable since I tossed about 50% of her toys and art stuff.
Usually parenting issues and decisions seem crystal-clear to me, but this is an area that always feels cloudy. What chores should she do, and when, and how and why...I can't ever seem to get a good handle on this in our lives. Plus, I don't regularly or consistently do anything beyond walking and feeding the dogs every day. Sometimes I wash all the dishes after dinner, sometimes I do them in the morning when I get up at 5 a.m. Sometimes we spend an hour or two cleaning and dusting and vacuuming on Saturday mornings, sometimes it is Sunday. Or Wednesday. I feel like this should bother me more than it really does. I seriously hope-like I do with just about everything-that I am not going to scar her for life, or that she will grow up to be one of those poor hoarder-type people, all because her mother didn't have a chore chart. I can't even imagine what I would actually put ON a chore chart for a 6 year old, besides setting the table (which she does) and helping out when needed. What do all of you do with your kids?

Wish List

2009-11-26T06:11:00.000-08:00

Flipper thinks-and I agree with her-that "stores are being mean to Thanksgiving," because they put up decorations and Christmas music before Thanksgiving happens. Raleigh parade people, are you listening? I briefly entertained the notion of trying to explain to her that stores do this so they can make money, and they make much more money on Christmas than they do on Thanksgiving. Then my actual, working brain kicked in, and I spared her (and myself) the agony of this explanation, and the ensuing questions it would bring about, ones I can't really grasp the answers to myself. So I agreed with her, and we walked on. But I REALLY agree with her-and I don't even like Thanksgiving! Too boring. It reminds me of Sundays when I was young; dull, plodding days that I simultaneously wanted to end so I could return to school to see my friends, and wanted to last forever, so I DIDN'T have to return to school to do anything resembling work. And so, were I in charge of the world...as a benevolent dictator, mind you, here would be my Official Holiday Creed. Bearing in mind that "creed" is a kinder, gentler way to say "law."

1) No Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. All the stores can pull all-nighters to prepare for my own, private vision of hell: Black Friday. It isn't as though anyone flocking to the malls to elbow others out of the way are going to buy more because the decorations are up. They are too busy shopping and running and buying. And elbowing.
2) In this vein, no Halloween decorations before October 15. Actually, I would extend this to every holiday: nada until 2 weeks before. Valentine's Day, Easter, etc. It would make it special!! I promise.
3) Now, I love Christmas lights; love them on other people's houses, and during the month of December Flipper and I take different routes to and from home in order to scope them out. BUT-they must come down January 2. I can't understand this extension of Christmas until February. It makes them less special. They lose their magical, twinkling appeal.
4) Those vicious plastic ties that are impossible to remove a toy from without serious injury (just ask Rosie O'Donnell) would be outlawed. Use twisty-ties, or rubber bands. ANYTHING but those things; they could keep a jet grounded if they were sunk into the runway. I hate them.
5) All toys that require batteries would come with them. Period. Actually, I am surprised toymakers don't do this; they could charge MORE for "batteries included" toys. They would make a killing!!
6) All Internet shipping would actually cost what it would were you to trot down to the local post office. No more paying ten dollars to send a t-shirt that should cost 2 bucks to mail. However, I have received free shipping codes for complaining about charges that just seem crazy.
7) Only hospitals would be open Christmas Day. Thanksgiving too. I feel sorry for the people that have to work at gas stations and grocery stores Christmas Day. I don't care what your religious beliefs are; the silence and hush that come from a single day when things come to a halt is wonderful. Fill up the day before.
8) I would put something magical in the air that would render booze largely impotent, a teeny warm glow would be permitted, but no violent, ugly drunkenness would ruin any family's holidays. Actually, I would extend this to the entire world forever.
9) And...everything would be divvied up (I think they call this "socialism") so everyone would have enough to eat, and everyone would get a present, if that aligns with your beliefs. And all nutty medical bills would be automatically paid on December 31, letting everyone start the New Year with a clean slate.
10) Finally...all bird feeders would be filled to overflowing, and all deer would magically fly like Rudolph over cars.

Makes you want to vote for me doesn't it? So...add to my list! You might be tapped for BDVP!!
(That's "Benevolent Dictator Vice-President," an unpaid position, but highly fulfilling!!)

A Few Sour Notes.

2009-11-12T09:18:00.001-08:00

You know how it is before you have children, when your mindset is one of flowers and fairies, that frolic in a land where all babies are beautiful and sing with the voices of angels? As an aside, I have always wanted to print a bumper sticker that reads: Parenting. Where fantasy and Reality collide. I would make MILLIONS. Anyway, one (or more) wee ones arrive, and then you slowly let go of-or have stomped to smithereens-the belief that all children are gorgeous, because, honestly, some simply are NOT, although we all alike to pretend that they are. But I really and truly believed, with all of my tiny black heart, that children can sing with, well, maybe not the voices of ANGELS but with something close. Something pretty. Can you hear the reality vs. fantasy collision yet? It is loud. And it is out of tune. I'll just say it straight out: Flipper cannot sing. Or, rather, she CAN sing but wow. It....hurts. The poor thing can't carry a tune from here to the kitchen. Blessedly, she sings very, very quietly (so far) but there is nothing melodic, nothing harmonious about the notes flowing forth, nothing remotely resembling music at all. I remember singing all the time at her age; idiotic, redundant songs learned in kindergarten, or Christmas carols 6 months before and after Christmas (why, yes, that would make it year-round) but she-thank God-hasn't done much singing yet. For a while there, I missed it. I would hear little snippets of songs from the backseat, but never loud enough to really hear, until recently. Now, she is cutting loose. Letting it fly. Singing her little heart out. And so, one more dream gets squashed: this kid will never be onstage at the Metropolitan Opera, channeling Beverly Sills, or, really just about any ten million people that can really sing. No, she'll be in the back seat of my car somewhere, happily warbling away, while her black-hearted Mommy drives along, teeth gritted, and the radio on. Loudly.

I Hate Lunch

2009-11-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

I am perilously close to labeling Flipper with one of the most annoying labels of all: picky eater. How, how HOW can this be happening to me??? And do note that I said "me" not "her" because believe me, her myriad inconsistencies affect me WAY more than they do her, the little tender-palated creature. While she does like a nice variety of rather sophisticated "adult" foods, like marinated pork loin, she does not like many typical "kid" foods, even things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or macaroni and cheese. I make the best mac-n-cheese in the world, from scratch, with real homemade garlic breadcrumbs on top no less...and nope, she won't eat it. What is so maddening is that she USED to be this GREAT eater, inhaling sushi like there's no tomorrow, all manner of fruits and vegetables, and then, slowly, the edibles have become narrower and narrower, and the inedibles greater and greater, until I am going to go insane if I have to throw out one more uneaten honey-and-peanut-butter sandwich, while she melts into a sobbing mass on the kitchen floor because she is so hungry and therefore teetering on the very edge of rationality. Note: she's not the only one teetering. Part of me, the nurturing, mommy-part, cares a great deal. The other part of me can't really get too worked up about her disdainful rejection of food that just a few weeks, or days, or even hours ago she happily inhaled. And the third part of me simply cannot stand to toss money out. Nor can I bring myself to let the dogs devour her rejects day after day. They are both on diets. And pack her lunch past the age of 7? I think not. There are many students in the high school, 18 year old kids, mind you, that bring a lunch packed by their mothers. I can't get my brain around this. How? And, really, WHY?? I am already beyond sick and tired of it; merely doing the very, very advanced math required to figure out how many lunches that is after 14 or 15 years of school is enough to put even me off my feed. It should be noted that the math required for such a sum is advanced only for someone with my low math skills. Nonetheless...I find it maddening. And frustrating. And a bit humbling, since my smug, she'll-eat-anything smile has been diminishing more and more as each week passes. But maybe that's what it's all about: the rise and fall of pride. And taste buds.

Farewell to Two Gourmets.

2009-10-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I heard the news that after 70 years in circulation, Gourmet magazine would cease to publish. I was surprised and saddened, although I don't have a subscription to it (I have one to Bon Appetit instead). I hate and fear the death knell I hear sounding for print journalism of all kinds; I have no doubt that one day my favorite paper, the New York Times, will also fade away. But the death of Gourmet?? Too soon! You might well wonder why I have a soft spot for a magazine I don't even receive, or buy except in airports.
It goes back to my grandfather. He was a long-time subscriber to Gourmet, it came right to his house in West Virginia. It is a never-ceasing sense of amazement to me that this man, who grew up in a coal-mining town in West Virginia went to college, had a successful career as an engineer and photographer in WWII, and an even more successful career at a hideously ugly DuPont chemical plant less than a mile from his house in Belle, West Virgina, loved Gourmet. He loved all of life's gentler pleasures, but food and wine and travel and golf were right at the top. And us. My sister and I were his only grandchildren, and the word "spoiled" really doesn't accurately convey the amount of adoration, time and attention he showered us with. We were very, very, lucky. Very. It was with him that I was able to, with his encouragement, override my parents' rules about ordering food at a good restaurant (never get the most expensive item) and tasted lobster for the first time; at another meal in Hilton Head, SC, where he and my grandmother spent their winters, he, my sister and I shared a plate of escargots, washed down the inevitable Shirley Temple, which was quite a treat for kids that had no junk food of any kind in their home.
But he also had serious, seemingly endless string of health problems that stemmed from a heart that was strong in the emotional sense only: he suffered his first (massive) heart attack in his late thirties, then went on to have 5 or six more, bypass surgery, surgery for an aneurysm, a benign brain tumor, all before succumbing to lung cancer (he was a non-smoker) in his mid-70's. After his death, my grandmother slipped away into Alzheimer's, and died some years later. When we were clearing out their house, there, in the basement, were hundreds of copies of Gourmet, all in special magazine storage boxes. I wish they could have stayed there forever, or at least been transported back to Durham. But my parents' house has limited storage, and so they, too, were disposed of. The house my father grew up in, the one right down the road from the DuPont plant was, along with the whole neighborhood, razed to the ground so the already-wide river could squeeze in a few more coal barges, bearing their load from another pillaged mountaintop. The house, the magazines, all of it gone forever. But whenever I saw Gourmet in a store, at a friend's house, at a rack in the airport, I couldn't resist picking it up, and thinking of him, a natural gourmet from West Virginia. And so another print magazine falls (it certainly won't be the last) but it might be, for me, the saddest.

Tiredness and Mental Health Days (yes, they ARE related!)

2009-10-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

I headed down to the Lower School this morning to deliver files and mail from the high school when I saw Flipper holding her teacher's hand, the rest of the class nowhere in sight. My heart fell-this could only mean that she was sick and they were coming to get me so I could take her home. "She's tired," her teacher explained. I asked if Flipper was sick, and she said no, just tired. Since I want her teacher to like me, and think I am not Totally Evil Mommy, I restrained myself from saying, "She's tired? WHO CARES. Now get back to class!" But restrain myself I did. After a short, brutal interrogation, "Are you sick? Are you hurt?No? Then what's the problem?" I reminded her that if we went home, which wasn't going to happen, she had to get into bed and stay there the rest of the day, no DVD (which she can watch when she is sick) no nothin'. Bed only. Then, I pressed her for an answer. Since Flipper is wise, she said (in a very small voice) "I'll think I'll stay here." "GOOD!!" I could barely contain my glee/relief. Then I fled, before she could change her mind. I mean, tired?? This from the kid that didn't sleep through the night until she was 3 years old? I'LL SHOW YOU TIRED, FLIPPER!!
Then, I fled. I returned to the high school and mentioned this exchange to a teacher, and she mentioned that the exclusive private school where she taught previously actually had a small ward with beds set aside for students that needed a nap during the day. She was somewhat horrified at this practice; "we live in an indulgent society." I have friends that probably would have taken their tired child home, but I fear that precedent, I really do. Sick is sick and we stay home, tired is icky but we go to school. I think this issue will rear it's ugly head again and again, particularly as we hurtle down the rocky path of adolescence. But how do you balance being kind and sensitive to your child's very real needs, and still maintain some sort of order and commitment in their lives? I have a friend that has a family-wide policy of Mental Health Days; every member of her family from the 8 year old on up to high-schoolers are allowed a certain number of MHDs per school year, to be taken at their discretion, no questions asked by the parents. I can actually see myself doing something like this, giving Flipper a few days a year. But not yet. Not now, not at 6. And this begs the obvious question...how many days do I get??

Scary Visit!!

2009-10-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I raced home right after lunch to clean my house-which consisted of tossing random objects into a paper grocery bag and stashing it in my magical "back room"-the downstairs bedroom that is a repository for all things that cannot find a home anywhere else, and then, when the room gets full, my mom helps me clear it out by donating things or putting it away where it actually belongs. Then it fills back up again. And again. But why did I go to this frantic effort? Well, yesterday was our Home Visit (no, not from DSS) but from Flipper's first grade teacher. This is our third time with a teacher visit, and by now, I have finally relaxed and not been so panicked that the teacher is casting a sharp eye on the dust in the corners, the dog hair on the couch, the ancient Barbie doll Flipper inherited from a friend. And so now, I am fine.

I fled as soon as the teacher arrives by taking the dogs for a walk, and let the teacher and Flipper play with (hopefully) all of her nice, eco-friendly, all-natural wooden toys, and NOT the hidden Barbie, but I am no longer as fearful that I won't measure up as the Perfect Mother. Flipper, on the other hand, was THRILLED to have her teacher in her home, and I was reminded, as I so often am, but how children perceive things that we think are tiresome or boring as magical and special. I can only remember how exciting I would have thought a teacher visit would have been beyond thrilling, my mother would have been indifferent, and my father would have rolled his eyes and hidden behind the paper.

But now it's over, and I can breathe easily again, hopeful that THIS IS THE LAST ONE after previous visits from her preschool teacher followed by her kindergarten teacher, and I can rejoice in the knowledge that the Barbie stayed hidden, blessedly hidden.

Cutting but not pasting

2009-09-24T07:16:00.001-07:00

What are you reading out loud to your child(ren) before bed?
We are plowing through the 8th Little House book, the happy one where Laura falls in love and gets married and Mary returns from a college visit confident and joyful and nothing too devastating happens to the family; no crops devoured by grasshoppers, no trying not to starve to death during a brutal winter. But perhaps I should amend the above: "we" aren't exactly reading every word; I am "creatively omitting" massive chunks that I deem, on the spur-of-the-moment unsuitable for one of a million reasons: too boring (long descriptive passages of prairies), songs (since I refuse to sing out loud) or just a bit too much for Flipper at her tender young age of 6. Remember poor Laura waking up in the middle of the night with the woman who's house she was staying in holding a massive butcher knife in the air? You don't? Well, Flipper won't either: I skipped all three pages. Am I the only parent that does this-skips over sentences that I don't like, leaves out words I consider extraneous, censoring content that might make our already-annoying "winding down" period even longer? Trying, at times as much as possible, to avoid topics that might raise questions that will delay the end of the chapter and the clicking off of the lamp? Please tell me I'm not alone!!
I wonder, however, when Flipper can read on her own, if she will ever coming trotting up to me, These Happy Golden Years in her hand, and say, "Did you know there was a BIG KNIFE in here??" Which will be quickly followed by "But you never told me!!!" Can't you hear it now? Because I can. These are the things that keep me up at night, although perhaps not so much as a huge knife kept Laura awake. And, looking for more chapter books that I can stomach reading out loud (Junie B. Jones does NOT qualify) so toss me some suggestions before Laura and Almanzo head off into the sunset. Knowing me, it will be very, very soon.

Please, tell me how!!

2009-09-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to say---I just don't know how all of you full-time working mothers do it. (No, Sarah Palin, I'm not actually talking about you). But I am talking about real mothers that work full-time all day every day. I, it must be confessed, work part-time, 30 (plus a few more) hours a week. 7:30-1:30; great hours, I know. Plus insurance!!!! But I have been slowly taking on a bit more in committees and now assistant coaching our high school's co-ed soccer team, and as a result I am coming home at 5-6 every night, 5 nights a week. Even though Flipper is more than happy to stay in after-care for those hours after school is officially over at 3:15, I feel guilty. The poor dogs, home alone all day, I feel guilty. My hastily assembled meals-more guilt. Somewhat messy house, with only the downstairs remotely presentable-guilty again!
And yet-I wouldn't trade this current schedule for much of anything right now, (except a clean house) because it is really, really fun and exciting and fulfilling, Flipper is happy, as she would much prefer running amok on the playground than going home with boring old me, and it will end in 6 or 7 weeks. But what about my friends that do this every day, day in and day out? How do you get everything clean and laundered and folded and cooked and washed and dried and walked and fed? Really, how do you do this when you get home at 5:30 or 6? Now, I admit that the fact that I generally pass out around 9 and sleep until 4 or 5 cuts into what could be some seriously productive hours, but I am TIRED at night, and so am not motivated to do much else beyond dinner and a shower. Flipper, thankfully, is pretty independent, can take a bath unsupervised, wash her hair, and do all the pre-bed prep work. I cannot imagine having a baby or toddler that I had to sctively deal with hour after hour.
And do you feel guilty at all, or is it just me, like so many things seem to be? Either way, this has been a really, really good eye-opener for me-I wish I could afford a maid is one such realization, along with the awareness that Flipper, as long as she is engaged and happy with wonderful adults in her life is, well, enough. For now. But seriously...how do you do it??

To Buy A Slice Or Not To Buy...(that is the question)

2009-09-09T04:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Flipper came home with something that felt very normal-school: an order form for a fundraiser. And it is a clever fundraiser for the 8th grade class trip; you pay a smallish sum for a slice of pizza delivered every Wednesday for 11 weeks for lunch.
My (silly) reaction? TOTAL WORRY ABOUT WHAT OTHER PARENTS WOULD THINK IF I SIGNED FLIPPER UP FOR THIS. I almost called my friend Justine to talk me off the ledge, as it were, but my fear of her derision at worry over parenting peer pressure scared me more than the thought of other parents talking about me behind my back. Would they think I was feeding her awful food? Never mind that the pizza is bought and therefore supported by the very school she attends, my worry knew no bounds. Was I setting up some weird dynamic whereby other kids in her class that did not opt into the pizza would feel bad? Was I over-thinking this to death? (I think we know the answer to THAT, don't we). Tinging that worry was the realization that I was a total idiot; was I really this susceptible to imaginary peer pressure at the age of 41? Obviously, the answer is yes, I am. Usually I (like most parents) forge blithely ahead, making decisions that I agonize over in private only, usually in the middle of the night. I haven't been too concerned about what folks think of my choices, perhaps because I am largely surrounded by people that I am in sync with. But...pizza??? What on earth was going on? Frankly, I still don't know. I did turn the form in, and ran into another parent outside the room that held up her form and said, "So, pizza. What do you think about this?" Isn't it always a good feeling to realize that you aren't the only over-thinking mother around? I think it is. So we talked about it a few minutes; I said that, basically, Flipper really wanted it and I couldn't come up with a good "no" and we would see how it goes. I think she felt the same way; her child definitely wanted the pizza (surprise surprise) and yet she felt uneasy too. But I don't think peer pressure-or the fear of judgement-ever really goes away. Even about pizza.

Two Very Unrelated Topics

2009-09-03T03:03:00.000-07:00

I am going to veer off topic for a moment and rhapsodize about just how happy this summer's weather has made me; indeed, continues to make me! For the first time since I returned to the Triangle (9 years ago) I haven't been eager for summer to end. It has been gorgeous. These past two days, with their crispy nights and breezy afternoons have been nice slices of heaven-pie. I hate heat, something Flipper has inherited as well. We like cool, clear fall days and snow. She and I are relatively unbothered by cold weather, but find hot, humid days (like last week) pretty agonizing. I wish every summer could be like this one was! I can't even remember the last summer that passed without a few triple-digit days; instead we had day after beautiful day of "daytime highs, upper 80's". Even pool water remained blissfully refreshing! See, I told you I could rhapsodize!! But enough about the weather.
Let's have a brief wrap-up of Flipper's foray into first grade. She...doesn't seem that thrilled, actually. German is too hard and boring; she already knows how to finger-knit, so her handwork class isn't exciting either. She genuinely seemed to think that she would go for a day or two, and then walk out in the afternoon reading and writing and completing long calculus equations. Reality was-as it so often is-a total let-down. I think that perhaps we make too much of first grade, and then some kids are inevitably disappointed. Plus, it is a long day for her: 8:30-3:15. Where are Flipper's strengths? Well, not in the academic realm (yet), that's for sure. She is physically a genius, very, very coordinated, active, basically a short 46 pound jock. She usually plays with the boys because she can easily keep up with them on the playground, and she never walks when she can run, or run when she can engage in her current passion, jump rope. Forwards, backwards, skipping, she will go outside and jump rope every day, like a super-super bantamweight boxer. But repeating German and Spanish words after a teacher? Not so exciting. Maybe this will change. Maybe some sort of academic gene has skipped a generation and she will love "the process of studying" like my sister did in college, instead of seeing it as a necessary evil that interfered with my partying and whichever boyfriend I was enraptured with at the moment. But maybe she won't. Maybe she'll be a little jock forever, taking jump roping to the Olympics and living off her Wheaties box endorsements. Maybe she'll go to college for ten years and get a PhD, like both her grandfathers did. Isn't this one of the funnest, most interesting things about having children? The speculation, the guessing, and the very impossibility of predicting our own future, let alone that of our children? It is for me.

The Games People Play (but not at my house)

2009-08-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

I usually cruise for a few weeks on good-parenting mode, both of us relatively happy, food on the table, clean clothes on our backs, roof over our head, etc. But then every now and then I will be reminded of some area of Flipper's life that I feel as though I am woefully neglecting. These days, that area is GAMES. No, not the ones I play with her (without her knowledge) to get her to do the things I want her to do, but normal, regular, kid-games, ones that require a little more brain-power, and, sadly, more parental participation than Candy Land. Uno. Old Maid. War. (Talk about a non-game!) Checkers. And so on. Ones that do not require reading, but thinking and counting. A friend's children are already accomplished Uno and chess players, and so, as usual, a mild panicky-guilt swept over me when I realized that we do nothing like this, nothing at all. And so I set out to remedy the situation, priming the pump, so to speak, by reflecting on all the games we played in my family when I was growing up: Monopoly, Spade, Hearts, Trouble, Sorry...the list goes on. My grandmother (who loathed games) would even indulge my love of Chinese checkers for HOURS in the basement of their West Virginia home, a coal fire glowing bluely from a nearby fireplace. I honestly expected this to be a no-brainer; that Flipper would be overjoyed at the chance to simultaneously learn something new AND get some undivided attention at the same time. It seems as though I was mistaken. I mentioned checkers to her, and she reacted as though I suggested that we forgo all Christmas and birthday presents for the next 20 years or so. "NO!! I won't play!!!" "But, honey, it will be FUN! I promise!" She remained unmoved, and so, over her protestations, I dragged her to our local toy store (Aly Cats) and bought mancala, a game that has some sort of youth-group associations for me, but positive ones nonetheless, and Chinese Checkers, as a nod to my grandmother. I think (I hope) that the lure of the polished stones and marbles will prove hard to resist, and she will get over whatever weird idea she has that our little homey evenings together will be torturous, and come to enjoy it. At the very least, I don't feel quite so lame anymore, but don't worry! Something new will definitely, undoubtedly crop up. It always does!!

Fried Chicken In the Classroom

2009-08-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Flipper will walk across a small wooden bridge, holding the hand of a rising senior to represent the start of her educational journey. The senior will give her a rose, she will shake hands with her new first grade teacher, and then the class will walk to the first grade classroom together. On the last day of school, she will give back a rose to a graduating senior. It is, as I am sure you can imagine, very very precious. While I can't believe that Flipper is actually 6 years old, I won't devolve this post into what has become a common thread for me: how sad and happy I am at her growing up, how shockingly fast I find the passage of time with a child...blah blah blah. But it is interesting to relive some parts of childhood, and I find myself reflecting on my own first grade teacher, and how utterly in love with her I was. Her name was Mrs. Best, and she taught at my neighborhood school, Parkwood Elementary. She was well-upholstered, and wore polyester pantsuits. My favorite was bright green with smallish white polka-dots. I couldn't understand why my mom didn't wear bright pantsuits either!! (but now I do). On random Fridays, she would "teach" us how to cook-but that really meant us watching her and her sweet elderly assistant make fried chicken on a hot plate, hot oil spattering about. Can you imagine this happening today? A teacher making fried chicken in her classroom?? Well, it WAS 1974...
Anyway, she loved me for my reading ability (at that time kindergarten was optional and so many kids came to first grade never having set foot in a classroom before) and my willingness to do just about anything she wanted. Like I said, I LOVED HER!! One afternoon I even (get this) WENT HOME WITH HER and spent the night. What I remember from this? Going to the Coca-Cola plant (where her husband worked) and being able to get free Cokes from the machine in the lobby that required no coins. As a six-year-old, I thought this was the most incredibly magical and wonderful thing EVER. Frankly, I still do. I hope that Flipper loves her teacher as much as I loved Mrs. Best-and I hope her new teacher loves her too. But the fried chicken in the classroom? Well, maybe not.

Knock Knock...DON'T ANSWER!!!

2009-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

...who's there? Someone with a much less developed sense of humor than I have. I cannot, but CANNOT bear being subjected to one. more. stupid. joke. Who invented knock-knock jokes? And where can I find them so I can lock Flipper in a room with him or her, and let THEM listen to her endless, endless "jokes." Because they aren't jokes at all...they are some vague, weird approximation of a joke. Here is a prime example.

"Knock knock."
(silence)
"MOMMY!!! I SAID KNOCK KNOCK!!"
(big sigh) "Who's there?" (cringe)
"Rainbow!"
(big sigh) "Rainbow who?"
"Rainbow in the sky!"
(big sigh) (please make it stop!!!)

Her sense of humor-if one can call it that-is so very primitive and utterly beyond me. Sadly, sarcasm is lost on her (she thinks it is mean), slapstick is hilarious, (but only to her) and, blessedly, potty humor hasn't entered our house yet, and if I have my way, it never will. The humor (or lack thereof) is one of those things best shared with a friend or a sibling, and in our house the dogs just don't cut it as a good sounding board. I shudder to imagine what comes next in the trajectory of humor development, but the sooner she gets to sarcasm the better-as long as she's laughing with me, not at me! Because that day will come soon enough, won't it?

Love means never saying you're sorry...unless you mean it!

2009-08-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, I am living with a very, very mouthy, irritating little person. I hate it when people say (cheerfully), "Just like living with a teen-ager!!"--as though those years won't come quickly enough; why should this give me any comfort? I don't want to live with a teen-ager for another 7 or 8 years. I want to live with the six year old. Preferably, a happy one that doesn't scream "I hate you!" when things aren't going her way. Or when she can't fins something, or when supper isn't what she wants to eat...or any of a million little things that go right and wrong in the course of a typical day. Luckily, I have a friend with a child 8 months older than Flipper, so whatever she is doing, the odds a re good that he has done it first. My friend actually googled "obnoxious six year old behavior" and found out that everything they are doing is "normal"-although that doesn't lessen our irritation with our offspring. Here's the "shortlist" below, culled from an educational website.

Where They Are: The average six-year old is extremely egocentric and wants to be the center of attention. She:
Wants to be the "best" and "first."
Has boundless energy.
May be oppositional, silly, brash, and critical.
Cries easily; shows a variety of tension-releasing behavior.
Is attached to the teacher.
Has difficulty being flexible.
Often considers fantasy real.

Except for the last one, this does fit Flipper to a T right now. But while I was commiserating with my friend while the kids played on the trampoline, an interesting topic came up for our scrutiny: when-and how-should you make your children apologize? Does it really make sense for a two-year-old to "apologize" to another child that he accidentally knocked over in his rush to the slide at the playground? Should all apologies have meaning-or should we try to teach that words don't always make everything hunky-dory? Or should an "I'm sorry" be like "please" and "thank you"-automatic as a sign of manners and an attempt to be part of a (somewhat) civilized society?
The other mother told me that her son's behavior had gotten beyond the "I hate you" stage and was so rude and disrespectful that when he flung the automatic and obligatory "SORRY" at her she said, "That isn't going to to cut it. You yelling "sorry" at me doesn't make it all right, and doesn't mean you are out of trouble." He was utterly shocked, even angrier now that the magic words that "made everything OK" weren't working in this situation. I would prefer that Flipper stop her angry, hyper-critical behavior and not repeat it for the next decade or so rather than just tossing an automatic apology my way. But she's young. Her little friends apologize to each other; indeed, we see and praise this as a sign that they are growing up, hopefully getting a tiny sense of empathy with someone else's troubles. It is no way to make or keep friends; even children often feel better after an apology. How do we, as parents, make an apology count, make it mean something? Or is that unrealistic? Or should only apologies for large transgressions be held to a higher standard than the quick "sorry!" of many a playground squabble? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'll probably keep asking them. Sorry!

Here comes Pippi Longstocking...

2009-07-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

...right into my house. In another attempt to find a video that satisfies both of our needs (hers: not scary, me: too many restrictions to list here) we checked an early Pippi movie out from the library. It was one from 1975; I even remember going to the tiny Northgate movie theater to see it when it came out.
We watched it together, and, blessedly, it was so low-key and so utterly devoid of any dramatic tension that she loved it, and after a few moments of wanting to poke my eardrums out so I could get the cursed theme song out of my head, I found myself, well, if not enthralled, then very very charmed.
What was most striking-besides the fact that the whole movie must have been shot on a budget of about 49 dollars, was the thought that it would not be made today as it was then. The old-school Pippi was actually made for children: incredibly slow-paced (long shots of the kids riding a horse across a meadow...and then back again) and almost no plot: She lives alone. She is very strong. And rich...but doesn't care about it at all!! I am convinced that were this movie to be made today, it would turn into some sort of action-packed, Home Alone-style flick with non-stop excitement, not little Swedish kids lying in the grass after a picnic doing, well, just about nothing. The whole movie is like that!!! Playing in the snow, going to the fair, making cookies for Christmas, all without the interference of those pesky grown-ups and all their silly rules about bedtime and attending school and things like that.
But she loved it, and now with the books safely ordered, we can read even more Pippi. If anyone out there knows of any other children's movies that are very, very slow-nay, BORING to a grown-up, have not one tinge of sadness or drama, by all means, please let me know! Until then...it is just me and the theme song running through my head, over and over and over.

A Little Note and a Little Manipulation

2009-07-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've come to the realization that there are some skills that serve parenting quite well, but don;t necessarily translate into the adult world. If I think ab9out it too much, some guilt and bad feelings arise, but I am quite good at NOT thinking about things that might bother me. That in itself is a good skill to have as well.
I am talking about the endless nagging that seems to constitute more than half of my interactions with Flipper, the reminders regarding manners, to pick up clothes and toys and books scattered across her room, and to brush teeth, wash faces, and so on. This doesn't translate so well into an adult relationship (at least for me)-surprise, surprise, most adults I know dislike being told what to do about ten thousand times a day. Children, blessedly, seem to tolerate it more. Adults are also resistant to feeling manipulated, but the ability to do so works just fine for children, at least most of ht time. And when it works, it is a thing of beauty. Really.
Last night I found myself crouched over a tiny slip of paper, attempting to disguise my handwriting by writing in cursive, something I haven't done since 6th grade (thank you, Mrs. Painter) and inscribing a teeny-tiny note with teeny tiny letter from the Tooth Fairy to Flipper, who finally, after a month of holding onto her first lost tooth, was ready to Give It Up. Of course, by having an extra month I was lulled into a false sense of having endless time to get something precious, and my pleas to try to have Flipper wait one more day fell on deaf ears, (plus tears) I waited until she fell asleep, then rummaged through the all-purpose kitchen junk drawer, that holds a myriad of useless and useful things like bills and migraine pills and wooden ice cream spoons and a broken, decorated goose egg that was my grandmother's but I cannot part from, and found, lurking in the back, a cloudy bag of colored, polished stones. YAY!! I crammed them into her Tooth Fairy box, then turned my attention to what was going to be a short "hello and good-bye" note. But then the more Machiavellian aspects of my brain started working and I saw the perfect opportunity to plug a little dental hygiene, and perhaps even reduce the nagging in our house. And so the "Tooth Fairy" thanked her for the beautiful tooth...and for brushing her teeth so well! It almost (only almost) made me feel guilty to see her astonishment and joy at the note, the rocks, and the request for clean teeth. They have been brushed twice already today...and it is only 10:00.

Tall mountains and a taste of the future. Maybe.

2009-07-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

We are far away, about 2000 miles away, to be exact. I've returned to a place that, for many reasons, I thought I would never return. Southwest Colorado, in the heart of the San Juan Mountain range. Telluride, Ophir, Ridgway. 9000 feet above sea level. That's almost 2 miles!! I have come to the conclusion that the dominating emotion in my life is neither happiness nor anger nor sadness, but feeling bittersweet about almost everything. This didn't come to pass until Flipper arrived, and now it seeps into almost all that I experience. But it isn't a bad thing, it just is. There is something about living in a place that is staggeringly, spectacularly beautiful that I can't explain. To be surrounded, day after day, with physical beauty is something that cannot be reproduced or duplicated, and no substitute can be found.
I think Flipper is a bit too young to be as awestruck as most people are if they visit this area; the mountains are bigger than she has ever seen, (12-14,000 feet) but her main focus is riding a bike along the river, trying to spot the fingers of snow that linger year-round in crevasses, and searching for marmots sunning themselves on the exposed ski runs as the gondola whisks us up and up and up to the top of the ski area. I look around and can't believe I ever lived here, and then I can't believe I ever left. I wonder where Flipper's own sense of adventure and independence will lead her one day, will she move somewhere, sight unseen? Will she stay on the nice but far less dramatic East Coast? Will she be, at heart, a Beach Person? (I think most people are drawn to the beach or the mountains). I have lived in both, and like to visit the beach...but love the mountains. The thought of her moving far away makes me feel...bittersweet. I want her to be independent enough to strike out on her own, headed off for something new, and yet I know that I would both worry and miss her greatly. Just recently she has moved from a stated desire for us to live together forever, to being able to visit each other often. And that too will change; when I lived here I saw my parents just once a year or so, and never at Christmas-it is any ski town's busiest time. But like my own parents, I would survive, and hopefully thrive. We'll see where life leads her-and me. I would like it to lead us out west again one day. But until then, we'll stay in the South, and hopefully visit often, giving me just enough to have the "sweet" outweigh the "bitter."

Rocks Everywhere.

2009-07-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Last night Flipper and I came home from the pool and my attention was immediately caught by a round, tan, shiny glob of poo on my carpet, doubtless from one of the dogs. I gathered paper towels, prepared to pick it up...when I discovered that in fact is was a rock covered with Scotch tape. WHAT??? Why is my house covered with rocks both large and small? They are wrecking my dryer, my vacuum cleaner, and now my sanity. And the poor dogs almost took the fall! I cannot understand her obsession with rocks, both large and small, but usually small. All of them are pretty, even the blue-gray driveway rocks, all have some sort of potential (in her eyes) to be valuable geodes or diamonds in the rough. The VERY rough, might I add. While I typically love and embrace any signs of a budding "collection" because I know that her passion will be fleeting, the rocks-love has been going on for months and months. Please make it stop.
I can't tell you how many rocks I have gotten out of the washing machine, which has become some sort of de facto tumbler that an elderly rock hound might use, how many stones I have chucked off the deck after finding them in the most bizarre places; the bathroom, the crayon box, the dog beds. It never stops. When I ask Flipper about them, she looks at me as though I am the crazy one, that anyone normal and rational would spend many minutes every day picking up rocks and stashing them in pockets to be admired later. BUT...in a few weeks' time we will be heading to the Linville area for some camping and exploration of nearby attractions, one of which is Gem Mountain, a "find-it-yourself" gem mining attraction where I can plunk down money for a bucket of gravel and let her search to her little heart's content. I am hoping this experience can actually show her the difference between a driveway rock and something a little more special. Train her eye to look for the very best, as it were, although I don't have high hopes for garnets and emeralds in Bolin Creek. But you never know. Perhaps her love of rocks will lead to a career in geology, or something like that. Or perhaps she will be as lucky as the woman that found a 1000 karat ruby last summer at Gem Mountain, and I will embrace the rocks on every windowsill. Until then, we'll just keep checking pockets and saving for a new vacuum cleaner. And dreaming of big, big rubies.

Pleasure (and treasure) delayed is...

2009-07-02T08:10:00.000-07:00

...pleasure intensified, at least according to my father. This is one of his favorite quotes. He has several of these "character building" life mantras, but I remember the delay-of-pleasure one the most. It never sank in for me, me who craves(d) instant gratification and was unable to wait for ANYTHING as a child. I got much better with age, and have even swung around to embracing the "wait for what you want" philosophy, and "pleasure delayed is pleasure intensified."
This streak of impulsiveness and instant gratification that was-and occasionally still is- so strong in me seems to be skipping a generation.

Flipper lost her first tooth Saturday at the evening fun in Saxapahaw. Unwilling to look at it jutting from her gum at a right angle, I yanked it out. It was so ready to fall that it barely bled at all. She was BEYOND thrilled, happy, excited...all of those emotions that accompany the loss of a tooth. Except that she is willing to delay the arrival of the Tooth Fairy for several weeks. Why? She wants to take the tooth, currently living atop a satin pillow in a small box-to Colorado. Apparently, she thinks my sister, her beloved Aunt Kathryn, is just frothing at the mouth to see a tiny, square white tooth. With a tiny bloody stump where it was connected to her mouth.

Flipper is convinced-and rightly so-that the Tooth Fairy can find her wherever she is, and whatever pillow this tiny tooth finally decides to rest. But I do find this amazing, that she can willingly and eagerly wait-and wait and wait-for the Tooth Fairy to show up, even at 9000 feet in the San Juan mountains on southwest Colorado.

Now I have to remember to take whatever it is the Tooth Fairy will leave!

Unchanging.

2009-06-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Summertime here in the Triangle exemplifies (for me) the old adage, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Or something like that. First, that which has stayed the same for 35 years or so:
The pool. Hollow Rock, to be exact, where I spent many, many hours as a kid on the swim team, then as a ne'er do well teen-ager, and now as a magazine-reading grown-up, with my own little fish in attendance. I have said it before: I cannot imagine living in the brutal heat of the summer without a pool or two or five to jump into.
Boredom. It has set in, although Flipper is bearing up well. The last few days have been pretty icky, weather-wise, and so we have been a bit housebound. No matter: art supplies galore, plus we made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough for eating, not for baking. She has her little Tupperware full of dough, and I have mine, Although "full" is rapidly vanishing. Flipper has some years to go before no school is a feeling of joy, not sadness.
Travel. Week-end jaunts to the mountains, the beach, and points in between. A week in Colorado, hopefully a 4 or 5 day sailing trip, although my father's boat has gone from the fun and easy Hobie Cat towed behind our massive 70's van to a 35' Tartan, which means trips can be overnight, to points a little farther away than Kerr Lake. So that is how things-for me at least-are very much the same as they were years ago.
Now, for how things aren't the same...
Day camp. I am not sure it even existed back in the Dark Ages when I was young; in truth most mothers stayed home all summer and the kids ran wild, hopped upon Kool-Aid and paper-cup Popsicles. Now, there are a million choices here, for any and every conceivable interest a child might have. I see this as a boon for parents and kids alike. Flipper will attend two day camps, one at Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute, and one at her former kindergarten teacher's house.
Friends. Now her friends aren't in our neighborhood, they live scattered across a few counties. Much, much more effort is made by me to coordinate playdates and cook-outs than my mother did; for us it was "go outside and play" and now it is a strategic social schedule.
Food. The Farmer's Market. Locavore. Slow food. Organic. Biodynamic. Farm-to-table. Never before has it been so easy to eat so well and with such healthy choices available. When I was young, my mother bought eggs at a horrifying chicken-processing plant in downtown Durham, now we go to the Carrboro Farmer's Market every Saturday and fight our way through the crowds in search of the homemade doughnuts.
The changes I embrace, the traditions I hold tightly. But one more thing that hasn't changed-and probably never will is the countdown from the last day of school to the first.

Milo and Otis and Sadness and Tears. Or, Movie Night.

2009-06-18T06:37:00.001-07:00

The frightful weather of the past few days has kept us out of the pool and trapped in the house, with regular breaks for dog-walks and firefly-trapping at dusk. But boredom has set in, and in a moment of weakness I traded DVDs with a friend: my Fantasia for her Otis and Milo. I had medium-high hopes for Otis and Milo, for a child that lives in a TV-free household, ANY video viewing is a huge treat, even old You Tube bloopers. I mean, what could be more hilarious to a 6 year-old than someone falling off a dock? I had no worries about Flipper experiencing any kind of distress at the animals and their adventures; this is the kid that chirpily tosses the "It's nature's way!" in the direction of my fleeing back as I hastily depart from an elephant documentary that shows the death of a baby elephant.

I, however, was wrong: movies like this one, The Incredible Journey, etc., anthropomorphizing animals to a degree that generate emotions. They have to, or the movies wouldn't work. But I was wrong: by the second (brief) encounter with a bear she was tearfully hiding her head under a pillow; by the time the little pug was just about to give up the ghost in a blizzard scene that looked like a page from a Jack London book, she had had enough. Tears, tears, tears, cry, cry cry-distressed at the implied snowy Popsicle the dog was about to become, but more upset at how long good buddies Milo and Otis had been apart. Poor Flipper!!! My consoling words fell on deaf ears, and ultimately I just snapped off the lights and let her fall asleep. Maybe we'll try again in a few years; until then, You Tube "funny cats" might be as close as she gets to The Incredible Journey.

Note: Yes, she does like Fantasia-but not the terrified, stampeding dinosaurs.

Endings.

2009-06-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Kindergarten for Flipper ended yesterday. She has spent two years with the same teacher, and many of the same classmates, five days a week, 4 and 5 hours a day, week after week, month after month. Unlike the high school students-most of whom are beyond thrilled to flee-Flipper has been teary and tormented and angst-ridden at the sight of her freshly emptied cubby, reluctant to both stay and go all in the same moment.
Yesterday the class had their last circle, where the children all sat on one side of the room and listened to a story about moving onward, and then, one by one, each student received a stone for wisdom, an orange for nourishment, and a flower for beauty as they move into their new life as a first grader. I am quite sure, in your mind's eye, you can imagine the utter preciousness of this little ritual.
Then the teachers said a few words, tears fell, and we went outside for a potluck lunch. Flipper was so unbelievably overwrought that she fell apart and cried every ten minutes about absolutely nothing. So we came home. And I forced her into a nap for the first time in months. Blessedly, she awoke in a much better mood, and we continued on our day.
And so yet one more milestone has been reached for Flipper, and for me as well. We look to fall-which feels very far away-with excitement and trepidation. And we look back to kindergarten, a teacher that defines the word amazing for me, and say good-bye. Again. And hello to the future.

Loose

2009-06-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

SOMEONE has a loose tooth.
SOMEONE ELSE has breaking heart!

I think you can guess what belongs to who! Flipper has been eagerly anticipating losing her first tooth, and not for any sort of monetary prize doled out by the "tooth fairy" but because she is one of the last kids in her class to lose a tooth. All my rational explanations as to the fact that her baby teeth arrived a little late, which makes losing tooth happen a little late fell on deaf ears. But now all is well. A bottom tooth is wiggly, and seeing it shift beneath her finger-which she cannot keep out of her mouth, is a bit stomach-turning (to me, that is). It is an endless source of delight for her. For me, it is YET ANOTHER bittersweet moment as the baby in Flipper gets moved even farther back as the (not so) little girl eagerly takes the place of that baby.

So now the debate begins-bear in mind that this, like all debates, is an internal one-just what should the Tooth Fairy bring? Do I save her teeth? They seem too precious to throw away, and yet, years from now, what exactly am I going to do with them? Bronze them like those old white leather shoes? Turn them into some sort of jewelry? Or let them quietly molder away, forgotten in a dresser drawer somewhere, buried beneath old socks?

I have heard of parents giving their children demented sums of money (twenty dollars??) but it just doesn't seem special enough to mark something that feels very, very momentous to both of us, even though it will happen again and again. And again. A beautiful crystal since crystals and teeth are composed of minerals? The truth is that no matter what I-excuse me-the Tooth Fairy leaves under her pillow, it will be precious and special to her for a few days, then be swallowed up in yet another Special Box holding Special Things in her room. So a crystal or colored stones it will be even though she has them already. Or maybe, as many friends do, a Sacajawea coin, the gold instantly seeming more special and valuable than the plain old dollar that it is. As to her teeth, well, I just don't know. I will probably hang onto them for awhile, and treasure them before they, too, fade away.

Cell Phone Cold Turkey

2009-05-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Do not believe those old drug-terror movies from the 70's: cold turkey isn't that bad. After my debit card debacle back in March, my cell phone bill missed an online payment, I conveniently ignored the ten million phone calls from my company, believing that they would just add whatever was missed to my bill the next time the automatic withdrawal came around. But I was wrong. Instead, my phone was cut off. And so, for the past week or 10 days, I have been cell-phone-less. Bear in mind that I was a JUNKIE. I talked incessantly, and could barely hold myself to 900 minutes a month. Get in the car, talk on the phone. Walk with Ella, talk on the phone. Anywhere, anytime. I was one of those awful people that I hate. Except that it's me, and therefore somehow justifiable. Poor Ella would beg me to get off the phone, "stop talking, Mommy!" It was awful. I fully admit it. (Isn't that one of the first steps, admitting a problem?)
But now, I can honestly report that I have seen the light: I was lame, addicted to not any kind of meaningful conversation, but fully hooked on talking. Now when we leave school at the end of the day I am not talking on the phone. But I am not necessarily having some sort of deep meaningful conversation with Ella either, usually she is just looking out the window and I am driving. But it is very, very peaceful And on our afternoon dog walks: she is still trailing behind, talking not to me but her new birthday doll, and I am just...walking. It has made everything so much calmer in our lives. Easier, more peaceful. I know that I will get it turned back on, I do feel safer driving and traveling with a cell phone, but hopefully I can resist it's siren call when I am in the car, heading home from school, or any other "dead time" that I filled with chattering. Ella doesn't need to fill that time either, we can just be. After all, sooner or later it will be me begging her to hang up and just be with me, not talking to her firends, not tuning out to some sort of incomprehensible music, but just being.

Six.

2009-05-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

I survived. BARELY. Who knew only 6 kids could make such a sustained, hellish racket in my house? Who knew the mere presence of balloons would cause said kids to run amok, bopping each other and screaming at the top of their lungs for 30 straight minutes? Who knew that Mommy needed something much, much more "festive" than coffee? Who knew that I would be beyond thrilled to realize the next such event is a blessed 350+ days away???
What, all of you knew? Why didn't you tell me???
Flipper's 6th birthday party was a "success"-depending upon how success is defined. I define it like this: she only cried twice. The kids didn't strangle each other; indeed, they all got along quite well. She was thrilled by her presents, and she got some great ones; nary a Barbie doll in sight. Veggie "pigs-in-a-blanket" a hit. Individual macaroni and cheeses: also a hit.
Isn't it better this way, to shoot for small victories instead of massive ones? The bittersweet undertone is that I cannot believe I have a six year old. The memories I have of her babyhood, her toddlerhood, are already fading; I hold old pictures of her but cannot really remember what she looked like then, what she acted like, what we did all day. It is the beautiful and painful part of parenting: forced, even against your own desires, to live only in the present. Things you think you will never forget fade gently away, and are lost forever. Even my endless picture-taking has faded; at her party I only took 3 or 4 shots; me, that used to take 100 or so at a party. Her birthdays always stir up these feelings in me, and then, like the curly hair she had as a baby, they are gone adn we are caught up once more in our busy cycle of school and work and friends and family and, yes, parties. Throwing one, even for an almost-six-year-old, was exhausting in some ways, like parenting itself. But that night in bed, recounting everything but the tears, she said, "This was the best party ever." And so, like parenting, it was all worth it.

Not Again!!!!

2009-05-14T13:00:00.001-07:00

I learned something new online today: there aren't actually any cheap wigs. I even typed in those very words: cheap wigs. And why, pray tell, am I searching for synthetic hair, preferable long and just begging to be cut by an almost-six-year-old? Because she can't seem to resist cutting her OWN hair. I am going insane. Last night I was brushing my teeth and glanced towards her sink (we have a Jack-and-Jill bathroom) and there on the floor were several long strands of brown hair and there in the sink above the evidence lay a pair of scissors. When confronted, the hysterical sobs were accompanied by a long, drawn-out wail "BUT HOW DID YOU KNOOOOWWWW?????"
I don't know if I should feel complimented by my deductive reasoning or insulted that she thought I couldn't put one and one together. No matter: I was angry.
One of the (many) blessings of working in a tiny high school is that there are many, many other mothers and teachers that love to ponder the little mysteries of childhood. "She needs to feel the sensation of the scissors" "It's about control" "Maybe she'll be a hairdresser like my daughter-in-law" and so on. A few hours of this later, I got online and began my search for cheap wigs. Maybe, just maybe a wig or two Velcroed to one of those Styrofoam heads will assuage whatever driving force is inside a normally pretty obedient and able to resist temptation little girl. Until I can run some cheapies to ground, however, a scissors-ban is in effect in our house: she is grounded from using them for one week. For a child that loves to sew and embroider, this is (hopefully) quite a blow. She will get the scissors-privilege restored in time for her birthday, in time for her to receive her much-coveted present: an American Girl doll. Even I am unable to resist the power of these dolls and their brilliant marketing schemes. Which doll? The one with the longest hair, of course . (That would be Julie, the hippie-ish doll from the 70's). Could anything make you feel older than having a decade from your childhood be designated "historical?" I didn't think so. But with Julie's arrival, the real test arrives: can she keep her hands (and the scissors) off the doll's hair? Or is Julie soon to be transformed into Julian? Only time will tell. And anyone out there with some cheap wigs...you know where to find me.

Three Little Ducks Go For A Visit

2009-05-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

Ont Tuesday, three little hand-sewn felt ducks "visited" our house. Until I found out that they hadn't just wanted a change of scenery, but had been, well, REMOVED from Flipper's classroom without permission and smuggled home in her lunch basket. In other words, stolen, although that seems a bit harsh. The tears that followed the discovery lasted long enough for me to eat supper, do the dishes, take the dogs out, and come back in. Flipper's reaction to my "suggestion" that they be returned with an apology met with more sobs and defiant statements of NO! IT'S TOO HAAARRRDDD!!!!! Finally, finally, after this hour-long, exhausting drama (on her part) she fell asleep. I had to time to think about it, and realize that this is one of those things many kids do, that she wasn't headed for a life of crime (I hope) and that, hopefully, she would get a small sense of remorse and relief from apologizing and returning the little ducks. My desire, however, to make it right with a call to her teacher, by returning them myself, by doing SOMETHING was almost overwhelming.
She's too young to understand my Nice-Mommy voice said. An apology from her doesn't have any meaning yet. She's already so upset; just call her teacher and smooth it over, talk about it, apologize myself...blessedly, Rational Mommy came to the rescue and kicked Nice Mommy to the curb. Who cares if she cries. Maybe she won't do it again. Most kids hate to apologize. She needs to anyway...and so on. And on. As usual, I was in danger of overthinking the whole (minor) incident, and perhaps missing a small moral lesson in the process, I was also in danger of talking about it too much, like I did when she cut her own hair. So I didn't race to a parenting book, or the Internet, or call a friend. I remembered a story from my own childhood, repeated many times, of picking all the flowers in a neighbor's yard to give to my mother for Mother's Day. A knock on the door, and a hard-wrought apology. Then, until adolescence at least, no more sticky fingers.
The next morning we walked from my office to the kindergarten (I work at her school) and waited for her teacher to arrive. I handed her the ducks, Flipper averted her face and mumbled a "sorry" and her teacher opened her arms and said, "Have they been on a visit?" Flipper fell into her kind, loving, warm, and accepting embrace, and I went back to my office.
I called my mother to give her the update, and she said, "Well, first of many!" (Thanks, Mom.) Another crisis averted.

Coming soon...to a playground near you!

2009-04-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

For the most part-well, almost the WHOLE part, I leave Flipper's school life at school, and try not to interrogate her about her day, ask too many questions about what they did, who was nice/mean, and so on. She and her little friends are all about the invented, make-believe games with rules so elaborate and unfathomable that I fear Dungeons and Dragons will make some sort of comeback when she is 15. I tried not to listen to just what is taking place on her playground...BUT...

Here's what's going on at Flipper's school: Bear in mind, I am NOT making this up. Because there is no way I possibly could!!!!

"Puppies" this game has actually been in existence for 3 years at her school; her nursery teacher actually banned it for a time. Why? Because she was tired of seeing small children crawl around on all fours, bark, debate endlessly of who got to be someone's "owner" and thereby pet them while they pretended to walk on leashes. Their obsession with this "game" hasn't waned, it has simply taken a back seat to the more exciting game of...

"Army"-I must admit that this gave me pause: while I am not in favor in buying children toy assault rifles, I do feel as though adults should let them play without trying to micromanage HOW they play (as long as no one is crying). But still, I broke my rules about not interrogating Flipper in order to get a bigger picture of how 5 year-olds play Army, especially 5 year olds with no TV and no family members in the military. Here is the first sentence that came out of her mouth, "I'm the mommy horse." What?? You're playing World War I, when infantry still existed?? Apparently her role in this "game" is to be the mommy horse in a "stable" while some little boy is her baby horse. (note to self: never ask again).

I failed to reread my note to self and had to ask when the third game came to light: "Huggy Jail". Only kindergartners could successfully combine incarceration with warm-and-fuzzy feelings. So...I had to ask. "Huggy Jail" is a modified version of Tag; when the designated "It" tags another kid, they both scream, "Miss me, miss me, now you've gotta kiss me!!" Slightly alarmed, I asked ARE YOU KISSING EACH OTHER??? The answer was no. They are HUGGING each other until one begs for mercy. No idea how-or why- "jail" comes into play here. Perhaps the hug stands in for a "get out of jail free" card.

I have no doubt the kids are learning some sort of valuable life lessons about sharing, taking turns, pretending, making your real surroundings more exciting...and I have no idea what I am learning; maybe how to stay out of jail?

Shakori Wrap-Up

2009-04-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

We spent 48 hours (exactly) at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance over the week-end. This year, unlike those in the past, we camped for Friday and Saturday night. I like many things about Shakori, and one of the things I love most about it is how safe it is for children. It is the perfect venue for your child (of all ages) to spread their wings a bit and experience a bit more freedom than they many have a home or school. Flipper was fully able to confidently navigate her way from our school's outreach booth to our tent, to the bathrooms, to the hand-washing station, to buy homemade root beer served in tin cans to the hula hoops and back to me. She would even invent the flimsiest of excuses to go off by herself for a few minutes just to have that feeling of confidence and freedom that is so heady to a small child and so forgotten by many adults. So we had a very, very good time. If you are considering attending this twice-yearly event, here is a list of things to take and to expect.
Things to take:
1. Money. I am not kidding; Shakori is not cheap. Tent camping is free, car camping is 60/per car. The food at Shakori is PHENOMENAL, (should you choose to buy it), but it is pricey. Crepes, Greek food, Indian curries, ice-cream, French toast...there is nary a funnel cake in sight. I remain convinced that someone magically attaches an invisible hose to my wallet when we enter and silently siphons all of my moolah away in about 3 hours. The face-painting, the rock-climbing wall; it can really add up quickly. There are a lot of free events, hoops to play with, dance demonstrations to attend.
2. Low expectations for a good night's sleep. We stayed in the Family Campsite, and the people there respected the quiet hours and, thank god, there were no drum circles or late-night revelry. However...you can still hear all the music from the stages until quite late at night, and early in the morning you will awaken to hear the drum circle on the OTHER side of the festival grounds still going strong.
3. Food. Take some, even if you plan to buy all your meals there. Early morning lines for the two booths selling breakfast were, on Sunday morning, more than 50 people long, and the booth had yet to open.
4. Your own cups/water bottles. The coffee is cheaper with your own cup, and water from the water truck is free, although they appreciate donations.
5. Chairs/blankets-if you are actually going to listen to the music in a focused way, as opposed to racing from the rock climbing wall to the face painting booth the bathrooms to see the baby goats...you get the picture.
6. Get there as early in the week as possible to establish a campsite if you want to camp. Many people go out there when it opens, set up their tent or canopy, and come back when they get off work or school on Friday. Trust me, it's worth it. And, it is really, really fun to go with several other families and establish a little "tent-city" of your own.
7. A few Band-Aids and some Advil: trust me, the First Aid tent is far away.
8. A good mood and a touch of tolerance: I love Shakori because it reminds me of the ten jillion Grateful Dead and Phish and Widespread Panic concerts I criss-crossed the country to attend B.C. (before child). So I like the hippie vibe, although you'll see all types at Shakori; lines at the Port-A-Potties hardly bother someone that has squatted behind many a car in a parking lot. If staying very clean and using real bathrooms that are not made out of plastic is important to you, this might get old after awhile.
9. An appreciation of the sheer effort that goes into pulling a festival like this; every morning around 6:30 a crew of volunteers sweeps through the entire festival grounds, picking up all the trash and recycling, the toilets are cleaned and emptied, the water is refreshed, etc. It is really amazing the extent the organizers and volunteers go to in order to create a gathering that is as green as it possibly can be.
10. Instruments. One of our friends has won the fiddle contest two years in a row; he and his brother played at night at the campsite; across the row of tents a woman played her guitar and sang. This was one of my favorite parts of the festival; hearing the music made by those NOT on the stages.
11. I mentioned already how child-friendly Shakori is; more than once I relaxed at our campsite, chatting with friends while our children played a few yards away with instant friends, and some grown-ups as well. It was heavenly.

You can save on Shakori by purchasing your tickets/passes ahead of time; the price increases as the date approaches. Kids under 11 are free. See you near the Grove Stage in the fall!

(Not so) Controlling

2009-04-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

A month or so ago we had our second parent-teacher conference. There are no real worries in a non-academic kindergarten, no fears that Flipper's reading skills are lagging (since reading isn't taught) or that her addition sums are skewed. These conferences, along with doctor check-ups, always make me feel like some sort of impostor, like a fake parent. They make me feel much, much older than I think I am on the inside, and much, much more like a totally-with-it-together-Mommy than I really am. So we sit with a small table with fresh flowers in the middle, look at Flipper's mystical, wet-on-wet watercolors, and discuss her readiness for first grade, (among other things) and we also discuss a touch of sad: her lack of one close, best friend. her teacher thinks she is looking for that match, but hasn't found it yet. She plays with most of the other kids-and very well-but has no one to pair up with, to create long, inventive puppet shows or some other creative game. So she goes from pair to pair, usually fitting in, but still a little lonely. There would have been a time when this would have been utterly heartbreaking to me, but I am over it. Were she the class pariah, unable to make friends, I would be more concerned. But here's the truth: she may not find a best friend for years. She might have tons of good friends, but not a best friend. Maybe that's OK. I thought about pursuing more places for her to meet new kids, more activities (eek-the money!!), and then I stopped trying to magically fix it, to orchestrate yet another aspect of her life, as though her food and clothes and school and vacations weren't enough for me to control and dictate. Her teacher thinks her age is part of it; she is is younger than some of the kids and older than the others. She will almost certainly be the youngest in her class for some time, if not for her entire schooling: her school's first grade cut-off date is "6 by June 1" with no exceptions made, and she will turn 6 on May 25. So she will always be the youngest. But that's OK, someone has to be, right? It might as well be my child. Her seeking out a special friend to be close to is natural and normal, and I am convinced it will happen one day. Even (especially) without my "help." I think knowing when to get involved and start controlling things and when to back off and let things happen is the hardest part of parenting. No one wants to be that nightmare helicopter parent-but we all feel the pull of those propellers when our children are unhappy. So I'll turn my control-freak tendencies inward, where they belong, and we will keep on keeping on, and who knows? Maybe this year will be her year.

(Im)perfection

2009-04-09T12:47:00.000-07:00

Parenting provides some big and little lessons. Usually, I forget the ones I learn until I relearn them about two or three million times. Or, they are too minor, and so fade into the very, very back of my mind, never to be seen or heard from again. But every now and then, something happens, or you little person says something that rings so true, or you connect the dots in a way that you know you will never forget it, or look at things quite the same again. I think they call it "an epiphany."
Flipper trimmed a small portion of her own hair recently, covertly, and it looks hideous. To me. In reality, she created "bangs" on about 1 inch of her hairline, and the rest looks as it always did. I wailed, I lamented. I yelled at her for lying about it. I mourned the loss of maybe 2% of her cuteness. I couldn't think of a suitable "punishment" and resorted to touching the tiny shorn spot every hour or so and looking at her with stricken eyes. Obviously, I needed to seriously get over it. I was acting like a freak. (On the inside). And then I remembered that one of us cut off a sibling's hair and tried to stick it back on with Scotch tape. Note: it didn't work. I have mangled my own hair as a teen and an adult, and just ten years ago the bottom 2 inches-this was when it was long-was a rich pinkish-purple. And...it didn't matter. It is just hair. What DOES matter is that I try as hard as I can to stop expecting perfection from her, because she will only fail, and she will only come to think she can do nothing right, when the vast majority of her choices are good ones, even at 5. After all, I am so far from perfect myself that perfection is about 2 galaxies away. Or more. I think it is a very human trait to want and hope and expect the very best from your children, children you see with the distorted lens of unconditional love. But...how very unfair that I expect something from her I cannot emulate myself, or that I am tolerant (sort of) of the personality quirks and foibles of other adults around me. And so, Flipper put me in my place.
She tolerated me revisiting the topic of "no cutting of your own hair" for a few days, and then finally said Mommy. I am done talking about this. I, however, am not done thinking about it, and adopting yet another mantra for parenting, one that comes close on the heels of I'm doing the best I can. The new one is: It's only hair.

Guilt, out loud

2009-04-02T03:15:00.000-07:00

I must confess that I don't feel too much parental guilt. I have a hard time relating to mothers that are constantly filled with angst over this and that, wringing their hands over teeny tiny decisions that, in the lone run, probably won't make a huge difference in how their child turns out as a grown-up, a process that I think we can control less than we want to believe. But there is one area where I do feel guilty: how much I hate to read aloud. HATE IT. This is something I largely keep to myself because it sounds so lame to loathe that special good-night read aloud, whereby Flipper is snuggled up next to me, as I share some sweet book from my childhood with her. I am over it. Actually, I got over when she was about 15 months old. But I do it anyway, night after night, book after book, because to NOT do it would, in fact, create guilt feelings even I, the Great Rationalizer, would be unable to justify into nothingness. I also hate for anyone to read aloud to me; I cannot bear those books-on-tape things that my parents are addicted to when they travel, along with the rest of the AARP set.
Last week-end we spent part of Saturday with a friend and her sons. Her husband travels a fair amount for work, and she is, blessedly, a friend that I can pretty much say anything to without fear of judgement. So she already knows of my feelings about the nightly read-aloud, and I cannot fully express the huge wave of relief that washed over me when she said, "I thought about you this past week." Really? When? "When I was reading the same book out loud again for the 5th night in a row." Finally, someone else!! Her husband, when he is not traveling typically does the reading before bedtime thing, but I have no such other person to relieve me of something that should be pleasurable, but isn't. She agreed with me that it is something that Must Be Done. After all, we want out children to love reading, to love books, to value a wonderful story. And so she feels like I do at times: we are fulfilling an obligation that exists only in our own minds because the guilt otherwise is just too much. So I try to find the silver lining to the guilty cloud: one day she'll be reading on her own, at least now we can read chapter books like the Little House series, that last night she became frightened by one of the American Girl Doll books (who knew they could be so terrifying?) and so I cast it to the floor and said "Good night!!" Guilt-free at last!

What Goes Around...

2009-03-25T16:01:00.000-07:00

This pin is in my wallet; I have had it for 21 years. I added the shiny holographic sticker after a Grateful Dead show. (Of course). It came pinned to my Christmas stocking and it has always been with me through multiple moves and pocketbooks and backpacks and wallets. My mother gave it to me. Not only do I hope I never lose it, I hope I never forget it. Thanks to a recent encounter, I have fallen in love with it all over again.

I am an annoyingly positive, glass-half-full kind of person. Were I not me, I would be plotting my murder. It is a good skill to have, however, the ability to see the silver lining of ANY cloud, eve when they lining is so faint it is almost invisible, and the cloud is a massive, tornado-spawning thunderhead. But lately new has not been too great. I am scared about the economy, my future, providing for Flipper, etc. etc. When I start to freak out about events that I can't control, I hang onto the knowledge that something good will happen. It always does. And so, for today's entry, I offer up something good that came out of something bad-and how glad I was that Flipper witnessed it all.

It was the recent snowy Monday. No school. Cold and hungry little girl. In an effort to make the day seem happy and fun, we went to our local diner, less than a mile from my house for breakfast. The owner, a really beautiful woman (and on the inside, too, as we shall see) told us to come back in 20 minutes, as they were opening late because of the snow. So we walked to a money machine to withdraw cash for breakfast and a few days' groceries. But my card was denied. If this has ever happened to you, to find out you have not a cent when you thought you had many, you know what a sickening feeling it is. And I was faced with that terrifying sensation of sand sliding away: not only would I have to tell Flipper, but just 48 hours earlier, I had 1100 dollars in my checking account. As expected, Flipper took the news badly. She began to cry. We headed back out to the car, and saw the owner again, and she said "We're open!" I had to tell her the truth, "My card has been denied, I just don't have the money right now." She dug into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled up and very clean ten dollar bill and held it out. "Take this, I found it in my pocket today when I was doing the laundry." I resisted, hating to take money from someone who obviously felt sorry for us, but accepted it. (She sees us in there pretty regularly). We went in, she and I chatted, and she left to pass out more menus. We ate. We left. And the next day I found out that my debit card information had been stolen online, and my account drained. I had to go through the whole process; meeting with bank employees, filing a police report, etc. etc. But I didn't forget the ten dollars, and a few days later, I took out a thank you note and tried to tell her in a few sentences how kind she was that morning, how much it meant to me, and how glad I was that Flipper witnessed her generosity. I put a ten dollar bill in it, sealed it up, and took it by the restaurant and left it for her. Last week we went there again. She was there. We hugged each other, and she told me she was surprised that I wrote her a thank-you note, that her simple gesture meant as much to me as it did. Then Flipper and I sat down at our favorite booth, and she headed to the mailbox with two envelopes in her hand. They were thank-you notes she wrote to friends; she said my note made her want to write a few of her own. And as soon as I can, I am going to find a way to pass along a ten-dollar bill to someone that needs it. Because it always comes back around.

It really is HER party

2009-03-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Flipper's current "best friend" is a little boy. He is a bit older than she is, and while they don;t always play with each other at school, he comes over here on a regular basis to break up her lonely week-ends and they are a joy and a treat together. Many young children-and older ones too-have opposite gender best friends.
I was reminded of this when I came across an essay about single-sex birthday parties for children, ones that automatically leave out that friend because the party is "all girls" or "all boys." Wow, I thought, taking this all a bit personally, aren't you? Can't another family have the party they want without you freaking out? The writer was pretty upset on her child's behalf, which is understandable. I mean, it is pretty hard to explain to anyone-let alone a 4 year old-that even though someone is their friend, they can;t attend a party because they are a boy (or a girl). Not really a valid reason, do you think? This has happened to us, even though less brutally than her experience, mostly because our school encourages parents to have very small parties of just one or two kids, and that invitations are not to be distributed at school unless everyone is invited. So on the tip of my tongue is the obvious reaction: boys and girls can be friends, it is cruel to leave out a close friend just because your daughter wants a Barbie party, blah blah blah. But then I started thinking about it, and swung around to another point of view.
It is not your party, it is theirs. The other mommy doesn't have to invite your child. In fact, she is under no obligation to do so, even if your child is crying. You are going to get left out of things as you grow up, for reasons both valid and not. Those are the breaks.
Sounds pretty heartless, (even to me) doesn't it? But we, as parents, do a lot to feed out children's pain and disappointment, or, worse, try to interfere and make it go away. I know one mother that, upset that her oldest child wasn't invited to the party of a classmate of her younger, called the other mother up and asked that her older be included "because she feels left out." The desire to take away pain and disappointment is almost overwhelming, and universal. But not only is there a lesson for your child tucked away in that non-existent invitation, there is a lesson for parents too. Don't interfere. And, let people have the parties they want to the way they want to, with or without your child. It's called respecting someone else's choices.

Flipper's birthday is approaching...at least in her own mind. In reality, it is more than 10 weeks away. She is already busily plotting and planning and figuring out what she wants do. I let her, because it amuses me to hear all of her little plans, plans that change daily. She wants a big party, she wants to go somewhere, she wants a stacking cake, she wants this friend or that....she wants, she wants, she wants. We will probably do something fun on a very, very small scale, with 2 or 3 friends of her choosing. Her "best friend" will probably be included. But if not, well, it is her birthday, and lucky for me, his mother will understand. And that is the beauty of non-interfering, non-judgemental friends: after the cake is cut, we'll all still be friends.

Some things never change. Sadly.

2009-03-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

Not much has disappointed me more lately, or made me worry so far into the future than the reactions-I think it is referred to as "fall out" from the whole Rihanna/Chris Brown nightmare. Nightmare for her, that is. HE has garnered his fair share of "support" from fellow celebrities like Kanye West, who seems to think that poor old Chris made a "mistake" and all of us uptight folks should forgive and forget. I made the mistake of reading comments posted on website accounts of his alleged beating of her in his car. I felt as though some sort of bizarre time machine had magically whisked me back to a time when a situation like this put the spotlight-and the blame-squarely on the woman for "provoking" him. Because smashing her face, choking, and biting her is certainly an understandable reaction to a text message.
I worry beyond worry that Flipper will find herself in an unhealthy, abusive relationship. I say "find herself" because that is exactly what happens: you wake up one day, look around, and realize you not only no longer recognize the person you fell in love with, but you no longer even recognize yourself. You have become the friend you dropped because her repeated return to live with the man that slammed her up against a car outside a restaurant means you lost all respect for her, you have become a person you pity. You cannot even respect yourself. It has happened to me. And my sister. And more friends than I can count. Friends that cannot have a Facebook account because they are afraid they will be found. And stalked. I actually thought that "the younger generation" was smarter, more aware. That if, as an excellent Newsweek editorial pointed out, Rihanna had reported that a stranger attacked her, no one would ask what she did to "provoke" him. But I was wrong.
No parent wants to raise a future abuser OR victim. I actually have no idea how to instill in Flipper the knowledge that her love for another cannot help him or her, that she cannot "cure" an abuser by loving them unconditionally. Or that just as it is hard to fall in love in 5 minutes, it is equally hard to fall OUT of love in five minutes...even if those 5 minutes were violent and terrifying. Many women with excellent self-esteem find themselves making excuses, walking eggshells, becoming a stranger to herself. I can make it easy for her to walk away-as my own parents did by having an "open door" policy. She and I can talk about it, I can pull up the current celebrity case and use it as an example. And I can rest easy in the knowledge that her father sets an excellent example for her of respect and love and the belief she can be anyone, do anything. But I also know that I can do all of this, and it still may not work. Her loving, open, heart may lead her into trouble one day. And if it does, I hope everyone around her will not just show their support for her, but their condemnation for him. For, as the Newsweek article pointed out, leaving a turkey to burn in the oven is a "mistake," beating another human that you profess to love is a deliberate act.

Dog People...but not forever.

2009-03-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

We are Dog People. "We" meaning my family, that is. We have always had dogs, one after the other, with a year off in between the death of one and the bringing of a puppy into the fold. Now I have two dogs, animals that treat Flipper as the annoyance that she often is. But they love love love her, and she loves them; indeed, one of them sleeps beside her night after night. But lately Flipper has begun to switch to the other side, the dark side, if you will. SHE LIKES CATS!! She even wants one!!! Now, she is ready to say "farewell" to our elderly dog, since she knows that no new animal will come into our house until Seamus or Sophie heads up to that great big fire hydrant in the sky.

"Seamus is old, isn't he? Maybe he'll die soon." These are how our conversations go these days. It is funny and a little dismaying at the same time. I do not like cats. I am allergic to some, but not to others. An orange cat named PitterPat (for it's little feet) trotted off with my 7 year old heart one afternoon, and declined to return, and I have never had a soft spot for them since.

But when we went to Florida, we stayed in an old 1950's bungalow-style motel, and that motel had a huge, ancient, partially toothless orange cat named Billy on the premises. Billy figured out in about 3 seconds flat that we were nice, or, in cat-thought, suckers. So in and out he came, lapping milk that Flipper provided for him, sleeping on the futon until 2 a.m. when he would yowl to be released. I blame him fully for this new desire of Flipper's. And if we could have him, I would go for it. How long can an old, toothless cat live, anyway? But he is not here. He is in Florida, many miles away. We recently watched a PBS show about the connections people have to cats and dogs, and the sad reality that cats in shelters are much, much more likely to die there, unloved and unclaimed. It is, apparently, much easier for dogs to head off to their "forever home." And this, even more than Flipper's death wish for Seamus, may sway me one day. Emphasis on the word "may." And until then, our two-dog, five fish, one-kid family will have to suffice.

Love at first meow.

Pretty is as pretty...does?

2009-02-24T14:16:00.001-08:00

We are back, and reentry was hard. We left a breezy, warm 74 degree day and returned to a cold, windy, still-winter North Carolina evening. Upon arrival at home, Flipper walked in, burst into tears, and said, I don't want to be here!!! How awful. Florida and Georgia were fantastic. Saw more animals (particularly birds) than I expected, has transcendent day with manatees, discovered new places to go, incredible things to see. Flipper is a good traveler, used to toting her backpack and rolling suitcase through acres of airport, patient on long drives and able to sit and listen (or sit and tune out) naturalist tour guides tell us about the local flora and fauna. Usually, she and I were the only people under 65 or so on the guided trips, and, naturally, the only child for miles around got a fair amount of attention. The proud-mommy in me loves this; I, deservedly or not feel like a good parent when people comment on her good manners, or her ability to sit through a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant-although it is more due to the fact that she is a slow eater than any magical parenting skills-and so, by extension, compliments to Flipper make me feel good.
Now that she is older, she is more aware of other people, and of herself. The compliments about how she looks now make her slightly embarrassed, although she always says "thank you." She got a lot of attention in Florida; an extra manatee stamp because "you're so cute!," many comments on how pretty she is, her brown eyes, and so on. I'm telling you: take a baby or child to any part of Florida that is away from Disney, and the compliments will fly. But, as with all things, there is another side to all of the laudatory remarks. There is more, so much more, to life than being "pretty." But even Flipper, at 5, knows that it feels good to get attention for cuteness. She doesn't grasp the concept that "it's what's inside that counts" or any other ways we try to tell children that looks don't matter. Children know looks DO matter, it often determines who is popular, who gets attention, and studies have shown that teachers are more responsive to physically attractive students than those less-conventionally attractive.
One of my more favorite parenting books addresses this issue, which seems to happen more to little girls than little boys with the advice that any compliment on a child's physical appearance should be met with a comment about the child's other sterling qualities. And so a compliment of "Aren't you beautiful!" should be answered with "And she's a great soccer player too!" While I "get" the logic of this, I cannot imagine much of anything that would make you a more insufferable parent. And so we continue with the thank yous, and avoid any other comments about her. I just can't bring myself to say "And she's a great knitter, too!" without sounding like a total nightmare. But Flipper, like the vast, vast majority of us, will probably receive less and less remarks about her eyes, or her hair, or her "cuteness" as she gets older. For her sense of self, I hope so. I also hope she doesn't notice when it fades-or worse, miss it. I wish, for her, just health and normalcy. More good days than bad. But not, no matter how pretty she does or does not become, a feeling that it is all there is. A favorite singer-songwriter said it best: "When beauty's all you offer, how soon the world discovers that your beauty's gone."

Florida without Disney.

2009-02-16T15:44:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow, around noon, Flipper and I will do what we do best together: travel. We are flying to Jacksonville, Florida, where we will spend 5 days exploring the Okefenokee Swamp and Florida's Forgotten Coast. Blessedly forgotten, I might add. We are not going anywhere near Disney, and we never will. I hate all things Disney, and everything Disney is banned in my house, which is actually quite easy to do with no television and no toys that require batteries. I won't go on and on about my loathing of the big D, although if you want a good reason, Google "Disney lemmings snopes." Then feel awful for the poor lemmings. ANYWAY...I can't wait.

I love love love to go pretty much anywhere, anytime, and I love traveling through America. Every state is different, every state has places that are beautiful and unique, and I have found that people are invariably kind and polite. After college I lived on St. Simons Island for 2 years, and loved it. On this trip I am returning to a place that caught my fancy 18 years ago: Homosassa Springs and Crystal River. It is the time of year when the manatees do their thing and seek warm water, which is in abundant supply from all the natural springs that bubble forth in the ten jillion rivers that exist here. We are going on a private guided manatee swim, although Flipper is a bit nervous about the sheer size of the sea cows, and may not get in. But I think she will. I think the manatees will love me and I them. We will stay in motels made of cinder blocks and owned by only one person, not a corporation. It is how I love to travel best, a little under the radar, a little off the beaten path. I am OK with the cinder blocks, and with thin, scratchy towels. While I would love to take a few years off of life as we know it and take Flipper around the world, to Europe and Asia and South America...there is so much to see here, so many places I want to return (PCH 101) and places I've not yet gone (Maine and the Dakotas) and no one I want to travel with more than Flipper. I know that traveling to other countries is broadening, that you gain a perspective on our own place in the world that is valuable, but then I think about hiking along the Grand Canyon, or camping on California's northern coast...and I feel like Dorothy: there really is no place like home. And take it from me: even Kansas is really, really beautiful. All travel has goals large and small, even if it is to just have fun. What are my goals for Flipper? That she will learn to love and appreciate America's natural, un-Disneyfied beauty, seek it out as an adult, and help save it if she can. My laptop will probably go with me, and I will try to post some little bits and pictures on my regular blog, if anyone is interested. I'd love to hear from anyone who has been down that way, or has any questions.

MORE loss of innocence (mine).

2009-02-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

I was casting about on the Internet, searching for something to spark my interest that pertains to parenting, but isn't celebrity or octuplet-centered. Tough going out there right now! Anyway, I stumbled across this website: www.commercialfreechildhood.org. Since the fact that it offered me a chance to "vote" on the worst toy offering of the year-and I use the word "toy" loosely-I couldn't pass it up. As I had suspected...I am pretty out of touch with, well, almost everything in the toy world. Perhaps blessedly so. It has long been a private disappointment that Lego is so obscenely commercialized, tied to every single action movie that exists, even ones that are not for kids, like The Dark Night, which was rated PG-13. But Lego seems to be perfectly happy jumping on the Batman bandwagon! What happened to Lego? Why are they all sold in kits, kits that show the potential within, as it were, instead of letting kids come up with what they think some rocket or car looks like without the benefit of the packaging into a "kit"? And, why do they seem targeting specifically at boys?
But...moving on. Does anyone besides me remember Book Fairs at public schools? Or when you took home a teeny catalog from Scholastic, ordered some books, and then, weeks later, your teacher would distribute them to eager students? Now, Scholastic still sells books, but they also sell Wii games (the M&M version, no less), Hannah Montana jewelry and lip gloss. To elementary school students. What is happening out there, right under our noses? When did children become these endless sources of money for lip gloss, of all things, and when did schools throw out the welcome mat to these companies? Are schools really so poor that they can justify letting McDonald's provide their report cards, which is what happened in Florida.
I guess the saddest thing is the fact that so many toys now are tied to something else, and so they become ads in and of themselves. Do you ever think about how hard it is to buy your child just regular products WITHOUT some irksome character like Dora or Elmo? And how we, as consumers, are A-OK with Disney everything in our homes, right on down to the toothpaste beside the sink, which is used after the Dora potty seat and before the Ariel nightgown...it never ends. But I really, really wish it would. I wish it bothered more people, I hope that parents are involved in schools enough to make their complaints known, as did one mother in Seminole County, FL, who was incensed enough at the McDonald's report card, that offered a Happy meal for good grades, that she gathered 2000 signatures, and ended that particular advertising campaign. And, if you feel so inclined, check out the Commercial Free Childhood website: food for thought, not a report card.

Fall from Grace, but not from Visa

2009-02-05T03:24:00.001-08:00

I laughed out loud when I saw the picture of Michael Phelps, bong and lighter in hand, looking much like, well, like many people in America, particularly young ones. Then I started following the story, in an attempt to stop following the octuplet debacle in California. And, just as I thought, sponsers stood behind him, while disappointed parents everywhere bemoaned the broken image of their child(rens) "role model." I even took a few minutes to respond to one hand-wringing mother, that "dreaded" the conversation with her son about his hero's "poor judgement." Get a new hero. A REAL one. Get a better role model, a REAL one. What seems to be lost in this latest tabloid feeding frenzy is a cold hard look at why we, as a culture, are so sports-crazed, and why we elevate athletes and singers, and, well, ANYONE from Hollywood to the status of "role model." America loves sports, no doubt about. I love them too, sometimes. After all, I was on a swim team when I was 5, and competed for the next 13 years. But to want athletes and entertainers, people for whom the vast, vast majority of can never, ever be, to set an example through every one of their actions and words for our children seems to be a bit much to ask. It is more than we typically ask of ourselves, particularly when you factor in the age of some of these stars. We look, for some reason, to the rarest of the rare to show our children how to live, how to be better people. Why is that? There is nothing particularly balanced about Phelps's-or any high-level athlete's or movie star's life. Every day, every thing they eat, everywhere they go, all of it is determined by the intense demands of their sport and career. They are single-mindedly focused on themselves; they have to be. Then they become millionaires, the very very few lucky enough to win. Many more academic scholarships are offered than athletic ones, yet parents spend multiple week-ends and multiple dollars on their children that participate in sports, hoping for that sports ticket to school. I feel for Phelps, and any "role model" caught up in this backlash. When he checked off the boxes of the events he was entering last summer, I'm guessing "role model" wasn't one of the choices. He doesn't actually owe us anything. No celebrity does. It is we who put them on a pedestal of our own making, and so it is we who are most disappointed when they stumble at the top. Boycott his sponsors if you truly feel disappointed by him. Have The Talk with your kids about drugs, although it is hard to argue that smoking pot will make you a loser with no friends. It isn't exactly "performance enhancing," unless the performance you seek is to eat an entire bag of chips in .5 seconds. Or, encourage your kids to look closer to home-and to their history books-for real heroes, real role models. They are all around you. They probably live in your house, stand in front of a blackboard at school, teach Sunday School classes, have overcome true hardship and disability, work every day to make the world they live in a little better, treat their husbands and wives and partners and animals and friends and relatives with kindness and respect. Let those examples lead the way for your kids, not a 23 year-old athlete at a party. Really.

Lazybones

2009-01-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

Flipper had a playdate-thank god-on Sunday. She led her friend upstairs, where my escalating electric bill has driven me back to hanging up all laundry to dry. The landing was draped with shirts and jeans and underwear. I heard her friend ask, "Why doesn't your mom use the dryer?" And do you know what she said??? "BECAUSE SHE'S LAZY." After I bored and exasperated both of them with the assertion that to HANG underwear from the linen closet door was, in fact, much LESS lazy than tossing wet clothes into the dryer and turning a knob, I retreated back downstairs, to pick up either my laptop or my People magazine and realized that...yes. I am a bit lazy. I do not, however, think that this is necessarily a bad way to be, parent-wise. I embrace, perhaps more fully than I should, Montessori's assertion that we should never do for our children what they can do for themselves. Never mind that it might take about ten hours longer to do than it should. I squelch my impatience, and return to my laptop and magazine.
There isn't much that Flipper can't do on her own, including taking a bath, washing AND conditioning her hair (and rinsing), picking out clothes appropriate for the weather, getting dressed, making a fried egg (all I do is turn on the burner and hover) and get out any type of activity she wants to do and going to it. I love this, although I feel a small pang every now and then when I realize that I am doing less and less of the non-stop maintenance work of child-rearing that so dominated the first few years.
Nonetheless, I don't want Flipper to think I am lazy just because she has to get her own paint sets out, drag her chair to the sink to fill up a cup with water, and get ready for bed, while I lie there, all warm and toasty under the covers, waiting for her to finish her ablutions so we can read. Except it is really me reading. This is one of the last things that she has no hand in, that she passively receives. She seems, much to my surprise, very far away from reading, and she attends a school that follows a model that encourages children to read a bit later than more typical educational models. And so, this is a place where I am not lazy, where we (I) read Every. Single. Night. So the next time she thinks its so easy to drape t-shirts over bedposts, I will remind her of this, "Mommy isn't lazy...she reads to you!!" (Even when I would rather be in my chair, with my laptop and my People magazine.)

No More Tears

2009-01-20T03:50:00.000-08:00

Flipper, I am convinced, has a bright future just chock-full of many possibilities. Her personal choices include a hula girl at a show in Hawaii, or an artist, preferably not starving. I have a new "career" for her, one I think she would be quite good at: hard-core mountaineer/explorer. Here's why: on Saturday, we awoke to brutally cold temperatures, which deters us not at all from being outside (nothing does). Flipper loves ice in almost any form, but particularly in the form of frozen puddles, creeks, drainage ditches. Blessedly, we live very close to tributaries of Chapel Hill's beautiful Bolin Creek, and we walk alongside these smaller creeks every day with the dogs. Around 10 we headed out, ready to explore. I love watching children explore the natural world, their innate fascination with how something works: what a rock does when thrown on ice, how to keep yourself balanced on the frozen puddle, etc. We can spend hours outside with no toys beyond a stick or a few rocks. Blessedly, Flipper has inherited my ability to simply not get cold; my hands and feet are never cold, and I love cold weather. Love it. So she was having a high old time: stomping on ice, picking up chunks and dashing them against rocks and squealing at the sound of the shattering, and so on. Then her feet broke through some thinner ice, and she fell, soaking herself to the top of her little legs. Her little, denim-clad, unprotected legs. After the initial scream, she was fine. Even I was a touch worried, because we were a good 20-30 minutes from home, and it was about 22 degrees out. But here is why she'll make a good mountaineer one day, hunkered in a tent on the side of Everest and the like. She has an amazing ability to suck it up and keep going. We headed for home, with only one small delay: while crossing one of the iron pipes over the creek her feet momentarily froze to the pipe, a la The Christmas Story but she wrenched them free and we continued. No whining, no crying-even though her feet must have been frozen, just a slow, steady plodding towards home. Mind you, I would have been crying my head off when I was a kid. I love this about her, even though a tiny part of me worries about it at the same time. When she was an infant, and I was consuming parenting books at the same rate I consumed calories while I was pregnant, I read a great deal of advice about not telling your children how they should feel. When they get hurt, the books stated, don't tell them "It's OK!" or "That's nothing!" or "Stop crying, I can't even see it" (quickly followed by) "No, you can't have another Band-Aid." This was, I felt, quite sound advice: how would children ever grow into people that accepted and embraced their own emotions and experiences if we, as adults, ignored or belittled them? And then, as so often happens, reality set in. By the time she was walking, and falling, and smashing into things, my good intentions went right out the window. I mean, she was banging into something, smashing a finger, wrecking her knees every 3 seconds or so. How can someone be sympathetic AND empathetic every 3 seconds? Who has time for that?? And who has that many boxes of Band-Aids? So my good intentions, as so often happens in my house, went right out the window. And now, several years later, I have a kid that can trudge home in frigid temperatures without freaking out, and I am very, very glad. But I did make her some hot chocolate when we got there. But no Band-Aids.

Just before the fall...

The Un-Funny Bone

2009-01-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Many times on this blog I have bemoaned the simple reality of aging: her, not me!! The bittersweet farewells I seem to wave at every milestone, both large and small, the tiny baby, toddler, preschooler I miss, yet can barely remember. BUT...there is one aspect of little kid-dom that I promise I will miss not at all, in fact, I pray please please please let her sense of humor NOT remain the same!!! Has anyone ever listened, really listened to what a five year thinks is funny? No? Well, let me tell you: you're not missing anything. Flipper's largely undeveloped sense of humor is almost painful to witness: hence the following "conversation"--keeping in mind that all of my comments are silent. Usually.

"Know what Elijah and I call helicopters?"
No, do I want to?
"We call them helicopoptors!! Isn't that funny?!? HELICOPOPTORS!!!" (this is repeated about three thousand times)
Please make it stop.

Kids Flipper's age find, perhaps blessedly, almost anything funny: the dog farting, underwear on the floor, someone tripping and falling down, the most basic and simplest of cartoons, NPR theme music...wait! I find the theme music funny too! But you get my point: it is unbearable, because not only is juvenile humor, well, JUVENILE, and therefore pretty UN-funny, but what we (adults) find funny either results in tears: "Oh, honey! Mommy was just being sarcastic!! I'm not serious!!" Or it requires a long and excruciating "explanation" that results in nothing resembling either enlightenment or a better-developed sense of humor. These things take time, I know. But I can barely bring myself to contemplate the truly terrifying: what if it doesn't change?? Because I don't think I can take poor Flipper's particular brand of "humor," and I use that word loosely, for years to come. Hopefully, like all other phases, I can utter the mantra of parents everywhere: this too shall pass.

Painting My Intentions

2009-01-08T03:23:00.000-08:00

It is a new year, much to the relief of many. Really, how much more election ANYTHING could one human take? And I don;t even have a TV, and was thus spared all the ads, and I was STILL sick of it way back in June. Every year I make some sort of resolution (my sister prefers the word "intention") and this year is no different. Bear in mind that I remember NONE of them, and so follow-through tends to be a bit difficult, if not impossible. Since New Year Resolutions (sorry, INTENTIONS) aren't secret, like a birthday wish, here it is: I will (hopefully) be more patient with Flipper. How, pray tell, will that patience play out in day-to-day life? Well, I'll return once again to my Little House on the Prairie parenting style, and put her to work. If you ever want a glimpse of how easy kids have it today, and how UN-easy they had it 150 years ago, read Farmer Boy. Then imagine doing a tenth of the work that kid did on a daily basis! Anyway, one thing that strikes me about these books, or any account of childhood from the distant past, is how included children were in the daily chores, probably out of sheer necessity, and probably as a way to prepare them for a lifetime of serious work ahead, be it field or kitchen. It occurs to me that Flipper, at least wants to be included, wants to do everything I am doing (besides clean her room) and yet, too often, I am in hurry, impatient to be done with what for me are the day in and day out boring chores that keep our house relatively clean, us fed, and the dogs happy. So my resolution is to let her help with whatever she wants, to find a way to make it (somewhat) safe, and not to brush her aside, telling her to go play and let me finish. It has begun: her favorite task (so far) is scrubbing out the toilets with the nicely scented all-natural cleaner and the long-handled brush. She loves this. I don't know why, but am not questioning it either. This request to help was relatively easy for me to fill, but over the week-end came a harder one. I am, wall by wall and room by room, painting the interior of our house. Luckily, the colors are all bright and fun (chosen by a former interior designer) and so the painting, while still a bit onerous, is at least transforming something from boring white into something beautiful. I hope. You can easily imagine the rest: she wanted to help, was eager to do so. I tried to give her the talk about how the paint would stain her clothes, the floor, etc., and then tried to channel good old Ma Ingalls spirit: "what would Caroline do?" She would find a way to make it work. After all, this is a woman who kept her family alive for a winter with almost no food but unground wheat by using her tiny, hand-turned coffee mill to grind wheat for bread. I discovered that Flipper could use one of her own small paintbrushes without disaster, and she did so for the better part of an hour. Then she got her fill of what really is a boring grown up job, put her paintbrush in the sink, and drifted away. My new resolution/intention? To remember this and keep it up.

Beyond Chicken Tenders and Fries...

2009-01-02T05:18:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas holidays, my mother, sister, Flipper and me traveled to Old Salem for the afternoon. It was heaven; we love historical things like this and Old Salem has been beautifully preserved. Flipper, while not as enraptured with root cellars as the rest of us were, has been on enough of these little jaunts to stand silently by while the costumed informers do their informational spiel.

As it grew darker and colder, we made our way to the tavern for dinner. (HINT: make a reservation for this. We called from a cell an hour before and there was a crowd at the door before they opened at 5 that we were able to bypass). Anyway, I didn't have particularly high hopes for the dining experience, praying, I think, that it WOULDN'T be authentic. I feared options like salt pork and beans. Blessedly, it wasn't. The food was really good, a nice, creative menu with, indeed, "something for everyone." Annoyingly, however, there were no options for children beyond the obligatory "chicken tenders and fries," and here is where my rant begins.

Why, pray tell, do good restaurants, or any restaurant, really, have such a hard time providing tasty options for children? I won't even touch the nutritional aspect of almost any kid-menu; that is another post in itself. No vegetables. No flavor. Just the same boring standards no matter where you eat: macaroni and cheese. Hamburger. Chicken. Grilled cheese. All with fries. All junk food. All bad for you. And all devoid of any of the flavor and creativity of the regular menu items. This drives me crazy, not to mention to assumption that my child won't eat any food but something lifted directly off a fast-food drive-through board.

Very rarely can we buy a half portion of an entree, even though that food is so much better than the ever-present and excruciatingly boring chicken and fires. I cannot tell you how many really good, nice, upscale restaurants I have been to where the host's first words are, "We don't have a children's menu." In other words, go away and take your little chicken-tender eating kid with you. Now, why is this? Is this really all parents want their children to eat, food that is not only boring, but not that great for you either? Food that is really just one or two colors, those colors being beige and white? What has happened to kids and food? People think Flipper is a great eater, and in some ways she is: below is a picture of her after devouring an entire seaweed salad from Mt. Fuji, in Durham. Bear in mind, however, that this is a child that will not eat pb&j, or almost any sandwich, really, or pancakes, waffles, or...chicken tenders. She WILL eat fries.

But it isn't some magic trick that permits us to eat out with her anywhere, in places that often lack a children's menu, like Lantern in Chapel Hill, or Piedmont in Durham. And so, free of charge, here's my little trick: Take them hungry. No milk, no juice, no crackers. Just a pen and the back of a checkbook for occupation. No toys, no books. Just some adult conversation that doesn't revolve around them. Now, this takes practice. But they'll get it one day, and you'll be glad. Very glad.

But do go to Old Salem and eat at the Tavern. Ask Flipper: her Thai short ribs were fantastic, according to her and my mother, the other rib-lover in the family. Why would anyone choose fried chicken chunks over that?!?

Slow and Steady

2008-12-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

How was your Christmas?
By this time of the year, this is the question my friends and I ask each other, and, thankfully, the answer is almost always positive. Great! Fun! Exciting! Slow! Slow?? Well, yes. At least in my house. Many times I stare at Flipper, wonderingly, at this little person, an individual in her own right. And I think, who are you? Christmas morning raised this question yet again, and I'll tell you why. Picture dawn creeping across the land, as thousands of children leap out of bed, rush pell-mell to the living room, and fall upon their presents like a horde of deranged puppies. Pretty typical, right? Exciting, fun, all that good old Christmas stuff...but not slow. Not even close. Now come to my house: Sister and I have been up for some time, she drinking coffee, me making a coffeecake that required yeast, which makes me quite nervous. At 7 a.m., the grandparents arrive, and we wait. And wait. By 7:45, my father could bear it no longer, and wanted to start making noise to wake Flipper up, "get things going" in his words. Since I never, unless I absolutely have to, wake up any sleeping child, I tried to urge patience. My pleas fell on deaf ears, and so at 8 a.m., I urged her to consciousness. Slowly, she got out of bed, and slowly, she came downstairs. She silently knelt by the fire, gazed at the empty plate that held fruitcake and carrots the evening before, and then slowly dipped into her stocking. Stockings are a big deal in my family: many small treasures, carefully selected over the course of an entire year, presents both practical and frivolous must be carefully removed, exclaimed, and passed around. It took her an hour to go through hers. A new pair of tights required a change out of pyjamas and to get dressed in a skirt that would show the new tights to perfection. Back downstairs. By now, the rest of us had long finished with ours, and were watching her slowly examine a tooth fairy box, a cupcake-shaped container of lip gloss...it was edging past 9 a.m., and those of us that had been up since the crack of dawn, which is to say everyone but Flipper, were getting peckish. Almost jokingly I said, "Why don't we take a break to eat and then come back to the presents?" Much to our surprise, she willingly agreed. Present-opening was suspended, and we ate a slow, leisurely meal, then returned, moving as if underwater, to the tree. Sister and I exchanged glances. Who are you? This thought went through our minds again as she carefully, slowly, thoughtfully unwrapped each gift, examined it closely, played with it or arranged it somewhere. Doll clothes had to go on the doll that minute, not later. Books must be paged through at the moment, not at bedtime. And so it went. It took more than an hour. But there was something so sweet, so innocent, and yet so strangely adult-like in her desire to savor every moment, that the build-up and the hype of Christmas morning wasn't, for Flipper, to be cast aside in a hastily unwrapped pile of paper and ribbon, and new toys dropped where they were unwrapped so the next could be grabbed and torn open as well. And so our Christmas was slow, very slow. And even I, one of the most impatient people you'll ever meet, wouldn't change a thing. It was perfect.

Tradition, tradition!

2008-12-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

I bought some candy canes (all-natural, of course) to give to the high school students on the last day of school before break. I decided to put little tags on them with their name, and some sort of unoffensive, non-denominational cheerful message. So I crawled into the storage space under the stairs and dragged out what I refer to as the Christmas box. It is pretty unassuming: plain clear plastic, lid long gone, and, occasionally, quite dangerous if you snag your hand against any of the jagged broken edges. It holds random-very random-odds and ends and bits and pieces of Christmas-y wrapping things. Tags, ribbon, stretchy gold cord, tape, etc. It was my grandmother's, and I got it when she died, along with so many light bulbs that I am just now coming to the end of them. And she died almost 5 years ago. She was a grand lady, a lawyer that practiced until she was in her late 80's. A working mother, well, stepmother, really, way before everyone went back to work.
I thought of her recently, now that my sister is home for this Christmas, and we are slowly establishing traditions of our own. It is Christmas, not Thanksgiving, that makes me feel lucky, and for one reason only: mine is a family that lacks drama. Mine was a childhood that was happy. For us, the holidays were fun. Not crazy, overstimulated fun, not insanely extravagant presents that buried the bottom half of the tree, but plain fun. Simple things. The same things in our stockings (always a box of thank notes). And so on.
We usually stayed here for Christmas, and she remained in her beloved city of birth, Atlanta. But every year, without fail, a package would arrive about a week before Christmas day. Out would come 10 presents-all wrapped in white tissue paper with her shaky lettering in bright red: To Open 5 Days Before Christmas. To Open 4 Days Before Christmas...well, you get the picture. How we loved this!! They would go under our own little trees in our room, and contain the same things, year after year. An ornament. A book. Candy. And now, this year, Flipper will get her own little pile of presents. Indulgent, I know. Unnecessary; I know this too. But I also know that as long as traditions, big or small, live on, so do the people that started them. So thanks, Grandmargaret. And now, I need to go buy some plain white wrapping paper. And a red pen.

Maybe, Flipper, there is a Santa Claus...

2008-12-17T08:11:00.000-08:00

Straight from Gone With The Wind is this wonderful quote: "eavesdroppers often hear highly instructive things"-with the unwritten "about themselves" directly following this. And in my house, while the Christmas spirit that has surrounded us, Flipper isn't quite as eager to swallow the whole Santa Claus thing hook, line and sinker like she did last year. This morning, while I was racing about, getting ready to go to work, I heard her ask my mother if "Santa Claus was really real." Blessedly, Smokey deftly deflected this, asking her what she thought, and even though I was out of sight, I could still see the wheels furiously churning in her little brain. I could feel her desire for it to be true, very true, battling it out with the other part of her, the very, very literal-mindedness that will probably make a wonderful, (yet maddening), scientist one day. She will be, I am convinced, EXACTLY like my own father, a true scientist in every sense. This is the man that leaned over during Star Wars to whisper, "Remember girls, there's no sound in space." (OUCH!!)
Anyway, my mom answered her best, "It's a mystery." A non-answer, really, but one that has satisfied her (for now). As much as I want her to hold on to all forms of fantasy and magical beliefs, I have to admit that the whole Santa-thing makes me feel very conflicted. I used to believe, strongly, that parents that did not support a belief in Santa Claus (and fairies, and gnomes and so on) were cruelly, Scrooge-ily robbing their kids of something important.
But then I began to read a few personal essays online, opinions that contradicted my point of view, and I started to see it in a different light. Some people felt that as an adult you were lying directly to your children, and therefore it was not just wrong from an ethical perspective, but that it was potentially trust-destroying, and others felt that their children should, indeed, know that it was their love and hard work that makes piles of presents appear Christmas morning, not some old guy with a beard. So I totally get-and respect-these beliefs, much more than I would have BEFORE I had Flipper. Funny how a world that was once so very black-and-white is now many, many shades of gray. Not that this solves MY dilemma: whether or not to directly answer her questions about Santa, or continue to deflect, distract, deny. A technique that works quite well for almost any touchy parenting situation, as a matter of fact. So we'll see how all of this plays out: I don't think I can lie to her face, but I do know that I can easily (almost TOO easily) cloud and confuse her with half-truths, questions, and non-answers.
I do know this: Christmas in my family is, thankfully, fun. No family fights, no drama, no frantic racing from place to place, no "taking turns" with in-laws, no bad food, no nothing but fun. And THAT is what she will carry from one year to the next, not (I hope) questions about what is real and what is not. Flipper is planning to dictate a thank-you note for Santa this year, thanking him for last year's presents. So I guess he's real enough, after all. And that is enough for me.

Bye, Bye Baby

2008-12-10T02:19:00.000-08:00

I have many potential qualifiers for an imaginary contest entitled "Most Bittersweet Parental Memory of Vanishing Childhood." Many. Teeth coming in, teeth going out. Food icky and mushy, food crunchy and chunky. Transition after transition after transition. It is what it's all about, it is not? But two thing about this inevitable process continue to be hard to comes to terms with (at least for me); no one else seems to be inwardly suffering as much as I am!!
One is that the very things I want to hold onto, she wants to be shed of. Like teeth. I dread the gap-toothed smile, even as she continues to insist that, "all my teeth are loose!" No, they're not. "YES THEY ARE!!!" I cannot help but flash-forward 10.5 years, when she races out of the house, after carefully pilfering the car keys...oh, wait. That was ME. But race she will, eager to bolt our Required Evening Family-Time Meal Together and meet her friends, whom will, inevitably, become increasingly important to her. And my importance will imperceptibly slip into the back seat of her life. She already plans-as much as a five year old can-what to wear to school that is the same as one of her friends. "Alison and I are BOTH going to wear our WHITE TIGHTS tomorrow!!" What five year-old DOES this? And, perhaps more importantly, WHY?!?!? Note that I released my control-freak tendencies regarding her clothes many, many moons ago. I deserve a medal for this, it was so hard to do.
So many of these transitions don't make me sad, but one has happened recently, and it isn't so much WHAT has been outgrown, but the fact that I didn't really notice. It just happened. Peaceful mornings at our house (I am typing this a 5 a.m., which should give you some idea of how peaceful it is) are rent apart by the plaintive cries of "MAMA!!! I WANT YOU!!!" I head upstairs, we cuddle, she tries to come to terms with being awake, I try to quell my early-morning, hyper-caffeinated self long enough to enjoy a Tender Moment...and for years, years, I tell you, I would pick her up, carry her back downstairs to my favorite chair, and she would sit on my lap, head tucked under my chin. I loved this. It was like having a talking, no-diaper baby. Heaven, really. But it occurred to me recently that now she just...gets out of bed. Goes to get dressed. All. By. Herself. One more chapter closed...and I barely noticed. Didn't give it a second thought, until she tried to curl up on my lap a few days ago...and didn't fit. My heart gave a little drop as I recognized what has become a familiar feeling: it's over. And then, yesterday, she fell off a metal stool, screamed in agony, and ran to be picked up, and I had a fleeting moment of relief: not quite. And I was grateful.

Whistling While You Work...

2008-12-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

My car, my house-my very world sounds as though it has been invaded by canaries. It is maddening. And I just don't have the heart to send that canary back down in the mines...since it is a human canary, appearing in the form of Flipper-The Amazing Whistling 5 Year-Old. It sticks in my craw-not to mention my ears-that she can whistle, and does so at every single opportunity that her mouth is not otherwise engaged in TALKING and EATING.

Why does it irk me that Flipper spends almost every waking moment warbling like a bird? Well, because her ascension to the ranks of a real, honest-to-gosh whistler in my family leaves ME as the ONLY non-whistler in the family!!! I can't whistle. I tried for years. It eludes me. Yelling at my dogs works just fine. And, how kind of Flipper, she likes to point out my inadequacy as a whistler every chance she gets.

"Are you sad that you can't whistle like me, Mommy? Maybe you'll be able to when you're OLDER. Me, Aunt Kathryn, Daddy, Grampy and Smokey can all whistle. Did you know you're the only one in our WHOLE FAMILY that can't? Did you know that?"

And so on. And on, and on and on. It is excruciating. Almost as excruciating as the past 5 months, as I experienced her "learning curve" of whistling. This in an area where I admire her and also look at her as an utter stranger. She has an incredible ability to really, really work at something over and over again until she gets it. And ability I lack, by the way. I want to be the instant expert at something, or else I want to quit. Lame, I know. Really lame. But, them's the breaks. But Flipper will set her mind on something, and then go for it. I admire this quality immensely, even though I don't share it (unfortunately). And so all summer long, she practiced. And practiced. Pursed lips, fat cheeks, endless puffs of air. Tiny squeaks, little trills. She's driving me crazy!! And now 5 months later, she has progressed beyond tiny squeaks to small bars of music, tuneless bars, mind you, but music just the same. And so, as maddening as it is, it is music to my ears.

The Balance Between Giving and Getting

2008-11-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Flipper became an unwitting participant-as she is so many things-Buy Nothing Day, also known as Black Friday. Or, My Personal Version Of Hell. I was beyond appalled to read about the poor man that was killed when he unwittingly and inadvertently UNLOCKED the doors to a Wal-Mart at 5 a.m., only to be rewarded for his efforts to let consumers rush madly in to buy something that they probably don't need, by dying. Killed. Trampled to death. His poor family. I can't wrap my brain around what it is about our culture that has created some sort of sporting even out of shopping. Why would anyone get out of bed at 4:30 in order to do what, get ten bucks off some frightful toy like "Tickle Me Elmo", a toy that has created more maddened parents that almost any I can think of. And yet...I love Christmas. I love to think about what to get for Flipper (and other family members), make a list, check it MORE than twice, and then slowly start checking things off the list as I assign things to other family members, and make/buy things myself for her.
I want, really want, to provide not necessarily a HUGE Christmas, but a good one. A magical one for the child that still believes in Santa Claus. I have several books on non-consumerism parenting, such as "Living Simply with Children", and I pull it out every year around this time, hopeful that I will be inspired to do more and buy less. But who has the time, not to mention the creative energy to MAKE every present?? Not me, no matter how well-intentioned and low-impact and back-to-the-land I want to be. Luckily, my family had good Christmases. Free from drunken brawls, ugly fighting, any kind of drama. And so like almost all things from childhood, this pattern continues. I-and Flipper-are extraordinarily fortunate in this regard.
And so, like parents everywhere, I spend a fair amount of time debating the "balance"-how to keep things special without hideous plastic toys, how to make Christmas meaningful when there is no religion attached to it in my family, how to promote giving, to a child that still has a hard time grasping why people have to work to provide for themselves and their families, let alone the concept that some people truly have nothing. And every year, some things will be wildly successful, some traditions will fall by the wayside, there will be some tears, and lots of joy. But there won't be a mad rush to stores, and there won't be anything that laughs on it's own under the tree.

Dr. Freud, I presume?

2008-11-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

One of my father's friends has a firm belief that regardless of whatever job you end up with, you never DON'T use your education. I am here to state that this belief is proven true almost daily in my life, even though the only time I ever used that piddly little Bachelor's degree in psychology for a REAL job was right out of college at a Dickensian-like group home for abused and neglected boys in south Georgia. I lasted...oh, 3 months or so, before I quit. My boyfriend at the time took me to Disney World to Forget. Then I became a cocktail waitress at a huge beach bar, making tons of money and having a much, much better time. I never again attempted to Help People with that degree.

But now, life with Flipper has reignited some latent Ms. Freud in me, and the results are, predictably, incredibly amusing. (At least to me!) Picture this little scenario:
Flipper, at home, having a pretty miserable, difficult, whiny afternoon. Little things quickly go from a tiny hole in one of the ten million pairs of stockings that she owns to a complete and utter mental collapse, replete with sobs and tears and much flailing of tiny limbs. Me, also at home, trying hard not to laugh, because it never ceases to amuse me to watch her have some sort of stereotypical "tantrum", which she almost never did as a toddler. Perhaps she is making up for lost time.

At any rate, I remain in my chair, steepling my fingers in front of my face, more in an attempt to hide a potential outburst of laughter than appear Deep and Thoughtful and Contemplative, although this is a beneficial side effect of said finger-positioning. My voice takes on the gentle, somewhat-distant tone of an old-school shrink. Envision me puffing some noxious pipe at the same time. "Please go upstairs and put on a long-sleeved shirt so we can leave. You cannot wear that tank top outside because it is too cold." (Repeat 10 times). Finally, young child sits up and screams, "AND WHAT IF I REFUSE?!?!?!?"
Thoughtful nodding from parent-therapist as wheels churn behind blank face. What to do, what to do...AHA!! Just employ an old, classic shrink-trick: turn the question back around to the asker!! "What do you think will happen if you refuse?" "I DON'T CARE!!!!" But, blessedly, the screaming and flailing has lessened. Flipper pops up. "If I refuse then you can take away my clothes." Great. Just what I want to do, take away CLOTHES when it is freezing outside. Please let me manipulate this to my advantage so I can get back to my magazine!! "You will be sad and hungry if we don't head to the restaurant soon. Please PUT SOME WARM CLOTHES ON!!!! Much relief, the tried-and-true method of calmspeak and edging-into-serious-anger works yet again. Freud would be proud. So, kids, stay in school. You never know HOW that degree will come in useful.

Just do it already!!

2008-11-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

Many things make me crazy, and/or fill me with rage. And today at the grocery store, I was simultaneously almost pushed to create a scene and suddenly filled with a mixture of old, leftover-from-childhood shame. I mean, how often does that happen??
There was a line. I was, like everyone else in the line, in a hurry. Wait, I should amend that to say everyone but the woman at the front was in a hurry. She wasn't in a hurry at all!! And then she committed what has become, over time, an almost unpardonable sin in my eyes: even with a bunch of people behind her, she didn't bag her own groceries. Instead, she stood there while the harried cashier rang her up, collected the money, made change, and then stood passively even longer while all of her items were put in bags and then into her cart. Unfortunately, she seemed to be impervious to the laser death-rays I was shooting at her with my eyes. Why was this a big deal to me? Beyond the whole just-do-it-yourself attitude I have towards almost anything, it is what I perceive as some weird snobbery about her doing something she considered beneath her, something the cashier should do instead of her. I remembered, though, very vividly, my mother bagging her own groceries at the A&P in Lakewood and the head-hanging shame my sister and I felt while we tried to push her out of the way, (ineffective) and hissed "Stop doing that" at the same time. Note: this was also highly ineffective. Instead, it had the even MORE humiliating effect of my mother announcing quite loudly, "WHY NO, I WON'T STOP! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BAGGING YOUR OWN GROCERIES. IF EVERYONE (glance at other customers) DID IT WE COULD ALL GET OUT OF HERE FASTER!! I mean, can you imagine?? Out we would slink, or race to the massive bank of gum and toy dispensers to wait for her to approach, cart piled high with her personally-bagged groceries. But why did we feel that way? This is what I cannot figure out. Where did that embarrassment come from? Was it just because she was doing something no on else did? Was she committing the unpardonable sin of parents everywhere of NOT blending into every piece of woodwork for miles around and years on end? Did we think she was "better" than that? Memory, which often serves me well, fails in this case. But I do know this: I would rather bag my own groceries than stand there like some sort of lady-of-the-manor, inconveniencing everyone else and making everyone wait when I am, luckily, able to do it. So far, Flipper thinks most people bag their own, and in some of the small, local places we shop like Weaver Street Market and Trader Joe's, many people bag their own groceries. I hope she never thinks anything is below her, and yet I hope she has high aspirations, achieves lofty dreams without considering herself "above" or "below" any job, indeed, any person. So far, I can report that things seem to be moving towards that end: her favorite household chore is not unpacking the groceries, not feeding the dogs, but...scrubbing out the toilets and washing the sinks and mirrors. She thinks it is fun. I know that this, too, like anything that actually helps me, will gradually fade, perhaps to be replaced with a sullen, hostile teen-ager that likes to take and take and thinks EVERYTHING is beneath her, but so far...so good. And Mom, you'll be glad to know that I ALWAYS bag my own groceries. You were right after all!!

Hope.

2008-11-05T07:53:00.001-08:00

Last week I headed to Carrboro Town Hall to cast my (early) vote, and was eager to take Flipper along for a lesson in her (future) civic duty. Perhaps foolishly, I thought she would be THRILLED to go along with me to engage in something so very, very grown-up. HOWEVER...I was wrong. After my admittedly fumbling attempt to explain what a president does, let alone what "voting" is, she denied me by stating, "It doesn't sound like fun." So...I left her at Weaver Street with my sister. And I went of to perform my civic duty all by myself. As with almost every decision I make, I had multiple second thoughts: should I have made her go, how can I make it "fun", should it even BE fun?!? Then I stopped thinking about it, left her with her adored and beloved aunt, and went off to the blessedly empty polls on my own. On Election Night I went to a friend's house for a small party she was having, and it was exciting to watch things start to happen. I went to bed at 9, and raced outside at 5:45 to get the paper, the front page of which I will save. And here is why: Flipper, at just 5, is growing up in a world vastly different from the one I did, even though she and I are in my hometown, only ten minutes from the house I grew up in.
I never thought I would see anyone other than a old, rich, white man be our president. I thought I might, just might see a woman president, but I would be very old before that day came around. And now it has happened. And I wonder, what incredible social and historical event will she see one day? Because she undoubtedly will. I hope I am alive to see it, whatever it is, with her. But this event, this historical moment, will not feel that way to her. I don't think she can imagine a world where the color of your skin-or the pinkness or blueness of your baby blanket-actually matters. Her world will have different barriers to overcome, different issues to address. But the issues that have dogged our country for so long have been put to rest, although they will be replaced by others.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how heartening it is to work in the school where I do, to be surrounded by so many great students and teachers. Their passion and involvement in this election has been incredible to witness from my desk in the administration office; the stickers, the t-shirts, the discussions, the trip to see Sarah Palin at Elon. The central hall this morning was filled with incredible energy, hugs, high-fives, loud and joyful sounds. ALL FROM PEOPLE TOO YOUNG TO VOTE. But not too young to care, very much, what happens to their world. And this is what I hope for Flipper, that no matter how great the temptation to become cynical, bitter, jaded on our country and how it runs, that she will always, always care.

Fall, the new social season

2008-10-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

When, magically, the happy day arrives in which I made In Charge Of The World, my first act will be to ban all petting zoos, and THEN I will move onto the tough stuff: redistribution of not wealth (I'll leave that to Obama) but something equally (more?) important: the redistribution of my calendar. Or, should I say, our calendar, since Flipper's social life is remarkable humming with activity for a 5 year old. What kills me is this: we go weeks-nay, MONTHS with nothing to do, empty spaces on week-ends to fill, no volunteer responsibilities gobbling up my spare time like a fois gras goose, and then we are swamped. Drowning. Racing frantically from sun-up 'til sundown with nary a moment to think, let alone breathe, or feel "balanced," a term that, when applied to the circus juggling act that is parenting, creates much rage in me. Much like "sleep when the baby sleeps."
So I want to create some sort of system whereby all of our engagements, trips, playdates, birthday parties...ALL of these fun and time-eating events are spread judiciously throughout the entire year, thereby creating ONE fun event every week-end, as opposed to four on one day, then nothing for weeks on end.
What makes fall so busy? Why is this season of beginning hibernation one of serious social engagement? I can;t figure it out. And, while pondering that incredibly important question, answer me this: when did Halloween become such a real holiday, one that involves yard decorations, Christmas tree lights that are not, in fact, for trees at all, but for fall porches. When did this happen? And can I make it go back to the Halloween of my youth, where we made some sort of costume out of whatever was on hand and traipsed through the neighborhood (your own, not someone else's) and that was it? But a really GOOD it.

Little Chips

2008-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday from 1 until 3 in the afternoon, I meet with the other members of the holiday fair committee, to discuss (endlessly) our ideas, endeavors and follow-up information for out school's largest fund raiser. 4 of the 7 members have children in the same class, and so they all play-and bicker-while we meet. Yesterday, due to my brilliant foresight and planning, I brought a ton of food with me, never thinking in a million years that they would eat it all...but they did. And it kept them in a good mood, and required little to no interference from us, which is how it should be. So I will offer a little nugget from yesterday's meeting that amused me to no end. Really, it doesn't take much!

After the kids had grown suspiciously silent, (when does "silent" go from :Thank God s/he is asleep to Oh no, what is s/he breaking now?) I glanced at a large pile of logs on the ground, with Flipper and one of her friends pretending to be asleep on top of them. The boys came over and "helped" them get up, and then they all ran and hid. They were obviously engaging in some sort of elaborate imaginary script, and it was fascinating to watch. It was like watching a snippet of a foreign film with no subtitles; no real idea of what is going on, but strangely mesmerizing at the same time. At home, I casually asked Flipper what they were doing. "Oh, we were just playing Puppies and Chips." Puppies and Chips?!?!? What kind of "game" is that?!?! Well, apparently it is a "game"-and I use that word loosely, where some of the kids are puppies, and some are chips. The "chips" are, apparently, the bad guys, which must be disposed off by some sort of violent means, like poking with sticks. Or shooting. All this from kids that don't watch television of movies. Which means they missed the REAL Chips...these guys:

Anyone else remember this television gem? My sister and I loved it. It was right up there with Emergency and Little House on the Prairie. Is it just my imagination or do they really not make them like they used to? Anyway, I was utterly entranced with Flipper's "game." It is astonishing to me to observe them and watch how they enact something that they have no visual or written script to follow, that all of this came out of their heads,and they all-all 5 of them-did so harmoniously and happily. But...I STILL don't know why they were sleeping on the logs. Perhaps, like so much, it is better that way!

Hope, one teen-ager at a time

2008-10-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Stock market and financial new non-withstanding, I have found myself becoming increasingly hopeful over the past few weeks, for several different reasons. The main one is that I have a new job, as the high school secretary/office person at my daughter's school. When I was, as they say, "with child" I feared and resisted accepting the reality that one day my little clump of rapidly-dividing cells would morph into not just a screaming baby, but a screaming teen-ager as well. The difference? The teen-ager would be screaming AT ME, not just because s/he was hungry or tired or wet. The thought of parenting a teen-ager terrified me. Mostly because I was pretty awful as teen-agers go, angry at the world, fighting with my parents non-stop, failing school, running away...and on and on.
But now I work with teen-agers daily, and although my role is pretty limited to taking attendance and confiscating cell phones, I CAN say that most of my fear is waning. They are great. I mean REALLY great. Creative, musical, involved, politically active and astute, kind to each other, respectful of the teachers (at least in class) and so on. I am so, so impressed. You must bear in mind-as I do- that the school is a small private one, and I have no idea what it would be like at a huge high school of 2000 students. But I think I would, and could, find the same kids there, passionate, kind, outgoing, talented, creative kids. I don't know that kids today are better or worse than we were, or our parents were, and so on. I do know that a part of me actually looks forward to the political debates at the dinner table, the repetitive chords from whatever instrument she'll be playing (music participation here is non-optional) and seeing-breathing-living with a person that is changing every day into someone unafraid of the future. And that will make two of us. So, if you think today's kids are awful, rude, clueless wannabe adults...find a way to be around some. You might be pleasantly, pleasantly surprised.
The OTHER are in which I am hopeful is the upcoming election. No matter which party you hope to see magically solve our financial crisis, it occurred to me the other day that in a few weeks, my daughter will see history made, although she will be completely unaware of it. And when she grows up, she'll read about it or learn about it in school, and think, What's the big deal about color or gender or name or background? And THAT makes me very, very hopeful indeed.

Saved! By a little perspective...

2008-10-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

I often feel like Margaret Mead, observing a culture utterly unlike my own. Except I am not in Samoa, and the observee is my own child. She loves all things girly, she loves hair (both her own and anyone else's), she loves anything that seems grown-up and adult and female. She still loves to dress up, squeezing herself into her ballet costume from 2 years ago and shoehorning her feet into her red glitter shoes that are two sizes too small, hobbling around the house for a few minutes, and then tearing them off.

She has this fascination with make up, even though I don't wear any. Where does this COME from?? Remember, ladies and gentlemen, this is a child with NO television, she has never seen a Disney movie (thank god), we have no Barbies, no Slutz dolls, no play make up or curling irons or, well, anything that might be girly and plastic and fun. None of it darkens our doorstep. Right now she has a fascination with what she calls "showing up lipstick" which means that with color, not the regular old boring Chapstik that we use daily. Two night ago I was on the phone with my sister, Flipper's adored "Aunt Kafrin," and listening to a play-by-play of wildlife sightings near the Tetons. Our conversation went like this:

Kathryn: "WAIT!! I SEE A MOOSE! No, I mean an elk. WAIT!! It really IS a moose!! Let me pull over...OK! I got it! Where's Flipper?"

Me: "Oh, I don't know, somewhere around here. What do you see now?"

Kathryn: "WAIT!! A whole herd of BISON!! They're running..I didn't know they could run!!"

ME: "All animals can run. I think."

Flipper: "Mommeeee..." (Annoying whine that means she has done something she knows she shouldn't but can't hide/fix it on her own and so reluctantly comes to me)

Me: "What on earth is on your mouth?!?!?"

Kathryn: "What is it? WAIT! Another elk!!

Flipper: "It's magic marker, but it is the washing off kind but I can't wash it off!!"

Me: "FLIPPER'S MOUTH IS COLORED WITH PERMANENT MARKER!!" (a hideous, frightful purply-pink)

Kathryn: "Oh, it's not that big of a deal...WAIT!! Where's my camera?"

Me: "It IS a big deal!! It looks terrible, what if it doesn't come off, why would she do something like this? She knows she's not supposed to...

Kathryn: "Oh, it is just one of those things kids do!! Remember when we emptied our beanbags onto the living room floor?"

Me: silence

And with that little reminder, Flipper was saved. This incident remains in the forefront of our brains, because it was one of the rare times our mom really came close to losing it/killing us. My parents are uncommonly good at gift-giving, and that Christmas my father pulled down the attic stairs and two large, lime-green vinyl beanbags came tumbling down. We were thrilled. I mean REALLY thrilled. It felt like such a grown-up present, a piece of furniture, if you will, and when you are 7 or 8, a beanbag definitely counts as "furniture." We loved these things, so much so that they went on long road trips with us; we sat on them in the back of our huge Dodge van (the dog got the middle seat). Oh, the days before seat belts...
At any rate, on one nice day, my mother left us alone to go somewhere-I think to play tennis, and made the fatal mistake of coming home early. Why fatal? Because we found out that beanbags are filled with about ten jillion teeny Styrofoam beads, and our bags together created a sea of beads about 8 inches thick in the living room. We were giddy with delight, kicking up huge sprays of the tiny beads, and we were just settling down to figure out the best way to get them BACK into the zippered opening, one that probably should have been made childproof, when the door opened, and in she came, into a previously neat and tidy living room that was now covered with Styrofoam. And staticky Styrofoam at that-it clung defiantly to every surface, to every piece of furniture, to our hands, to the dustpan...neither one of us can remember how long it took to put them all back...but I do know that we never did it again. It was, indeed, one of those things kids do. Flipper will undoubtedly do things just like this, although I think the lack of a partner in crime might make her crimes fall more into the "misdemeanor" category instead of our more-frequent "felonies." And upon remembering, I left Kathryn to her attempts to chase down a rumored bear eating an elk carcass, and helped Flipper wash it off. Most of it.

The Lonely Only. (Sometimes)

2008-10-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, Flipper's only-child status has been causing me a bit of angst, angst that until now has not reared it's unattractive head. Usually, I love that she is an only child, because it opens more doors to us than would normally be open. Private school, travel to Hawaii, a close relationship with me and her father...all of these are benefits. She competes only with the dogs for time and attention. We recently spent the afternoon with an old friend of mine and her two children, and to see how easy it is for Flipper to make friends, to adapt to them and play easily with children that were strangers to her, well, all I can say is, my sister and I were NEVER that nice to "outsiders." When she was born I felt very, very complete. You know, "all done!" But now that she is 5, it is harder. She is lonely (and bored) almost every afternoon, and I am much more interested in NOT going anywhere after school (and my job) are through at 1:00. The fairy house, the dollhouse, the blocks, the Legos...all the toys that kept my sister and me occupied for hours on end sit, unused, unless a friend comes over. I have long maintained a "no playing" policy with Flipper, since, frankly, I find playing with toys meant for a 5 year old boring, and one round of Candyland is enough to make me want to burn the entire set when she isn't looking while poking my eyes out with a hot poker.
Solutions to this elude me...afterschool programs? Sports? She already takes gymnastics once a week, which is about all I am willing and able to pay for. Buy more things? Break my "no media" policy-even though she goes to a Waldorf school? Schedule playdates on a regular basis, even though I would then have to keep a neater, less messy house than I normally do, not to mention the fact that the older our children get, the less time we seem to have to hang out at another's house or playground for hours on end. These are the things that keep me up at night. And so now I understand why my mother had the two of us in quick succession: 20 months apart. When Flipper was exactly 11 months old I remember thinking, Wow, she got pregnant again RIGHT NOW. The second thought was, HOW???!!!??
Prior to this, I scoffed at the label "the lonely onlys", as though second children are here only to serve as playmates for the oldest, but when I see her at loose ends, and remember how much fun my sister and I had, I start to wonder how our lives would be different. This is one of those dilemmas that may not have a solution, or an answer. It may simply be. Be unsolvable, be just the way things are, unless I find a way to pretend to be 5 again, which holds little appeal. And is this my job? To find ways to keep my child happy and occupied all-or most-of the time? I am taking a combination of a "wait and see" approach and taking some steps to make something happen at the same time. But I also know that, for both of us (but especially her) this is just the way it is, the way it will always be. And like so much of parenting, of mothering...it makes me happy and sad, all wrapped up in one big guilty package. So, I'll do what I do best: focus on the positive: her ability to make friends and "fit in" so easily, travel, school, lots of love and attention and hope with all my heart that it is enough, that it will always be enough.

Sick...but not really.

2008-09-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Flipper is...not sick and not well. The fine line dividing the two-and consequently, when to send or not send to school, is much blurrier than I ever thought it would be, back in those carefree, BC (before child) times. I thought it would be easy: you are so sick that you should, indeed you MUST stay home from school, and you are completely well and therefore leaping out of bed, ready to race off to the halls of higher learning. How did things get so confused??

Even the parameters of what I thought defined "sick" and"well" seem so, so NEBULOUS. What if there is a fever one day but not the following morning? What if you have a puker...but one that became a puker after a revolting amount of State Fair junk food? Actually, I think that ANYONE that eats a deep-fried Twinkie deserves to throw up! What if they are just plain tired? Is it better to have them buck up and head to school, or actually get some good rest? I am not the only mother who has given her under-the-weather child some Motrin and shunted her off to school. So far, this hasn't backfired on me, meaning that she had not gotten progressively sicker and required a pick-up, and the other parents remained oblivious, thereby letting me escape with my life. The emphasis there is on the words "so far."

This is hard when you work, and when you need to be at your job, and hold your breath (as I am doing today) thinking Only today and tomorrow...then you can be sick all week-end if you need to be! And, were she REALLY sick, she would be at home, alternately whining and sleeping and begging for Popsicles. When I was in elementary school, we had a full-blown school infirmary with a desk and a bed or two, where the sick one could lie quietly until a parent was tracked down and came to bear them away. In the age of cell phones and instant availability, I think the whole "school nurse" thing has fallen by the wayside. I can't decide if that is good or bad. If I were sick the only place I would ever want to be was home with my mother, and yet surely many kids grew up staying at school for some time until a parent was reached. Were people more or less forgiving then about sending borderline-sick kids to school? Was it easier when more mothers stayed at home? Or does having a sick child always, always just plain suck?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-09-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Usually, my parenting days vacillate wildly between these two voices, "WOW! You sure are good at this!!" and "WOW!! You sure are terrible at this; who let you have a baby, anyway?" They are like my own little shoulder-riding devil/angels. Every now and then, though, I have one of those cosmic, earth-shaking, path-altering A-HA moments, where something happens that is impossible to ignore or discount, and it totally changes the way I have been doing something, or communicating with Flipper, or just parenting in general.

I spent last week-end up in Stokes County, in Pinnacle, NC, (near Pilot Mountain) at an old college friend's lake and mountain house. Another friend was there, one with teen-agers. She teaches parenting classes, focusing on positive discipline and empowerment of children and young adults to find their way, and make choices, and I have always been fascinated with how she communicated with her daughters.

I have always thought of Flipper as a good kid-which she is-in part because she is really pretty obedient. Ask, or tell- her what to do, and she will do it, usually with no questions asked. Sometimes I provide reasons, but often she just does whatever it is she needs to. Even at two or three, I rarely got the NO! that so many parents do. This has always not just made me happy, but evoked a fair amount of pride in me as well. See how easy-going and obedient my little girl is!
BUT---M and I were in the kitchen of the mountain cabin, and Flipper was finishing her breakfast of chicken soup. I asked her to look at me and then said, "Please put the bowl in the sink. Pick up your napkin and throw it away. Go brush your teeth, and then you are done." She began to execute my "requests" which are really orders-when my friend said, "She is at the age where you need to start empowering her to make her own decisions about what to do." I was at a loss, "But how? What do I say?"
"You ask her, 'what do you need to do now that you are done?' You need to give her the power to start making the right choices, because you sure don't want her taking orders from other people when she is a teen-ager or a grown- up. You want her to think for herself." People, I tell you, this was a big eye-opener for me. Mostly because I knew-and believe-in how very RIGHT she was, and also the inward gulp of: Now I have to change. I think the hardest part of things that happen to us like this is simply trying to remember to implement the new talk, the new plan, the new way of doing something. However, I am determined to try. Because I DON'T want the obedient little girl that grown up to be the passive teen-ager that just goes along with her friends, or is unable to decide things for herself because her inner voice has taken a backseat to my voice. Or the teen that grows up and enters a relationship where she cannot judge accurately for herself when a partner's voice and actions slide from "caring" to "controlling" because I have been a controlling voice for so long. M cautioned me that this does take a fair amount of work, especially during the teen years to keep being honest, really listen to your children, carefully weigh actions taken in regards to their inevitable transgressions, but I am really hoping to turn this corner-and remember to keep turning.

A Balancing Act. Kind of.

2008-09-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

I have come to hate and loathe the word "balance"-but only as it applies to any aspect of parenting. Perhaps it is because it is so annoyingly overused. Find a good balance between work and home, older and younger, husband and friends, sugar and salt...the exhortations and admonitions seem endless, and impossible. At least for me. Right now, even picking up the ten thousand books that are piled beside my bed requires more energy and attention than I have. It is the rain and gray skies, I tell you. I simply have NO energy, and am hoping for some crisp, cool fall days to get here ASAP.

But back to balancing...yesterday Flipper attended her first gymnastics class. I tend to shy away from any organized sports for little kids, for the most part. I just think they are too young, and in her case, she is already in school 5 days a week, which I think is plenty of excitement and stimulation, although I sense she would vehemently disagree with me. The truth is, she would probably be happy for every afternoon to be tightly packed with activities and other kids and teen-aged "teachers" to adore; it is ME that cannot wait to get home, walk the dogs and collapse in a chair with a magazine and a pile of laundry. When she was 3.5, we (she) took ballet, and it was precious, as only teeny tiny girls in pale pink can be. But she was really in it for the costume, and when the classes were over and the recital's flowers wilted, she never asked for another class. I cannot figure out where this gymnastics thing has come from. Balancing? It is her favorite new thing. She likes to walk on anything up high, the half-wall in our stairwell, the deck edging at the beach. Since any parenting nickname of mine will never be "Safety Mommy" I let her. Perhaps, however, better to let her hone her skills in a place with large thick mats on the floor.

Blessedly, there is a little gymnastics place less than 2 miles from our house, and so I took a deep breath and signed her up. She was slightly nervous yesterday, but I pushed her into the big warehouse-gym, and then fled. I was also a little surprised that the other mothers stayed, crammed in a small, overheated room. I wanted to shout at them, "HEY! Don't you get it?? Your kid is supervised; you're FREE!!!" (None seemed as excited as me). I came back an hour later and there she was, so happy and so excited. She wanted to know if she would be going there the next day, and I had to tell her no, it is only once a week. She was a little downcast at this news, and obviously doesn't think much of my attempts to perfectly balance her life-or, more accurately, her wants with my needs. I wonder if I spend too much time worrying about how to strike the "right" balance of up and down-time in her-our-life; I wonder if any of it will really matter years from now. Now she wants a springboard for Christmas. Better than a balance beam...I think, for now. Because I have figured out that this struggle never really ends, it is just replaced every year, or every few months, with something new to ponder, debate, decide. And so, for now, one little class a week. And no balance beams. Yet.

Mom or not, she's not speaking for me

2008-09-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

Our Mom2Mom editor-type-person, the other Sarah, asked if any of us would be interested in writing about Sarah Palin. Several if us said "yes"-me among them, and then, of course, I was beset by doubts. What to say, how to say it, what angle would I take? What perspective? I mean, it isn't as though she has ever said-or done politically-any single thing that I remotely agree with, since I harbor an old abiding love for Judy Blume and have real issues with people in positions of power (or even just some uptight parent) trying to ban books at local libraries a la Mrs. Palin.

What I find interesting is that other mothers are wowed by her, by the fact that she has 5 kids, (as though she is actually the one getting them all out the door in the morning, lunch boxes in hand, before heading to a job after frantically cleaning the house, doing tons of laundry, grocery shopping, then racing back home for hockey practice and then starting supper) that one of them has Down Syndrome, that her daughter is "with child" as they say politely, and I can't help but wonder why any of this makes her someone to admire, to "respect," to emulate. Because me? I can't really relate to a family with a combined salary of over 225,00 per year, and I can't help but think that any mother with a full-time job is, in fact, writing some pretty hefty checks for childcare. And a cleaning service. And someone to shop for her, pick the kids up and so on. How the fact that she calls herself "a hockey mom" makes her just like you and me. How irritatingly insulting to assume that I, or any voter, might swing for her based on just her gender and the fact that she is a mother. I mean, who cares? So she has 5 kids, so what? I don't CARE about her family, beyond the pity I feel for her poor daughter, used as some sort of photo op/symbol for her mother's rabid Right to Life position, a position she holds even in cases of rape, but NOT a position she holds if you happen to be a moose or an inmate on death row. Here's what I DO care about: someone who doesn't use their own personal vision of God as some sort of Santa Claus-list-maker of who is "naughty or nice", indeed, someone that might just skip services at a church where the preacher instructs that anyone opposed to Bush and his politics is going to hell, someone with a little check on reality when it comes to honest-to-gosh science, something I would expect from governor of a state that is rapidly melting, someone who doesn't need to kill animals to prove that she is just "one of the boys." Because we might both be mothers, but she sure doesn't speak for me. No one with her politics ever will.

I hate reverse sexism, because let's face it: were Alaska's governor a MAN with little experience, dogged by a string of ethics violations and a history of excessive fiscal spending with a teen-aged daughter that was apparently skipping the "abstinence only" class along with her I-don't-want-kids boyfriend, do you really think he would have even caught McCain's eye, let alone gotten a nod for VP? Of course not.

Please, not another story!!

2008-08-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

I have figured something out about parenting-even if it took me 5 whole years. Once you get really, really tired of something, once you reach some sort of personal "tipping point", your child or baby or toddler decides to let it naturally fade away. I find this a quite incredible thing. Remember how miserable you felt at the end of pregnancy? (Except for me, I was terrified to go into labor, and as it turned out, quite rightly so).
And so just when you were DONE with being very, very knocked up, the baby comes. When you cannot bear dealing with one more diaper, or think about toting around a massively over-packed diaper bag, your little one "gets" the whole bathroom-thing. It's like magic!! And this has happened more times than I can count in the 5 years since Flipper has been in my life. But there is one thing that is starting to make me feel more and more impatient, and so I am ready for her to "do it herself" except for the fact that she can't yet.
I am talking about reading. After 4+ years of reading multiple stories every night, I can say, with a fair amount of guilt, that I am over it. And yes, I know that I shouldn't wish it away, that the day will come when I will miss that 30 or 45 minutes every night of reading out loud to her while she puts her head on my shoulder, rapt and silent, blah blah blah. When I sit around and try to start calculating exactly how many stories a night/week/month/year I have read out loud I know that in my head a little death knell is sounding. Because right now I just can't take another minute of it. The reading, AND the guilt. There is a little magical switch inside my head that goes from "decent parent" to "off" at exactly 8 p.m. every evening. Mostly because I am a morning person, up with the birds at 4:30 or 5 most mornings, and Flipper is a night owl, and comes alive anytime AFTER 8 p.m. At that point, I just want to read my OWN book in peace and quiet, tucked in my nice big bed, propped up on pillows while the dogs slumber on the floor beside me. I do not want to read out loud at all. And yet she loves it, be it a book we have read a million times or a brand-new one. She pats my arm to ask a question or make a comment, and her attention never wanders (unlike mine). She could listen to a story for 10 hours without budging. I want her to spontaneously start reading, which I somehow think isn't going to happen. There are parents out there that LOVE reading out loud to their children, that seek out new books, put on the funny voices and generally have a ball. How can they do this night after night, year after year? Even the fact that she loves it so much is no longer a huge motivator. And this is why I feel so guilty: she loves it. She begs for it, and I do read to her, usually 2-3 books a night or one chapter from a Ramona book. I even try really hard not to cheat and skip entire paragraphs in order to get to the end of the chapeter one minute faster. Reading aloud seems to be one of those non-negotiables for the category "good, loving, involved parent" categories. Why is this? And can I re-negotiate the terms of the categories? And if you want to come over and read to Flipper...I'll do all your laundry forever. Ironing too.

Freedom...and Fear

2008-08-21T07:11:00.001-07:00

On Sunday morning, Flipper pushed down with one of her new shoes, wobbled a bit, and then took off, gliding down the sidewalk. My hand, the steadying one that has held the seat so she could start, dropped to my side. It had been a long week-end of trial runs, many falls, many tears of frustration, and then she got it. Pride-hers AND mine-knew no bounds. I could remember-barely-how exciting it was to feel yourself go faster than you could ever run and knowing that a new world-an exciting one-was know open to you. I was proud of her when she walked for the first time, but for a normally developing child, walking is something pre-programmed that they WILL do, and you cannot teach it. But the bike? The bike is different. It involved action on my part (I was, of course, reading when she took her first steps), and worries that her frustration at repeated failings would cause her to quit, and I didn't want her to. I desperately want her to have some perseverance in her soul, the ability to keep on keeping on...even after the bloody knee, after the collision with the tombstone. Note: there is a small graveyard in our neighborhood with about 6 graves scattered in an acre, so we started there because, I reasoned, the grass would be less painful to fall on. I didn't anticipate her bike homing in on a large tombstone as though it-and the bike-were magnetized. Now she wants to ride every day, and I am poking around for a bike for myself, so we can ride together. So fun! And that is Part 1 of my story. Here is Part 2.

That same quiet, humid, grey Sunday morning that my poor neighbors were undoubtedly drinking coffee to my cheers of KEEP PEDALING!! KEEP GOING!! YOU'RE DOING GREAT!! Flipper and I got thirsty. I went inside my townhouse to get her a cup of "icy" water, and she stayed outside, about 30 feet from my front door. When I came out, after 2-3 minutes, a cop was there. I knew immediately what he wanted. I knew, just knew, that he was going to take me to task for her lack of a helmet*. But I was wrong. He was more interested in cautioning me not to ever, ever leave her alone outside, because "someone could just come by and take her away." I asked him if he was serious, and he assured me that yes, he was. That she was cute. That anyone could throw her into the back of their car. And, theoretically, he was/is right. But statistically...there are 70 million children under the age of 18 in America. In 2007, there were 107 stranger kidnappings. 107. Most ended in tragedy. But no matter how you look at it, the risk is very, very small. And yet our fear of "stranger danger" is very, very high. But how sad that the cop thought she should never be outside-to color on our sidewalk (6 feet from our door), to hoop on the grass, to check the mail...that I was remiss in not parenting or supervising her to the point where I should not have gone into my house, in my neighborhood to get a glass of water because something "might" happen, even though that "something" is so statistically improbable. As my sister said, "he was just doing his job." Maybe. I fight against "parenting through fear" every day, since I don't believe it helps children at all learn self-reliance, or that they are much, much more likely to be abused at the hands of someone they know and trust than a faceless, nameless "stranger." My sister and I enjoyed a huge amount of freedom when we were young. We walked and rode our bikes to school, we spent entire days roaming the creeks and woods and fields near our house, at times more than 2 miles away. But the world is different today, I hear you thinking. And you're right, it is. But it is not less safe for her. We just think it is. And why? Why are our fears so much more part of our parenting than our parents-when the risk hasn't changed? I have a lot of theories, and media coverage of rare but tragic events would come in at #1; I mean, does anyone remember the non-stop coverage of Natalee Holloway's disappearance on AMERICAN television and not in the country where she vanished? Would that have been the case in 1975? No. It would only have made the local news of her hometown. I think parents are more likely to be blamed today for terrible accidents, as though we can control everything. And I think that parenting has gotten weirdly obsessive, and people are more comfortable being freaks about safety. I can't imagine my parents-or any of my friends parents-not letting us ride in someone else's car...and our Volkswagen didn't even have seat belts-but I know two mothers that will not let their child ride in any car but theirs. I find it crazy, and yet, on some level, I get it, I really do. But she can still color on our sidewalk. I just cannot-will not live in fear, and neither can Flipper.

Note large empty space. Note bike heading unerringly toward gravestone.

* We really do own a helmet.

New, very new, shoes.

2008-08-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

Flipper got new shoes earlier this week. While not exactly earth-shattering news, it does mark a first of sorts. These were the first shoes she has ever received that DID NOT come to our house in a cardboard box via UPS. No, she actually tried these on. In a store. And, blessedly, without me! I only like to shop online, and then I really, really love it. So I buy all of her clothes online, her shoes, pretty much everything. This effectively negates her opinion about, oh, pretty much anything she puts on her body. No tacky glittery anything, nop baby slut-wear. I do, however, let her decide the combinations of her clothes, with oft-hilarious results. Then I pat myself on the back for not being a total control freak. But her fresh new shiny glowing-white shoes sparked a touch of nostalgia for the whole excitement of back-to-school organizing, and the rememebred excitement of getting new shoes and wearing them out of the store and home from the mall, old shoes placed in the new shoebox. And it recalls memories of shifting from summer to fall and the fact that she is getting older and older oh-so-fast, and it also pointed something else out about Flipper, something I did not previously know about her. Now, before I get into all that, you should know that I like to play an annoying but satisfying game called "Division." It is not about math. Rather, it is divides all people into two camps. People that do x as opposed to y. This is really quite fun, and you can carry it to insane lengths.

Flipper, as it turns out, falls into the camp of "I want to keep my new shoes looking brand new as long as is humanly possible." I am slightly shocked. I want mine to get as broken in as quickly as possible, and I remember when I was just a little kid that everyone tried to get their shoes to NOT look new as fast as they could by running over them with their bikes, wearing them in the creek, deliberately rubbing them against concrete, and so on. But she falls in the other camp!!! How can this be? What does it mean? She was distraught when we went on a walk with the dogs and she got grass clippings on them! What other divisions will she fall on the opposite side of me? She is already a "non-picker", meaning that she leaves cuts and scabs alone, as opposed to me that simply cannot resist any time blemish, any hangnail, and piece of chapped lips, even if it means agony and blood and scarring. So to that I concede that her way is, indeed, better. But I still want the shoes broken in!

Mom NOT Logic

2008-08-07T07:24:00.001-07:00

The Internet has opened worlds previously undiscovered to me. Worlds, I tell you! And after some serious research on my part-read: wasting time at work- I have discovered the ULTIMATE, the most stupefying oxymoron ever. And, for those that were dozing off or writing intricately-folded notes during 8th grade English, an oxymoron is "a figure of speech that contains two normally contradicting terms." (thank you, Wikipedia!) Here's an example: "living dead" as in The Night of...and here, for all of you perched anxiously on the edge of your seats to see what the Internet has turned up, is a website I visit often that has this amazing oxymoron as the title. Ready? MOMLOGIC. I am not quite sure what two words COULD be more contradictory, since we ALL, all of us mothers have some real blinders on when it comes to our children and logic. Even me. Or, perhaps, especially me. I can't figure out if these are harder times to parent to to the overload of information available, particularly in the form of terrifying stories, or if the tragic stories, warnings and information make our children safer, while simultaneously knocking years off of OUR lives. I try to make decisions, especially ones with regards to safety vs. freedom/independence logically, meaning that when Flipper goes outside to play, I realize that the odds that she will be kidnapped by a stranger are very very low. Approximately 100 kids a year are snatched by strangers, and the ending is usually not a happy one. But 100 is very very few, and so she is, in all probability, safe. But still I worry, the "mom" side winning out over the "logic" side. Actually, come to think of it, the "mom" side often wins. I know she won't starve if she hates what we have for dinner...but I still make sure that there is at least SOMETHING she finds palatable. I know that she has friends, is a good friend...yet have to sit on my hands and bite my tongue to keep from interfering in a playdate argument over Legos. between 5 year olds!! When will it end? Will it end? Or, will the rest of my life be marked by endless internal debate and the second-guessing of decisions? And then I will write a book, entitled "My Life as an Oxymoron" and invite many scathing comments on the second half of that word...the "moron" half.

Happy Talk

2008-07-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Our family is at the beach, "our" beach (Topsail), one that we have been coming to since 1971. Which is a long time. Flipper, the beach kid, the kid whose life right now seems to be one llooonnnnggg vacation, has made some remarkable strides and breakthroughs recently. There is the swimming in the ocean, which on the surface seems like a good thing, but like so many little developmental leaps, has turned out to be not-so-good. Where she was once fearful of the waves, of her body being pummeled about, dunked and dowsed...well, that fear is gone. Now she is fearless, and I am the one terrified, as she has no qualms about the current rapidly bearing her away down the beach, or pulling her out to sea. Now, I actually have to get up out of the chair, face my Bain de Soleil SPF 4 washing off (the horror!) and supervise much more closely. Which I do, don't worry. But her other big breakthrough is that she has finally glommed onto "our" humor, the humor that rules our family. I read a book once called "Habits of Healthy Families" or something similar, and one of the "habits" of the healthy happy family was "family jokes" or "shared humor." In our family, much of that comes from laughing at another member of the family. We all take turns being the one laughed at, although our mom usually dominates this exalted position.

Before, Flipper HATED for us to laugh at her, the things she does and says. But as any human that has spent more than about 5 seconds around a young child, you know the sheer impossibility of trying NOT to laugh. We fail at it often, and her response, depending on her mood, is usually not a happy one. But this week...it all changed. We made my father very happy by watching his favorite musical of all time, South Pacific. What, none of you have a favorite musical? Just my father? Flipper watched most of the movie quietly, got up a few times to present her own "interpretive dance" a dance that had no connection to anything happening onscreen, and we all had to promise not to laugh. I failed. But, then, this morning, she spontaneously imitated Liat, the young lover of Joe Cable...and Kathryn and I have never laughed harder in our lives. She gets it. Even if we are, indeed, laugh AT her and not WITH her...it was-and is-hilarious. She is OK being laughed at! She isn't taking herself so maddeningly seriously! She'll go far in this world, I am convinced, when you can laugh at yourself and, to some degree, play to your (captive) audience.

This will be one of those things that we will remember, imitate, and laugh about for a long, long time to come. Like the fact that my dad has a favorite musical. Below..."Happy Face." Not seen: us, choking back hysterical laughter, tears running down our faces.

No Mushy Anything!

2008-07-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

I have this belief (one of many, actually) that as we get older we are more accepting of our own quirks and faults, but less tolerant of others'. I have exemplified this many times: when I finally bought myself a subscription to People magazine, fully aware that it was shallow and silly but that I simply enjoyed reading it too much to go without, for example, or that my total refusal to wear sunscreen might not be the best decision, health-wise. I broke through yet another layer of denial last week, and this one was a biggie, but it helps me be a teeny tiny bit of a more tolerant mommy than I might be without this annoying trait. The set-up: dinner at my parent's house. Discussion: upcoming beach trip and dinner meal-planning. After ix-naying perfectly because of some tiny "fault" like the fact that I won';t eat rare tuna steaks because I hate the texture, even thought I am fully aware of how much better it is to be all pink marshmallow in the middle and not rawhide-bone-tough, my father finally said, "it is rather difficult doing this with you because you are a picky eater." Of course, I tried to defend myself, "We're ALL picky eaters!" And he retorted, "but some of us are more picky than others." After years of denial...I owned up to it. Yes. I am a picky eater. I hate whole families of foods based on texture alone. I will not eat cheese unless it is resting on something crunchy, because I find the sensation of my teeth sinking into it icky. And on and on. And so, Flipper's picky eating doesn't bother me in the least. I don;t know that I would even classify her as a picky eater...remember? We're ALL picky eaters. unless you are her father, and there is literally nothing in this world he won't eat if he's hungry. I used to stress about her diet, worried that it wasn't green enough, colorful enough, organic enough. I would seethe with anger as I tossed out the mango that she loved at the playground, but refused to eat at home. Note: I wouldn't eat it because mango is...you guessed it: mushy. My teeth would sink into it!! Must..not..have...teeth..sinking!!

And then I just...got over it. I dropped my act of pretending that she was some sort of blank slate for me to write upon, i.e. "make perfect" and accepted that along with a love of swimming, she might just have more of my taste buds in her mouth than she has of her dad's. When we eat at someone else's house, I tell them to never cater a meal to Flipper's pickiness, that she will either eat or not. And most of the time, she does a really good job. She is obviously quite healthy, at the risk of jinxing myself 4 days before we go to the beach, this is a kid that hasn't been sick since February. Not even a sniffly nose. So I must be doing something right. Maybe she'll outgrow it, maybe she'll reach adulthood like me: healthy, loves food, but still...picky. And maybe we can share something crunchy...and a fresh issue of People.

Flipper, "BP"--Before Picky

Money, her stack.

2008-07-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Money, its a crime

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say

Is the root of all evil today

But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they're

Giving none away

(Pink Floyd)

The above will, hopefully, become Flipper's new mantra. I have been debating/over thinking/wrestling with the concept of kid+money. And not how much I spend on her, either. What, she doesn't actually need the incredibly expensive organic cotton Hanna Andersson dresses I buy? Rather, I have been kicking around-for far too long- the concept of an allowance. I thought about it, talked about it, wasted about 10000 hours on the Internet "researching" it, read about in my trillion parenting books...and STILL couldn't figure it out. And, why now? Well, for some reason, 5 seems like the right age. For another, I hope she will grow up to be better about money than I am, although this his no fault of my upbringing. Evidence for Nature OVER Nurture: me, my sister. Raised identically. Even shared a room forever. Her: great with money. Me: suck at it.

So I did what I find myself doing too often in those parenting journey: over thinking and then taking no action. But I finally made a decision, after reading about what another mother did, and last Saturday morning we started. 3 Mason jars. 3 labels. One red sticker. The labels are: To Have, To Save and To Give. Sounds like wedding vows, do they not? Anyway, they are pretty self-explanatory: One for money she can spend, if she so desires, as soon as she gets it. One for saving, and one for charity, a concept she doesn't really get yet, although she is aware that there are people and animals out there that need our help. Once, at an exit ramp, we watched an old man with a long grey beard and a kind face stand, resigned, in the broiling heat, begging for money. She asked about him, what he was doing, where is his house, where is his family? His friends? You know, the questions that don't really have answers, even for grown-ups. I asked her if she thought we should give him money. She hesitated, and said yes. So we did. How much money does Flipper get? 4 quarters a week. 2 to "have", and one each for the "save" and "give" jars. Since she can't read yet, the "have" jar is marked with a piece or red electrical tape. Note: she gets none of this. The day after she happily dropped her quarters into the jars, she took her "have" jar to me and said, "Let's go out to eat tonight. I'll pay!!"

The discussion about why her paltry 60 cents (she found a dime on the floor) wouldn't buy us fries from McDonald's was exhausting, to say the least. Money makes little sense when you don't understand math. Actually, money makes little sense to ME, and I understand math. As long as no letters like x or y are involved. But finally, she got it. Or, what she really got was this: WE ARE NOT GOING OUT. GO FIND SOMETHING TO DO. NOW. For me, I have begun to stockpile quarters, since it will be lamer than lame if I come up short on Saturday, and I have held fast to the no-eating-out on 60 cents edict I threw down last week-end. But it is hard to do, this waiting to see how this will play out in the next year or so, and remembering that I have entered the area of allowance, and now there is no going back. She'll be able to save for a toy and give to the charity of her choice, be it the man on the exit ramp or something to save animals. Or maybe just go out to eat.

Empty jars, one day to be full.

5 Rings.

2008-07-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

The Olympics, they are coming. Soon inspiring stories of heartbreak and hope will be splashed across the front page of the paper, and, undoubtedly, on the news. Being TV-less, I am very very out of MANY loops, and the Olympics are just one more. However, I would like to host some Olympics of my own. Note that all the events are ones that I would undoubtedly dominate, REGARDLESS of my age. Like Dara Torres!! Whom, frighteningly, has already been referred to as "the story of the Games." Newsflash, ABC or NBC or whoever the hell paid a billion dollars to televise the Olympics all the way from a country with an abysmal human rights AND environmental record, there will be many more "heartwarming" stories to crop up during the Games themselves. Trust me! Don't put all your eggs in one swimmer's goggles!! At any rate...here are MY events, designed especially for ME and FLIPPER, of course.

Fastest Rise in Blood Pressure Due to Whining: I win this hands down. I have to take calming breaths about 5x a day when she gets started, and what really sucks is that it is usually due to something I cannot help, like tiredness, and yet a nap at 5 p.m. is non-optional, unless I want to be kept awake until 2 a.m. Silver goes to the people that say, she wouldn't do it if it didn't work. WRONG. She whines because it makes her feel better. When you grow up, you simply replace the word "whine" with "complain." They are synonymous for the most part.

Best Catch-Up Sleep: Again, I am convinced I would be a very, very strong contender for the gold here. After 3 years of waking 4-10x per night I am now crushing any competition from my dogs and averaging 10 hours per night. When will it end? Will it end at all? God, I hope not. It feels great. Actually, I think it will end when she is a teen-ager and sneaking out at night and getting in trouble and getting in car wrecks and running away...oh wait. That was me.

Most Irrational: Flipper might eclipse me here. I find her maddening irrationality, desire to correct any slight deviation from the Facts As She Knows Them makes me clench my fists and then run upstairs to fling myself across the bed. Just last week I was making her some sort of semi-healthy snack-meal adn told her it would take 15 minutes. But it took less time. Did this make her happy? Why, no. She stated about 11 million times, like some sort of possessed broken record that "it wasn't 15 minutes. It wasn't 15 minutes. It wasn't 15 minutes..."until I ran upstairs to keep from throwing her plate through a window. Or myself. Or her.

Well, three events to enter are enough. The days of Mark Spitz and the multi-even athlete are, sadly, over. And when the Olympics DO finally start, I will probably take myself to my parents' house to watch Dara compete. I can't resist.

NEW Parenting Books!! Except They're Old...

2008-07-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

I have a long shelf of parenting books. Granted, I don't really USE much of the advice given, mostly because I simply can't remember it, but I find the topic as whole very interesting, even before the advent of Flipper into my life. But yesterday, I had a minor epiphany: I only need one set of books, books that will effectively do "double duty" by keeping Flipper AND me happy and occupied, all while learning something. I mean, isn't that endless goal, the ultimate quest? To teach-and learn-something easily and painlessly? Perhaps through...stories? Stories from my all-time favorite series, the Little House books? Now, lest you think it is a far far stretch to attempt to relate life as we know it today to a wandering family 140 years ago, THINK AGAIN!!

Yesterday, after slogging through the woods with the dogs, picking blackberries, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes...we crossed the creek and waited for the dogs on the top of the bank. Seamus came sauntering along, as he usually does, but Sophie came flying up the hill, much faster than usual, and I could tell something was wrong. Her rear legs, chest and back were covered with yellow jackets. She had stepped on their underground home while clambering up the side of the creek. Poor Sophie!! To her credit, she froze when I told her to and I used the leash to smack them away and got stung on the arm for my troubles. I told Flipper to run, and she and Seamus headed up the hill away from us. We all got home, Sophie utterly traumatized, Flipper full of questions, me hoping that I wouldn't have an allergic reaction, and so on. After we all calmed down, Flipper and I went to Whole Foods where I may have set a new record for least amount of food for the most money. This is a record I break with some regularity, and my old neighbor-friend Rose adn I often relate our money-at-Whole Foods tales to each other with the appropriate shrill cries of horror and disbelief. On the way home, I had a little talk with her about obeying me, instantly, if I ever tell her to run while we are in the woods. I told her to go straight home and wait for me there if something like this ever happens again. But how much more effective is a lesson when backed with a short chapter from a book!!

And here is where my flash of inspiration struck... I got out the very first book, Little House in the Big Woods and we read the part where a massive bear has gotten into the family cow pen, and the mother smacks it to make it move over, thinking it was her cow. (It is nighttime). She realizes that instead of their sweet cow Sukey, it is a huge, probably hungry, bear, and she calmly tells Laura to go back to the house right away, and Laura obeys her. Later her mother praises her for doing what she said to do in an emergency without questioning her. Flipper LOVED this story. LOVED it. So the wheels in my fertile brain began turning, and I realized that all 8 books offer a veritable treasure trove of useful information for parents, and nice illustrative life lessons as well! There is even a chapter about a kid getting stung about a million times by yellow jackets but no one helped him because he had "cried wolf" too many times before!! How apropos, I thought! Today, we'll read about picking blackberries, something Flipper dearly loves to do. And we'll read about how, as a result of all the mosquito bites, the entire family is felled by malaria. Somewhere, there's a lesson in there. I'm convinced I can find it.

It's The Only Way To Fly

2008-06-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

Travelin' Light...as the song says, is something I have always aspired to, but rarely succeeded. Until now. For THIS trip, I promised myself before I even found out that Delta now charges 25.00 per bag it would be carry-on only. This is hard for me, because I like choices. Lots of them. But I was not going to ever experience again the exhaustion of 11 hours in the air, coupled with 2-3 hours in an airport, and stagger off the plane only to wait again by the baggage carousel. The last time we came, my suitcase was the very last piece of luggage off; we were ready to report it as lost when finally, forlornly, it appeared. Never again, I promised. And this time, I succeeded. 2 tiny bags. One for Flipper, one for me. A large pocketbook, a small backpack with art supplies, two books and two silkies. Nothing else. The laptop cushioned in the rolling bag. Getting off the plane and walking straight outside to a waiting car made it all worthwhile. But what about toys? I get this question a fair amount when I mention our stripped-down plans. I learned, the hard way, how utterly useless toys are to travel with, and I also learned how very successful Flipper is at making something from nothing. Last time we found a stray coconut by the roadside as we drove back from the grocery store, which is more difficult than you might imagine in Hawaii. You see, they are all chopped down as soon as they get large and heavy because, believe it or not, a conk on the bean with a coconut can be fatal. Just ask Keith Richards!! At any rate, the coconut came back to the condo with us and was quickly christened "Stick". Stick became a sort of de facto doll, and engaged her happily for many hours. This time we have found no Stick, but have gathered 6 baby coconut, each the size of an egg. they are, as you can imagine, Stick's babies. Right now they are lined up outside, awaiting a bucket-ride to the beach. I will say that the art supplies are essential. Flipper has spent hours drawing, coloring, cutting and gluing. But that's it. Flipper's preschool teacher once mentioned to me that young children can be completely happy and satisfied with two things (neither one toys): sand and water. I didn't believe her then...and I kept buying special toys, all wooden and organically painted, etc. etc. But I believe her now. And we are still avidly watching gutters and roadsides for Stick Jr., or a mother to the nameless baby coconuts. Until then, sand and sea, sea and sand. Tomorrow we go to another island, to Hanalei Bay, where Kathryn and I will make multiple bad jokes about poor old Puff the Magic Dragon, jokes that will go-blessedly-right over Flipper's innocent little head.

Memories (hopefully)

2008-06-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

I read a blog written by a father that debated whether or not to travel with his very young daughter. Readers weighed in (of course), with many definitively saying NO, DON'T DO IT!! And while traveling with small children and babies is a bit taxing, their rationale was surprising to me. Why take you daughter along to Paris, they wondered. She won't remember it. I have to tell you, this surprised me. Little kids don't remember Christmas or their birthdays, but we certainly have no problem orchestrating the whole shebang, do we? I mean, is travel really about remembering it? How can you? I can barely remember what day it is, let alone the name of some tiny beach and the endangered bird that lives on it. Now, granted, I take Flipper everywhere with me, but that is mostly because, well, it is usually just the two of us, and I also take her everywhere because I turned into a freaky ultra-attached parent that had stomach pains and a pounding heart when we weren't together for the first year or two of her life. Now that she's five, I can, of course, go for an entire day without her-and sometimes gladly at that- but a week? My "vacation" would be just one long worry-fest. When I was 15 months old (and still not walking) my parents went to Europe for a MONTH with my grandparents and left me with their neighbors. I walked for the first time while I was there. They had no qualms-and still don't-about taking off for Europe for an extended period of time. Mind you, this was the late 60's, no cell phones, ultra-pricey regular phones, and when I asked if they called to check on me, my mother looked at me as though I were insane. "Do you have any idea what that would have cost??" So while I sit on our new favorite beach here, nodding off and letting Flipper bury me under pounds of sand, I can indeed imagine being here by myself, all alone, with no one else to feed, or put to bed on time, or deny tacky souvenirs. But then I look at her and think, It's vanishing. Soon she will be sneaking off to put on some inappropriate slutty bikini and make cow-eyes at inappropriate boys, and beg to go off on her own and roll her eyes at my desire to turn little hikes and adventures into An Educational Experience, and, well, until then...she's coming with me. And who knows what her memories will be? Even if she has no concrete memories of this-or any-trip, what I really hope she gains is a fascination of people, places, things, history. Enjoy just being somewhere else, regardless of whether or not there is a pool and cable TV. Yesterday we went upcountry towards Haiku and Makawao so Kathryn could take part in a long yoga class. Flipper and I had a few hours to kill, and so we went to a playground so she could be with her own kind. Children, not humans, that is. This playground is incredible, huge turrets and climbing structures and slides, all with an ocean theme of wood and tile. I was hoping she would make some friends, but she seemed to really enjoy playing on her own, around-not with-other little girls and boys. I sat on a bench and read a book and watched her. The children are beautiful, all long long hair on the girls, dark skin, dark eyes, flip flops on every foot. Flipper was the only haole, something she is too young to notice. Maybe the playground will sink into her memory bank, a bank that is getting deposits every minute. My memory bank, however, is making withdrawals, and not necessarily getting the payments back. Too crowded. It will be fascinating, as she ages, to see and hear what she remembers about this-and other-trips. I hope her memories are good, and I hope she keeps on exploring the playgrounds of her world no matter how old she gets.

6000 Miles and a world away

2008-06-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hello from the Valley Isle!!

We are 6000 miles away from the hideous heat and humidity of Chapel Hill, having survived the lloooonnnggg plane flight(s) from RDU to Kahului. Ironically, it gets harder to fly with Flipper as she ages, not easier. Or, my memory of the past 3 flights out here has become very selective indeed. She is less inclined to want to sit still for 9 or 10 hours, can you imagine? And more vocal about her displeasure, i.e. whining. But endless crayoned rainbows later, multiple snacks with two bites taken out, and a repeat of a violent movie later...we made it. My sister picked us up and we spent the first night at the Ritz Carlton. And so I have a new dream job; I think the Ritz should send me to all of their resorts and let me check in as an anonymous guest and report to them any annoyances I find. Which, being the Ritz, would be very few indeed. Room service. Great beds. Comfy white robes. Gorgeous grounds. Triple infinity pool...I could go on, but I won't. The resort looks out to the ocean, and is set back from the cliffs several hundred yards. When they initially broke ground, it was as close to the water as they could get, but the discovery of thousands of bones from an ancient burial site necessitated the shift back, and now the site is protected, with small informational signs posted. Now it is early morning,and the sun is slowly coming up, coffee is brewing, and grocery lists are being written. I try not to think too hard about the BILL at the grocery store...imagine 11 dollar frozen pizzas. Enough for today.

Memories of sleep. Or the lack of it.

2008-06-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

I love to sleep. I mean, doesn't everyone? I had a boyfriend once that told my dad, when asked what he liked to do, answered, "Sleep." Needless to say, he was not a keeper. Back into the ocean with him!! So when I was asked at a meeting a few nights ago how many nights I was willing to go with poor sleep in order to get Flipper out of my bed and into her own, I paused. And had a total flashback, one NOT generated by wandering the halls of Grateful Dead concerts in my impetuous youth, a time period that lasted oh, about 15 years. or, more specifically, until I became "with child," as they said in kinder, gentler times. Anyway, THIS particular flashback was images of her screaming and me also screaming, of a baby that was waking up 8-10 times a night when she was 9 months old. Of a mother (and father) that simply could not stomach any kind of "cry it out" training methods, and so tried to endure life on broken sleep. Jagged-edge broken sleep. Clumsy daytime-life broken sleep. There are a few parenting advice cliches that I loathe, and "Sleep when the baby sleeps" comes in at number 1. How nice that would be, I thought. As long as some sort of magical troupe of hardworking fairies and elves arrived just as she and I were comatose and did all the laundry, vacuuming, cooking, dishes... But magical cleaning fairies were not, in fact, thick on the ground during this grisly time. The person that mentioned "sleeping when the babies sleep" must have also coined the term "sleeping like a baby" because the brutal truth is that A LOT of babies DO NOT sleep very well. Or at all. I literally thought I was going to lose my mind, and understood very very clearly why sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Although perhaps not to Bush and Co. Then, finally, two months before she turned 3, she slept through the night. One would think the term "sleeping through the night" would need no definition, but apparently it does. The "official" definition of "sleeping through the night" is, I believe, 5 hours. MY definition, when asked this by a friend, is "until I feel like waking up." I kind of did think she would be out of my bed by now, but then I would have missed catching her babbling remarks while she sleeps, ones so amusing I laugh out loud, like this one: I don't want any more candy!! Some sort of Willy Wonka-Oompa Loompa nightmare, no doubt. And I would miss being able to feel her right there, all night long. One day, I know, she will indeed be out of my bed and into her own. So when asked how many nights of interrupted sleep I was willing to endure, I looked him in the eye and said, "None."

For once, sleeping like a baby.

Summer is here...almost.

2008-05-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

We are Pool People. I cannot fathom how any human survives a summer here without access, preferably daily, to a pool. And, why yes, I DO know exactly how spoiled and lucky us pool people are. Growing up here, my mother dropped my sister and me off every single week-day morning at 8 a.m. for swim team practice, followed by lessons, followed by an endless day in and out of the water, pestering our heroes, the lifeguards. She returned to pick us up in the late afternoon. By that time we would be pretty close to comatose, stunned by the combined effects of an entire day in the sun, leaping in and out of the pool, and breathing chlorine fumes. Often, we would fall asleep in the back of their ancient Volkswagen bug, a car so old that it lacked any seat belts at all, front seats or back. Those were the days before goggles, when all eyes were red. Those were the days when only Coppertone made sunscreen...and SPF 10 was considered a total sunblock. The smell of Coppertone can STILL act as some portal to the past, transporting me back to swim meets and watermelon fights. On week-ends, she dropped us off at 10 a.m. This was pretty much my entire summer life until I was 18 and went to college. I was a lifeguard, carefully covering every inch of exposed skin with either Crisco (we kept a tub of it in the snack bar refrigerator) or a mixture of iodine and baby oil. Shocking, isn't it? Even...horrifying? Did I mention that we are also Tan People? Because we are. Very.

Then I began a life without pools, as living by the ocean reduced the requirement for one, and living in the mountains reduced the heatstroke factor that living here brings out every summer. Again, no need for one. But now I have been back for 8 years, and pool season is kicking up again, preparing to be fully unleashed the day schools across the region are out for the summer. When Flipper was a wee babe, only 3 or 4 week sold, I would take showers with her, and hold her wobbly head up to the spray. I will not have a kid that hates water ran through my mind over and over. It seems to have worked. Unlike child-me, she is resistant to lessons of any kind, insisting that she can make her way through life largely self-taught, and really, who am I to argue with that? I wanted to learn how to swim so badly I took lessons at 4 and was on my first team at 5. Flipper has no desire for lessons, or teams, or meets of any kind. Yet. Currently, she is quite a proficient dog-paddler, can float on her back, etc. Few things make more nostalgic for childhood than watching Flipper's sheer, unbridled enthusiasm for "her" pools.

I am thankful for many things, but right up there on that list is our access to not one but two pools, and that Flipper has inherited not just my love and ease in water, but the ability to easily and darkly tan. Right now the only pool we have been in this spring is the one in our townhouse neighborhood; and it deters her not a bit that the water could easily be used for those fund-raising Polar Bear Club thingies people do up North in the winter. She is almost always the only person in the pool, and she frolics about while I keep one eye on my magazine and the other eye on her. I watch, fascinated (and revolted), as her lips get darker and darker until I cannot bear it any longer and she gets out, shivering uncontrollably, to bury herself in a huge towel and sit in my lap while I try not to look at her purple lips any longer than I have to. Then she gets in again. Then we go home, and I think about how many ways things have changed between Now and Then and yet how one thing stays the same: the pool in the summer.

Note absence of any other human being in pool besides Flipper. Also note: this pool is 6000 miles away. Sadly.

Discoveries Both Good and Sad

2008-05-22T06:06:00.001-07:00

Every now and then, one is afforded a glimpse into The Inner Workings of a Child's Mind. Often these glimpses are either hilarious or disturbing. At times, they are an amusing mixture of both. Yesterday Flipper and I discovered two things out of the ordinary on our daily trek through the graveyard, across two creeks, and through a web of trails on a densely wooded hillside with the dogs. The first thing was a dead muskrat at the edge of the creek. Few things make me sadder than dead animals; I cannot bear to see the daily carnage along our roadways, etc. Flipper, who has NOT apparently inherited my Sensitivity-Gene (where animals are concerned) had a few questions, then continued, unfazed, through the woods. We came to a striking tree, a dead cedar, all silvery and pointy-limbed. Flipper had to, just HAD to climb it, so I waited around, quelling my fear that she would impale herself on one of the sharp, broken branches. At the base of the trunk was a hole, a perfect place to hide something, or for some sort of animal to live. The hole looked too perfect, too clean. So I stepped closer, and peered inside. Tucked in the dead, dry leaves was a small Tupperware container. First thought: some teen-ager's pot stash, for romantic evenings with his girlfriend, or skipping school with his friends. Second (correct) deduction: we had stumbled inadvertently upon a Geocache!! I finally got my nerve up and reached inside the dark hole, bracing myself for some sort of wild animal/poisonous snake attack upon my arm, and pulled out the little box and opened it. And I was right: a Geocache. Teeny notebook, small trinkets. I put it back and partially buried it under some leaves. Several months ago I checked Geocaching out, but it seemed like too much effort, and I imagined Flipper's disappointed wails when we failed to locate the cache ruining what would have otherwise been a pleasant hike in the woods, so I bagged the idea. Plus, equipment is required, equipment I don't have or have any desire to buy. But we found one anyway!! Surely, I thought, surely Flipper will remember this and it will enter the region of her brain that files away Cool Things My mother Has Found, a list, let me tell you, that is quite long. But, as it turns out, I was wrong. Because later that evening, while eating dinner with Keith and his mother, I asked, "Flipper, do you want to tell *Babci about the cool thing we found in the woods?" And she said, "What, the dead muskrat?"

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 650,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.[1]--Wikipedia definition

* Babci: bob-chee. Polish for "grandmother."

5 years. And counting.

2008-05-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Flipper celebrates her 5th birthday Sunday, May 25. Five seems like a big birthday, a landmark in some way. Perhaps only to me. It seems so grown-up, and yet not-teetering on the cusp of babyland and little girl-hood. The weeks leading up to her birthday are filled with memories of when I was pregnant, and, early on, hideous flashbacks of labor. I will Cliff-Note labor for you: Water breaks. 30 hours of hard labor at the birthing center ensues. Dehydration sets in. Hospital. 12 more hours of labor. Fetal distress. Finally born. I still can't watch any movie or TV show that depicts a woman in labor. Or a cat. or anything, except the MALE seahorse. That, I love!

Anyway, I think for most parents it would be hard to NOT remember the first birthday...but then, for me, they fade. I made no babybook entries much past the first year; I cannot even remember what she got from me last year. This bothers me less than I think it should. So here we are, another year flown by. This year we will be at the beach with my parents and their friends. We will have a small party, since Flipper gets freaked out when it is all about HER, and has shed many a tear at parties past. I will repeat the frightful "doll cake" a picture of which is below. I will let her play with the doll-pick, which is disturbingly legless.

But this year another anniversary, another milestone will pass, unobserved and unremarked upon. No cake, no candles. My mother, the linchpin of my-and Flipper's-life, will have just passed the 5 year, all-clear mark for breast cancer. She finished her last dose of Tamoxifen last week. She finished 13 weeks of radiation the week before Flipper was born. Flipper's impending arrival was even more special then, as it gave us all something to look forward to, focus upon. She does not talk about it, no support groups, no pink ribbons. Just another woman that has fallen on the good side of statistics. So there will be two celebrations, really. And the pinata? A seahorse. Of course.

Plus, what kid WOULDN'T love a grandmother with a horse??

Food, glorious food

2008-05-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

Remember the old "compare and contrast" essays from high school? You know, "Compare and contrast Shakespeare's early works with blah blah blah...". I have been thinking about how certain aspects of Flipper's childhood "compares and contrasts" with mine. In some ways it feels worse, meaning more stressful for me, the mom, and in other ways...well, the kid's got it good. And one area where she has is really good is food.

My mother was a very very good homemaker; we ate out less than 5 times a year. Can anyone imagine that these days? Now, granted, this area had very very few decent restaurants 30 years ago; the incredible bounty of Whole Foods prepared case-as insanely expensive as it is- didn't exist. Nor did sushi, Thai, organic...I can remember when Whole Foods was in the small building that now houses Magnolia Grill in Durham, and the bulk food was in large wooden barrels. Mexican? I had Ortega hard-shell tacos at a friend's house for the first time when I was 17!!! Flipper eats all of the above and more on a weekly basis. This feels like a huge shift to me. I actually cannot remember purchasing a can of cream-of-mushroom soup in my life, whereas my childhood dinner table featured MANY MANY casseroles with cream-of-mushroom soup in a starring role. Over and over again. Lots of hamburger and tuna in Best Supporting Actor roles. I try, at least in my head, to BE that kind of organized mother, the one that sits down and figures out meal plans, makes grocery lists, and then sticks to it. I know these people exist, but once again I seem to be a square peg attempting to wedge myself in a round hole.

I have tried, with various degrees of success, to do this, but one major problem crops up repeatedly. Most of the time I make/buy what I feel like eating, REGARDLESS of whether or not it is on my little "plan" or not. And if I feel like something specific, then I Must Have It. This happened while I was pregnant with Flipper; I would have certain cravings, then eat that one dish over and over again for a week or two in a row. Margaret's Cantina's huevos rancheros was one such dish; the hot portobello and balsamic pepper sub from Amante's Pizza was another. I think it goes without saying that I haven't had either one in 5 years. And so Flipper, who eats out more in a month than I did in an entire YEAR of my childhood, has a decently adventuresome palate. Too snob to even eat any kind of macaroni-and-cheese out of a box, unless that box is Amy's Organics Macaroni and Cheese. Too picky to eat wheat bread, unless it is pita bread. And I confess that for the most part, I indulge her in this. This would be a very very marked contrast from my childhood, where if we didn't like what was for supper our refusal was followed by this immortal line: "It's a long time until breakfast." With Flipper I try to straddle the line between a healthy intake of good foods both known and unknown, but with enough that she likes and will happily devour. And on that note, I will share with all of you my fail safe, Insta-dinner that rates about a 3 on a guilt-o-meter scale, meaning a "1" would be a perfectly balanced meal of tempeh, kale and brown rice, and "10" would be a Happy Meal. Actually, Flipper and a friend ate this for dinner last night while his mom and I had sauteed fish on top of huge yummy salads. So here goes, even for the vegetable-haters out there:

Open one box of Stouffer's Welsh Rarebit. Do not read ingredient list. Nuke it.

Cut up a wheat baguette into cubes. Put on big plate.

Open a bag of mixed "stir fry" veggies: broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Put on same plate.

Put piping hot melted cheese in microwave dish beside big plate.

Give each kid a toothpick, and let them have at it. They will DEVOUR the veggies, and really, anything else they can dip into hot melted cheese. Wouldn't we all?

If you want to take more than 7 minutes to make this, boil some tiny new potatoes, or little Yukon Golds, or little creamer potatoes. Put on big plate. WARNING: addictive.

Young Flipper with favorite green thing: broccoli.