1 Mother 2 Another

When we moved to Texas a couple years ago,
we moved into a much bigger space than our New York apartment had
been. Everything about the house is bigger than NYC, and the master
bathroom is no exception – I think our bathroom and closet
combined equal roughly the square footage of our first New York
apartment. Sadly, I’m not exaggerating.


Last year, we discovered wood rot in our bathroom and had to re-do
most of it, and took advantage of the tear-down to build it exactly
the way we’d want it. Our shower is, um, really nice- not
Donald Trump nice, but roomy - and with the little bench space and
such, our walk-in shower is the size of our New York bathroom.
Sadly, I’m not exaggerating.


I have a point here, I promise, and it’s not to brag. My
point is that we’ve got a really nice shower with a really
big shower head, and though I’ve been trying for years to get
the girls to enjoy showers instead of baths, it’s been only
in the last month or so that they’ve discovered the beauty of
our shower.

One of my parenting discipline choices
I’ve made is to say “no” as little as possible. I
try to give in to any reasonable request, so that when I do finally
say “no” the kids will respect that and accept it. At
the same time, sometimes I see the need to say “no”
just so they can practice their obedience and acceptance, so the
whole thing gets muddied. Add to that the fact that I desperately
try to never reverse myself, and so hold off saying
“no” until I’m sure I mean it and will stick to
it, and the whole “no” thing becomes a road fraught
with peril.


My kids, of course, have quickly learned that the word
“no” has many shades of meaning. For example, if one of
the girls asks me if we can go out for lunch as we head home from a
morning spent with friends, my mind will race through all the
ramifications even as my mouth opens. When was the last time we
went out to lunch? Do we seem to go out to lunch every time we have
a play date, and thus need to go home so it doesn’t become
taken for granted? What commitments do we have after lunch? How
much money do we have left this month?


What’s in the fridge that I can make lunch with, anyway?

Yesterday I was riding in the car with my
mom, Maddie, and Cora, and Maddie was asking Cora about the plates
she’s picked out for her upcoming birthday party. Cora said
enthusiastically, “It’s got Ariel, and Snow White, and
Belle, and Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty on it!”


“Does it have Melody on it?” Maddie asked, referring
(for all you poor schmucks who didn’t know) to Ariel’s
daughter in the Little Mermaid straight-to-video sequel.


“No, just the princesses,” Cora said definitively.

At the end of last week, Cora was playing
with a little friend, and I overheard the following conversation:


For whatever reason, the subject of chocolate came up. Cora,
standing, said something to the effect of, “Wouldn’t
you love some chocolate?” and her friend, sitting, answered,
“I’m not sure if I can have chocolate.”


At which point Cora dropped down to her friend’s eye level,
gazed intently into her eyes, and said, “We live in America.
No one can ever take chocolate away from you. Not even Obama.
That’s why this country was made – so no one can ever
tell you that you can’t have chocolate. Well,” she
amended, “except maybe your Mommy. She beats President
Obama.”


Ok, I may be responsible for this one.

Yesterday I got an email from our church,
stating that this Sunday’s topic is “gut-level
forgiveness: How do you forgive people when you’ve been
punched in the gut?”


It started me thinking about how well I am (or am not) teaching my
girls about forgiveness. I know they meant figuratively punched in
the gut, not literally, but certainly most of the forgiveness that
has to go on between me and the girls is on the physical level: I
can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been punched in
the eye by flailing arms; had my hair pulled out by an
over-enthusiastic toddler climbing all over me; been cracked with a
stinging blow on my nose, drawing tears and blood; or even actually
punched in the gut by a toddler unwilling to have her diaper
changed.

Yes, it's almost as exciting as Christmas
day for me. And sadly enough, I'm not exaggerating.


I don't know where to start! Earth Day's become so mainstream
that you can throw a rock and hit a store doing a giveaway. Many of
them are, unfortunately, just trying to cash in on Earth Day for
their own selfish purposed (shame on you, Disney!) so I won't tell
you about most, but I will tell you this one - Pottery Barn Kids is
giving away free plants, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Take it home and enjoy
taking care of it - and eventually planting it in your back yard -
with your child.


Looking for ways to celebrate? Google "pick your own" and your
state, and find out if there's a place near you with some
strawberry picking or rhubarb picking or whatever available. Head
to your local Home Depot and spend a buck on a seed packet and
start some seeds in dixie cups and your kitchen window. Throw out
your stinky, icky cleaners and crack open a bottle of vinegar and a
box of baking soda. Ride bikes to school with your kids. Buy
organic for the day. Go out to dinner at a place that supports
local farmers.


DO SOMETHING!


And then tell me about it. I wanna know - how do you celebrate?

Maddie’s always had vivid dreams
– she spent part of her twos and threes battling bad dreams a
few times a week, and now has extraordinary, fanciful dreams with
some regularity. And feels the need to share them with us.


In excruciating, time-bending detail.


Here’s a recent sample from this morning's breakfast
table:

I think it’s no secret that Cora is,
um, rather attached to Mommy. She’s nearly three years old,
and is usually stuck to me like glue. If we drop Maddie off at her
classroom and I stay behind to talk to a teacher while Cora and my
mom walk on ahead down the hall, Cora will spy me back behind her
and run to me, embracing my leg and saying, “Mommy! I found
you! I was worried about you!”


To be fair, she’s gotten much better about my absences than
she used to be, and will take my working with fairly good grace as
long as she knows about it beforehand. If I park in front of the
house, where she’s got a window, and fail to tell her
I’m leaving during her quiet time, she’ll hear the
alarm chime as I go out the door, scramble to the window, and watch
me drive away, sobbing and beating against it with her fists.
“Mommy, no! Mommy, come back! COME BACK!” But if
I’m honest with her and tell her I will be leaving BUT I will
be back before bedtime, she’ll accept it pretty well.
Especially if I sneak out the back door and avoid a dramatic
exit.

A local ballet studio had a one-night-only
show this weekend. They invited other local dance companies to
perform, and it was, for them, a big deal. With general admission
at five bucks, I considered taking the girls.


And I have to be honest here – after reading about it, I
decided not to take them. The reason is purely selfish: I’m a
dance snob, and after spending my life doing it professionally and
with friends in some of the best companies in the world, the
thought of watching teenagers struggle through Don Quixote or Swan
Lake was, um, less than appealing. So I left it there.


But then a friend of ours brought it up, mentioning she was taking
her daughter, and I realized I needed to change my tune. It was one
night, cheap, and something the girls absolutely adore –
dancing. So I squished my snotty standards way down deep, and we
headed off for a night at the ballet.

We were driving somewhere yesterday when
Maddie asked out of the blue, “Mommy, are you going 35 miles
an hour?”


Startled, I glanced down and saw that, thankfully, I was going that
speed. “Yep, I sure am,” I answered. “How did you
know?”


“Because that’s what the sign says the speed limit is
here,” she said, pointing to another sign as we moved on.

Yesterday I helped a friend out, watching
her two children while she got some work done. I say I helped her
out, but it’s actually great for me as well – her two
girls are very close to Maddie and Cora’s ages, and everyone
plays together well. That morning I’d gotten an email from
another friend suggesting we hit the park for a play date, and I
told her I’d bring my foursome and we’d play with her
daughter.


Even as I said this I had misgivings – having three
almost-five-year-olds doesn’t always work, and someone was
bound to feel left out at some point. So before everything went
down, I had a long reminder talk with Maddie about how we
don’t exclude friends, and that she needed to make sure
everyone who wanted to play with her was able to.


Unfortunately, this just doesn’t happen at that age.

Maddie’s been loving her time in
pre-k, and this first year of school is really flying by fast. Her
class keeps a running count of how many days they’ve been in
school, and we’re over 80 by now, with less than six weeks to
go. She’s already lamenting the onset of summer and loss of
her precious school time.


Last week she brought home a form in her school folder for ordering
graduation pictures. Excuse me? Isn’t she four? Aren’t
we safe from that for another, oh, fourteen years??

I’ve mentioned in the past that
Cora’s somewhat enamored of my hair – it’s pretty
much her lovey, especially when she’s sad or sleepy or happy
or . . . well, whenever, really. She’ll throw her arms around
my neck, grab great fistfuls of my hair, and rub it all over her
face, making ecstatic noises and smiling.


It can be a little awkward around strangers.

I know Maddie’s learning lots of
things in her preschool, and frankly I’m grateful that
they’re doing the work that I probably should:
Madeleine’s come home with a prize she earned for knowing her
full address, her phone number – things I’d never
dreamed of drilling her on right now. I keep forgetting she’s
getting older and will need to start learning these things –
right now I still marvel at the fact that she can dress herself
every morning.


At any rate, they’ve clearly been covering how to use the
phone – which I admit, I should be teaching her. She’s
almost five, obviously capable of dialing 911 in an emergency,
should I ever bother to teach her how. I know I should be doing
this with her, but she’s such a worrier I’m afraid to
bring up the topic and watch her have nightmares for weeks about a
scenario in which Mommy’s so incapacitated that Maddie must
save them all by dialing for help.


But I digress.

A couple days ago, I was reading a
parenting magazine and Maddie asked me to read out loud to her. The
article was about ways to “green” your household
routine, and one of the suggestions was, “Turn off your water
while you brush your teeth.” Maddie looked at me, bewildered,
and said, “Why would anyone leave the water on while they
brush their teeth?”


Last week, I handed out scripts to my teenage acting class.
I’d copied them single-sided on purpose, to leave room for
them to take notes, and one of my students noticed this and said,
only half-teasing, “Way to mess up the environment, Miss Jen!
Don’t worry about the ecological inheritance you’re
leaving us!”

Strep.Throat.A.Gain.

Ah, Easter - gaily decorated eggs nestled
in the grass, sweet-faced cherubs laughing delightedly and playing
gaily in their beautiful dresses, a near-continuous stream of
chocolate and jelly beans practically guaranteed for the whole day.


But then comes the morning after, and it ain't pretty.


I tried to regulate the girls, I really did. A couple pieces before
church, a couple pieces after lunch, one piece after dinner - I
didn't think it was that much, at least compared to what I see
going on around me. But man oh man, those kids were monsters when
it was bedtime - a lethal combination of stumblingly tired and
strung out on chocolate, with a dash of manic "hey, my friends are
here! Let's jump on Mommy's back twenty times!" mixed in for good
measure.


We had our share of meltdowns, breaks, temper tantrums, hitting,
and kicking, that's for sure. And after they'd gone to bed I went
through their baskets and winnowed out over half of what they'd
received, muttering under my breath about "next year, it's going
to be all fruit and crackers in the eggs!"


Though if I do that, I can't eat the confiscated contraband, which
I use to help me get through the rest of the week.


What to do, what to do.

Cora went to a birthday party recently and
consumed only the frosting from one of those hyper-decorated cakes,
covered with sugared roses in every color of the rainbow. She was a
maniac, crabby and irritable to the nth degree the rest of the day,
and when she had a poop the next day that looked like seaweed or
spinach I thought, “Yuck! That just confirms that I want to
make my daughter’s own birthday cakes, with less artificial
frostings.”


A couple months ago, a friend of mine mentioned casually that every
time her daughter has a favorite sherbet, she’s hyper and
crazy the rest of the day – like, ten times crazier than
sugar-crazy. Her best guess was that her daughter was allergic to
the dye in the orange sherbet.


Turns out, she’s not so wrong.