Category — The Girls

As my daughter reminded me this morning, Mother’s Day is over.

Yeah, baby! I scored a banner!

Weather-wise, that had to be just about the most fabulous Mother’s Day weekend ever. Loved it. Sure, we’ve crashed back into rainy, chilly reality again, but it was a Monday anyway, right? We’d had a soccer practice and game planned for tonight, both canceled, so it was an unexpectedly relaxing evening.

The girls were excited with their gift-giving. So much so that there was an argument about whose gift would be opened last, because last means the best and the grand finale and all. So I asked them who wanted to give the precious gift of showing their ability to compromise and work well with her sister. On the face of it, neither of them was the answer. So I left the room to hover near Cute W, who was preparing banana-walnut pancakes for me with a side of fresh raspberries in the kitchen. When I returned, J offered up her gift. She had lost rock-paper-scissors. Or so M reported. At that point J disputed whether M had, in fact, presented paper, or if she’d skillfully shifted her scissors hand when she noticed J’s undeniable fist-rock. Whatever.

I opened gift after gift from J, many of which were completed at school. In fact, as I kept opening, M started to look a little irritated. Cute W laughed later that the look on her face was, “What the hell do they frickin’ do all day in first grade? Just make Mom presents!?!” The final gift, a painted pot, was supposed to be a big surprise, which I didn’t realize because an earlier item was a carefully-copied poem on a card about the pot that J had painted. Apparently I was supposed to be fooled into thinking that the referenced pot was the paper picture, when in fact  I just assumed that it was a paper pot. J was a bit irritated. Possibly it was not the poem, but the fact that the bag felt like it held a pot and, frankly, we’ve had this first-grade teacher before.  I managed to smooth it over.

M’s gift presentation was even funnier. They’d made a craft composed of a flower with six petals, each of which contained a hand-written sentiment. As I was opening the gift, M confessed that she’d come up with three truly sincere and heartfelt sentiments, and the other three were not entirely accurate. If she’d been a grown-up she would have just called them bullshit, but since she’s not allowed to use that word, she spoke delicately around the concept that three of her phrases were somewhat contrived and uninspired. In fact, they looked like the teacher had written possible examples on the board. One was especially funny, because it was something like, “I wish that you could be with me all the time.” And M had to hedge with this one, “I like to be with you, but I don’t really want to be with you all the time. I like that you give me time on my own.” Thus in explaining, she unwittingly offers me another actual heartfelt sentiment! Ha! What made it even funnier was that today I stumbled on the rough draft where the teacher had added “all the time” to her note, and I could just imagine M rolling her eyes and thinking, “Okay, that’s totally not true, but it’s not worth arguing with the teacher. Whatever.” In any case, I read the three BS ones, and saved the non-BS items as my grand finale. Absolutely worth it.

Hope you all had a lovely day.

Walking around my house these days is like a minefield. A Minefield of Love. Everywhere I turn, J is working on another project for Mother’s Day. She is diligent. She is creative. She is prolific.

Sadly, many of these creations will not make the cut. She will labor over a glorious and beautiful message that is two-thirds entirely accurate and one-third invented spelling, and then she will deem it Unacceptable and throw it into the garbage.

That’s not fair.

Doesn’t she understand that the unacceptable, the misspelled, the overly goofy and ardent, are my very favorite kind of gifts? But I won’t get those. I will get something lovely. I will add it to the display.  But what makes the days leading up to Mother’s Day frustrating is that around every corner, J is working on a Special Secret Something, and I’m not allowed to enter the room. Which is adorable the first time and the second time. But eventually, I’d like to walk freely around the house.

Or something is left out. Like this:

You know that this had to be driving me crazy if I’m willing to expose the grubbiness of my stairway to the world. This is a Very Special Item that I’m not permitted to view. Actually, it’s better if I don’t even notice it. This is torture. I am trying to respect J’s desire to keep gifts a secret, but it is very difficult to ignore adorable messages of love from your children. This folded piece of paper spent about two and a half days on the stairs. J kept not moving it, and then when I’d ask her to move it, she’d say that she would later, or she’d freak out that I had noticed it. Ummm. . . it has been sitting there for days, making it difficult not to notice. Actually, it was making me crazy.

There are items like this on the table and on the counter and mixed in with the school papers and I absolutely must not look at any of them. Half of them are things that J’s forgotten about, but I’m not supposed to look at them, because that’s forbidden, and I can’t ask if they should be recycled, because that would imply that they are worthless. It is difficult to tidy any surface around J these days, because she flies into a panic that something will be revealed.

Trying to make good use of all of this loving energy, I offer suggestions, each quickly rejected.

“You know,” I begin, with what I hope is a subtle, musing expression, “A lovely gift to me would be if you spent some extra time tidying up your room or the playroom.” No. J practically rolls her eyes. She could do that any day. It’s not Mother’s Day special. Theoretically, one could spend any day doing such a thing. Okay, she doesn’t say anything about “theoretically,” but it’s clear that that’s Not Special Enough.

“Why don’t you make something for Grandma or Nana Honey?” I  ask when I see art supplies all over the table. M looks up from her book, yawns, and looks back down. J  rejects the idea. She has More Important Work T o Do. Secret Work. She can’t tell me anything more about this.

“A wonderful Mother’s Day idea is to just not drop your belongings all over the house,” I grouse. “It would be so delightful not to have to nag anyone to do anything.” M, standing on top of one of her little sister’s discarded sweaters, folds her arms and says, “You know, it’s not Mother’s Day yet.”

It’s Screen-Free Week at the girls’ school, and for the first time ever, it’s actually a breeze. Although our dinners together have suffered with all of our activities, another happier by-product is that the girls haven’t been watching tv on weekdays at all. Typically, if my kids watch tv during the week, it starts between about 5 & 6:30 pm and continues until I stop them for dinner at 6:30 or 7 pm. It works for me because it keeps them occupied and low-maintenance while I’m cooking. They know that they can’t watch tv until after they’ve finished homework and music practice, and usually when they ask me to watch a show, I tell them that they have to spend ten minutes doing something else (like tidying someplace up, or putting away their laundry) first. It’s a good system, because it makes them pretty efficient. When they were younger, they’d sometimes watch tv in the morning, but only after eating breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, and generally being entirely ready to leave the house. This is pretty much impossible when you leave the house at 7:30 am, so the morning tv long ago died naturally and painlessly. Now nobody thinks to ask about it because we’re so busy in the late afternoon-early evening. And they like busy.

Actually, tonight J was at gymnastics and  I was sitting at the computer (because I am not going screen-free. I do it occasionally, but it requires some serious planning). Suddenly M was hovering near me, looking over my shoulder, and listlessly moving her soccer ball around. I realized her problem: there’s been a change to her schedule, and in the past, M was always at soccer practice on Tuesday nights. So we went outside and kicked the ball around. Which is a big deal, because generally she considers me unworthy of her playing time, since I have zero soccer skills. We had an excellent time, even if she is a dirty, shirt-grabbing cheater and I only know how to kick in one direction, which is away. After playing, we took another one of our walks.

Last night, J and I did Zumba again, and she was so cute: she even picked out a sparkly, Zumba-looking shirt to wear. Afterwards we went to the best soccer game we’ve watched in weeks. It was the first outdoor game where we weren’t freezing our butts off, both teams had some amazingly great and comically awful plays, our team won, but only by two points, so it was still interesting for everyone and not overly demoralizing for the other team, and M scored a goal. On the way home we were in separate cars (because J and I had zoomed over from Zumba), and Cute W managed to get in front of the girls and me. For the rest of the drive they kept urging me to pass unsafely, run into him, or do something else hazardous to assert our domination. I staunchly refused, turned up the music, and declared us the fun car. We were just behind him pulling into the driveway, so I stopped short and yelled to the girls, “Quick! GO! Beat him to the door!” And they popped out, shrieking wildly, and ran for it. Meanwhile I had to park, and with J’s scooter infringing on my parking turf,  I eased ever-so-slowly into the garage. I didn’t realize that I was supposed to beat Cute W, too. So when I finally came out of the garage, I saw J just inside the house guarding the door and M tackling Cute W on our back steps, trying to keep him from reaching the door (here’s a visual of the back steps). I vaulted over the shoulder-high railing beyond the stairway scrum and entered. At which point Cute W, no doubt for the good of everyone’s mood, conceded defeat while we girls high-fived each other. Which, if you include the ride, pretty much made the soccer game the Best Game Ever.

Tonight while Cute W and I were eating dinner at a table that hadn’t been cleared due to all of our activities and haphazard eating schedule, I noticed a little art project that M had been working on:

You can’t see it well, but the circular stickers on the top spell out soccer, with two quotations that M had added that she hears from her coach all the time: “Be a team. Trust your teamwork together.” and “You’ll never score if you don’t shoot.”

I nudged Cute W and passed it to him silently for his inspection. Which, if it didn’t make his day, it totally should have. Because of course the quotes were from Coach Cute W.

I’m getting fed up with being sensible. My brain is creating intelligible, perfectly reasonable statements, but by the time they flow out of my mouth all anyone can hear is the “Wawhn-wawhn-wah-wah-Wonk” of that teacher from the Peanuts cartoons. It’s seriously frustrating.

Okay, so it’s almost May, and the sky is blue with puffy white clouds, but if you are heading to the barren flat lands which are our town soccer fields in the evening, you may as well just dress for the tundra. The wind is whistling. The sky switches to storm clouds before halftime. And for such a seemingly dry season, the puddles are epic. Denying any of this only causes misery.

Yet deny it they do. M dresses in only her short-sleeve t-shirt for the 7 pm game tonight. When I give Cute W an extra long-sleeve shirt to bring along, her eyes roll like she’s a mare who’s been over-whipped on a Little House on the Prairie episode. Moments later I see J’s sneakers and suggest the rain boots and she protests like I’ve just told her that her shoe choice makes her a loathsome and worthless human being.

I retreat, muttering that it doesn’t really matter, I don’t care what they wear to the game.

Later, I am careful not to look too smug when M pulls on the fleece that I brought along.

Instead, I remind myself, again, of a conversation M and I had last week. Last Friday was the Girls Scouts’ Father-Daughter Dance, and M left the house wearing jeans shorts and a t-shirt. I prevailed upon her to allow me to stow a sundress in the car, just in case. As soon as they saw they saw the arrivals in the parking lot, Cute W reported, M changed in the car.

“Well,” M put in, “There was one girl who was wearing shorts at the dance.”

“And they said it was okay to wear shorts, but it’s nice to have a choice,” I said. “Did she seem like she was happy with the shorts?”

M laughed. “No way. She looked pretty uncomfortable. I felt kind of sorry for her. She doesn’t have you for a mom.”

I used to read articles in parenting magazines which urged us to try our best to have dinner together as a family at least once or twice a week and I totally rolled my eyes. I’d think: talk about a low bar! What the heck do they think everyone is doing? Is everyone driving through to get fast food and eat in the car? All of this was followed, of course, by my own smug satisfaction. Because we almost always eat dinner together as a family. Sure, manners could use a little work (why does my 9-year-old always try to use her fingers instead of a fork?) and the conversation is not always super-intellectual (Cute W keeps saying that we should plan discussions about current events or the arts, but so far, planned talks. . .  are all talk). But we eat decent meals at a decent hour and everybody clears the table together.

Or, that’s how it used to be. Until lately.

Now that we’ve reached the school-age years, things have gone to hell in a hand-basket.

I vaguely remember a story–I think it was from Dr. Sears–about a parent who was so pleased that his children never colored or wrote on the walls. He assumed that this was due to excellent  parenting for years until a baby came along and he realized that the only reason why the walls had been clean before was because unlike the new baby, his elder children weren’t artists. I have years ahead for meeting my parental comeuppances in one form or another (for example, shortly after I posted about how I can handle anything with a decent night’s sleep and a shower, there’s this post on a mom’s anxiety about her very good daughter’s short shorts, and I know that it’s just a matter of time–HT sistermama).

So, the latest comeuppance? Family dinner.

On an unscheduled, generally organized day, the family will eat together at 6:30 or 6:45 pm and the girls will head upstairs to brush teeth and put on PJs by about 7:30 or 7:45 pm.

That hasn’t been happening lately.

On Monday, I brought J with me to my 5:30 pm Zumba class. Usually I’d leave the girls alone, knowing that Cute W would be arriving home shortly, but M had soccer practice, and I didn’t want to leave J by herself. Then practice was cancelled, but J was all excited about Zumba, so she came along, anyway. I thought that she was just going to watch, but apparently she participated and did quite well. I say “apparently” because, like anyone at their first Zumba class, she started out a bit nervous. I was hovering like a hen and annoying her, so she stood behind me and waved me off whenever I’d turn around to check on her. By the end of the class, three women had asked me if she took dance lessons  and the teacher called her “Zumba Queen” and said she was better than me. Shocking, because I’m fabulous. Actually, there aren’t any mirrors in the class, which allows me to falsely  assume that I’m fabulous, making it more fun. J loved Zumba, and she’s excited to go back next week for what is sadly my last class.

I fed both girls at 5 pm, then I quickly ate at about 6:40 pm, before J and I rushed off to meet Cute W and M at their 7 pm soccer game (yep, he’s coaching again). While J and I were Zumba-ing, Cute W ate before heading to the soccer fields for a pre-game warm-up.  I took advantage of the cold, wet weather to make one last batch of chicken chowder for the season, so that was an easy self-serve meal.

On Tuesday, M had a soccer game at 6 pm, half an hour away, and J had to be dropped off at gymnastics at 6:20 pm. For a while I’d had plans of dropping J and rushing over to watch soccer, but Cute W made me realize that this was a gas-guzzling exercise in folly. Again, the girls got an early 5 pm dinner (burritos), and this time Cute W had a post-soccer game meal at 7:30 pm. Meanwhile, I foolishly thought I could sneak in a meal at home between dropping M at her friend’s for a ride (and yes, I was late enough that the friend’s mom already had the family loaded in her car when I dropped M) and taking J to gymnastics at Cartwheels. I wouldn’t get home until 8:15 pm, so I packed myself a dinner and had a tragic car picnic:

Jason, the nice guy at Cartwheels, assured me that I could eat inside while watching class, but I didn’t want to stink the joint up. Not only because it’s rude, but because it’s a bunch of mamas I don’t know, and I don’t want to be “the stinky dinner lady.” Perhaps that is merely a manifestation of my general social awkwardness, but I found more serenity in my car.

Tonight W is coaching another soccer game for M, then he’s off to play his own game, so it’s another early dinner followed by a scramble to the (unbelievably cold and windy) soccer fields.

Fortunately, this rec soccer season is only four weeks, and tomorrow evening we have nothing planned at all.

But I keep wondering how the heck parents of more children manage all of this, and yes, I pine for an elusive “Olden Days” when all the kids would just go and play in a vacant lot somewhere while the parents had pre-dinner cocktails. I wish that we spent less time organizing and schlepping and more time relaxing. I’d love to see more active kids playing pick-up games in the neighborhood, so I could just yell out the front door at 6:45 pm for everyone to come in to dinner.

I lost it a bit yesterday.

I’ve got a soda problem. I just love it. And I know it’s terrible. It’s chemicals in a can. It’s got caffeine, and I’m ridiculously sensitive to caffeine–if I have two Coke Zeros, then I’m screwed, sleep-wise. So I’m intermittently abstaining from soda, trying to quit, or off the wagon completely in what appears to be an endless cycle. If I could keep it to one or two cans a week, that would be acceptable, but it’s tough. Right now I’m once again in cold-turkey mode.

This time, I’m augmenting my #1 favorite beverage–tap water–with the occasional chai iced tea and club soda. Drinking club soda at my sister’s reminded me that I like club soda much more than seltzer. Which is a shame, because it seems very similar except that it’s got some added sodium and it tends to be less conveniently available.  Also, the bottles, while cute, seem shockingly wasteful to me, yet I can’t commit to the big plastic bottles because I wouldn’t drink enough before they go flat. You know that I’m cheap. So I went out and bought myself some cute little bottles of club soda, but I perversely feel like they are a special treat.

Meanwhile, my kids aren’t allowed to drink soda. Or, at least, not under everyday conditions. Usually, we try to just act neutral and model good behavior when it comes to dietary choices, like my mentor Ellyn Satter says. But this doesn’t work, because Cute W and I love soda, and we hate how much we love soda. The girls can have a soda at parties, they’re usually allowed up to one soda per day on vacations, and sometimes at the movies or a restaurant. They rarely finish the sodas, like that time we bought them on our “live”-blogging car trip.

Really, they just like the idea of soda. Because it is forbidden at their house, it is pure animal instinct that they must ask for it repeatedly and accept it whenever it’s offered. Dogs have to pee everywhere. Seagulls must pester you if you try to picnic on the beach. And my children must beg for soda. We know (and if we didn’t, Ellyn Satter would tell us) we’ve created this monster. Still, it’s monstrous.

So, yesterday, M asked to try a club soda. She doesn’t like club soda. Both girls have tried club soda and seltzer, and they don’t like either one of them. Still, its soda-like effervescence called to her, and it seemed better to let her try so that she’d just remember that she didn’t like it. So I repressed a sigh and consented.

In opening the bottle, M sprayed club soda all over the floor. Okay. A rookie mistake. Then, as she started to lift the bottle to her lips, I suggested, “You know, it would be better with some ice. Room temperature probably won’t taste too good.” M ignored me and took a sip. And then, with great drama, she ran past the sink and to the nearest door, where she spat out her small taste of club soda. But she was determined, and  J was now intrigued and asking for a taste. I pulled out the ice cube tray and two glasses. M ignored me and the glass, instead pressing an ice cube at the top of the bottle, because the bottle is cute.  This drove me slightly crazy, because the ice cube was clearly too large for the mouth of the bottle. But I restrained myself admirably.

Finally, M gave up and poured some club soda over the glass with ice, setting down the half-full bottle as the (small) glass fizzed to the rim. I picked up the bottle in order to pour the other half into an ice-filled glass for J. As I lifted the bottle from the table, M grabbed it by the bottom. Because she did not want to share.

She did not want to share the bottle of the stuff that she had, moments ago, run moaning to the door to spit out.

I was forced to use italics so that we’re clear on how freaking ridiculous she was being.

Alas. I chose to descend to her level.

This is when I said, “Let go.” And she ignored me. Since she was tiny, M has done this. She digs in her heels, driving me from somewhat sympathetic to mildly annoyed to extremely irritated to ballistic. She was the toddler who ran screaming from time-out until I would put her into her room and close the door and hang onto the knob from the outside for her own protection. Usually it’s over something stupid. Like half a bottle of club soda. So we played tug of war with the bottle while I said, “Let go-let go-let go!” with a steadily rising voice, much like Bill Cosby with his “Come here-come here-come here” routine (which, if you don’t know this, you simply must click over and watch a bit–funny, too, because apparently he has child/soda issues, as well).

I’m not proud of this. Here’s yet another way in which I am utterly screwed as a parent. I hardly ever yell. You would think that my children would appreciate that, especially when you can hear parents say all sorts of nasty stuff in all sorts of mean voices just at the grocery store. Oh, no. Instead, I have raised children who are deeply sensitive to the slightest change in tone of my voice. So when I raise my voice into loud talking, they are appalled, wounded, aggrieved. And I feel like CrapMom.

At approximately the fifth “Let go,” M wisely chose to let go, and I proceeded to pour the other half of the club soda into J’s half-filled glass. At this point, M, emotionally-wounded-by-loud-talking-Mommy, exited the house. Whether it was merely to avoid hanging around with me or, as I suspect, in order to try one more sip of the cold club soda and then feel free to pour it into the closest shrubbery while I wasn’t looking, I don’t know. What I do know is that we have a no-walking-outside-with-glass-or-ceramics policy that I had not yet reviewed for the spring season. Still, you’d think my 9-year-old would remember this. But instead of following her and insisting that she re-pour the club soda into plastic, I just thanked my lucky stars that she was out of the damn house.

Then I turned to J, who was attempting to dislodge additional ice cubes from the empty ice cube tray. “Two ice cubes should be plenty to make it cold enough,” I advised. “If you want it colder, you can stir it around.” She wanted it colder, of course, because she does not like club soda. She thought that if it were colder, she might actually like it. She sat for a minute, looked at me furtively, then got up and walked over to our counter-top water tank to add some water to the club soda to make it more palatable.

At which point I lost it again. “Stop right there! If you want to add water, it’s because you don’t like the club soda! Give me your club soda and I will drink it for you, because I actually like the club soda just the way it is! And I actually have to go to the store and pay money to buy the club soda. Water is free! So, if you don’t like the club soda, don’t drink the club soda! Drink the delicious, readily-available, completely free water!!!” All of which I said in my very loud talking voice.

She looked like she might burst into tears. And I was overcome with remorse. “No, J, it doesn’t matter. Add water if you want. Just don’t take more if you don’t like it. Can you see how I would find this annoying?”

“Never mind,” she sniffed. “I don’t want it anymore.” And she took her glass of club soda and fled the room.

- – - – - – - – - – -

Last night I tried to write this post and it felt too unbelievably tedious to write. Because it was so unbelievably tedious to experience.  But I know that some of you are entertained my most most epic parenting fails, so. . .VOILÀ.

And it gets even better. The girls were awake this morning before either of us, and when he came downstairs, Cute W discovered a half-full bottle of club soda sitting on the kitchen table. He asked, and neither of the girls ‘fessed up.

So, what about you guys? Do you have food or soda battles? Do you think I should never mention club soda again, forbid it and lock my club sodas in a liquor cabinet, or give up and have us all drink soda to our heart’s content?

We enjoyed our first completely unscheduled Saturday in months. The gorgeous weather was a bonus.

Cute W spent much of the day staining a desk that his dad made for him.

Staining furniture has got to be on the Cute W’s top ten list for things that make him most tense, ever. For part of the time I stood next to him, catching errant drips with a rag, and listened to him moan, mutter, and curse. This was particularly amusing to me, because it seems like a pretty Zen process. That’s largely because he doesn’t trust me to do it myself, so I don’t have primary responsibility. You might think I’m kidding, but he truly would not let me do it. Anyway, I asked, “What is it about staining that stresses you out so much?” And he answered, “Because everything is a potential mistake.”

Ah, yes. So then it struck me as a perfect metaphor for parenthood. We’re walking around this desk, fussing over the imperfections and touching up what we can and fretting. Because it’s a race against time: if we don’t fix something quickly, it will become a permanent flaw. Cute W is afraid that there will be a thick, ugly drip that he’ll see every time he sits down at his computer desk for years to come. A constant reminder of a momentary lack of competence. Just like parenting, when we encounter bad habits or annoying phases and wonder, is this something that will pass, or is it an indication of a permanent character defect? A defect which is no doubt due to our own parenting incompetence, something that we could have prevented if only we’d been more vigilant? I was thinking all of this while Cute W stained and I wiped drips and we both fretted over the mottled surface.

Then J came along and said, “Wow! That looks wonderful! You guys are doing a great job!”

When we weren’t staining, we were walking. Yesterday, I took the girls to visit my sister and her family in Vermont. When we returned, the weather was gorgeous and I desperately needed to get off my butt. J was at gymnastics, so M and I took a walk. Strangely, this was a revelation. When the girls were in the Baby Bjorn-and-stroller stage, I walked with them often. But we haven’t taken too many random strolls lately. M gushed, “We never just walk without going somewhere. We bike around, or we walk to somewhere, but we never just walk around.” She decided that we should walk far.

When we returned home, we mapped our walk to find out how far we’d walked, and then we logged our time and miles.

So, today, M was eager for another walk. First, J came along. This was a bit of a flop. J didn’t walk fast enough for M, and M wanted to walk farther than J. There was drama and sorrow. We ended the threesome walk, then M and I headed back out.

By the end, M was tired. I asked if I could take a picture for the blog, and she consented.

Then she began to collapse for the camera.

We were both laughing, because we were passing by a neighbor’s house, and they’re always posting photos on Facebook of the whole family climbing mountains. I jokingly narrated the contrasting families’ adventures, “Here’s so-and-so on mile 8 of our trek at 320 feet, still looking good! . . . “Here’s M after a walk around the neighborhood. We borrowed a stretcher for the final block of our stroll.”

So, I’m hoping we stick with this new mother-daughter ritual. J was tired today, but I suggested that we take a one-on-one walk soon. At this rate I might need to get a decent pair of sneakers.

Oh, hey! Stay tuned for another circus giveaway coming up soon!

I don’t quite know where the day went. That’s what it’s like when the kids are home.

Well, first, it’s not entirely true. In the morning, we visited an orthodontist. Little J has crowded teeth, and we were hoping that today’s second opinion would echo the first opinion so that we’d just know what to do. Dr. First said pull 4 teeth and see how it goes.  Which sounded awesome to us, because we love to procrastinate. Actually, by “us” I mean Cute W and me. J thought that this was a bad idea. In fact, we walked out of the office and she told me, “I feel terrified.” It took quite a bit of coaxing to convince her that it wouldn’t feel all that different from getting a cavity filled. What, you don’t agree? Well. . . just zip it, okay? We don’t need to know.

I miss those straight baby teeth.

This morning, Dr. Second was in favor of keeping the teeth and going straight to some braces. He argued convincingly that while extraction works for some, in J’s case, the braces approach would lead to greater “aesthetic success.” This term had Cute W and I snickering immediately. Because, I’m sorry. That’s just funny. I’m already figuring that this will become a new phrase for us, like when we’re out running errands and I’ll lean over to Cute W and say, “Ouch! Aesthetic failure in aisle 5!” Which is wrong. And bad karma. But sometimes it’s difficult to hold back.

The point is, we left the office and had a five-minute conversation about just how confused we were before splitting up for the day. Cute W arrived home from the office with a print-out of approximately 70-odd pages of someone’s thesis on the timing of tooth extractions that he’d Googled . He pronounced it, “Interesting, but inconclusive.” After a swift check of the introduction and conclusion, I’ll agree only to the latter portion of that statement.

Meanwhile I’d ignored Google, except to locate, and make an appointment with, Dr. Third. Looking forward to it. Oh, wait! But the best part is that I hadn’t yet broken it to J that we’d set up a third appointment, so she found out when Cute W was chatting to his mother on speaker phone tonight, and then Grandma started talking on. . . and on. . . about pulling teeth while J’s face collapsed in much the same way that Dr. Second predicts will happen if we choose to extract her teeth. So that was a good time.

The girls were playing together nicely for quite a while this morning and early afternoon, so I was lulled into complacently believing that I could stop puttering (laundry, dishes, etc.) and do more brain-involved computer work. Unfortunately, my psychic children sensed that I had decided to blow off activity for the day, so they reported to the computer to plead for a fun outing. Or, really, any outing. By this time it was about 1:45 pm, and J had evening gymnastics, so I just looked at them, slightly stunned and saddened that my opportunity for productivity had slipped through my fingers. Seeing my slack-and-stumped face, M grouched, “Don’t you, like, run a website about fun stuff to do or something?”

Dammit. Apparently I do. But the girls didn’t realize that organized activities tend to be at 10 am or 1 pm but definitely not, say 2:30 pm, which would have worked for us. Plus we had limited time. We ended up feeding and playing with the neighbors’ pets, visiting the library, and then going for a bike ride.

The good news is that J is finally getting used to her bigger bike, which she began resisting as too scary approximately forty minutes after begging for it please-please-please and five minutes after the credit card slip was signed. So that’s progress. Beyond that, it’s difficult to point to much that was accomplished. I read some more Harry Potter to J. I cut apart M’s wrists after J duct-taped them together (in fairness, M did it to J first). M and I took a walk and briefly kept our legs perfectly synchronized, left/right, as I realized that soon I’ll be able to rest my chin comfortably on the top of her head. Some days, noticing that the kids are still here and growing is the all the accomplishment that a Mama can hope for.

Besides, there’s always tomorrow.

When I was thinking about the whole big kids/little kids thing, I remembered something I hear all the time, which is how little babies and toddlers are so cuddly, cuddly, cuddly, and then big kids don’t want to cuddle.

Well, yes, okay. Sort of true. It would be lovely if there were a happy medium between the baby who wants to be touching you at all times (Jezebel’s post on Alicia Silverstone reminded me of this–basically saying, gosh , that sounds annoying. Except–fair warning–she says it more colorfully).

My sweet little J has always been a cuddle bug. Her affections are not constant, but they can be fierce. She remains fully open to hugs and cuddles.

M, who spent much of her first two years either in my arms or sobbing because she wasn’t in my arms, has cooled considerably over the years. She’s stoic, and she prides herself on being self-sufficient. But she needs a little affection, too. So I got tricky.

We play a game called “100 Kisses,” is from Lawrence Cohen’s book Playful Parenting. Details are at the link, but basically, you tell your child that you’re going to give her 100 kisses, and then you do. As cheesy as this sounds, the game became a favorite, and we still play it occasionally, especially when she’s had a bad day.

I also give M a little bedtime back rub most nights. J gets her share of cuddles, too, but it’s not as much of a formula as with M. M summons me each night when she turns out the light after reading, so it can be a bit of a drag sometimes. But I’ve discovered that the combinations of her sleepiness and her intense desire to continue the massage makes her much more communicative than usual.

Finally, I’ve said before that I like New Moon Girl Magazine, and they have a “Girl to Girl” advice column. One of the recent letters was so moving. It was from a 10-year-old girl who said, “I feel that I’m developing too fast, and I really wish I was a little kid again. I feel sad a lot. I also get this weird feeling when I’m around my mom: I want to hug her (I love her a lot!), but then I feel too embarrassed.” What followed were several encouraging responses from peers giving all sorts of variations on empathetic and kind advice that generally included, “Just hug your mom!”

Anyway, I love that column specifically for its insight into the tween mind, and  I’ve upped my hugging activity significantly in the weeks since I’ve read that letter. It’s funny, because I remember hanging around with other mothers, and their big, huge kids would climb up into their laps, or I’d  pictures of moms with huge kids on their laps, and it seemed sort of weird to me.  And I don’t think my girls would tolerate it in mixed company. But around the house, lately  I’ll just grab them and squeeze like crazy. The girls know that they can always cry “Banana” if they really don’t want the cuddles.

But, come to think of it, these days they rarely do say  “Banana.”

Did I ever tell you about the time M saw the guy almost drive away with his coffee cup on the roof of his car?

I was thinking about this story when I wrote the Planting Seeds in Pretend Play post. Especially if your child is always with a member of the family, you can go years in which every single interest that your child exhibits can be traced to a known source. She’s talking about weddings because Aunt C is getting married, or tigers because we read that book at the library, or something an older sibling is doing, because anything that they’re doing must be super-cool.

"I know I've only been 'out' for a day, but I can already tell that she's The Coolest Thing Ever."

The coffee cup story is an example of how my then-toddler adopted a narrative and made it her own.

To my chagrin.

Cute W and I were in a parking lot with M and teensy-baby J when we noticed that a young man was about to drive away with his paper cup full of coffee still sitting on the roof of his car. One of us flagged him down to tell him and he thanked us and retrieved it. M asked why we had hurried to stop the man, and what would have happened if we hadn’t stopped him. We explained that the coffee would have fallen off the car and spilled and gotten run over, and then it would be all gone, which was why the man thanked us. For some reason, it made a big impression on M, and she asked about the Coffee Cup Incident frequently over the next few days.

A week or two later, I was getting the girls into the car. M was sitting in her car seat already, door open, awaiting help with her straps. I walked out carrying the infant carrier and set it down next to me while I secured M. “Mommy,” M said, “I wish that you would put J’s car seat on the roof of the car and just forget about it and drive away.” I paused long enough to feel my stomach drop, then slammed the car door. I stayed outside of the car taking deep breaths before putting J into the car and talking about that. Honestly, I can’t remember what I said. The entire day has been overtaken by my vivid memory of the moments before, my slow comprehension followed by the SLAM that was a borderline-acceptable response given my urge to shake her, hard.

"Hmmm, how can I get her on the roof?"

The single most difficult part of J’s arrival was M’s reaction to it. She was not one of those “Little Mommy” big sisters. Far from it.  I think that part of the problem was that she was a good speaker for a two-and-a-quarter-year-old, so she could articulate things that I’d just as soon never have heard from her. Like, ever.

It was so bad that we were actually considering getting counseling for M, and we definitely didn’t leave the two of them alone for a minute, fearing violence.

Luckily, photos like this make it look like they were crazy about each other.

And then it got better. J worshiped M from the beginning, but for M it was an almost imperceptible, glacial shift from mortal enemy to dear playmate.  The Siblings Without Rivalry book helped, although it was clearly geared toward older children. M starting school and doing her own activities helped. The biggest factor was when J became capable of speaking and playing. Sweet, worshipful little J would pretty much go along with any idea of M’s, and that sort of groveling and fawning couldn’t help but win M’s grudging affection.

Today they are friends, allies, co-conspirators. This evening, M was grouchy, so J gave her a massage, then M read J a book, and they arrived at the dinner table quite cheerful.

Of course, not every day goes smoothly.

- – - – - – - – - – - – -

Recently I heard M storm off angrily after unspecified drama. I asked her about it.

“Well, I sat down and started eating next to J, and she was so rude! She asked me to stop chewing so loudly! She is so obnoxious!” I nodded sympathetically and succeeded in not chuckling out loud. This is the sort of thing M does to J all the time, so I know just where J learned this. In fact, we’ve placed a moratorium on all sister-to-sister etiquette commentary unless something is so egregious that it becomes impossible to refrain from politely requesting an end to the loud chewing/tuneless singing/foot tapping.

“And then,” M continued,  “A minute later, she got up and moved.” Again I nodded, but I was thinking that this was excellent progress, really. I’ve told each of them to just leave rather than engage in, you know, fisticuffs. So, yay for J.

“So then, I was lonely, and I followed her.” Here I can no longer preserve my neutral sounding-board persona. “You were lonely. . . ?” I repeated, eyebrows raised.

“Okay, and also I wanted to antagonize her!” M confessed. Can we take a moment, please, to appreciate her use of what is probably an SAT word? Her self-awareness? Behold! There is much cause for pride.

From there it gets boring: sympathetic murmurs, reminders that name-calling is unacceptable, and more motherly blah-blah-blah.

- – - – - – - – - – - – -

Also over the weekend, the girls were waiting in the car for me as we were getting ready to go somewhere (which, incidentally, could be against the law now--please don’t turn me in!).  As I walked around the car to ride shotgun, J blatantly smacked M on the head. I opened the door and gave J a Scary Mommy look as the two girls burst out simultaneously:

“Ow! Did you see that? She just hit me!” M roared, outraged.

“But we were playing a game!” J half-yelped, half-pleaded.

Cute W joined us as M replied,”I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her face was innocent and composed, yet both parents found her completely unconvincing. A see-who-can-hit-the-other-one-first-after-Mommy-grabs-the-door-handle is exactly the sort of wily activity my elder daughter would employ to trick J. M can be an evil genius, I tell you. And J makes it too easy for her.

I closed the topic with a curt “I don’t want to hear it. Hitting, planning hitting games, or playing hitting games are all completely unacceptable,” while Cute W struggled to maintain Stern Daddy Composure.

When we piled out of the car, Cute W whispered to me, “You should have seen J’s face. It was like she couldn’t decide which was worse, that M’s that full of s%&t or that she fell for that game.”

Sisterly love sprouting, finally

Perfection it’s not, but I no longer feel like I have to keep M strapped down, so that’s progress.