Life With Sophia

Mother Culture

2012-02-26T21:20:00.003-05:00

Lately, we’re hearing a lot about how French parents parent and how Chinese parents parent, which got me thinking: Is there such a thing as American Parenting? And, if so, how do American Parents parent?

I am an American Parent, but I frequently feel like I’m parenting upstream, against a current that is flowing in a different direction, as opposed to being part of a larger unified, perhaps unspoken, parenting philosophy.

Then I have to wonder if that is how everyone feels—if that is American Parenting—a salad bowl of styles. A New World phenomenon of having people from so many different cultures living side-by-side. A patchwork of mothers and fathers parenting in response to their individual cultural norms, their inner voices, and the demands of their environment.

And, let’s face it. The US is just so much noisier than other countries. As parents we are inundated with a cacophony of “expert” voices coming everywhere from Hollywood to Harvard, omnipresent blather from Madison Avenue, and the audible pendulum swings of parenting zeitgeist (from “children should be seen and not heard” to “helicopter parents in the workplace”).

When I look at American literature/blogs on parenting today, there appears to be a trend towards a laissez-faire, more laid-back style of parenting: Parenting from the Couch, Free Range Parenting, Slow Parenting, The Idle Parent, The Three Martini Playdate, Confessions of a Slacker Mom. But how representative of the population at large is this?

Not very, I suspect.

We lack a mother culture. We are diffuse, diverse and sometimes divisive group. Sure there are trends in American youth, which, by proxy, point to trends in parenting—such as the fact that childhood obesity has more than tripled in the last 30 years or that, on average, children ages 2-5 spend 32 hours a week in front of the TV. But we can hardly generate a profile of the American parent based solely on this data.

Can we generalize region by region? (Southern parent, Northeast parent, Midwest parent) State by state? (California parent, Jersey parent, Texas parent) City by city? (Livingston parent, Newark parent, Point Pleasant parent) Or does this always reduce us to stereotypes, obscuring our true values and practices?

This week, in a rare breech of the imaginary wall that stands between us, I’m reaching out to you, dear readers. What do you think characterizes American parenting? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Bad Example

2012-02-19T21:05:00.005-05:00

It is Wednesday morning, and, like all Wednesday mornings, Sophia and I are in the car, headed two hours North for my mother’s nursery school. Sophia is happily chewing her way through a Dunkin’ Donuts cinnamon raisin bagel, quietly watching the scenery fly by. Something compels me to turn on New Jersey radio, usually so offensive to my ears, to listen to the traffic, which I know comes on at exactly 7:33 AM.

The report is said in one long sentence, full of clauses referring to this highway or that parkway. The ability to take in this information, to single out the roads you depend upon and quickly listen for the state of their alternate routes, should be a subtest on an IQ exam--maybe for processing speed. Or perhaps it is a form of decoding. There is a certain music to the these reports, a language with its own grammar and vocabulary. When I listen to the traffic in other places, it is foreign and impenetrable. PA, with it’s colloquial terms for it’s main arteries took me several months to learn: The Shulkill, The Blue Route--roads never referred to by the numbers that appear on maps. But NJ, I speak fluently.

So I am quickly able to discern that we are going the wrong way. Two exits up (exactly 14 miles away) there is an overturned car and a 10-mile back up that will cost me at least an additional hour. I quickly take the only exit that will spare me this fate.

As I head down the road less traveled, a calmness passes through me. Sure, we will now be plagued with red lights and 40 mph speed limits, but at least I will not be a prisoner, sandwiched between other cars, inching my way mile by mile.

When we finally re-enter the highway, I feel liberated. Sophie is listening to her music, I’m plugged into a Fresh Air podcast, lost in an interview. I steer us into the fast lane, gain speed, pass two cars on my right and--

Oh no. A police car.

I am in the cars-only lanes. The police car is in the truck lanes. A median stands between us, so it is possible that he will stay on his side. I quickly maneuver into the middle lane, hitting the breaks to match the speed of the cars I have just passed.

Oh no. He’s coming over.

I am the kind of person who cries when she gets in trouble. The sting that precedes the tears makes me sneeze.

Red and blue lights flash behind me. I’ve got to give Sophie a heads up. “Sophie,” I say, “I am getting pulled over by a cop. I need you to be very quiet.”

“Why?”

“Because mommy was going too fast.” Why do I speak of myself this way, in the third person? Am I trying to separate myself from her--this person who was breaking the law--or do I do this all the time?

“Why were you going too fast? What is he going to do? Are we going to stop right here? On the road?”

“Yes. Shhh. Please.”

He walks over to the car. I’ve got my hands at ten and two. He bends down and I lower the window. He looks like a teenager. I feel my cheeks flush.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No, officer.” I don’t know why I am saying this, because I do know why he pulled me over.

“You were going 87 MPH.”

“Really?” I say. I am incredulous. I speed, but I generally try to keep to the flow of traffic. Eighty-seven is completely uncalled for. And with Sophie in the car. I am appalled at my own behavior,

“I’m so sorry,” I stammer, “I must have been zoning.” I should shut up right now.

“License and registration.”

“I need to reach into my glove compartment.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mommy, what are you doing?’

“Shhhh. Sophie. I’ll talk to you in a minute.” I hand him the cards. He studies them for a moment.

“You have a clean record?”

“Spotless.” I say, hopeful. I was going more than 20 miles over the speed limit in a 65 MPH zone, which means the fine is doubled. I’m looking at 4 points on my record and--I don’t know--400, 500 hundred dollars.

Why was I doing 87? Why? It would be one thing to have been doing this alone, with no one’s life at stake but my own. But I had Sophie in the car. What kind of an example am I setting for her?

“I’ll be right back.” He leaves me with Sophie.

“Mommy? What is he doing?”

“Mommy is in trouble because she broke the law.” Still in the third person. I can’t own it. “I was going too fast. Now he’s writing me a ticket to punish me. I’m sorry Sophie. I shouldn’t have been going so fast with you in the car. I’m sorry.” Tears are running down my face.

“It’s okay mommy. It’s going to be alright.” Sophie coos. I smile at her in the mirror and wipe away my tears.

The cop comes back. He looks uncomfortable. “Because you have a clean record, I’ve knocked it down to careless driving.” He hands me the ticket. “A lesser fine. Fewer points.”

“I really appreciate that,” I tell him sincerely. “Thank you, officer.”

And then, worse than any fine he could have slapped me with, he says. “Now, c’mon. Slow down. You’ve got a little girl in the car.”

I nod, humiliated. Wanting him to go away so I can cry the tears of shame that are welling. He pulls onto the road first, so that I can pull ahead of him.

And then the dam breaks.

“Don’t cry, Mommy. It’s okay.”

“No! It’s not okay!” I sob. “I did a bad thing. Mommy shouldn’t have been speeding.”

Slow down.

Suddenly, the words sound like a revelation. Like a directive that comes not from a cop, but from deep within. What am I speeding for? Is saving a few minutes worth risking our lives? Why do I rush from thing to thing to thing--always in such a hurry?

What if I did slow down? Could I change this deeply-ingrained way of being--not just for my own sake, but for Sophie’s as well?

I decide in this moment: It’s worth a try.

Enough is Enough

2012-02-05T14:45:00.003-05:00

The Days of Lawlessness are over. It’s time to walk the walk. Talk the talk. Put my money where my mouth is. I’m tired of feeling like a hypocrite.

This weekend, we are starting a token economy system with Sophia.

My mother called me a hard-ass this week. Well, mom, my ass just got harder. I am finally going to do the thing I advise other parents of willful, defiant, oppositional children to do.

What took me so long?

The same reason it takes everyone so long. I just kept hoping her behavior would improve. That if I stayed consistent, if I routinely offered choices and contingencies and followed-through on demands and consequences, it would be enough.

It isn’t.

And then I’d get lulled into complacency by spells of excellent behavior. Sophia would wake up, and come into my room fully dressed. “I wanted you to be proud of me, Mommy.”

Or she’d solemnly pledge, “I’m not going to have any fusses today, Mommy,” And much to my surprise and pleasure, she wouldn’t.

Which made me think that somehow, she had it all under control. That when she acted out, she could reel it back in again. But lately, I’ve watched something different happen. The smallest thing sets her off, and then she is gone, screaming and crying at the top of her lungs, hysterical. Tortured. At times it is painful to watch, at others, the things she says are so funny--”That’s not how you should talk to your little child!”--it’s hard not to smile, which only serves to infuriate her more.

“You aren’t my parents! I want different parents! I want to leave and never come back! I don’t live in this house!”

It is quite a thing to hear a four-year-old belting out these words. I’m sure I was once inspired to shout the very same thing. Except I didn’t. I kept it inside. Sophie lets it rip, assailing anyone in her path. Her rage utterly consumes her. I’ve never seen anything so raw, so uncensored, so unselfconscious.

If I wasn’t so keyed-up, so drained, so frustrated, I might be in awe of her.

The most distressing thing about these episodes is there nothing I can do to console her. I have tried sending her to her room for “calm down time.” Holding her. Waiting it out.

And waiting, and waiting, and waiting...returning her to her room when she bursts out, holding the door closed when she comes at me, like a wildebeest, scratching and biting, body-blocking her as she steps up on top of her potty, and tries to hurdle herself over the baby-gate at the top of the stairs (in high-heels, no less).

“Sophie calm down right now! You’re going to give yourself a concussion.”

“No, YOU’LL get a concussion.” Sigh. It is best not to speak. Another thing I recommend that other people do, yet struggle with myself.

Afterwards, she is contrite. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I know that I have to have good behavior for us to have a good time.” Articulate about her feelings and what set her off. “I just wanted to wear my orange dress, Mommy. It made me mad when you gave me the wrong dress.” “I just wanted to have cherries for a snack. I got angry when you said I have to wait for dinner” I just...I just.....

Why couldn’t you have just said that, kid?

I have to help her find her voice, her self-control, her ability to regulate her emotions in times of distress. Intervening on the back end, I don’t feel like I’m doing much to teach her these skills.

So, I’m starting with a simple penny chart on a wipe off board. I’ll stick five little pieces of velcro on it, to which she can affix each penny she earns, an =‘s sign, and then write in the reinforcement du jour, e.g., playing with a friend, going to the library, reading a book, etc. The pennies will be doled out at our discretion for following her rules we generated as a family:

Stay in control of my behavior
Get dressed
Stay in my seat and eat
Let my mommy wash me
Speak nicely to others

This way she’s not sure when it’s coming, keeping her on her toes and we can control when she gets the reinforcement. If it seems she can’t delay her gratification that day, we’ll reward her sooner. But if she’s having a particularly good day, I’ll space them out a bit more.

We gave it a test run. She’s so excited to get pennies, collecting them has been reinforcing in and of itself. I hope it works. I hope I can be consistent.

But more than anything, I hope that I can get back to the place I was before, when Sophie was two and I naively said to a friend, “I can’t imagine ever yelling at her. I don’t know what could possibly provoke me to do that.”

If we weren’t so invested, they wouldn’t make us so crazy.

What? What Did You Say?

2012-01-29T14:06:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, Sophia visited our pediatrician for a routine, yearly check up. Now that she’s four, the doctor administered a hearing test for the first time since her birth.

Sophie eagerly followed the nurse into the small room at the end of the corridor. She hopped into the chair, allowed the nurse to set a pair of large headphones over her ears. Sophie listened eagerly as the nurse instructed her to point to a picture when she heard the word.

She loved the game of it. Her face was screwed up with concentration. On the first couple of trials, I watched as she happily pointed to each picture.

Then she waited. She glanced up at the nurse to see why the game had stopped.

It hadn’t.

My heart sank as I watched Sophie fail her hearing test. The nurse did four sets of multiple trials, each time the decibel level dipped below a certain threshold, Sophie showed no indication of hearing.

An expert in catastrophizing, I quickly flashed to a deaf future. A world without music, without voice. Of having to learn sign language. Of accommodations and devices.

And it all made sense to me. On some preconscious level, I knew she hadn’t been hearing well. Asking me to turn up Beauty and the Beast in the Car because she couldn’t make out what Chip was saying (though I could hear him, plain as day). Or the fact that she says “What? What did you say?” a lot.

I thought she was just tuning me out.

When we met with the doctor, I tried to keep my distress at bay, while I asked her about the test. She was unconcerned. “Oh, lots of kids fail the test. It’s hard to keep kids focused on the task at this age.”

Not Sophie. She was into it.

I pressed. I told her about the recent discovery of fluid in her ears at her last appointment. Of her cough that lasted two months. The doctor obliged me with a tympanogram, which passes a sound wave through the ear to see if the ear drum would vibrate.

When it didn’t, my wonderful doctor drew a quick diagram for me, explaining how fluid in her hears was preventing this vibration, that the hearing loss was likely due to the fluid and not to worry. It would resolve. Still, she sent us for a more detailed audiogram, that would help us determine the degree of loss (if it hadn’t resolved by that point), and to discern whether it was an inner (equipment) or outer (conductive hearing loss because of the presence of fluid) problem, and give us a baseline for comparison in a couple of months.

We saw the audiologist at CHOP a few weeks later. She was friendly, and engaging. Sophie took an instant liking to her. After taking a history (Did she have a hearing test at birth? Pass it? Yes. Yes. Any history of hearing loss in the family? Yes. Kevin’s side. How old were they when they lost their hearing? Older. 40’s 50’s 60’s . Had we noticed a difference in her hearing? Yes, I did. For how long? Within the past year. It’s so hard to pinpoint these things, in hindsight.

She began to test Sophie, “I’m going to put these headphones on you. When you hear a sound, I want you to put a peg in the pegboard. Okay?”

“Okay!” replied Sophie, enthusiastically. She carefully watched the audiologist’s face. I watched Sophie’s. It was clear she heard the first few tones, giving a slight nod or announcing, “I heard it!” as she jammed a peg into the board. Then, her face dropped. She didn’t look quite as sure. The audiologist looked at her expectantly, and Sophie put the peg in the board.

“Good!” said the audiologist, unwittingly rewarding Sophie for attending to her prompt. On the next several trials, the same thing happened. Sophie watched the audiologist, the audiologist unconsciously signaled her with eye-contact when she played the tone, and Sophie, wanting to do it right, stuck a peg in the board.

I said, as gently as I could, “I think she’s looking at you for cues. Could you not make eye contact with her?”

Wordlessly, she immediately broke eye contact. And that’s when Sophie began not hearing, again.

Later the audiologist explained that her hearing loss is slight and conductive. She’s guessing at what we’re saying when we’re whispering and its probably a little worse when she has an active cold. When I was a child I had three myringotomies—tubes placed in my ears. Kevin had them once. Looks like her genes were stacked against her.

I am relieved. I wish that I could stay cognizant of how magnificent it is that we have our senses to perceive the wonders of the world. It is a shame that it takes a small scare to awaken me to how precious our hearing is. Today, I am listening with gratitude to: my daughter’s voice singing in the back of the car, the whisper of “I love you” in my ear, and even the pesky birds that greet the day with such joy in the tree beside my bedroom window.

No Shame

2012-01-22T20:28:00.002-05:00

Sophia has no shame.

For now.

Carrying her in my arms, running to make a doctor’s appointment, Sophia passed gas. Long and loud.

“Sophia! You just farted on me!” I exclaimed.

“No, mommy. That was just my butt saying hello to your arm.” Nice. Hello to you too.

She dances around naked save for a pair of sunglasses and several strands of beads slung about her neck and tells me she’s a puma.

And just today, in front of the neighbors she stripped off a Simba costume to reveal nothing but princess panties underneath. “I’m in my underwear! Nothing but my underwear under here!” she sang.

This is about to change. I can feel it.

Kevin noted that the sign outside the Jewish Community Center locker rooms, read: No children of the opposite sex allowed over the age of three. “They got that exactly right.” Kevin said, because just yesterday at breakfast, when Kevin was fully dressed standing and eating his Raisin Bran, Sophie sang, “I see your penis. I see your penis.” I can only imagine what she’d say if she saw a whole bunch of them, exposed, on elderly Jewish men.

But, just the other day, when we were visiting “the boyfriends” she decided she wanted to change from her everyday clothes into a princess gown. Rather than stripping on the spot, as she has always been known to do, she gathered up her royal robes and disappeared into the bathroom. Reid followed, but she shut the door in his face, telling him, “I need my privacy.”

Mmmhmmm.

I consulted with my friend Elisa, who has two children a little farther down the road of life. They slept over last night.

“When did your kids first start to experience a sense of shame?” I asked her as her eight-year-old son, Marc, disappeared upstairs to change into his pajamas, unobserved.

She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, trying to recall. “I think it was about six that he first started telling me he needed his privacy.” I exhaled. That was still two years away.

“And Julian?” He’s six now.

“Oh gosh, he still has yet to become self-conscious. I don’t know if he’ll ever hit that point.”

Just then, Sophie whipped off her Rapunzel dress and slipped on her heart pajamas as Julian stood by hopping from foot-to-foot, taking no notice of her semi-nude state, wanting only for her to hurry up so they could snuggle together and read a bedtime story.

I know it can’t last forever. But I hope, when modesty comes, that it’s not because she’s embarrassed of how her body looks or what it does, but simply because she has learned a social norm. I hope that she’ll play by the rules, carefully relegating the private to the private, but that deep down, she will always be…a puma.

Lessons from an Extrovert

2012-01-18T21:45:00.001-05:00

Are you an introvert or extrovert? Author Susan Cain explores how introverts can be powerful in a world where being an extrovert is highly valued. Join From Left to Write on January 19 as we share our stories inspired by Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. We'll also be chatting live with Susan Cain at 9PM Eastern on January 26. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

I am an introvert raising an extrovert.

As soon as Sophia could make eye contact with people, she did. With anyone and everyone--neighbors I had never spoken to, people on the street I hurried by--her primary impulse, it seemed, was to reach out to others.

This impulse jarred me. I had spent the previous 38 years trying to be, if not invisible, unobtrusive. I’m not sure if it’s shyness, or a preference to keep to myself that was miscast as shyness, but I have to force myself to talk to people outside my small sphere. I become painfully self-conscious, hearing myself speak as I talk, wondering how much eye contact I should be making, hoping I am passing for sociable and engaging.

My introversion is hard for many to reconcile, considering that I used to stand up and speak before hundreds of people. Or that I’m a psychologist, helping others to build their social skills. If anything, because I have had to push past my introversion, had to learn skill by skill what is unconscious and easy for some, I have a great deal of empathy for others like me. I know what they need to know.

I would have known how to raise an introvert. I could have taught her how to cope.

Sophia doesn’t need to be taught how to cope. She instinctively knew how to relate to others from day one. We’d be on the elevator in our high rise, headed out for some fresh air, Sophia snugly tucked into my Ergo, facing my chest. As the elevator doors slid open, she would twist her neck uncomfortably to orient towards and beam at each person who stepped on. They rewarded her with exuberant attention.

“She’s so alert!”

“She’s so friendly!”

“Look at those big, blue eyes!”

Suddenly, I was forced to communicate.

“Yes, she’s always observing, taking it all in.”

“She loves people!”

“Thank you so much!”

Frankly, there was something lovely about this experience. After years of puzzling over how to connect with others, I had found the thing that transcended every kind of barrier--race, age, sex, class, introversion: Babies. Sophie, completely unaware of the things that divide us, made connections effortlessly.

She drew me out of my shell. She was my social lubricant. She helped me bridge the gap that lay between myself and others.

I absolutely hated the prospect of Mother and Me activities, sitting around with a bunch of people I did not know, our lowest common denominator the fact that we could give birth to live young. But I went for Sophia’s sake, because the only thing she loved more than gurgling at complete strangers was being amongst her kind. When she saw another baby, she’d go nuts with joy, even, on occasion, mounting the child because she just couldn’t get close enough. And, in these situations, I didn’t have to speak, I could just smile and let Sophie do the work.

And then, I did start having some nice conversations with people.

Out of these conversations, I made some nice friends.

Looks like the extrovert might be raising me.

My New Golden Rule

2012-01-15T21:54:00.005-05:00

Since infancy, Sophie has hated the bath. People have told me it will get better as she gets older. It hasn’t. At four, she still has a strong aversion to the indignity of being washed; experiences hair washing as physical pain; pulls her limbs from me as I try to soap them up. I’ve found ways to help her cope: I don’t do it every day. I give her fair warning. She can select toys she wants to have in the tub, and I set the timer to allow her some play time. When I can no longer delay the actual washing, I tell her stories or sing to her as I scrub. Most of the time this makes it tolerable for both of us. Some of the time, there is no amount of preparation, no degree of sugar-coating it that will make it palatable.

This was one of those times.

“Sophia, it’s time for a bath.” She was downstairs playing Beauty and Friendly Beast with Kevin, while I was filling the tub.

“I’m not coming!” I hear Kevin say gently, “Come on, Sophie,” and her feet on the steps. Once upstairs, she stomps into her bedroom and slams the door.

“Get in here. Now.” She appears in the doorway, her hands on her hips in a defiant posture.”

“I don’t need a bath.”

I am not arguing this point. It is most definitely time. “Sophia, take off the princess dress.”

“No. I won’t.”

“If you don’t take it off yourself, I’m going to take it off of you.”

“No! Don’t touch my dress!” She runs into her room. I make chase. Unfortunately, I’m under a time constraint. I have to get this done before she goes down for a nap and I have to leave the house.

“I’m going to count to three!” I warn.

“I said I’m not taking off the dress!”

“ONE....”

“NO MOMMY!”

“TWO....”

“STOP COUNTING!”

“THREE!” I begin to rip the princess dress off her body. I’m all jacked up on adrenaline now. She’s pulling it down as I’m trying to wrestle it over her head, so I grab her pearls instead.

“DON”T TOUCH MY PEARLS! YOU’LL BREAK THEM!”

“Then take them off yourself.” I say, trying, trying, trying to stay in control.

“Noooooo!” I pull the elastic band of beads over her head. She grabs for them and I seize the opportunity to remove the dress.

At last. Down to the underwear. She grasps the elastic waistband and pulls it up to her chest, giving her the most painful wedgie I’ve ever seen. “Don’t touch my underwear! IT’S PART OF MY BODY!” The way she is pulling them, they have become part of her body.

I slide her feet out from under her, take her down on the bath mat, making sure her head doesn’t hit the floor, and work the panties off her. Then, I pick up her naked body and deposit her in the tub. Her limbs churn the water, instantly soaking me and the floor.

“Sophia. I’m warning you. Stop it RIGHT NOW. If you want to keep your toys in the tub, you need to stop.”

She continues to thrash, brandishes a bowl and threatens, “I’m going to dump water on you!”

“Give me that,” I say, taking it from her. She raises a large plastic water wheel over her head, about to chuck it at me. I take that too. “Now you’ve lost your toys. What a shame.” I tell her.

She goes into a blind rage. A tidal wave rises up and sloshes out of the tub. I’m soaked again. I glance at the clock. I’m supposed to be out of here in 15 minutes.

This is when I lose it. I pick up the pitcher that I use to rinse her hair. “Knock it off NOW, or I’m going to dump water on you.” I am hopeful that, like cats who are fighting, one douse will end it all.

She continues to churn the water with her legs. I dump.

She’s in shock. “Mommy! You got water in my eyes! You’re hurting me.” Then, she kicks again, only harder. I do it again. She screams, still kicking, “Let me calm down! Let me calm calm down!”

I really hope, one day, she isn’t going to be talking about this in therapy.

I pull the shower curtain closed so that she can continue to flail without soaking me, and, perhaps we can both calm down. I take a deep breath.

I am really, really tempted to spank her naughty bottom. I see how parents get to this point. Low on sleep, on patience, on time it’s easy to be gripped by rage. To let it get the best of you. To incite you to do things in a calmer, saner moment, you never would.

This is not how I want things to be, between us. This is not what I want to teach her. To model.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that. I lost my temper. That was wrong.” I wait a moment and then I say it again, “I’m sorry, Sophia.” I am sitting here, hoping she will take a little personal responsibility for her role in the fight.

I expect a lot from her, I know. She is only four.

“I’m not ready yet.” The curtain says back.

“Fair enough.” I reply. “Just let me know when you are.”

“Maybe in a few minutes.” I call the person I’m meeting to let her know, I’ll be late. Working this through is the most important thing I could possibly doing right now. Conflict is inevitable. Repair is essential.

The curtain says, “Okay. I’m ready now.”

I draw it back. Sophie is sitting there, eyes red, tears clinging to her face, “You hurt me,” she accuses.

“I am sorry I dumped water on you Sophia. I shouldn’t have done that. It was not nice. But, don’t forget, you had a part in this, too.” I raise my eyebrows.

“I’m sorry too, Mommy. It’s just that I wasn’t ready. I wanted to play more with Daddy.” I know. I know.

“Sophia, you’re going to be with Daddy the rest of the afternoon. You’ll have plenty of time to play with him.” She seems cheered by this.

“Okay. You can wash me now. But can you tell me a story?”

I tell her the story of what just happened between us, using this moment “There once was a little girl who never wanted to talk a bath....”

The story has a moral: Do unto mother...as you would have your mother do unto you.

It's in the Genes

2012-01-07T22:58:00.001-05:00

Kevin and I are always trying to lay genetic claims to Sophia’s traits. Whenever Sophia has an ornery moment, Kevin says with pride, “That’s all me.”

Yes, it is. I won’t fight him on that one.

When she has an imaginative impulse? That’s all me.

After all, I composed songs to which my sister and I performed disco dances before a captive audience (my parents), and I spent my teenage hours drawing flow charts of how my best friend Christine and I could successfully escape to New York.

So, it thrilled me when my mother invited me into Sophia’s classroom the other morning.

This is what I saw:

All 17 of her peers were sitting quietly in a circle with their hands over their eyes. Sophia was in the center dictating rules, her hands flailing. “Okay. So this is the game. It’s called “Missing Person.” Keep your hands over your eyes. No peeking. Ms. Ruth [the classroom aide who was the classroom aide when I was in my mother’s school] is going to describe someone. Then I am going to go up to you [the person being described] and tap you on the shoulder. If I tap you, then it’s your turn to be the leader and I sit in your seat. Remember. I said no peeking. Everybody understand?” Some kids nodded. No one peeked. Miss Ruth described a student, Sophie tapped her on the shoulder and she happily switched places with Sophie. When Sophie spied me, she jumped up to tell me the rules.

At first, I didn’t quite understand the function of having to keep your hands over your eyes. But as I watched the game play out, I realized that it built up a certain level of suspense, having your eyes closed, wondering if you would be the person described, and then, if you would be chosen, perhaps mistakenly. It also created some interesting cognitive demands, requiring that the children recall what they were wearing, thinking about how they might appear to others, and forming a mental representation of themselves in their minds.

The irony, is that I had been next door, inventing my own interactive games for a very dry chapter in a psychology textbook.

Could there be a gene for this? An innovator and designer gene? A teacher and facilitator gene? (A bossy, wanting to be in control gene?)

Or is she just acting like me? Studying my model, following my lead.

Doesn’t matter. I’m just happy to see the reflection of myself in my child, my legacy so plainly displayed. A legacy which is not mine alone, but handed down from my mother. And, though legend has it that my principal grandfather got one of his high school students pregnant, he too was an educator. Maybe he was a good one. Immorality does not necessarily preclude teaching ability.

Kevin once told me pre-kid that he wanted to have a child to carry on his genetic material, to create a connection to past and future generations. At the time, it didn’t make sense to me, or at least it didn’t appeal to me. I had a hard time owning what I perceived to be the selfishness of that desire.

I thought I wanted to have a child for the experience, for the opportunity for more love in my life, for the challenge of raising a good human being to add to the planet. But, now that she’s here, I see that is only partially true. I, too, want to live on through my daughter. I want her to be me distilled down to my best parts. Not that I want to live through her...no, more that I want to her to pick up the baton whenever I lose steam, and to run with it into a bright, bright future.

I'm in Time Out

2012-01-01T21:31:00.002-05:00

I’ve been spending a lot of time in time out lately, and, for the record, I’d like to proclaim my innocence.

I have done nothing wrong.

Unlike SOME PEOPLE, I do not bite. I do not hit. I do not refuse to give up empty fruit squeeze containers to my mother, who is desperately pleading with me to do so as a children’s museum docent makes her way over to us to point out the sign over our heads:

Absolutely no food allowed outside of the cafeteria.

Most of the time I am very well behaved. Oh, every now and then I lose it when CERTAIN PEOPLE are not moving fast enough in the morning. Or are, in fact, dawdling ON PURPOSE when I am trying to get out of the house to make it to work on time.

And sometimes I become irate when A PRESCHOOLER WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS yells a command, demand or reprimand at me when I am driving. Or worse, chucks something into the front seat.

“That’s dangerous. We could get into an accident.”

“No. YOU’RE DANGEROUS,” comes the voice of opposition, “YOU could get us into an accident.”

“Well I might if you don’t SETTLE DOWN.”

“No. YOU need to settle down.”

“Sophia, I’m warning you.”

“I’m warning you! Don’t talk to me. Don’t LOOK at me.”

I look at her in the mirror, raising my eyebrows in a way that I hope communicates: back down now.

“I said DON’T LOOK AT ME! Don’t look at me! I’m going to put you in TIME OUT.”

Funny. I was just thinking the same about you. Actually, that’s not true. I rarely put my daughter in time out. It’s true that sometimes I suggest she go upstairs to CALM DOWN. But she only get’s thrown into the pit of despair when she’s aggressive.

Like the other day at the children’s museum. As I tried to wrestle the fruit squeeze container, which had been drained of every last atom of organic bananas and peaches, she sank her sharp little incisors into my right pointer finger.

“YOW!” I cried out. Several parents and their small children turned around to see what all the fuss was about.

“YOU DO NOT BITE!” I snarled and marched her over to the closest corner. What a mistake. It was laden with electrical wires, steps leading to a door armed with an alarm, and, I think, a pile of rusty nails.

“SIT ON THIS STEP AND DO NOT MOVE UNTIL I SAY SO.” Bent her head down and charged me. I lifted her back onto the step and try to body block her escape.

“Get out of my way, Mommy! I’m not in time out! You are!” We had a growing audience and she was clearly enjoying performing for the crowd.

“That’s it,” I say, my voice a low growl. “We’re leaving.” She kicked off her shoes. I picked her and the shoes up and carried her towards the front door.

At the coat rack, I handed Sophia her pink buffalo coat (“I won’t wear it! It makes me look like a buffalo!”) “I’m not putting on my coat,” she sang provocatively.

“Stand in the corner,” I hissed. I whipped out my phone to call my friend, Nan, who we had met her for a playdate, for backup. She was the reining queen of therapeutic holds at the school where we both used to work. It took a few seconds for her to arrive. I felt relief that I didn’t need to speak. Didn’t need to be embarrassed. She asked one question, “What do you want me to do: the hold or the jacket?”

“The jacket.” She jumped in, swiftly acting.

“Don’t zip it! Don’t zip it!” Sophia protested, as Nan expertly maneuvered her into the buffalo coat.

Then, she zipped it. I love this woman. “You want me to help you get her in the car?” she asked, her toddler waiting patiently at her side.

“No, thanks. You guys have fun. I can take it from here.” I carried Sophia out to the car, fettered her to the carseat, and closed the car door on her screams. “I'm not in time out! You’re in time out Mommy!”

Yes. I was taking a little time out. FROM HER.

Epilogue

Many hours later, after the incident was all but forgotten, Sophia and I were chatting. I explained the concept of New Year’s resolutions to her. “Many people see the New Year as an opportunity to make a fresh start,” I say. “A chance to improve something about themselves. What do you think? What’s your New Year’s Resolution, Soph?”

Sophie looked thoughtful, tilted her head in an endearing way, and replied, “to be nicer to you Mommy.”

So she was sorry.

“What’s yours?” she asked?

I met her halfway, “to be nicer to you too.”

We smiled at each other for a moment, in mutual understanding. Oh, I knew it would soon be broken, but in that moment, her recognition of wrong-doing and her good intentions were all that I needed to hear.

Happy New Year!

Exotic Trips Made Easy

2011-12-26T19:00:00.003-05:00

Before we leave for Illinois this Christmas, I hit the library. It is a whirlwind trip. I slap Sophia on the computer for 15-minutes while I quickly gathered enough literature to sustain us for the 32-hour round trip excursion we’d be embarking upon the next day.

First, I mine the books-on-tape. I’ve pretty much sucked the few shelves of audio picture books dry, relying on them for a five-minute reprieve from Sophia asking me, “Can you please tell me a story about Sophia and Curious George [drive me completely insane]?” But, to the right, are the chapter books. The big guns. Charlotte’s Web. 101 Dalmatians. Mary Poppins. Not the Disneyed up versions. The originals. I look at the back. 275 minutes. Hello, my lovely. I pop them into my sack.

“Soph, are you okay?” I check in with her.

“Shhhh!” she scolds me. “I can’t hear when you talk to me!”

She’s fine.

Next, I cruise the new books, helping myself to three pristine tomes: a posthumously printed collection of little known Dr. Seuss stories, a truly fabulous spoof of pulp fiction entitled, Boy Saves World from Giant Octopus (any book in which the father is a meticulously rendered drawing of Gregory Peck at his finest is an excellent book, in my opinion), and the Big Book of Families.

Then I scanned the holiday section, which has a two-book limit. I hold up three, deliberating. Larry, one of our favorite librarians, comes up behind me. “You can have three,” he whispers. “You guys are special.”

Being a regular has its privileges.

“Okay, Sophy Wophy. Put the earphones down.” She pretends not to hear me. I’ve got to get home, make dinner, and start packing pronto. This kid doesn’t understand that we have a SCHEDULE to keep.

“I’ve got Charlotte’s Web on tape….” I sing, holding up the bait. The earphones come off in a flash.

“Let me see. I want to see it!” I let her fondle the package, while Larry checks us out.

She’s wiggling as I try to strap her into her car seat. “I want to listen to Charlotte’s Web right now!” We should have been five minutes ago. “Sorry, Charlie.”

“My name is not Charlie! It’s SOPHIA!” Yes. I know.

The next morning, I’m getting everything together in preparation for take off. I’m rushing around like a maniac while Sophia happily plays with her dollhouse people.

“Gotta go, Soph. I have a million things to do before we leave this afternoon.”

“No. I want to stay here. I want to play Cinderella with you.”

“I’m sorry, Sophia, but we don’t have time. Put your shoes on and grab what you want to take with you in the car.”

“No! I don’t want to go!” Sigh. I pop Sophia in the car and throw in The Great Big Book of Families after her. We go to the bank, and then head over to the car wash. I try two before I finally find one that seems to be open. But no one’s around. I’m perplexed. It’s Hanunkkah, not Christmas. Do Jews own carwashes? I glance down at my watch. I’ve got a half an hour before Sophia has to go down for the nap and I haven’t even fed her yet. I walk into the car wash calling out, “Hello? Anyone there?”

“Yeah. The pumps broke. Can you come back in 15 minutes?” Fifteen precious minutes?

“Sure.” I take Sophia out for a bagel, which we eat in the car listening to holiday tunes. I’m sweating. She looks happy and peaceful, cream cheese smeared under her nose.

When we get back to the car wash, it’s still a couple minutes before it’s up and running, “This might take a few minutes,” the guy tells me, “I’m the only one here.” Fabulous.

“How come none of the car washes are open today but yours?”

“People don’t usually get their cars washed in the rain.” It was raining. I hadn’t noticed. Oh well. The car is filthy. It had to be done.

I take the Big Book of Families out of the car to keep us occupied while Green Car has his spa treatment. “No! I don’t want to read that!”

“Fine. I’ll read it to myself.” I retort, and begin to read aloud, full of feeling. Sophia peeks at the page from behind the book. I pause. Come on. Ask me for it.

“Mommy. Keep reading.”

“Oh? You want me to read to you, now?”

“Yes! Read it to me now!”

“Please?”

“Read it to me right now please!”

And so I read. We come to a page about vacations. “Families take all kinds of vacations…some can afford to take exotic vacations….while others stay close to home.”

I snort.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Nothing. It’s just that I can’t wait for my vacation to be over.

That night we drive up to my mother’s, do Hanukkah, sleep, attend the preschool holiday show, and finally get on I-80, Illinois bound. To her credit, Sophie is a gem. Barely a peep out of her. She’s looking at books, listening to her music, chattering away.

For insurance, I’ve come armed with a bag of wrapped items. Small gifts to reward Sophie’s patience along the way. Each was specifically chosen for its portability and absorbing qualities: Fancy Nancy Colorforms, Disney Princess Color Wonders Coloring Book (proof that I do not practice complete princess deprivation), an Encyclopedia of Words sticker book (over 600 stickers!), Princess Mosaic sticker-by-number. The grab-bag items prove to be so engaging, we only have to give her two the first sixteen hours. Of course, we punctuate these activities with music, I Spy, 20 questions, word games, napping, snacks, and bouts of silliness. About halfway there, Sophie’s face lights up. Suddenly she asks,

“Daddy, are we on an exotic vacation?”

I think back to the exotic trips (albeit few) that I’ve taken in the past. Latvia. Prague. Jamaica. And line them up against this endless stretch of highway to our Midwest destination. I snicker.

But perhaps, compared to our brief jaunts to Philadelphia or North Jersey, in Sophia’s world this is exotic. We’ve seen a log cabin on the back of a truck. We’ve flown by acres of farmland and expansive sky. And tonight, we’re sleeping in a hotel. One with a pool. I can remember this as being the height of luxury. The pampering experience of eating chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP. Of waking up in a bed that’s not your own (which, now, skeeves me). Of having all the HBO your optic nerve can stand.

Finally, I’m ready. Ready to slow down and join Sophie on her exotic vacation.

Red Shirts for All

2011-12-18T13:41:00.001-05:00

A friend recently asked me what was my take on holding children back a year from entering Kindergarten…. (This one’s for you, Stephan.)

Perhaps I should have been held back. Born in August, I was always the smallest, one of the most socially awkward students in my class. I cried every single morning from Kindergarten until third grade, when, I was either finally mature enough to be in school or had a teacher who was so engaging, I forgot to cry. (Thank you, Mr. O’Brien)

I remember, in Kindergarten, my teacher leaning over with me, pleading, “Melissa, if you keep crying, all the other children are going to drown in your tears.”

Another kindergartener had a gentler approach. She put her arm around my shoulders and said, sympathetically, “Don’t cry, honey.”

And in second grade I had a teacher so mean, so incensed by my tears she once hissed at me before we watched a movie, “you better cry through this entire movie. If you don’t, I’ll give you something to cry about.” And boy did I cry. I sobbed. I wailed. It was remarkable that the other children could hear the movie over the din of my blubbering. But when the movie was over she came over to me and said. “I didn’t hear you cry.”

“But I did cry!” I insisted, tears rolling down my face.

“No. You didn’t. You enjoyed the movie like every other rotten child in this room, and now you are going to be punished.” She dug her nails into my scalp, and led me, cackling, over to the chair in the corner, underneath the pencil sharpener. (F*** you, Mrs. Sable)

My friend Emily came over with a fistful of dull pencils, to keep me company and offer her sympathy.

But, because I was academically on par with my peers and an early reader, my parents believed that holding me back would only serve to hold me back, I started kindergarten when I was freshly five.

I’ll say this. At least I got out younger too. I think I’ve finally recovered.

But, it was uncommon to leave children back then. The times, they have a-changed. Now, it’s not only done without hesitation, it’s rampant. So much so there’s a name for it: red-shirting. (Redshirting has its etymological origins in the college practice of delaying an athlete’s participation in sports in order to extend his/her period of eligibility. Traditionally, these students wear a red jersey in scrimmages with the other, actively playing students.) Redshirting became more popular as demands increased for a higher level of school readiness…but in towns like mine, parents will also do it to give their child an edge in sports. So they can be bigger, stronger and more skilled then their no-so-same-aged peers.

To redshirt or not to redshirt? I have pondered this question from the other end of the spectrum—should I push Sophia into school early? Sophia, like anyone born after October 1 in my corner of the world, misses the cut-off date, which means, by the time she’s eligble for Kindergarten she’ll be almost six.

So, if I follow convention, she will start public school having attended my mother’s preschool for four years. How’s that for school readiness?

On the one hand, given the local tendency to hold kids back, she might just find herself on par with her peers—social-emotionally, intellectually, physically, and in actual years. But, in the meanwhile, I wonder if she get bored. Feel unchallenged. Start to act out.

I weigh the options. She’s not a shy child. Oh, she’ll bury her face in my leg for all of 60 seconds before getting thisclose to another child and demanding that he play “sick kitty” with her in our pediatrician’s waiting room: “Okay. Let’s pretend kitty has a banana stuck in her ear. No, a banana stuck in both her ears. No, no no. Wait. A banana stuck in both ears and her heart. And you’re the doctor.” She’s kind of a social vigilante. Forcing strange children to play with her.

Academically, she’s good.

As for maturity. She seems almost too independent for me, pushing me away on the escalator, “I can do this MYSELF mommy.” Ordering me from the back seat to drive, “Mom, the light is green. Just go.” Always walking away without a backwards glance.

I think if I sent her to kindergarten tomorrow, she’d tread water. She’d do what she always does. Try to usurp the teacher.

But on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind keeping her around for one more year. Enjoying this fleeting thing called childhood. Having the luxury of my mother popping into the storage room where I work to say, “Melissa…you’ve got to see this…she pretending she’s a miner… she’s practicing her part for the play…she’s in the kitchen with Marie…she just wrote her name….” Having one more year to play. One more year of freedom. One more year before the demands set in: To sit. To attend. To listen.

And then there’s the research, which says there’s no long term harm, and often short term good in holding kids back. Which makes me wonder: maybe we’re sending our kids to school too soon in general. What’s wrong with another year of childhood, before being swallowed up by the great machine that is school? Maybe everyone could stand to benefit from one more year in the school of life.

First Friendships

2011-12-11T21:26:00.003-05:00

Walking out of her classroom at my mother’s school, Sophia hands me the 12th birthday invitation she has received since September. I slit it open. It’s from her friend Marie. She’s turning five.

“Please can I go mommy?” Sophie pleads, her brows knitted together hopefully, worried that I’ll say no. To be fair, Sophia rarely asks me to attend a party. If she doesn’t know the child well, she’s the one to suggest that we decline.

But Maria is special. Each week, at school, she greets Sophia effusively. Their faces light up when they see each other. They embrace and head straight for the trunk of dress-up clothes. Unchecked, they would play in the housekeeping all morning, dressed in discarded evening gowns, Maria cooking, Sophia serving plastic facsimiles of food.

I hesitate. “I don’t know sweetie. It’s not on a school day when we’re already up here. Marie lives really far away.” Four hours round trip, to be exact.

Sophie, dejected, instantly reacts with anger, “You aren’t allowed to say that! She’s not too far away! She lives close!”

Though I know better than to argue, I let a snotty little, “No, she doesn’t,” slip out. Sometimes, it’s hard to be the grownup.

We run into Marie on the way out the door. “Sophie’s Mom? Can Sophie come to my birthday party? Please?” She clearly did not hear the conversation that just took place between Sophie and me.

“I’m sorry, Marie. I don’t think so. We live really really far away.” Marie literally hung her head. She looked crestfallen. “Oh man!” she said.

Then, the two of them clung to each other as if they would never see the other again. And they kissed, just barely missing each other’s lips.

I watch, struck by this truth: their friendship matters.

I flash back to when I was six years old and best friends with Judy Kelly. We were as close as six-year-olds could be, playing exclusively together on the playground, visiting each other for play dates. Our teacher, Miss Stonehill, would put a cardboard box around my desk to try to keep me from talking to her in class. Judy had invited me to her seventh birthday. It was going to be a sleepover. We were so excited, we couldn’t stop talking about it. I got my first sleeping bag for the occasion.

Saturday, the morning of the sleepover, I got a phone call from Judy. Mom brought me the phone. “Where were you last night?” Judy asked me. She sounded really upset.

“What do you mean?”

“My party! Why didn’t you come to my party!”

“But it’s tonight!” I protested, an awful feeling rising up inside of me.

“No! It was last night! You missed it. Why didn’t you come?” I didn’t know what to say this. I was so overwhelmed with disappointment. I started to cry and dropped the phone. Judy’s party! My first sleepover! How did this happen?

I was too young to realize this was not my mistake. I blamed myself. Even when I think about now, thirty-five years later, I can feel the disappointment and shame.

Sophie was not going to miss this party.

I found a way to make it work, logistically, and then I told Sophie. She was elated. The next day, she told Marie. Marie was ecstatic. The two hugged each other and danced around.

My hope is not that Sophie will remember the party. I doubt that it had any great emotional salience for her. It was one good time among many. But I do wish that, no matter how many people she meets in her lifetime, no matter how many relationships she moves in an out of, this early friendship will hold a sweet place in her heart.

Love, in any size, at any age is the most important thing.

Hanukkah v. Christmas Smack Down, Part III (Yes, Sophie, There Really Is a Santa Claus)

2011-12-04T23:03:00.004-05:00

I have been avoiding the fat man in the red suit.

I hurry past the North Pole, whenever I pass it in the mall. I avert my eyes when I walk by the bell swinging Salvation Army recruit in front of the grocery store.

I am so conflicted about Santa.

Mind you, I have nothing against him. In fact, that’s my problem. I grew up with him. I love the idea of him. What is more magical than the idea of someone who travels the world in one night, his sole mission to bring you whatever you want most? To wake up and discover, yes, indeed he came. The proof is under the tree. What was barren is now laden with gifts. Everything seems to sparkle.

But I still want Sophie to feel the primacy of her Jewishness. It’s something I struggle with every year. But this year I have a new challenge.

This is the first year that Sophie gets the Santa thing.

We were in Pottery Barn Kids and I surreptitiously made a holiday purchase for Sophie while she trashed the joint with some friends. As we walked out of the store, Sophie asked, “What’s that, Mommy?” indicating my bag.

“A surprise…”

“What’s my surprise?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise. It’s for Hanukkah.”

“There are no surprises for Hanukkah! Santa brings surprises. You’re not Santa. You’re Melissa. I can know what you bring!”

Interesting logic, but what really struck me was that she knew Santa brings surprises. Where did she pick that up?

Everywhere.

He’s on the radio. He’s on my neighbor’s front lawn. And most recently, he was in her nursery school. Apparently, one of the teachers had been warning another child that if he didn’t behave, Santa wasn’t going to bring him any gifts. “He knows if you’ve been bad or good,” she warned

Sophie, who would make an excellent spy if anyone could get her to do it on purpose, reported this tidbit back to me. I think she was looking to have me weigh in. The whole idea of it disturbed me. In general, I don’t like manipulating behavior via the whole “he sees you when you’re sleeping” thing. For one, it’s creepy. Secondly, it’s passing the buck. If you don’t like the kid’s behavior, say so. Don’t make Santa the heavy. And third, don’t threaten something you won’t make good on/have no control over. Really, what is this teacher going to do, tell the parents to cancel Christmas because their kid wouldn’t sit in his seat?

I assured Sophie that despite her inability to sit in a chair, Santa was not going to stiff her.

Yes, Santa will be coming. I can’t avoid him for too long. He’ll be visiting us at Grandpa’s house, not ours, because, as Sophia understands, Grandpa is Christian and celebrates Christmas. And, not so secretly, I will enjoy it. Just as I have enjoyed participating in Christmas every year as long as I can remember. Truth be told: I want Sophie to feel the magic too.

As for Hanukkah, which we’ll celebrate several days before, there may be no magic, no surprises...

...but at least I’ll get all the credit.

There's a Gown for That

2011-11-26T21:33:00.005-05:00

Headed out to the library? Confused about what to wear? Ask Sophie. There’s a gown for that.

Going up to Grandma’s and its freezing out? There’s a gown for that.

Need to pick up a forgotten ingredient at Wegmans, but your pink taffeta is in the wash? Don’t worry. There’s a gown for that too.

These days, I am either picking gowns up off the floor, prying dirty gowns off Sophia’s body, or arguing their inappropriateness. They are slowly, insidiously taking over her wardrobe.

It started fairly innocently. The first gown, a rainbow-tutued Cosco nightmare, was purchased by my mother. It came with matching wings. Sophie was delighted. So were the neighbor girls. Sophie would resort to fisticuffs if anyone lay a finger on it, and it was soon evident that if we didn’t stock up, there might be bloodshed.

My friend Emily came to the rescue, passing on several silken frocks that no longer fit her daughter. Peace was restored in the kingdom.

Then, in need of some new duds myself, Sophie and I went to TJ Maxx. As I piled a few garments into our shopping cart, Sophie said, “I want to try on something too!” Okay, fair enough. This might even be a good strategy—keep her occupied. I grabbed the first thing that I thought might appeal to her—a pink velour generic princess dress. Sophie grabbed it out of my hands, “OH I LOVE THIS MOM!” Inside the dressing room, as I tried to eye my butt from all angles in front of the mirror, Sophia pushed me aside, exclaiming, “I’m so BEAUTIFUL! Can I have it? Please? PLEASE?” She skipped out of our stall, prancing down a narrow hallway towards the three-way mirror at the far end. Other women heard her exclaiming over the dress and leaned out to see what all the fuss was about. “Oh look at you!” “Aren’t you the cutest!" "Oh mom, you have to get it for her.” Sophie mugged and grinned and posed, and I quickly realized that I was not getting out of TJ Maxx without this dress.

“We’ll see…” I said, drawing upon the rich tradition of evasiveness that exists in my maternal line. But, of course, I left with the dress.

Little did I know, it would become Sophie’s daily uniform, a major point of contention, and probably, the most appreciated thing I have ever given her.

When Sophie wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is don her princess dress, several necklaces, a headband or tiara, silver slippers and grab her magic wand. Then, she heads into my room to tap me awake. Were her magic as strong as caffeine, I might be able to roll with this program. But, alas, polyester and plastic do not confer any real powers, and the only effect this has is to make me very, very grumpy.

Her first question is, “Can I wear my princess dress to breakfast?” to which, if this is a day when she has to go to school and I have to go to work, the answer is no. This frequently devolves into a wrestling match. Tuesdays are the worst, when she has gymnastics and, because there is tumbling involved, I insist on pants. Pants have become abhorrent to Sophia. It began with a hatred of jeans. If I tried to pull them on, she’d scream, “NO! They’re too scratchy! They’re too stiff!” This squared with her whole sensory-defensive thing, so I didn’t force the issue. No skin off my nose. She seemed okay with leggings for awhile. But, once she discovered gowns, she started rejecting anything that had a whiff of masculinity. Anything that wasn’t “beautiful.”

At first I was disturbed by her princess aesthetic—for one, it was alien to me. My mother likes to talk about how she used to have to steal my jeans to wash them once a week because otherwise, I would wear them every single day. “They could practically stand up and walk away by themselves,” she told each of my boyfriends.

I was a self-proclaimed tomboy. When I was four, I told my friend Christine that I wanted to have all the boy toys in the world. I also told her that I could push a nail into board with my bare hands.

I couldn’t.

But I really, really wanted to be able to. I don’t think pushing a nail into a board with her bare hands has ever occurred to Sophie.

And then there’s the whole feminist thing. I just don’t like her holding up princesses as a feminine ideal—the simpering, need-to-be-rescued, will-give-up-my-fishtail-to-be-with-the-man-I-love thing. Haven’t I supplied her with a better model than that? What happened to her aspirations of dentistry? Of all the things she thought she could and wanted to be—a daddy, a dance teacher, a bus driver?

But, then I unearthed my old copy of Grimm’s fairy tales. We were sitting in the doctor’s office when I read the “real” story of Cinderella to Sophia. It’s far more gruesome than the sanitized Disney version, e.g., when the stepsisters try on Cinderella’s slipper, they each slice off a section of their foot to make it fit. I hesitated over this part. I didn’t want to give the kid nightmares. But when I finished, Sophia exclaimed:

“Read the part about them cutting off their toes again!”

Ah! There are my genes!

The fact of the matter is, I really loved—love—fairytales. I love the drama of good triumphing over evil, of there being a reward for suffering. I love magical possibility. I love talking animals and kids who outsmart witches and wishes that come true. And so does Sophie. She wears her gowns, not to emulate Disney princesses, but to fully inhabit the world of pretend. At naptime, I prick her finger with a spindle so she’ll sleep deeply. Before dinner, I might suddenly cross the floor on all fours, my eyes round and threatening and Sophia will shriek with delight, “What are you? WHAT ARE YOU?” And after we’ve eaten, I might roast her arms and legs in the oven for dessert. Sophie offers up a piece to her father, “Daddy, would you like my tickle bone?”

The gowns are the vehicle. Not steering her toward a feminine ideal, but down the rabbit hole, into a world of fantasy. She manages to look stunning while retaining every bit of her wild, dark, vicious self.

Feeling sinister? There’s a gown for that.

Four

2011-11-20T20:17:00.002-05:00

Sophia’s fourth birthday was somehow easier to stomach than her third. As I try to put my finger on why, the first thought that occurs to me is that the transition from two to three is a bit more dramatic. At two, children still retain some baby-like features. Though their temperaments are fairly evident, their personalities are still emerging. Language provides insight into their needs and desires, but not into their thoughts or perceptions. At two, you are still essential. They seek you out for entertainment, for soothing, for permission. They are still somewhat manageable. Still redirectable. Still pick-upable in their worst moments.

But then comes three rushing in, filled with opinions, curiosity and a drive to break away. They make friends, buck the system, tell you how it is. The transformation is remarkable. Dramatic. Dizzying.

They volunteer the emotionally salient information completely out of context: Sophie’s teacher told me one of the other parents, a state assemblyman, came in to talk about his job during Community Helpers month. In the midst of explaining voting to the children, Sophie raised her hand to say, “Last night, Mommy opened my car door and my balloon escaped. She was very sad as it floated away into the sky.”

They refuse to talk when you’re dying to know the information:
“How was your first day at school? What did you do? Did you eat your lunch? Did you make any friends? How did it go?”

“Fine, Mom. Now can you put on my Beauty and the Beast music?”

Though two is generally considered the first period of separation and individuation (the second occurring during the onset of adolescence), I disagree. I think it really begins to take shape at three, as the child really becomes a person, interacting with the world in complex ways, wanting a life of his or her own.

Four simply seems to be a continuation of this trajectory. A deepening of three. A blossoming of self. There is nothing to mourn. The babyhood is long gone, already fading from memory. Instead, there is a growing relationship, a fuller engagement with this person I have made, no longer an extension of myself, but an individual. I can make predictions about her, but I’m not always right. She surprises me with a sudden, “I love you.” A difficult question, “Are badgers scary? What is scary about them? What do they do?” A poignant wish, “Mommy, I want a twin so I can have a best friend who lives in my house forever.” An invented joke, “Mommy, what do mommy cows like to drink? Cow-fee!”

Staring into the face of four, there is nothing to be sad about. This is a joyful time. If I look back, I will not be able to train my eyes on what is happening right now. In front of me there is a brilliant chrysalis. A beating of wings. My girl, stretching out into world.

Cherishing Difference

2011-11-13T22:02:00.003-05:00

In Expecting Adam, author Martha Beck tells her story of carrying and giving birth to a child with Down Syndrome and what she learned from this experience. The following is a post, inspired by the book. As a member of the online book club From Left to Write, I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. I was not paid to write this piece. You can read other members posts inspired by Expecting Adam here.

If there is one thing I learned from teaching children with autism, it’s that there is no right way to be in this world. A good life is defined in infinite ways. There are many permutations of happiness. I had a sunny little boy who rarely spoke except to say, “Jungle Book,” but he often smiled. I had another student who lived in a cartoon world that merged seamlessly with our own. When I sat him down for a lesson, he would dangle an invisible pendulum in front of my eyes and say, “You are getting sleepier and sleepier. You are now to be scissors!” And I would run after him opening and closing my arms and legs as he giggled with glee. Yet another young man, brilliant beyond his five years, splattered paint onto his easel and said, “Look, Melissa, I’m Jackson Pollock!” (Though if he actually got the paint on his hands he would fall to the floor, burst into tears and exclaim, “I’m going to DIE!”) All three of these children were all blissfully unaware of their disability. They all experienced intense, daily joy unlike most of the “neurotypicals” I knew. They taught me patience, that great satisfaction can be derived from the smallest of accomplishments, and that it did not matter what everyone else thinks.

I don’t mean to paint an overly romantic portrait of what it’s like to be a person with autism. There are children who are self-abusive or aggressive or who experience the world as a series of impingements. And no child is blissful all the time. But I also don’t think of a diagnosis as a death knell. I know that there is a special joy that comes in having a child who lives in our world differently.

Now, as a psychologist, I frequently grapple with the question: what is illness? Who gets to decide? Are people only as sane as society perceives them to be? I once saw a movie about a man with Tourette’s Syndrome. He had corprolalia, the obsessive or uncontrolled use of obscene language that rarely accompanies Tourette’s, and tics so violent, they would take him to his knees. He found it hard to function in mainstream society, but he worked on a farm with horses, animals he adored. The horses were completely unaware of his disorder. They were not offended by his language. They did not judge him. He was deeply happy. He had found his place in the world.

I think the goal—of education, of therapy, of life—is to find this goodness-of-fit. A place where we can be ourselves, without having to conform to a social ideal of a life worth living. As parents, we are both charged with teaching this lesson and helping our children to identify their specialness. It’s a daunting task. How do you help your child to be one way, when there are so many forces demanding that they be another? What do you do if what is special is not something universally valued? How do you avoid the mantle of the impossible ideal of normal?

There is no recipe. It is a fine, intuitive dance of indulging interests without holding onto expectations, of modeling originality with causing embarrassment, being curious about our own judgments and preconceived notions. And, sometimes, just letting things be.

The Apology

2011-11-06T14:33:00.001-05:00

I struggle with whether or not to extract apologies from Sophia when she does something hurtful or naughty that has an impact on another person. Certainly, I want her to experience remorse and to express regret when she wounds another. At the same time, I know she isn’t quite developmentally there yet. She’s still moored in a very egocentric view of the world. She isn’t sorry, and making her say she is doesn’t make it so. Her prompted apologies sound hollow and false. They aren’t satisfying to me or to her victims.

Of course, I still do it. There is a part of me that hopes, simply by sheer modeling and repetition, she will come to understand that the right thing to do when you have erred is to apologize. If I teach it, she will learn. (Even if she never develops a conscience, perhaps she’ll be a polite psychopath.) But the real reason I stand over her and make her say the words, “I’m sorry,” is because I know other parents expect me to.

At this stage, direct, immediate consequences for aggressive behavior seems to me to be the only thing that evoke true feelings of regret. For example, the other night we were at the library for a family music event. Throughout the first half of the show, Sophie was blissful, turning back to look at me and share her enjoyment after each song. Eventually she warmed up, rose from her seat, and broke into a completely unselfconscious, hopping dance, her silver mardi gras beads swaying with every movement. When she went to sit back down, a slightly older girl spread herself across two seats, and told Sophie, “No. I’m sitting here.” Forbidding Sophia only made her want it more, and so she tried to force herself upon the girl. “Go sit somewhere else, Sophia,” I warned. But Sophie was already on edge. I could feel her mood had changed. After one last provocation, Sophie moved to another seat. The singer announced to the group that after another song, everyone could have pizza.

“Can I have pizza, Mama?” Sophie asked, eyebrows raised in hope.

“No, Soph. We’re going home to have dinner with daddy. He’s coming home tonight!” Kevin had been in DC on business and we hadn’t seen him in three days.

“I want PIZZA!” Sophia whined.

“We’re not having pizza.” I said definitively

And then she did the unthinkable. She turned around and popped a toddler in the stomach.

The punch was fairly low energy and the toddler looked unphased, but I was livid. “Oh we are so out of here.” And I plucked Sophia up from the ground and forcibly carried her out. I imagine I may have left a parent in my wake, awaiting an apology for her two-year old son, who had already forgotten the incident. But I knew it was far more effective to punish Sophie by removing her from the event than to stay and say, “I’m sorry.”

“You are NOT allowed to hit people. If you are angry, you tell me ‘I’m ANGRY! You don’t hurt others. And you never NEVER lay a hand on a younger child.” I was pissed. I kept going, “That is NOT the way we handle problems. Have you ever seen me or daddy hit another person? NO. We might yell. But we DON”T HIT PEOPLE.”

“Can I listen to my music?”

“NO!”

The next evening, Sophie and I were out at Wegmans, having pizza. I am often loathe to take Sophia out to dinner because she cannot sit still. She is so highly distracted by everything going on, so overstimulated that it’s almost impossible to eat. I have three restaurant rules that I try to practice with her on brief outings in places where she won’t cause a disturbance or fatally trip a waitperson:

1. Sit in your seat.
2. Keep a low voice.
3. Eat your food.

Doesn’t seem like too much to ask, but for Sophia, it’s a Herculean task. I have tried everything. Social reinforcement (Good! You’ve been sitting in your seat for one second!), guided imagery (Imagine that a snake has wrapped each one of your limbs to the chair and you can’t move.), threats, (If you get up from your seat one more time, I’m going to put you in a high chair), and tangible rewards (Follow your rules and we’ll have mini-ice cream cones when we get home). Nothing has worked, because much like her inability to experience remorse, she has not yet developed the internal controls to sit still in exciting environments. Still, I rehearse the skill with the hope that one day, she’ll get it without needing me on top of her.

This was not to be the day. The dining area in Wegmans is on the second floor, looking over the prepared foods section. Sophie was trying to scale the iron railing that was the only thing preventing her from falling 20 feet into the hot soup. I repeatedly ask her to sit down.

“What if I dropped my shoe down there mommy?” She asked, while I tried to shove a few bites into my mouth.

“Well, for one, you might hurt someone with it.” This possibility seemed to delight her. “Or it might fall into the soups and you’d have no more shoes.” She laughed at this, got out of her seat, and ran over to hug me, one of her ploys to avoid eating. I was already on my second slice, and she hadn’t even had her second bite. “I love you Sophia, but I don’t love your behavior. Please sit down and take a bite.” She turned around and hopped over the cracks from tile to tile until she reached a row of fake plants. She gave one a tug. “Sophia! Come here and take a bite!” This time I held up the pizza to her mouth. She took a big bite, bigger than I expected, and bit my pointer finger with it.

“YOW!” I screamed in pain. When someone bites down with the intent of severing a mouthful of pizza from the rest of the slice, she bites hard. I felt the full force of her little jaw close onto my nail and the tender pad of my fingertip. I sat back down, holding onto my finger, waiting for my brain to release some goddamn endorphins.

Sophie looked stricken. “Mama, are you okay?”

“I’ll be okay, Sophia. I know it was an accident, but you bit me really hard. It hurts.” She ran up to me and kissed me on the hand.

“Don’t worry, Soph. I’ll be fine. It was an accident.” I repeated. Within a minute or so, my body worked a chemical miracle and the pain drifted away. Sophie and I resumed our struggle. Two thousand prompts later, she had finished a slice.

“Okay. It doesn’t look like we’re having dessert tonight. You didn’t follow your rules.”

“But I still get a book, right?”

“Yes,” I sighed, “you still get a book. I’m not taking anything away from you. You just aren’t getting anything extra-good tonight. Maybe next time.”

The next morning, Sophie woke me and then disappeared back in her room to don her princess gown. On my way to the shower, I leaned my head into the room and said, “you can wear the gown until I get out. But when I’m out of the shower you need to get dressed.”

“Okay, Mommy.” Sophie replied, adjusting her crown.

I climbed into the shower, mentally rehearsing what I had to do that day, the hot water coaxing me into consciousness, when Sophia drew back the curtain part-way.

She was completely dressed. Not as a princess. In clothes.

“Look Mommy, I’m completely dressed. Before you even got out of the shower.”

“Oh Sophie! That’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you. You put your tights on by yourself and everything.” I was in shock. This was a first.

Then it happened. Unprompted and real.

“And Mommy. I’m sorry I was naughty last night.”

Sophia, apology accepted.

Anthropomorphism

2011-10-26T17:19:00.003-04:00

In Lost Edens, author Jamie Patterson struggles to save her marriage which may or may not be already over. Keeping her attempts a secret from her family, she attempts to mold herself into the wife her husband wants her to be. As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review. You can read other members posts inspired by Lost Edens by Jamie Patterson on book club day, October 27 at From Left to Write.

Though Jamie Patterson didn’t quite anthropomorphize her car, I was struck by how frequently and fondly she wrote of it. To me, her car became as much of a character as her abusive husband. In fact, it seemed to carry an aura of protection, which got me thinking about my own tendency to anthropomorphize, and the role of inanimate objects in my (and Sophia’s) life.

“Look mommy! There’s Green Car. He’s over there. Oh look he’s talking to his friend, Blue car.” Sure enough, our car was nose to nose with the same make and model, different color. And yes, they did look like they might be engrossed in conversation. Since we were at the JCC, it might have been along the lines of a little kvetching, “Oy! Are my gaskets leaking!” And, “You should see the color of my oil. Do you think she takes me to dealership for a regular change? NO! She’s too busy. Always on the run, this one.” I even felt bad for a moment at the prospect of dragging Green Car away from his new friend. Who was he going to bitch to about me at home?

I am a great anthropomorphizer, giving life to the inanimate, attributing thoughts and feelings to all things without a consciousness, and interacting with these objects as if they were real. Thus, Sophie lives in a world where, at any moment, say, while apple picking, the trees might snatch their apples back, give her a tap on the wrist and assert “Don’t you touch my apples!” Sophie reacts with surprise and giggles, still unable to separate reality from fantasy, she disregards that the voice of the tree is actually coming from my mouth. I love this.

Kevin just rolls his eyes and sighs whenever I endow the non-living with animate features. But there is a reason I do this.

My special things have gotten me through some pretty tough times. When I was a child, Doggy Dear, my life-sized stuffed animal was my protector. I made him sign a contract when I was in elementary school.

“I, Doggy Dear, promise to stay awake and watch over Melissa while she sleeps. I will not allow any harm to come to her—will fight off any monsters, intruders or otherwise unwelcome guests. In exchange, Melissa promises to let me sleep during the day and go everywhere with her. Forever.” Or something like that. At any rate, he still resides in my room, stretched out across the window seat, ready to jump to life when it really matters. I know he will.

And my cars have always has a personhood in my eyes. I gave them names, thanked them for delivering me safely, empathized with them when they got hurt. Granted, I never gone so far as to confide in my cars (can I really trust them not to share my business with other cars), but there is this tiny part of me that thinks they are listening. Believes that what I say to them matters.

And now, my daughter, who emulates all that I say and do, believes too. “Mommy, be snakey,” she begs, holding up her six-foot orange python. Using my best vampire voice Snakey says, “Sophia, my princess, dance with me,” and Sophia dances with the snake that has become her protector, her pal, her confidant. And I know that one day soon, I may be drafting the most important, most reassuring of contracts between the two of them.

I am very much in favor of whatever gets us through.

You Are Not My Best Friend

2011-10-23T22:03:00.002-04:00

I have just refused to buy Sophia a cheap, plastic, single-use Disney Princess Tea Set.

Right after I say no, she’s running away from me, past racks of discounted designer clothing and handbags in colors nobody wants, toward the front door. I have to make chase because outside is a very busy parking lot and the doors are automatic. I catch up to her just as she makes her way into the vestibule, pick her up airplane style, and carry her straight out to the car. All the while, she is protesting, flailing, and threatening. “I’m going to hit you, if you don’t let me go, Mommy.”

“I would keep your hands to yourself if you want any chance of getting to listen to music in the car.”

She hits me.

“That’s it. No music.”

“Can I please have a book instead?” she asks, full of false sweetness.

I don’t answer her until I’ve got her strapped in. (It is essential that she is strapped in before I say this. She holds on to a shred of hope and offers up a modicum of compliance while uttering this last request.) “No, you may not.” I inform her. My denial sends her into paroxysms of rage.

“I DON’T LIKE YOU. I DON’T WANT YOU TO BE MY FRIEND ANYMORE.”

The insult is new, and it is a strange thing to hear this playground threat—something that has clearly been said to her—aimed at me. The words must have hurt her, a barb that, a week ago, she hadn’t known existed, is now tucked way in her own arsenal of anger. I have the sense that it will become her go to phrase when denied. She’ll level it at me, her father, even her grandmother.

My anger is muted by sadness. A little more of the real world, of how people treat each other, has crept into her awareness. And it’s not just the fact that I know she has been mistreated that bothers me, but that she’ll use these words to mistreat others.

Make Room for Daddy

2011-10-15T20:50:00.002-04:00

I am a parenting hog. I want all the control. I want to make all the decisions. And I want my husband to do exactly what I do. I would hate being married to me.

Fortunately, I unwittingly picked a guy who is pretty much willing to go with this program. Despite the fact that I have more masculine traits than he does, (we once took a test that we found in a paperback book in a used book store, the quasi-scientific equivalent of a Cosmo Quiz—I came out leaning towards the masculine side, and Kevin the feminine) we have settled into very traditional gender roles. Kevin takes the morning train. He works from 9-5 and then, he takes another home again to find me waiting for him. (Lines totally stolen from Sheena Easton, but, alas, true. Please don’t sue me, Sheena.) Meanwhile, I take care of all things Sophie—from baths to doctor’s appointments, from laundry to preschool drop-off. This is not to say that Kevin doesn’t pitch in. He does. We do her bedtime routine together almost every night. He plays with her while I cook dinner. And in the mornings, whenever possible, he’ll help with her shoes or brush her teeth or make sure she eats.

There is a price to pay for this—for the control. For one, if I want it done in a particular way (say, I want her to sit in her chair while she eats and she wants to sit in daddy’s lap, stroke his beard, and chew each bite with glacial slowness) I need to either 1) leave the room and what will be will be or 2) do it myself. If I stay and watch, the tension builds up inside my body and becomes so great that I say something I regret, or I have to take over.

I wish this wasn’t true. I wish I could let it go. Parenting together is the hardest thing.

The other morning, we were all sitting around the breakfast table and Sophie told us about a negative interaction she had with a peer at school. The other child had told her she didn’t want to be her friend anymore—she wanted another girl to be her friend. Sophie tilted her chin to her neck and looking downtrodden, said, “I felt left out.” It is a phrase I taught her in an attempt to give words to her emotions during a similar incident. Though I believe her feelings were hurt in this instance, there was also something melodramatic about the presentation. It seemed to me that she was trying to evoke a particular response from Kevin and me.

So, I tried to treat this admission with lightness. Sophie has a tendency to get locked into routines. I could see this becoming a daily drama. I took a very problem-focused approach: “Well, if she says something like that, just go find someone else to play with. She gets moody sometimes. So do you. It will blow over.” I saw a look in Kevin’s eye that led me to believe he didn’t agree with my approach.

Then, Kevin, who is very attuned and takes great care to ensure that Sophie’s feelings are acknowledged, leaned in and said, empathically, “it really hurts your feelings when a friend says something like that to you.” Sophie nodded.

I felt that twinge, the discomfort that arises from disagreement. A tightness in my chest. But then, I overrode it. It was almost as though I had stepped out of my body and was watching the three of us having this complex interaction. I saw Kevin’s intent, his sweet parenting style, his very different way of conceptualizing this moment, and I stopped judging it.

I let it go.

And, since that conversation, she hasn’t said another word about it. Maybe all that she needed was a father’s feminine touch.

Beautiful (Day) Dreamer

2011-10-10T21:21:00.001-04:00

Sophie has been silent for awhile, her head cast to the side of her car seat, her mouth working steadily on her thumb (likely shriveled and white, as if she has sucked the life and blood out of it), listening to the infernal soundtrack of Beauty and the Beast Jr. I know all the nuances of this album. I know the subtle ways in which a cast member will pull his face wide and tight to draw forth a different voice for a villager or accent it heavily to become the clock. I know how the wardrobe rushes through her lines at one point, and the pathos with which Beauty will plead with the Beast not to die at the end. Sometimes, before I realize that I’ve begun singing along, Sophie will shush me from the back.

I am not allowed to talk. Or sing. Or even hum along.

Which is fine with me. One of the things I love about driving is how boring it is, providing me with ample opportunity for my mind to wander. Whole fabricated conversations, possible (and impossible) futures, and occasionally morbid flashes of how I will die bloom in the emptiness of my mind. The banal highway landscape disappears for chunks of time. And, when I come to, I’m surprised to find how far I’ve traveled while my thoughts have drifted, anxiously wondering how it is that we haven’t crashed.

Now, I am startled out of my reverie, when Sophia suddenly exclaims, “Mom! I’ve got a great idea!” I look into the rearview mirror. Her blue eyes are round and wide. “What if we invite the entire neighborhood to put on the play of Beauty and the Beast in our basement?!?” She’s gesticulating wildly, her hands, palms-up, drawing large ovals in the air as she speaks. If it wasn’t completely unconscious, I’d think she was mocking me. I’m lost for a moment in the thought that Sophie is a caricature of me, just as I must be a caricature of my own mother. How many generations back does this gesture go, I wonder?

“Mom?” she’s checking to see if I’m listening. I kind of wasn’t.

“Yes, that’s an interesting idea,” I say, one corner of my mouth turned up, bemused.

“We could have all the girlies from the block. And my friend Lexi….” She pauses. “Lexi doesn’t know Beauty and the Beast,” she frowns for a moment, considering this assumption (which may very well be false. I, for one, have no idea if Lexi is or isn’t familiar with Beauty and the Beast). “I’ve GOT ANOTHER IDEA. We can invite everyone to LISTEN to Beauty and the Beast in our basement. That way, everyone will know it!!!” She says this like she has discovered the cure for cancer or how to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. This is my daughter’s mission: to spread the gospel of Beauty and the Beast.

I find it charming that she has no idea that Disney has beat her to it. Her desire to share her love of this musical extravaganza, of recruiting everyone she knows to participate in her very own Spectacular Spectacular a la Moulin Rouge reminds me of my own younger self. I was older, probably about nine or so, when my best friend Christine and I had dreams of bringing the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour to the kids on the block. We spent months perfecting dances (flitting across a floor covered in strawberries and then hula dancing to the flute music at the end of Strawberry Fields), making tickets, creating marketing materials, imagining how we might build a stage. In reality, it never happened. The joy was in the possibility and the vision—the hours spent in joint imagination.

I feel a small thrill when I hear Sophie speak so passionately about her fantasy. I want her to be a dreamer and dream big.

In my youth, daydreaming saved me.

It offered me an escape from the oppressive tedium of school. Hours spent listening to teachers drone on about something easily read in a book. The constant waiting. Waiting for books, papers, tests to be passed out. Waiting for the film strip to be loaded into the projector. Waiting for the bell to ring.

All my elementary teachers said the same thing. She’s a good student, but she spends too much time daydreaming. As if it was my fault.

It offered me an escape from my bedridden state—constantly ill, often absent, frequently alone. In the absence of real relationships, I fabricated virtual ones. I would dress myself in clothes I didn’t own for dates I’d never go on to places I’ve never been. I feel sad now, reflecting on it. But at the time, it was all so beautiful, like the splendor of The Little Princess’ attic, decorated with imagination. The images in my mind were sustaining. They gave me hope.

It offered me an escape while my parents fought—eyes turned inward are blind to one’s surroundings, ears attune to an inner voice are deaf to shouting. My fertile inner life delivered me from my dismal “real” life. Books helped. The provided a window, opened the doors. They supplied endless friends and travel to exotic locales. They kept the fire of my imagination stoked.

Even now, if I don’t want to be here, I don’t have to stay. My bag is always packed.

I owe boredom my gratitude. I have read that the availability of information, the phenomenon of everything “on demand,” the constant stimulation of the digital world has all but eradicated boredom—and that this bodes poorly for creativity. It is in the moments of nothingness that something is created—whether its dramatic play or scientific advancement. Boredom necessitates change. It creates frustration. It begs filling.

These empty hours in the car have perhaps, unwittingly, become one my greatest gifts to Sophie as her parent.

Sweet but Sassy

2011-10-02T20:57:00.001-04:00

It happened.

I knew that one day it would. And so I shouldn’t have been shocked, or hurt. I tell other people not to be shocked or hurt when it happens to them. It’s developmental, I say.

I had just taken Sophia to her ballet class with Miss Marissa. It is one of the highlights of our week. She goes with two of the girls from our block. I watch them, stealthily through the cracked door (Miss Marissa shuts it to keep out the distracting moms who point their ipads at their kids and instantly upload images of their budding ballerinas to Facebook or those who wave manically at their child, like me.)

Sophie is holding hands with her BFF, Leah, their free hands in surprisingly graceful arcs over their heads, and walking across the floor on their tippy toes. They are dressed in almost identical leotards and tutus. Sophie’s has rhinestone ballet slippers on the front and Leah’s has a rhinestone heart and a variety of mysterious stains that result from daily wear. Both are beaming. I get that tight feeling in my chest, tears sting my eyes, and I am choked up with the pleasure that I am able to give her this.

Afterwards, we meet up with her other friend, her sister and mom at a local café for dinner. We arrive first, as they are on a post-ballet diaper run to CVS. Knowing that Sophie is napless and likely to break down soon, I put in our order. I run the options by Sophie first. Turkey salad trail mix, with walnuts and cranberries sound good to both of us. I get a wildberry smoothie to wash it down. We sit in a comfy chair, reading and waiting for our friends to arrive. I am relieved that the place is empty. It takes the heat off of me, knowing that there are no strangers whose judgment I fear. Just me, the other mom, and our kids. Our friends arrive and put in an order for chicken nuggets and a bagel.

I know in that moment that I’m about to have a problem. Sophie will not want to sit and eat turkey trail mix when her friends are consuming a carbolicious meal. Still. I’m used to asserting my parental will in front of others, and I figure the die is cast. She’ll eat the turkey.

Sophie is wild, an edge of hysteria to her voice as she shouts nonsense words and rolls around on the pre-owned overstuffed chairs. The girls organize a game of house, but are far more interested in assigning and reassigning roles than actually playing the roles. “You be the mommy and I’ll your little girl. No No NO. I’ll be the mommy and you be the little girl and I’ll be your older sister. No No NO.” Sophie’s voice rises above the others, and I am disturbed by her bossiness. I sit there, talking to the other mom and trying to figure out if it is my voice I hear coming from Sophie’s mouth. If that is the way I talk to her.

I give her a couple verbal warnings: for her voice rising, for her bossiness, and when she steps into the back office and says, “Let’s play in here.” I turn to the other Mom and say, sarcastically, “If there’s a boundary she’ll cross it.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I feel badly, as though I have betrayed Sophie, speaking ill of her this way to another parent, just a few feet away.

Soon after, the food arrives. Sophie is galled to watch her friends be served kiddie culinary delights and a turkey wrap (light on the mayo) to be set before her. She runs to a couch, buries her face it in and says:

“I don’t want you as a mother. I want another mother.”

I understand what she was feeling. She was exhausted. I was being particularly negative. And, to add insult to injury, I had insisted that she eat what I had purchased—not a bagel and not chicken nuggets. Still, the words cut deep.

I try not to reveal my hurt, growing sterner instead. I demand that she comes to the table and takes a bite. She does, reluctantly, and then spits out the mouthful onto the plate, her face twisted with disgust.

The other mom offers Sophia part of her daughter’s bagel. I let Sophie have it because I don’t want the situation to escalate. Because I don’t want a scene. And, secretly, because I don’t want Sophie to want her over me as her mother. Sophie eats it happily and peace, for the most part, is restored. She still has difficulty staying at the table, and occasionally lures her friends away from their dinners, but I manage to keep bringing her back and keep her eating.

Throughout dinner her words continue to echo in my head. They perturb me and so, in turn, I am more curt than usual. The sharper I become, the worse Sophie behaves. Refusing to listen. Refusing to leave. Refusing to hold my hand as we cross the street. I feel like we’re caught in a downward spiral of reinforcing each other’s poor behavior.

Later, in the car, I try to explain the impact that her words had on me. “You really hurt my feelings, Sophia. If you’re mad at me, that’s okay. You can tell me that. But telling me that you want a different mother is mean and hurtful.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she says, a little too sing-songy to sound truly sincere. But, I’ve made my point. I try to let it go. Cognitively, I recognize that she had to say it, that it’s part of the process of her separating from me and individuating as a human being. That this is only the beginning, and I will hear much worse from her over the course of my life time. I realize our relationship, my love, has to be strong enough to tolerate her anger. I have to watch my sarcasm and the dangers of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can’t dismiss her rude comments; I need to let her know that they are not acceptable. At the same time, I can’t give them too much power.

Still, hearing these words for the first time felt a little like a chip in the wedding china. The first scratch on a new car. It may not look like much. I may even forget it tomorrow. But in a small way, it has changed the thing forever.

She Said It So Well

2011-09-24T22:06:00.003-04:00

Tonight, after Sophia went to sleep, I sat down with Kevin and enumerated the many reasons I'm feeling totally stressed out at the moment (looming deadline for work, the untimely demise of my father's beloved budgies, gotta write the blog, anxiety about Sophie's inability to nap at Montessori, etc., etc.). When I was fiinally finished, he paused and offered, "Do you want me to guest blog for you this week? Would that help?"

"Really? You would do that for me?" I was more than mildly surprised. Sure, he edits my work every week (and always offers something that elevates the piece), but this was above and beyond.

He lifted his eyebrows in an expression I know by now conveys utter sincerity. And so, this week, with gratitude and pleasure, I'd like to present a guest blog by Sophie's dad, Kevin:

Sophie said it so very well.

I brought Melissa and Sophie down South to attend a family reunion. I had been looking forward to visiting my Georgia cousins who I rarely see. The occasion allowed Sophie to play with one of her only two first cousins. One year apart, they merrily chased each other. Tickles, giggles, and hugs abounded in a several hour spate.

Sophie was uncharacteristically quiet and serious when returning to our car. Sucking her thumb and looking forward in a distant stare, she seemed to be thinking very hard. She popped her thumb from her mouth and in a high-pitched, dreamy-tone shared, “We give our hearts away to other people and get new ones. That’s love.”

My own heart melted. I was awe-struck. With a tear in my eye, I made eye contact with Sophia who smiled slightly as she reinserted her thumb. I looked over to Melissa and we exchanged looks of parental wonderment and pride.

Sophie plays often and well with other children, so I wasn’t surprised when she had fun with her cousin. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen her cousin in a full year, which for a 3-year-old is almost the same as never having played together. What surprised me was she seemed to have a special emotional attachment to playing with this child, because he was her cousin. Moreover, she articulated this special emotional attachment in that pure, clear-vision of a child feeling something for the first time.

I have some warm memories of playing with my Georgia cousins when I was a child. Most of my life was lived elsewhere and I struggle with the odd experience of both loving and not really knowing my cousins. Love is generally talked about in the context of romantic love or familial love for one’s parents, siblings, and children. The kind of love I feel for my cousins is a connective love: a shared bloodline, cultural background, and longitudinal view of someone across their life span. Similar to a leap of faith, this kind of love requires me to find a way for my feelings to jump over the unknown. Staying in touch with them involves the risk that I may endure apathy and lack of reciprocation.

Luckily for me, the reunion was well-attend and I had dozens of happy conversations, including sharing memories of my deceased mother, learning about my family member’s lives now, and reminiscing about our playful childhoods. I enjoyed several heart-to-heart conversations with a beloved aunt. After the weekend, I feel rejuvenated in that unique way that visiting family can best remind you who you are and where you come from.

My precocious daughter distilled all of these complex and subtle feelings into a clarion two-liner. First, we give our hearts away by risking staying connected. Then, having risked, we receive the love of others and renew our self-love by acting in accordance to our values. These things are love.

Sophie said it so very well.

Thank you, Kevin.

Facing Race

2011-09-18T21:13:00.003-04:00

We are in the bathroom of a gourmet pizza restaurant—the kind that has offerings like shrimp and goat cheese and whole wheat crusts—in Atlanta, GA. We’re here for a family reunion on Kevin’s side, and tonight we’re visiting with some of his cousins he hasn’t seen in years.

Towards the end of the meal, Sophie announces her panicked, “Bathroom!” which she does every night at some point during dinner. Then she says, “Mommy, come with me.”

Looks like I’m up.

On the way to the bathroom, we pass some live music, two teenagers, one on keyboards, singing, and the other accompanying him on the base. Sophie pauses to stick out her butt and shake it a little before I remind her of where we were so desperately headed.

She reluctantly drags her feet toward the bathroom. Inside there is a full length mirror, and with the music loud enough to penetrate the door, Sophie breaks into a dance watching herself with delight. As she does, another little girl enters with her mother. She is slight—I take her to be newly three—with creamy coffee-colored skin, perfect tight, black braids, shining eyes, a purple tutu, and bejeweled, flashing sneakers. She sees Sophie, squeaks a greeting and immediately joins her. Sophie is charmed to have someone join her dance party and the two shake their tails and chatter away about the live music. The other mom and I exchange smiles, touched by the sight of our daughters dancing in the bathroom.

But, wary of an accident, I remind Sophie, once again, of the purpose of our trip. “Okay, okay, Mom,” she says. We are in the stall and Sophie announces, loud enough for the entire bathroom to hear, “That girl has brown skin, Mom!”

I wince, but say, “Yes, she does.” Pause, and then add matter-of-factly, “We all come in different colors.”

Of course, Sophie was just noting the difference. It was hardly a comment along the lines of, “Mommy, why is that woman’s stomach so big?” which she asked a couple weeks ago in the library, pointing to one of the librarians. I tried to hustle her out the door so I could talk to her in private about making comments about other people’s bodies, but thinking I hadn’t heard her she said it again only this time, MUCH LOUDER.

No, I was only embarrassed because I would have liked to respond to Sophie the way in which the other girl’s mother would want me to respond to Sophie, and I wasn’t sure what that was. There’s no playbook for this. No way to know if the other mother was annoyed that of all the observations my daughter could have made about hers (she’s friendly, a good dancer, adorable, had cool shoes), it had to be about skin color, and now she (and her child) were being subjected to a conversation about the color of their skin. Or, whether she appreciated what I had to say, and the casual tone with which I said it. Or was she in the other stall wondering about the expression my face wore, where the conversation would be headed, or how she would talk to her own daughter about this interaction.

Was it the first time that she was confronted by a comment made by a “white” child about her child, or the millionth? I note that I have never heard a black child say of Sophia, “Mommy, her skin is all pinky-orange!” and I wonder why not.

I was also taken a bit off guard by Sophia’s comment because she is frequently around people-of-color. It’s not like she’s never seen someone a different shade or hue. Her teacher is West Indian. My mother’s nursery school is very diverse. We have friends and, albeit a few, neighbors who are black. We have a bunch of books featuring characters of a variety of skin tones. And she’s frequently in Philly where we encounter people of all races.

I think perhaps she said it because I’ve tried to make race a part of the conversation. Early on I read a summary of the research on children and race in Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s Nurture Shock. One of the points the authors make is that white people who want their children to be raised without bias often make the mistake of not talking about race. They don’t want to draw attention to the difference, so they don’t mention the difference. This reticence has the effect of making it an uncomfortable topic. And, because children just tend to gravitate towards people who look similarly to themselves, children will start to divide themselves into subgroups by race very early on. What white parents should do, they posit, is talk to their children about the fact that people come in all different colors and that you can be friends with someone who is a different color from you as easily as someone who is the same color as you. So, though it has felt awkward to do it, I’ve talked about the color of her friends—hair, eyes and skin—and pointed out how mommy and daddy have friends of different colors too.

Hence the comment. Sophie was just doing what (I hope) I’ve made it okay to do. I realize that not everyone is going to react in the same way to her comments. As Kevin later said to me, part of why race is so hard to talk about is that when you don’t know someone, you don’t know what they do and don’t believe. A simple observation could be loaded with bias, or it could be just that, an innocent noticing of the difference. It is the thing that makes social space so charged.

The other mother emerged from the stall with her daughter, smiling. If she was offended, I could not read it on her face. We waved goodbye and headed back to our table. A moment later Sophie saw them moving towards the table next to ours, “Look, Mom, it’s my new friend. Can I go over and talk to her?” I wasn’t sure that it would be welcome, and I was aware that I agreed, in part, because I was overcompensating. I didn’t want the other mom to think ill of Sophie’s comment (or my response). So I followed her over to the table, where the girl was drawing. They had a happy reunion, exchanging names and ages. Sophie complimented her on her coloring. We returned to our table and moments later, Sophie’s friend appeared, her picture in hand. “It’s for you,” she said to Sophie, handing her a picture of a star and her name written in a colorful mix of capital and lower case letters. Sophie took the sheet of paper and beamed as if she had just been given one of the greatest gifts she had ever received.

Death-defying Dreams

2011-09-10T21:56:00.005-04:00

The other night, I woke from a nightmare. It was so vivid, so real, I had to write it down to purge myself of it so that I could return to sleep:

I was doing therapy in an old, sprawling, Victorian house with a woman going through a divorce. Initially, she was there to share some concerns about her child, but she wound up talking about herself. I had the sense that walking would put her at ease, so we wandering from room to room, still talking.

In the kitchen we encountered her ex-husband. After a brief exchange, he left. The woman and I stayed and talked a bit, until I noticed her ex-husband’s outline through a frosted glass door and realized he was eavesdropping. I was reluctant to leave the space, thinking to myself, "there's something so intimate about kitchens.” But, I wanted to protect her confidentiality, so we walked on. Suddenly, Sophie was in my arms in that inexplicable dream-like way. I carried her as we walked through an area that had a high, slanted, leaded glass ceiling. Golden, fiery balls were falling from the sky, crashing through the roof, shattering the glass all around us, setting the ground aflame. "Oh." I thought, "it's the golden balls of hail," as if recalling a weather report or a prophecy I had previously heard. I shielded Sophie with my body, as I tried to find my way out of the room. Sophie was fascinated by the balls, staring up at them, pointing to one that was aglow with several different colors. I, on the other hand, was terrified. Everywhere there was splintering glass. I had to run, holding Sophie while looking up to avoid being hit. One golden ball of hail grazed her back. I panicked. We, Sophie, my client, and I, headed outside, quickly determining it was safer than being in the glass-ceiling room. Seeking shelter, we headed back towards the front door of the building, dodging the hail as we went. We could hear the screams of other people in the street, wounded, dying. Just as we finally reached the front door, the hail let up. We had made it through. A woman lay on the steps, moaning. There were bits of blood and what looked like brains on the ground. "What happened?" I cried stupidly, alarmed. "She's been hit." said my client, trying to comfort the woman in her last moments. I couldn't shield Sophie from this awful sight. And then, I woke up.

Since the recent earthquake and floods, my dreams have been morbid. Full of death and destruction. Apocalyptic. Now, more than ever, I am acutely aware that my time on this Earth is limited.

Just days later, three-year-old Sophia shared this dream with me:

“I was in grandma’s kitchen, saving a piece of my pizza crust. I leaned back in my chair and fell down. It made a big hole in the floor. Blood came out of my head. It felt like it had wood chunks inside. Grandma put me in bed in my room. Blood came out on the pillow. I sat up. And grandma put a Band-Aid on it. I felt better.” Which is, presumably, when I walked into the room and found her sitting up in bed, bewildered, but calm.

As she recounted the events of her dream, what I found most remarkable about it was how completely unperturbed she was. I listened, hoping my face didn’t betray my shock that this was the stuff of her dreams—violent and sanguinary as my own.

Sophie talks a lot about death, now. Just today, we were looking at a photograph of her classmates from her first year in nursery school. “They’re not dead,” she remarked. “I just don’t see them any more.” Again, I tried not to miss a beat. “That’s right,” I said, “they’re not dead. They’re in kindergarten.”

She’s working on the concept. Trying to make sense of what becomes of the dead. Her first encounter with death occurred a year ago. It was in a field, while we were picking raspberries. A rat lay lifeless on the ground. She stood over it, wondering at his still form. “It’s not alive anymore,” I told her, avoiding the word dead. My explanation seemed to satisfy her. She enjoyed recalling the story, of finding the rat that was no longer alive.

About a month ago, the grandfather of one of her friends died. She caught me off guard with the inevitable question, “What does it mean to be dead?”

“Well,” I replied slowly, “it’s like the rat. His body is no longer alive. He’s not with us anymore. His body stopped working. But even after a person is dead you can keep him alive in your mind, by thinking about him.”

Again, she seemed satisfied. I followed the psychological guideline of discussing difficult subjects…sex…divorce…death…with young ones: when they stop asking, stop offering.

Still, she continues to grapple with the concept of mortality. In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston gives the war whoop, “Kill the beast!” And later, the beast lies dying in Belle’s arms, only to be resurrected by her love. Sophia recycles this storyline over and over again in her play. As if through the enactment, she will gain some mastery over it. “Daddy, you be the beast,” she instructs. “But be a nice beast.” When Kevin treads on delicate ground, baring his teeth and growling at her, she squeals, half fearful/half delighted, “No! Don’t kill me! Be a nice beast!”

Sophie, with her egocentric orientation to the world, is the boss of death.

For me, the impetus to reflect on my mortality (outside of all of the natural disasters of late), is this no-mans-land of middle age. The recognition that my life may, in fact, be half over. Time is now measured in what I have left, not what I have ahead of me. Suddenly it feels short, time borrowed. I am at death’s mercy:

Death is the boss of me.

Last night, I was having dinner with my family at a soda shop that caters to kids. I took a bite of my salad, swallowed, and felt something hard lodge in my chest. I suddenly lost the ability to breathe. Panicked and choking, I stood. A cranberry shot out of me, from somewhere deep within my trachea. I felt it scratch the raw interior of my airway as a cough propelled it out of my body. As I sat back down all I could think was: what if that had been it? In front of my daughter. My husband. And my mother, who had joined us for dinner.

Life is that tenuous. Or at least it seems so to me. My existence is not special. I have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, but I could be taken down by a cranberry. In a soda shop. In front of my kid.

Our dreams can offer us the illusion of control. In my case, not only can I dodge death, but I can shield my daughter from it. In Sophie’s case, she can confront it and emerge the victor. Graceful, but futile attempts at either end of the spectrum to extend our limited time together.

Poopy Eyeball

2011-09-05T12:35:00.002-04:00

My plan to engage in toilet talk along side my daughter, thus eliminating the taboo and decreasing the desire to engage in it has TOTALLY BACKFIRED.

When I was in my junior year of high school, I went to Ohio to check out Oberlin College. We stayed with my father’s twin brother, his wife, and their three little girls. Two of them were in or around preschool age. Giggly, curly-haired, silly little girls, they loved toilet-talk as much as the next three-year-old. What stands out in my mind about this visit is that they had invented a truly unique expletive that sent them into peals of laughter every time it was uttered:

Poopy eyeball.

There was something particularly irreverent about the combination of naughty word “poop” with the inherently goofy word “eyeball” that made the phrase worth repeating over and over and over again.

Needless to say, it left an impression. And twenty-five years later, I found myself uttering it in a moment of playful toilet banter with Sophie. Mind you, it’s not something I said more than once or twice, but Sophie immediately found it to have lexical appeal.

“Poopy eyeball?” she said grinning broadly, her own eyes rolling in her head with excitement.

I rue the moment it passed my lips. Sophie manages to work it into every conversation we have. Apparently, it’s a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an exclamation. As in, “Poopy eyeball! I poopy eyeball on my poopy eyeball. It’s very poopy eyeball.”

Despite my determination not to “limit” her toilet talk and to kill it with permissiveness, I’ve had to enact the rule: no toilet talk while we’re eating. It’s really annoying to dine with someone who feels compelled to repeatedly drop the phrase “poopy eyeball,” the way teenagers pepper their sentences with, “like.” My rule has been poorly observed.

Thus, I’ve resorted to more desperate measures. I tried super-saturating her in the car one afternoon, saying “poopy eyeball” in response to everything she said.

She thought it was hilarious.

Today, for the first time, I saw signs of her weakening. After her nap, in a moment of extreme crankiness, I responded to her request to watch Mary Poppins with, “Poopy Eyeball.”

“STOP IT MOMMY!”

Oh yeah. Take that. In your eyeball, baby.

In Praise of Older Motherhood

2011-08-28T20:39:00.003-04:00

My mother and father had me when they were 26 and 27, respectively, which means by the time they were my age, they had a fifteen-year-old. A sad, sulking, sarcastic teenager. I try to imagine having a teenager at this point in my life, and I am very glad I don’t.

I worry less that I’ll be too tired to keep up with her, and more that her experience of life will be so removed from my own, that it will hard for me to relate. I can remember making a solemn oath to myself as a teenager, that I would never forget what it felt like to be fifteen. It was probably after some emotional injury that sent me reeling into a black mood—unrequited love, parental blowout, peer group weirdness. I was probably scrawling bad poetry in my journal, tears falling on the page, letting the ink run, the words blur. I can conjure some reconstructed image of myself: part memory, part what I know of myself from my journals. Despondant, lonely, full of yearning.

But the truth is, viscerally-speaking, I’ve forgotten.

I feel a bit ashamed of this. As if I have failed my teenage self. Somehow, I’ve become an adult suffering from adolescent amnesia.

I turned forty-one this week. It hardly seems possible that I could be that old. When I am playing with Sophia, I can inhabit the giddiness of three. Playing hide-and-go-seek, crouching in the bathtub, waiting for her to find me, the effervescent giggles I am stifling are circa 1973. But there are other times, perhaps when she asks me be her baby and lie down in her bed while she covers me with a blanket and reads me a story (that she doesn’t actually read, but rather, silently leafs through) that I am gripped by boredom, longing to check my email and I realize, with some disappointment, that I am a grown-up.

I can’t say, though, that I would have been better off having her any younger, in my tumultuous twenties. Before I knew how to be a partner to another person, before I had made peace with my own parents, before I came to believe that my relationships take precedence over my vocational aspirations. I think she would have suffered as I stumbled my way through early adulthood, a casualty of my divided attention and self-absorption.

I think, now in my forties, I am truly ready to parent. I feel more able to be present for others than I have at any other point in my life. I am more patient, more attune, more sure of myself. I am encouraged by this, and, for the first time, entertaining the possibility that it only gets better. That by the time Sophia is fifteen, perhaps I will not need to remember what it feels like to be fifteen to be an effective, empathic parent.

It Happens

2011-08-21T23:23:00.002-04:00

Sometimes in the quest to get it all done, a ball gets dropped. Thanks for checking in. Stay tuned for this week's installment of Life with Sophia--Middle-Aged Mom....

A Mixed Diet

2011-08-14T21:21:00.005-04:00

I love being a stay-at-home mom. I also love to work. So, I’m feeling truly blessed that I have the option and opportunity to do both. But now that I am doing both, I often feel completely overwhelmed.

On Friday morning, I had the ridiculous plan to wake up, shower, bathe Sophia, print out a report for a client, get us both fed, brushed, and packed up for our day, drop Sophia off at the babysitter and make it to work in time for an early meeting

I imagine there are some people who would read this and think to themselves, “Oh, is that all?” And others who are still shuddering. In truth, it wouldn’t have been so bad if:

1. My daughter didn’t hate baths and wasn’t accustomed to receiving 15 minutes of play time before I deigned to scrub her, and,
2. We didn’t have a temperamental, 7-year old computer that performs very poorly under pressure.

But she does and I do, which is where the best laid plans of this woman went very, very astray.

I managed to get myself bathed, and, knowing better than to try to get dressed for a meeting before bathing Sophia, I didn’t.

I drew the bath and Sophia compliantly disrobed, grabbed Bath Baby, ripped off her head, and threw her decapitated doll into the tub. An excellent start.

“I’ll wash myself,” Sophia proclaimed. Ut oh.

“Not today, Soph,” I sang, “I’m in a real hurry, so I’m just going to do a ‘quick bath.’”

“NO! I don’t want a ‘quick bath’! I want to wash myself.”

“Well, why don’t we wash you together? I’ll give you a squirt of soap and you can wash your belly while I wash your back.”

“NO! I want the whole soap to myself.” I take a deep breath and say a short, silent prayer for a higher power to send me some patience, though not quite in those words.

Thinking fast, I pull a scrap of soap from the bottom of the soap dish. “You can have this.”

“Gee, thanks!”

Whew. I start to wash her back.

“NO! You can’t wash me! I’m washing myself.”

“Sophia. I am going to wash you. You can fight me all you want and we can do this the hard way, or you can let me do it and I’ll be very, very quick.”

Sophie selected the first option. She kicked furiously, churning the water, and instantly soaking me (not getting dressed - excellent call). I grabbed her legs amid her protests: “Ow! Stop pulling my leg! You’re hurting me!”

“If you don’t pull away, it won’t hurt,” I said in my best Buddha-grinding-his-teeth voice. She continued to thrash about so I dumped water over her head and proceeded to scrub, working the soap from her scalp, downward. She reached up and scratched at my face. I held her hands down with one hand and washed her face with my other. “ARRRGGGH! There’s soap in my eyes. THERE’S SOAP IN MY EYES!” I handed her a clean washcloth. She wiped her face and then whipped it at me.

Now it’s war.

I grabbed the wash cloth away and tossed it behind me, into the sink. This gave her just enough time to grab Bath Baby’s head and pitch it at me.

I caught the head mid air. I grabbed Bath Baby’s body before that could be commandeered as a weapon of maternal destruction. As quick as was humanly possible, I finished scrubbing her, plucked her from the bath and threw a towel over her head.

“You can dry yourself. I’m getting dressed.”

I walked out of the room as she began her next protest, “No, I’m not going to dry myself…I’m going to…..”

I turned and held up my hand, “Your clothes are hanging on your chair. If you’re not dressed by the time I come back in here, I’m going to dress you.” I start to walk out, then I turn around and add, “And it won’t be pretty.” I walked out of the room.

She came running into my room and threw her panties at me. “I don’t want to wear these underwear.” They were non-princess underwear, all we had left. The wet wash was sitting in the dryer that I forgot to run last night. I sighed. Some battles are not worth fighting. “Then go downstairs without underwear. I’ll dry another pair for you.”

“Okay!” said Sophie, suddenly cheerful again. I dressed and she returned to my room, fully clothed (except for the underwear).

“Ready for breakfast?”

“Yes!” We headed downstairs.

“I want waffles.”

“I don’t have time to make waffles. I’m making oatmeal.” Was this going to set off tantrum number three?

“Okay.” No, I felt awash with relief. Not today, it wouldn’t. I said a silent prayer, thanking the higher power.

I started the oatmeal and went to print out my report. Kevin had turned on the computer for me a half an hour ago, which is the amount of time the gerbils need to be running in the CPU for it to work. I brought up my document, went to turn on the printer. No paper.

Not a problem. Kevin had bought some the other day. I gently placed it in our cranky printer and hit print.

The paper instantly jammed. I pulled it out. Put it back in even more delicately and resent the document to the printer. A horrible grinding sound emanated from the machinery and the green light on top started blinking wildly.

That’s when I broke down crying.

Kevin came in to my rescue. “Let me deal with this. Go in and take care of Sophie.” Grateful, but still sobbing, I returned from the kitchen.

“Mommy,” said Sophie, studying me with great concern, “you need to take a deep breath.”

So she does listen to me.

I inhaled. I stopped crying. I did feel better. “Thank you, Sophie. That really helped.” I served us the oatmeal. We were eating and I was reading to Sophie when Kevin walked in. “I think I got it to work.” He kissed us goodbye and left.

I went back into the study and tried, once again, to print. A message flashed on the screen: “The printer has lost communication with the computer.” I glanced skyward. Please?

Somehow, I managed to unplug everything, reboot, ultimately print my document, convince Sophia to put on her underwear, and get out of the house only five minutes later than usual. I arrived for my meeting, totally stressed-out and really needing to go to the bathroom, but otherwise intact.

It was an honest-to-goodness miracle.

How do people with multiple kids, full time jobs, and other assorted life challenges do this? How do they manage to sleep, find time for themselves, nurture their couplehood, be a dynamo at work, engage their children, cook meals and exercise? Penelope Leach’s reassuring advice about feeding children comes to mind: “A ‘mixed diet’ is one in which some of each of a wide variety of foods are eaten in different combinations every day. Its virtue lies in the fact than an individual who east that diet over a long time will get everything her body requires under all circumstances (Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five).”

I can hang on, knowing that at least one day/week I’ll work from home and won’t be racing to get to the office. Or that I’ll get to work from a sidewalk café while Sophia takes a dance class down the street for a few hours. Or that we’ll do something really fun with a friend another afternoon. Or on the weekend, Kevin will pretend to be Sophia’s oversized baby while I get to go on a run. A mixed diet. It’s easy to forget, when I’m just eating peas that in a day or a couple hours I’ll be eating ice cream (even if it’s followed by another helping of peas that I'll force down until midnight).

Jaws

2011-08-09T00:05:00.005-04:00

The following post is inspired by the memoir In Stitches by Anthony Youn and Alan Eisenstock. The book chronicles Youn’s path to becoming a plastic surgeon from his high school years when he dealt with a disfiguring underbite to his apprenticeship with a celebrity surgeon in Beverly Hills. I received a copy from the publisher, gratis, as a member of the online book club, From Left to Write. I was not paid to write this article. You can read other blogs inspired by the book here, on August 9th.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Sophia.

I have great teeth. That sounds like a brag. It’s not. I earned these teeth. My mother calls it “the million dollar smile.” And she’s not kidding. Like Youn, I had a vicious underbite and years of orthodontia.

In my early years, my underbite was considered cute. My parents will still imitate my primate smile with an expression that conveys how adorable they thought it was. But, as my jaw outpaced the rest of my diminutive frame, they grew alarmed. At least, I surmise that they did based on the sheer amount of dollars and time they invested in my mouth.

I received my first contraption when I was about nine or ten. Contraption, not braces. Oh, I would have braces, for four long years I would have braces, but they were to come much later. First, I had a retainer that was cemented into the roof of my mouth.
This medieval device came with a little key, kept in a small pocket in my mother’s apron. Alright, I made up the last bit about the apron. But she did have a key that she periodically used to tighten the medieval device at my sadistic orthodontist’s whim. Of course, I hated it. I would pick at the metallic parts that were wrapped around my incisors, until one day, when my mother was on the phone, I finally dislodged it. Well, I half-dislodged it. The other half remained affixed to the other side of my mouth so that it hung askew making it impossible to close my mouth. “MAHRM,” came my garbled cry. With an exasperated, “You kids!” my mother hung up with her friend and took me on an emergency trip to the Drs. Vella.

I went to not one but two orthodontists. Husband and wife who plied their evil trade side-by-side. Mrs. Dr. Vella was very proper and all business. Her manner was brusque, her adjustments less than gentle. Mr. Dr. Vella was her polar opposite. He looked like Buddy Hackett from the Tuscan dairy popsicle commercials. He was silly, kind and gentle. Whenever we went for a checkup, I prayed that I would get Mr. Dr. V.

The two conferred about my case. I heard them tell my mother that if we didn’t comply with the preventative work, when I was a teenager I would have to have my jaw broken. That was sufficient motivation for me to keep my retainer in my mouth from that day forward. They added a chin cup to the mix. It fit like a cap over my advancing mandible, attaching to head gear with little rubber bands. Sweat would pool in the chin cup creating the perfect ecosystem for zits to grow and flourish. Before donning my orthodontic crown each night, I’d slather my chin with Clearasil in a futile attempt to keep the pimples at bay.

After two years, when I was released from the iron grasp of my retainer, I was rewired with the latest in brace technology. They were clear and meant to be invisible, however, within hours of eating, they adopted a yellow stain that remained for the next four years. There was no key this time, but I had to wear increasingly tight rubber bands that hooked my upper and lower decks together and would shoot out of my mouth at the most inopportune moments.

When, at last, I was cut free at 16, my braces left behind a memento of sixteen perfectly symmetrical cavities, my first ever. I was drilled, filled and presented with The Positioner. It was to be my last, and perhaps most vexing, appliance. The Positioner was much like a boxer’s mouthpiece—a large silicone mold of my mouth that I was to chew into for four hours each day. With a piece of plastic this large in your mouth, it is impossible to swallow. My saliva would pool in my mouth, inducing nausea and leaking down the sides of my face. I would sit in front of the television for hours with a hand towel to soak up the effluvia. Ultimately, it was too gross for me to tolerate and I stopped using it altogether. My orthodontist threatened me (Mrs. Dr.) that I would go right back to the way I started...but by some miracle this did not come to pass. My teeth stayed put, no trace of an underbite.

I wish I could say that it inspired me to take excellent care of my teeth. That I flossed and brushed and pampered my mouth with a newfound respect. But I didn’t. As soon as I had a beautiful smile, I began to take it for granted. I reveled in the blissful relief that I didn’t have to think about my mouth. That it wasn’t in constant pain. That it looked like other people’s mouths. Freed of my dental shackles, I walked away and didn't look back.

Reflecting on this experience, I wonder, what past afflictions others have walked away from, shed selves, now-invisible experiences that paved the path towards today. What hides behind the pretty little smiles?

You Can Mix and Match

2011-08-07T21:34:00.004-04:00

This morning, coming home from the pool, Sophia announced, “I’m going to wear my bride hat at the dinosaurs.” By “the dinosaurs” she meant the memorial that was erected by a local eagle scout in honor of the dinosaur that was discovered several blocks away from our home. There’s a plaque, a picnic table, and a rag tag set team of plastic dinosaurs, which on-your-honor you can play with and leave behind for the next visitor. By “bride hat” she meant the veil that was in the bag of hand-me-down goodies dropped off by Aunt Emily yesterday.

“Oh? Who are you going to marry?” I asked, bemused.

“Daddy,” Sophie said, without hesitation. And then, as an afterthought, “or Jan [Emily’s charming, silly, sunny boy with whom Sophie is enamored]. He’s a really nice boy.”

I was hurt. Jan I can understand. But why daddy? Why not me? I’m a catch. I cook. I clean. I arrange splendid playdates and outings.

I was afraid I already knew the answer. Still I had to ask: “Why don’t you want to marry me?”

“Because, Mom-Moms, I have to marry a boy. Girls marry boys. Daddy is a boy.”

Just as I suspected.

Kevin and I have been very careful not to articulate expectations that she will date, fall in love with, marry or grow up to be with a person of one sex with the other. We wanted to avoid transmitting the message that a heterosexual relationship is the only kind of relationship. Should it so happen that she’s gay, we want her to look back and know that the only thing we ever cared about was that she would wind up with someone who loves her, edifies her, and with whom she is happy.

My own parents did a good job of this. Gay was normal. Our neighbors were a same-sex couple who ran a kennel for miniature schnauzers. We’d go over to their house at Christmastime—their home was built during the American Revolution and had slits in the walls where you could hide behind and stick a gun through. It was always beautifully decorated and they served us hot cocoa and had little gifts for us. And every summer we went to Cape Cod. We spent our nights in Provicetown where we watched transvestite parades and hung out in feminist bookstores and vacationed alongside families of a variety of configurations.

Thus, I try to speak in general terms, if at all, when I talk to Sophie about a romantic future “one day, when you meet someone you fall in love with….blah blah blah.” She knows male-female couples as well as male-male couples and female-female couples. Still, somehow, she has picked up on the hetero-dominant model.

I blame the princesses. Cinderella mooning over Prince Charming, Aurora waiting for Prince Phillip to ride in on his steed, Ariel sacrificing her fish tail to be with landlubber Prince Eric. Where are the lesbian princesses? The gay princes? Surely they are out there. Certainly there are stories where the princess ditches the prince (The Paper Bag Princess), and stories where princesses eschew their dainty image (The Princesses have a Ball, Atalanta in Free to Be You and Me), and even where princesses kick some royal butt (The Princess Knight), but none that I know of that propose a same-sex romantic path.

Which means it’s up to us. “Sophia.” I reply, “You know, not every girl marries a boy. And not every boy marries a girl. Some girls marry girls. Some boys marry boys.”

“Oh,” responds Sophie, “You can mix and match. Boys with girls. Girls with boys.”

Not my point.

I can see that this is only the beginning of a long conversation we will have over time.

Our Visit to One Hundred Acre Wood

2011-07-31T14:49:00.002-04:00

Am I disappointed?

Tonight, Kevin and I took Sophia to see her first movie. I had built it up in my mind. Perhaps because my own first film had left such a deep impression, and not an entirely positive one. I was four when my mother took me to see a double feature: Cinderella and Escape from Witch Mountain. Cinderella had also been my mother’s first film. I only vaguely recall Cinderella—the songs stand out in my mind, and Cinderella’s brilliant transformation orchestrated by her benevolent fairy godmother, but ultimately it was too benign, too milquetoast to have taken up serious nerve cell real estate. I do remember Escape from Witch Mountain. Vividly. Animated, Cinderella was clearly not real. But EFWM, with live action, was terrifyingly possible. Consider the plot: two seemly normal, alien witch children are stranded on our planet and desperately trying to make their way home. At four, when one tends to still straddle the line between fantasy and reality, I was a believer. I managed to keep it together until the male protagonist played a harmonica and magically made clothing get up and dance. That’s when I started screaming. I believe I had to be carried out of there.

I had it in my head that Sophie’s first movie should also be Cinderella, but with Disney keeping their classic films on lockdown in a mythical vault so they can re-release them at great profit, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. But then I picked up a $1 copy on VHS at the library, and we decided to go retro and purchase an almost-obsolete VCR. I regretted that her first movie would be on television—I pictured a much grander experience—an old movie house with red velvet seats and curtains that parted for the film, like Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, my second home when I was in college. But, it was a small concession to be able to continue the Cinderella tradition.

Sophie sat between Kevin and me on the futon. She was atwitter with excitement. I had a hard time holding back the tears as Cinderella, sweetly wakened by her rodent friends, sang in her attic room, “A dream is a wish you heart makes, when you’re fast asleep….” Sophie, who had only experienced ambient television up to this point, was rapt. She popped her thumb in her mouth, removing it only occasionally to laugh at the antics of the cat and mice. In fact, she seemed more taken with their slapstick comedy then the more complicated fairy tale plot line. But she must have understood the bare bones of it because, immediately after, she wanted to re-enact the story, from beginning to end. And for the next several weeks she would play Cinderella to my wicked stepmother, joyfully sponging the kitchen floor and dusting the living room furniture. (An unanticipated—but welcome—side effect.)

I wasn’t against introducing Sophia to a movie-theater movie, but I had a hard time finding one that would fit my criteria: slow, animated, wholesome and not scary. I also hoped to find a theater that lacked an assaultive sound system and wouldn’t preface the film with twenty minutes of commercials. I don’t think they exist anymore. Kevin says that my annoyance is evidence that I’m getting old.

Then, one day, as Kevin and I headed back from the farmers market in the center of town, he pointed out an advertisement on the side of the bus. Winne the Pooh.

“Maybe,” I said.

We had both grown up with Pooh. The Pooh of my youth, forever on a crusade for honey with a rumbly in his tummy, certainly met my criteria. Then, one night, Kevin emailed me an article from the Times. The new Pooh film was to be a throwback to the animation of an earlier time, appealing to the nostalgia of geriatric parents like me. Apparently, they had tried to give Christopher Robin and the gang a modern makeover a couple years back, but nobody wanted to see Eeyore breakdance. This, it seemed, in a world where the Lion King is about to be re-released in 3D, might be as close as I’m going to come to what I envisioned for her first movie.

“We are so there.” I wrote back to Kevin.

So, in the grip of an unrelenting heat wave, we went to the local multiplex for a late matinee. I didn’t know what to expect, whether there would be throngs of parents and their preschoolers taking refuge from the oppressive humidity or an empty theater, abandoned in favor of the beach and other summertime destinations, so we arrived 17 minutes early. As it turned out, the latter was true. We were one of three families that occupied the stadium during the pre-dinner hour.

I will never arrive at a movie theater 17 minutes early ever again. The first few minutes of advertising were promising. First, a spot from the Foundation for a Better Life promoting encouragement. Okay. I’m fine with that. Then, an advertisement for touring a battleship on the Delaware. Also relatively inoffensive. Next came a promo for a one-time showing of a Shakespearean play at the Globe theater. Now I was getting the feeling that I had been targeted. Somebody had done their homework to study the demographic coming to see this movie. But from there, things went downhill: not one, but three trailers for Happy Feet 2, two relatively scary coming attractions for animated films for the preteen set, a bizarre commercial for Sprite that involved transforming a rap star into a robot. By the third Happy Feet 2 trailer (A penguin rapping, “Don’t call it a come back cause I been here for years,” followed by an troupe of penguin chicks crooning, “we’re bringing fluffy back.”) I sprung from my seat, ready to throttle the teenage projectionist (if there still are projectionists) and force him (or her) to start the show. In thirty-seven minutes they had made up for Sophia’s three and a half years of television deprivation.

“Sit down, Melissa. There’s nothing you can do.” Kevin said. He has an uncanny ability to detect when commercials are over, always popping the TV off mute a split second before the feature presentation comes back on. I dropped back into my chair, my heart still pounding with its fight or flight response to the Happy Feet trailer.

And then the movie started.

I wanted the experience to be perfect: to bring positive memories from my childhood flooding back, to be a magical experience for Sophia, lighting her eyes with joy and her heart with song.

Instead...

Though the overall story was sweet, it was a bit chaotic at points and difficult to follow. The animation was, at times, inspired, and in other moments like Disney on acid. The use of text and plays on words was, perhaps, appealing to adults, but soared over the heads of its intended audience. As for the music, unlike “A Tigger’s a Wonderful Thing,” and the title song, “Winnie the Pooh” from the original film, the songs were forgettable (as evidenced by the fact that I can’t recall a line or a possible title).

Having already sat for an hour, Sophia became restless midway. Again, it was the sight gags, less than the verbal humor that grabbed her…Pooh and piglet’s bumbling attempts to raid a bee’s hive for its honey, Pooh jumping into and swimming around a great jar of honey. She managed to sit with it through the credits. At the end, when I asked her what she thought, she simply said, “good.”

Before we had left to see the film, we tried to prepare Sophie, explaining what a movie was like. I described a stadium-like theater with a giant screen in front upon which they’d project a video.

Sophie thought for a moment, “Movies and plays are different.”

“Yes, a play is live action, with people dressed up as characters. A movie is more like TV. It’s just a picture.”

“Oh,” she sounded a tad disappointed, “I thought there would be people dressed up as characters.” I felt a slight wave of glee at her disappointment. Perhaps the movie would not be as seductive as I feared, a gateway drug into a world of television and characters and commercials. A new frontier of pleading for screen time and intense negotiation. A turning away from her precious books.

And so, later than night, as Kevin and I settled into the couch to reflect, I realized that I wasn’t disappointed with her relative indifference to the film. In fact, I found myself feeling relieved. Immediately after the film, she asked for a story about her and Curious George “Go to the Movies”. And later that night, she went right back to begging for “just one more chapter” from her new Magic Tree House book. She liked the movie, but no more than the books we’ve read her or the stories we’ve composed for her or the plays we’ve attended.

It seems that the allure of image will not supplant her imagination any time soon.

Read This, Not That

2011-07-27T22:40:00.004-04:00

The following blog was inspired by the children’s book, The Costume Trunk, by Bob Fuller, which I read (to Sophia) as a participant in the online bookclub, From Left to Write. I received the book gratis from the publisher, but was not paid to write this article.

What constitutes a quality children’s book? Quality is often ephemeral—you know it when you see it, but it’s hard to put words to it. Still, I’m going to try.

To some extent, the quality of a children’s book can be measured by the impact it has on the reader, which I suppose is true of any book, regardless of the audience.

1. If it evokes a strong emotional reaction:

When I was about ten years old, I read The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The book broke my heart. By the end, I was dissolved in tears, and completely shocked by my own reaction. I remember running down the stairs calling for my mother, “Mom, this book made me cry!” She said, smiling, "Books can do that."

2. If it has rich, three-dimensional characters that help a child reach higher, yearn for more, and expand the possibilities of who he/she can be:

Madeline L’Engle’s brainy, empowering heroine of A Wrinkle in Time, Meg Murry, was unattractive, socially awkward and had trouble in school, yet she made me want to be smart, a scientist, and introduced me to a whole new, traditionally male-dominated, genre of fiction.

3. If it teaches you something new…The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Transports you to another time…Tikki Tikki Tembo. And another place with imagery so rich, a world so complete…Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?....you forget your own surroundings.

4. If your child begs you for novel stories about his or her own life that incorporates a literary figure…Curious George (the original H.A. Rey books, not the formulaic ones based on the videos)...

…you know it’s good.

You also know schlock when you see it. Often, it’s gimmicky, intended to further market characters, toys, and branded goods to children (e.g. Disney Princesses, Dora the Explorer, Spiderman, Smurfs, etc.). These books are typically vehicles to introduce and promote series of characters. They typically introduce figure after figure, with a flimsy, incoherent, or meandering plot. Most follow a formula. Almost all are predictable. Despite the best efforts of some of these books to appear wholesome and “teach a lesson,” the lesson is either oversimplified without the complex moral subtleties that real dilemmas carry or it is obscured by the much more seductive inappropriate behaviors in the book. These books do not show, they tell. They ask you to believe, rather than inspiring belief. Their characters are flat and constricted by traditional gender roles. Yet, they appeal to kids. They carry a seductive, almost addictive quality. And they turn kids who would otherwise be happy playing with a cardboard box into consumers…wanting related toys, figurines, towels, book bags, Happy Meals that never seem to satisfy.

So, in honor of quality children’s books, I would like to list a few of Sophie and my favorites…I hope there are some here that you’ve never heard of, but will be inspired to read. I invite you to please share amazing books you’ve read with your children—I’m always looking for a new, wonderful read, and I’m sure my readers are too.

Melissa’s Non-exhaustive List of Wonderful Children’s Books (in no particular order):

The Other Side
When Vera was Sick
Vera Rides a Bike
Rhyming Dust Bunnies
Press Here
Black Book of Colors
Chalk
The Growing Up Tree
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Wanda’s Monster
Wacky Wednesday
Knuffle Bunny (One, Two and Free)
Wow City!
Wow America!
Wow School!
The Secret Remedy Book
I’ll Be You and You Be Me
What Do You Say Dear?
Now We Can Have a Wedding!
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Pink Me Up
The Show and Tell Lion
I Spy Shapes in Art
Pricilla and the Pink Planet
The Paper Bag Princess
Princess Fishtail
Trouble at the Dinosaur Café
Rubia and the Three Osos
The Uglified Ducky
Once Upon a Wood
Fancy Nancy (yes, it’s good, so are the subsequent ones but only those written by the original author)
Naughty Parents
Secret in the Garden
Good night, Pillow fight
Will I have a Friend?
One
The Three Questions
When Sophie Gets Angry
Leo the Late Bloomer
On the Day You Were Born
I love you, Blue Kangaroo
(also: It Was You, Blue Kangaroo and Happy Birthday Blue Kangaroo)
The Bag that I’m Taking to Grandma’s (and all the other wonderful rebus books by the same author)
Anything Dr. Seuss
Anything Richard Scarry
Almost anything by Jan Brett
Any of the Lola and Charlie books by Lauren Child
Any of the Llama Llama books (though the holiday drama one is less good)
Any of the Frog and Toad books
The original Madeline books

And last, but not least:
The original Curious George books: (Curious George, Curious George Goes to the Hospital, Curious George Takes a Job, Curious George Flies a Kite, Curious George Rides a Bike, Curious George Gets a Medal)

Your turn.

Little Pitchers Have Big Ears

2011-07-24T21:52:00.004-04:00

Recently, at a 75th birthday party, we spent a wonderful day with friends and family. Sophia frolicked in the pool and grass in equal measure with her new best friend, Shane. Kevin and I watched, floating idly on foam noodles, periodically swigging icy beer. I realized for the first time in a long time that I felt absolutely no anxiety.

Making the two-hour drive home, spent from doing a whole lot of nothing, I flipped on NPR for a little stimulation. Sophie was listening to Curious George on her headphones while simultaneously flipping through a library book. Kevin was sitting next to her, playing possum. His head was tilted back against the headrest and his eyes were closed but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. Terry Gross was interviewing theater critic Jason Zinoman on how the horror film genre was redefined in the 1960s. The conversation was interesting, but fairly intellectual and certainly beyond Sophia’s cognitive understanding, particularly since the only reference point she has for film is the 1950 version of Cinderella we just showed her a month ago. Zinoman was making the case that the “new school of horror was based on real life: realistic, mundane events that could leave the audience wondering where evil could lurk (everywhere) and who could be evil (everyone).” I caught Kevin’s eyes in the mirror as they opened briefly. He read my silent question, “It’s okay to leave this on, right?” responding with a shrug and an audible, “She’s totally absorbed in her book.” So I left it on.

Terry played a clip from the Night of the Living Dead, which, Zinoman says, was a seminal film in the use of gore. I haven’t seen it, but Terry did a good job of setting it up: A brother and sister are in a cemetery together visiting their father’s grave at their mother’s insistence. The sky is stormy, with thunder in the distance. The sister has a fear of graveyards, and the brother is taunting her about it. The clip rolls and the voices have the prim lilt of 50s actors. The brother is teasing, saying, “They’re coming for you Barbara,” as a man approaches in the distance. As irony would have it, the man is a zombie. Barbara screams at the zombie descends upon her.

I quickly reach for the volume and turn it down. This gets Sophie’s attention. She looks up “Turn it back on, Mom, “she says.

I wait a few beats…surely Terry has moved on, and then turn the volume up. From the speakers, Terry explains, “Once the zombie appears, it’s trying to eat the sister….”

I quickly turn the volume back down. This time, Sophie doesn’t look up from her book. Again, I look at Kevin, who, from his expression, appears to want to hear the rest of the discussion as much as I do. After a longer pause I turn it up the volume again and the conversation is back to intellectual zombie analysis. I glance in the mirror, Sophie’s face is impassive, her nose buried back in her book.

Once home, way past Sophie’s bedtime, we whisk her into her PJs. Kevin reads her a bedtime story as I run a toothbrush over her teeth. All the while she chatters happily about her time with Shane. It appears as though she has emerged from her exposure to Fresh Air with her innocence in tact.

The next morning, I’m making waffles as Sophie is drawing with crayons at the kitchen table. Kevin wanders in half-awake and stands behind our daughter, “Watcha drawing?” he asks.

Without looking up Sophie tells him, “A zombie eating a sister.”

I gasp and spin around. Kevin and I stare at each other, stifling appalled laughter.

Granted, she has no idea what a zombie is. But doesn’t anything eating a person have some element of horror to it? I wonder what images she has formed of zombies. Are they friendly creatures, like the monsters who occasionally take up residence in her closet, or are they going to become the stuff of nightmares for the next six months? How has she incorporated this new information into her larger worldview? What have I done?

I don’t know because I can’t get anything else out of her. She continues to happily draw her carnivorous monster in broad, uncontrolled sweeps of a pink crayon.

Let this be a lesson to me: whether she understands or not, she’s always listening. Little pitchers have big ears.

What Will She Remember?

2011-07-17T21:33:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine justified the parental labor of some onerous activity designed mostly for the pleasure of children (i.e. traveling the length of the state to the shore, which requires packing a great deal of equipment and a high tolerance for in-transit sibling warfare): “we’re making memories.”

I tried to use this tactic with my husband, in attempt to lure him to the beach (which he experiences as a series of sensory impingements—the grit of the sand, the slime of the sunscreen, the beating of the sun on his perspiring brow). He immediately dismissed this notion without further explanation. “I don’t buy into that.” I make a mental note to ask him why not when I felt less invested in his response.

All this got me thinking…what will Sophia remember? How much does it matter that we do our best to fill our children’s days with joyful experiences? What kind of an impact does it have? Why do I bother?

My own memories of childhood are spotty at best. I cannot remember the daily experience of having my mother at home when I was a young child. The odd bits of tape I have in my mind are ones fraught with emotion: the humiliation of noticing that my neighbor was watching me from a tree as I squatted next to my baby pool to pee; the fear I felt running up the street screaming for my mother after watching one of the neighborhood boys step into a bees nest and suffer 82 bee stings; the disappointment upon receiving my first kiss, planted on my lips by a wet-mouthed second-grader deep in the recesses of our spare-room closet. There are good memories, but they too have a deep emotional resonance: visits from my New York cousins who transformed our living room into an imaginary swamp full of alligators that nipped at our feet as we sought refuge on the cough; after years of lessons, suddenly finding myself able to swim in our manmade township lake, with no one around to help or bear witness to my moment of triumph; my father quietly waking me in the middle of the night and leading me out onto a cold Cape Cod beach to watch a meteor shower; we held hands as the sky sung with stars.

All of these memories were forged out of intensity, none were planted or planned.

In the calm of the morning, I asked Kevin, “What is it about the idea of ‘making memories’ that you were so opposed to the other day?” He explained that he wasn’t against going to the shore, per se, not if were going with the intent of having fun as a family. However, he was not interested in creating an experience for the sake of having a picture of it. He didn’t want the intent of forming a memory to trump being in the moment.

Made sense to me.

It is easy to confuse images with memory. There are some things I “remember” only because we have pictures. I am grateful for these pictures, for without them, I would make sweeping generalizations about an otherwise barren landscape. I would only understand those years through the lens of now. The knowledge of the past I possess in the present. But my childhood is not Sophia’s.

I want her to not need pictures. I want her to emerge from these years with the sense that she had a wonderful childhood, whether she remembers the specifics of the day-to-day, or not.

More than once, I have listened to an interview on the radio during which the person being interviewed said something like, “I had an idyllic childhood.” I felt envy creeping through me. This envy is my motivation.

Every day, I do my best, if not to create specific memories, then to create a context of joy. When it occurs to me, I pull out my camera and snap pictures that capture thin slices of this joy. But even if no record existed, I am hopeful that the feeling will be encoded in her brain, etched deep in her neurons. That she will be someone, someday who can toss off the words, “I had a lovely childhood.”

It may be that she won’t remember a damn thing. That she’ll have to dig through digital recordings of parades and playdates and parties to piece together her past. But perhaps she will take experiences from the relationships she enjoys now…with me, with Kevin, with our relatives, friends and neighbors and carry them forth to her relationships in the future. And she will be happy.

Early to Rise

2011-07-10T20:44:00.003-04:00

Through my earplugs, I can hear the eerie creak of my glass door knob turning. Little naked feed pad across the wood floor, over to where I am sleeping. Or rather, pretending to sleep, hopeful that my lifeless form will deter her.

It doesn’t.

“Mom? Is it time to wake up yet?”

I half open one eye. I am of the mind that if I open it any further, I will be pulled too far over the line, into consciousness, and will not be able to fall back asleep. One look at my digital clock confirms my suspicions. It is exactly 5:34. AM.

“No,” I say gruffly. “Go back to sleep.”

“But it’s light out!”

“It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”

She slams my door and runs back to her room, in a huff.

I’m up.

I toss and turn for a half hour or so. Too angry and resentful for my brain waves to slow down enough to hit delta, the deepest stage of sleep. I throw a shirt over my eyes to block the early morning sun filtering through the holes around my air conditioner. I hug my blankets to my chest and feel the vibrations of my heart beating against them. At last, sleep sneaks up on me, furtive and strange. I am immediately absorbed in a vivid dream where an agent is asking me to read a chapter of a book I have just written. The words swim on the page, refusing to make sense, and I can’t even recall the gist of them let alone recite them verbatim.

“Mom, is it time now?” Jolts me out of my sleep. I could almost be grateful for being rescued from my predicament, except that I’m immediately aware of the fact that I’m not sleeping. And my annoyance trumps my gratitude.

I glance at the clock. 6:30. Are you kidding me?

“NO! Get back in your bed.”

“No! I’m done sleeping.”

“Then go back to your room and look at books.”

“I looked at them all already.”

“Sophie, I am not getting up until 7 o’clock, so find yourself something to do until then.”

“I know! I’ll do a puzzle.”

“Great. Go.” I know I sound mean, but that is what sleep deprivation does to a person.

I am not a morning person. If I had it my way, I’d be up until 1 every night and sleep until 9. I have always loved the night. I love how I feel like the only person on Earth. How quiet it is. How still. At night, anything seems possible. Night is sexier, edgier, more mysterious than day. The hours of light stretch before me, impossibly long. Night, too short.

I close my eyes, but my mind is already whirring: planning the day, reviewing my to-dos, fretting about work. Five minutes passes.

She’s back. “Mo-om.” She whines, drawing out the word from one syllable to two. “Are you up yet?”

“Yes,” I moan. I may have won the previous battles, but I have lost the war.

She climbs into bed with me. “Do you want me to rub your back?” Her voice is full of tenderness. All it takes is this little offer to shift my emotional state from angry to touched.

“Yes.” Her hand lightly passes up and down my vertebrae several times, before she curls her body into mine and pops her thumb in her mouth.

Having passed through three and a half years of phases, I know the early-wakening is time limited. It, too, will pass. As will her desire to crawl into bed with me and cuddle.

Little Yogini

2011-07-02T21:26:00.004-04:00

Yoga seemed like a good idea.

At home, I taught Sophia a few poses: Downward-Facing Dog, Tree, Child’s Pose, Cobra. Sure, she only held them for a nanosecond, but she liked the idea of twisting her body into new shapes. Then she started inventing some of her own, such as the “Geeky Bop” pose which consists of poking your butt out and holding up one of your arms at a right angle. So we went to the library and took out a book that I had loved as a child, Be a Frog, a Bird, or a Tree. Sophie thumbed through the pages and did her best to imitate the kids photographed in a variety of postures. Most were still too hard for her, but she liked Bird pose a lot, leaning forward and flinging her arms out behind her. So when the children’s librarian told me that they were going to run a summer yoga series for kids, I thought she would love it.

The first session, I made the mistake of allowing Sophia to bring Snakey-Pie, her beloved stuffed friend. Sophie insisted that Snakey join her on the mat, and when I asked her to leave him in the stroller the teacher, full of good intentions, said, “Don’t worry mom. This is a no-judgment zone. It’s fine if she wants to have the snake with her. We can do a snake pose.” What the teacher, we’ll call her Lola, didn’t know in her effort to be inclusive and accepting is that 1) I really didn’t want her to have the snake, so (quite inadvertently), she had undermined me; and, 2) As long as Snakey-pie was around, Sophie was going to lie down on her mat and stroke him while sucking her thumb, which would ensure a lack of participation. I thanked the teacher for not having a problem with Snakey Pie, but told her, “I have a problem with Snakey-Pie,” who I promptly took from Sophie and sent to live in exile in the stroller.

Of course, Sophie threw a royal fuss. The non-judgmental mothers were trying very hard not to look judgmental.

The instructor had brought her own three-year-old child, we’ll call her Olivia, who, in three-year-old fashion, was not interested in participating that day. Sophia, who admires and imitates impish behavior, wanted to do exactly what Olivia was doing: not yoga.

Well, fine. I wasn’t going to force Sophia to do yoga. And, as Lola said, yoga is not about forcing anything…your body, other people’s bodies. I could lead her to yoga class, but I could not make her pose. So, she flitted about, in Sophia fashion, occasionally landing on her pink mat to bend over or lift a leg or lie down and suck her thumb.

Ten minutes later, she grabbed her crotch and screamed, “Oh! Pee pee!” (Translation: I waited until the absolute last minute to tell you I have to go to the bathroom and any second my bladder is going to explode or leak onto my yoga mat.) So, because both of us were shoeless, I scooped her up and ran into the library, slapping her down on the toilet just as the deluge began.

When we returned to the class, Olivia announced coyly, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom!” Hmmm.

“But you just went to the bathroom before class,” Lola reminded her.

“But I’ve got to go AGAIN. NOW.” Lola sighed, asked another parent to take over as she brought her child to the bathroom.

Sophia did rejoin the group and briefly modeled bird pose before taking off in flight and running wildly across the library lawn. One-by-one the other children jumped up and took off after Sophie in a mass show of yoga-refusal.

I looked around at the disappointed faces of the non-judgmental moms in the group. I apologized to them, and though they all immediately chorused, “It’s fine. It’s okay.” I knew that it wasn’t fine with them. They did not bring their children here to be led astray by my deviant child. But who’s going to say, after Lola had declared it a no-judgment zone, “could you please leave and take your disobedient child with you?”

Lola and Olivia returned from the bathroom. A few of the moms quietly retrieved their kids from Sophia’s clutches. Perhaps I should have just picked Sophia up and left at that point. Maybe I was still hopeful that Sophie would do some damn yoga. Maybe I’m just stubborn and didn’t want to give up the vision of the two of us doing yoga together. But we stayed. Or rather, I finished out the class, while I watched Sophia dance in the sunshine, out of the corner of my eye, and fretted each time a child jumped up to follow her joyful example.

It was anything but relaxing.

At the end of class, I reiterated my apologies, and the moms assured me it was fine and that we were welcome back. I wanted to believe them.

Later, Sophia told me, “I had a great time at yoga!”

We skipped last week, as we were away, but today I bit the bullet and we went back. Nobody seemed too horrified to see us. This time, we started off on the right foot, leaving Snakey-Pie at home. It was a gorgeous day, warm and bright, perfect for Sun Salutations. I breathed a sigh of relief to see Olivia was not there. Sophie rolled out a pink mat and sat down. She stayed with the class for the first fifteen minutes, occasionally straying to pick up a branch or run in the grass or ask another child if she wanted to play, but, more or less she participated. In the last fifteen minutes, her focus waned. She tried to grab a ball away from another child and sulked when I made her give it back, sitting in the grass a good 30-feet away for the remainder of the class, angrily shredding leaves. But she returned when the teacher invited each person to pull two cards from large tarot-like decks. Sophie came trotting over me to show me her cards.

At the top was written “The Child.” Underneath these words the card declared that she loved children—being with children, playing with children, and reminded her to remain in touch with her inner child, retaining her youthful playfulness.

What is the measure of a successful yoga class? A child who obediently stays on her mat attempting the poses to please her mother, or a child who doesn’t need to twist her body like a pretzel to experience tranquility. She’s already there.

Namaste

Just Like Heaven

2011-06-26T22:17:00.002-04:00

As a member of the online book club, From Left to Write, I received a copy of The Unexpected Circumnavigation from the author, gratis. I was not paid to write the following article, which was inspired by the book. You can read other members’ musings and impressions by clicking here, on June 28th.

It has been almost four years since Kevin and I have taken a vacation alone together. We’ve had a stolen moment here and there, but nothing quite as indulgent as the four-day trip to Vermont we had planned.

When I first attempted to broach the subject of our long-weekend get away to Sophia, we were all seated at dinner. “Guess what!” I began. Kevin, intuitively knowing where I was going, shook his head no, his hand stretched out before him as if to stop me. I shot him a questioning look.

“I don’t want her worrying about it,” he said, just above a whisper. Sophie shoved in a mouthful of lasagna, oblivious to our interaction. “Okay,” I shrugged. I was fine deferring to his judgment, though I less concerned about this possibility. My mother had generously offered to take her for the duration of our trip. Since we have been driving up to and staying with my mother every week for the past two years, I felt pretty confident that Sophia would be okay with the arrangement.

But, just to be on the safe side, I introduced the concept with a story. A couple days later, we were alone at breakfast when Sophie made her usual request, “Mommy tell me a story with you, me and Curious George.” I seized the opportunity to paint an idyllic vision of a “vacation” with her grandparents.

“Once upon a time, Mommy and Daddy and Sophia decided to take a vacation.”

“And Curious George,” she reminded me.

“Who’s telling this story?” I asked, “Curious George is going to make a surprise appearance.”

“Okay,” said Sophie cheerfully.

In the story, Mommy and Daddy leave Sophie at her grandparents for a vacation, while they go on their own vacation for a couple of days. Grandma and Grandpa take her to visit some relatives who have a boy Sophie’s age and a beautiful glistening pool in their backyard. When Sophie arrives, she discovers that the boy has also invited his best friend (you guessed it) Curious George. The three of them frolic in the pool together, eat mac n’cheese n’ peas for lunch, take a nap in one big bed, and wake to an ice cream treat. I forgo the Curious George formula (George innocently causes a stir that has unintended positive consequences, which ultimately allow everyone not only to forgive his naughtiness, but to hail him as a hero.). Instead, I appeal to Sophia’s idea of heaven. By the end of my “story” she is grinning ear to ear.

Later, I overhear her telling her beloved stuffed Snakey Pie the story. “Once upon a time, we all went on vacation,” Sophia begins. Snakey Pie stops her, “What’s a vacation?” he asks. “It’s when we go to Grandma and Grandpas and Mommy and Daddy go on a very long date.”

Bingo.

I know that, in reality, despite the inclusion of Curious George, I have not created an unreasonable expectation. My mother has big plans: the zoo, the Jersey shore, relatives with pools, a Chinese restaurant, the play ground, the library, ice cream and intense periods of pretend play. Sophie will not be disappointed.

When we arrived at my mother’s, Sophie sprang from the car. I quickly transferred her things to the house, and within minutes my mother was whisking her away to the zoo. “Good bye, Sophia. I love you. Mommy and Daddy will see you in three days. And we’ll call you every night.” I held out my arms for a hug. Sophie shrank away from me into grandma’s side.

She was mad at me. So be it. I was a little sad that our parting wasn’t sweeter, but she was entitled to feel the way she felt. After all, we were ditching her.

As we climbed into the car and started up the engine, Sophie came running back. “Mommy! Mommy!” I rolled down the window and leaned out for a kiss. My mother held her up to me and we touched our puckered lips together. As soon as her feet were back on the ground, she scooted off towards Grandma’s car for her trip to the zoo.

This time, she didn’t look back.

Neither did I.

I’d like to think it’s not because either one of us is cold hearted, or even relieved to finally get a breather from the other, but because we share a secure attachment. She is sure of my love. She understands it’s permanence, whether I’m present or not. She knows I’m coming back. I can remember, as a teenager, babysitting for a 10-month-old boy. He would cry bitterly when his mother left. Instinctively, I whispered into the soft down of his head, “Mommy will come back. Mommy always comes back.” This soothed him. In a similar vein I have reassured Sophia time and time again, “I will always be here for you.” And, in moments of nascent empathy, Sophia has echoed this sentiment back to me, “Mommy. I will never leave you. I will always be in your heart.”

Once in the car, Kevin’s first order of business was to remove all the kids’ CDs from the car stereo. We drove the five hours to Vermont listening to music that has been idling in storage for the past four years. We enjoyed sustained conversations with each other during which we were able to complete, not only entire sentences but entire stories without interruption. We made a pit stop that did not involve 15-minute machinations of removing and returning a child to a car seat. We ate a dinner that did not require feeding anyone “like a little baby,” or reminding someone 47 times to “please sit in your seat.” We made out without having someone climb between us. And that night, there as no one to get ready for bed other than myself, nothing to listen for other than the lake gently lapping at the shore.

Just like heaven.

(Too) Great Expectations

2011-06-19T19:49:00.003-04:00

I am watching the dress rehearsal for the end-of-the-year show at Grandma’s nursery school. Sophie is a pink pig, along with one of her classmates (we’ll call her Laura). The children are shouting the words to “Down on Grandpa’s Farm”

WE’RE ON THE WAY, WE’RE ON THE WAY, ON THE WAY TO GRANDPA’S FARM
WE’RE ON THE WAY, WE’RE ON THE WAY, ON THE WAY TO GRANDPA’S FARM
DOWN ON GRANDPA’S FARM THERE ARE SOME LITTLE PINK PIGS
DOWN ON GRANDPA’S FARM THERE ARE SOME LITTLE PINK PIGS
THE PIGS, THEY MAKE A SOUND LIKE THIS:

Sophie and Laura stand up, put their heads together and coyly say, “Oink, oink.” Think Marylin Monroe, as a three- year old, portraying a pig.

No one told them to do it this way. Laura, who is innately shy, naturally tilted her head, tucked her chin in, and whispered “oink” into her chest. Sophie, who found the gesture amusing, aped her. The two made eye contact as they did it and smiled faintly, aware of the drama playing out between them.

Cute as hell.

So, given this performance, and that Sophie announces, every evening prior to dinner, “Show tonight!” And that after dinner she drags a stool out onto the kitchen floor, perches on top of it and proceeds to recite angry poetry (“No. I. Don’t. Want. To! You. Go. A-way!”), or act out scenes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (“Daddy, you be Willy Wonka, and I’ll be Charlie Bucket.), or sing songs from her nursery school repertoire (“For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out to the old ball game!”), I had great expectations for her stage performance.

That morning, I dressed her in a hot-pink eyelet dress my sister had sent to her weeks before. When we got to school, Sophie quickly noted that Laura was dressed in the same shade of pink. “We’re twins!” she shrieked excitedly. Laura smiled and said nothing.

Grandpa’s Farm was the opening act. First the cows went, blowing the audience of smiling parents away with their thunderous moo’s. Next, the ducks, who looked discombobulated and had to be reminded to stand up, and then reminded to quack. Finally, it was time for the pigs. Laura looked terrified as she stood and sucked her dress into her mouth. Sophie, not to be outdone, picked up the hem of her dress, exposing her cutie-saurus underwear to the world, and sucked HER dress into her mouth. Neither oinked.

“Sophie!” I said in a stage-mother, stage whisper, “PUT YOUR DRESS DOWN.” She smiled and continued to suck. So, more adamant, I pantomimed taking her dress out of her mouth and pointing down sharply at the ground, “PUT IT DOWN NOW!” Sophie removed her dress and, in a near perfect imitation of my angry face and gestures, mouthed my words back at me.

And then she resumed sucking her dress.

For the rest of the show, it was Sophie’s goal to try to catch my eye and mimic me. My mother, who saw everything whispered, “Ignore her,” in between bars of The Wheels on the Bus.

I tried, but it was hard. I was disappointed. Afterwards, I said so to my mother.

“Melissa,” my mother said, “she’s THREE.”

It is a fact I easily forget. I expect her to sit nicely in her chair for all of dinner without getting out once. I expect her to bathe, get dressed and brush her teeth without a fuss. I expect her to say thank you and please without being prompted. It frustrates me to no end when she acts like a three year old. Squirming. Tantrumming. Forgetting her manners.

This is very unfair of me. I know. Not that I should allow her to stand on her chair, or to pinch me when I’m trying to work the toothbrush in her mouth, but it’s all part of the path to maturity. It’s what three-year-olds do.

High expectations are good. When you hold the bar just out of reach, children invariably rise to meet it. It’s what Vygotsky, the brilliant Russian developmental psychologist called the Zone of Proximal Development—the difference between what a child can do independently and what he/she can do with assistance. By giving children experiences that are within their Zones of Proximal Development, providing a model and appropriate supports and then fading back those supports, a child learns novel skills.

It is only when my expectations are too great, trying to coax adult behaviors out of a small child that I am setting myself up for frustration, conflict, and disappointment.

But still, would it have killed her to say “oink, oink”?

You Be Me, and I'll Be You

2011-06-12T20:10:00.006-04:00

Kevin, my bearded husband, is curled up in Sophia’s toddler bed, thumb in mouth. Sophie is carefully tucking her pink blanket around him and nestling Snakey Pie in the crook of his arm.

“Here’s your Snakey Pie, baby.” She tells him. “It’s time for you to go to sleep now.”

“Okay, Mama,” Kevin says, “good night.”

“No,” Sophie says, slightly annoyed, “you’re me. You’re supposed to say, ‘But what if I have to go to the bathroom?’”

Kevin plays along. “But what if I have to go to the bathroom?” he whines.

“You have your potty and your toilet paper right here.” She instructs in a voice that sounds eerily like my own. “Now say, ‘Remember to turn on the hall light and crack the door,’” she directs.

“Remember to turn on the hall light and crack the door,” Kevin parrots.

“I will, baby. Don’t worry.” Sophie climbs on top of her art table and flips the light switch. “Good night, baby.”

“Good night, Mama.” Kevin replies.

“And now,” says Sophie, as she slips out the door, “I will sing the good-night song entirely as a duck. Quack quack quaaaaaak. Quack quack quaaaaaak,” she sings to the tune of “Lullaby and Goodnight,” her voice fading as she walks away.

A few seconds later she is back in the room, turning on the light, and saying cheerfully, “Time to get up, baby!”

She could play this game for hours. Being me. Controlling her. Who is really a him.

She is at once internalizing me: my rules, my boundaries, my affections and expressing a need to feel autonomous, to gain some control over herself. Through play, she works out her conflicted emotions about who’s in charge. She can at once recognize me as the one that holds the power and identify with me, enjoying some of that power herself. I believe this kind of play is essential for building self control.

It happens a lot now…three to four is the age for it. We can be in the car, driving, when Sophie says quite plainly:

“You be me, and I’ll be you.”

“Okay.” I say. “What should I do?”

“Turn on my music. I’ll start to sing with it. Then you tell me not to.” This is something she does to me, all the time. It’s really annoying. If I’m forced to listen to Music Together for several hours, why can’t I at least be allowed to sing with it?

I turn on her CD and she begins to sing with it, “Oranges, Lemons say the bells of St. Clemens….”

I know my part well. “NO!” I interrupt, “this is NOT singing music. This is LISTENING music.”

“Sophia,” Sophia says to me, “if you can’t be quiet, I am going to turn off your music and put on traffic music.” That’s what she calls anything that I listen to on the radio. NPR. XPN. Actual traffic.

“Noooooooooooo! I don’t want traffic music. I want MY music!”

“Then BE QUIET and LET ME SING!” she resumes singing with the music.

I let her sing, because I love the sound of her sweet little voice. “No mommy,” she tells me, annoyed, “You’re supposed to tell me to stop.”

“But I don’t want you to stop. I like listening to you sing.”

She starts to turn red, “But that’s not the way it goes!” I guess she has internalized my control-freakiness as well.

“I don’t think I want to be you, anymore.” I tell her. I don’t. I don’t like this game of being mean to her, so that she can boss me around. It’s not a dynamic I’m enjoying now, or when the roles are reversed and we are ourselves.

“But I want to be YOU!” Sophie cries.

I know, Sophie. I know.

Tiny Encounters

2011-06-06T23:35:00.002-04:00

As a member of the online book club, From Left to Write, I received a copy of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating from the publisher, gratis. I was not paid to write the following article, which was inspired by the book. You can read other members’ musings and impressions by clicking here, on June 6th.

Imagine being so ill and debilitated that the simple act of a friend bringing you a snail for company would overwhelm you—the towering sense of responsibility that accompanies having another life be put in your charge.

When I read this in Elisabeth Tova’s Bailey’s beautifully crafted book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, I was reminded of my daughter, Sophia’s arrival into the world.

True, I was not simultaneously suffering from an acquired mitochondrial disease when she appeared on the scene, but I was recovering from the trauma of an internal hemorrhaging while learning to care for her. Somehow, she survived those early days, when I was confined to a bed and could barely lift her to my chest. But I think any mother, healthy or sick, could relate to the bewilderment of those first weeks. The sudden duty to keep another person not merely alive, but cared for and safe, with little inkling of how to do so.

Like Bailey, who did not know what to feed her snail, I agonized over how much milk my daughter was getting, whether she was putting on weight, if what I had was sufficient nourishment.

Like Bailey who became a careful observer of her gastropod companion, I watched my daughter with great curiosity and took copious notes on her bodily functions with scientific precision.

Like Bailey, who sought to understand her snail’s microcosmic world by nocturnally reading all things snail-related, I became an information junky, pouring over parenting books during sleepless evening hours. I wanted to understand her interior life. I wanted to provide her with an optimally hospitable environment in which she could thrive. I wanted to marvel at the miracle of growth and development.

And also like Bailey, who learned so much from a snail, I discovered that it was Sophia who would ultimately teach me what I needed to know, who would serve as my mentor as I let my life slow down and began to relish the joy of existence.

It is often the tiniest encounters have the greatest impact.

There's Just Something about Poop

2011-06-05T14:33:00.004-04:00

I was in a library with Sophia, my friend Paula*, and her three boys.

“Tell Paula your new joke,” I goaded Sophie.

Sophie smiled, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, “Knock knock,”

“Who’s there?” asked Paula in a delighted voice--just one of the reasons she’s a fabulous preschool teacher.

“Centipede.”

“Centipede who?” Asked the unsuspecting Paula.

“CENITPEDE ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE!” Sophie shouted, euphorically.

“Remember, we’re in the library,” I reminded her. “Quiet voice, please.”

Paula’s jaw was hanging open. “Melissa!” she said, scolding me, “that is NOT funny.” I was surprised by her reaction, and, a little bit embarrassed. Was the joke that bad? Should I not be teaching Sophie toilet humor?

According to Paula, no. She explained that once her boys got going, there was no stopping them. It was inappropriate. And she didn’t want them taking it to school.

Okay. Fair enough. (But I thought it was funny.)

I know a lot of people are bothered by the toilet humor…parents, teachers, people in restaurants who suffer the misfortune of sitting too close to our table. And granted, it can be grating to hear your three-year-old say “poopy toilet butt” thirty times in a row. But, as far as I can see, it seems to be a universal developmental phase, inklings of the understanding that poop is private and something that shouldn’t be talked about in polite company. As with all things made taboo, the fact that it is forbidden gives rise to the compulsion to shout “stinky tushie” from the rooftops, or, at least the table tops.

Let’s face it. There’s just something about poop. It’s got that je ne sais quoi. Today, at the farmer’s market, two alpacas, freshly shorn, were penned next to several tables laden with alpaca wool products. One sat neatly, his front legs curled under him. The other stood ruminating a mouthful of hay. They stared placidly, with soft brown eyes, at the urchins who stared back from the other side of the fence, when suddenly, the one that was standing squeezed out a fistful of alpaca pellets.

“Look, this one is POOPING!” one kid shouted pointing at the alpaca’s rear end.

“It’s shooting out his butt!” another noted with glee.

Hysteria ensued.
“Mommy! Do you see the poop?” Sophie asked me. As if I could miss it with all this excitement.

“Never fails to get a laugh,” noted one parent.

“Endless entertainment,” another agreed.

“Everybody does it,” I said casually to Sophie, “What goes in, must come out.” I have a sneaking suspicion that reacting to toilet talk is the thing that encourages more toilet talk. In fact, I like to go in the other direction. I actually initiate it. I’ll sneak up on Sophie and say in her ear, “Guess what?”

“What?” Sophie asks.

“Chicken butt!” I shout, laughing and running away. I was taught this excellent joke by Jan, the then-five year-old son of my friend Emily.

“Chicken butt,” Sophie snickers. And then she moves on.

*Not her real name.

Playground or Battleground?

2011-05-29T20:39:00.003-04:00

I took Sophia to the playground up by my mother’s house. She lives in a town where: 1) many mothers do not have to and choose not to work; and, 2) many other families have two parents who work very high powered, high paying jobs and have full time nannies. So, that’s who the playground was packed with on this gorgeous, sunny day—mothers with their children, nannies with their charges. Many of the mothers (but not all) clustered in conversation or on cell phones, some of the nannies commiserating with each other or also on cell phones.

Wanting to give Sophie more independence, I sat off to the side, observing, while she tried to make a friend. She approached girl number one, who was filling a bucket with damp sand “Can I help you?” Sophie asked.

The girl whipped her long hair around, “No! I don’t need any help.” Sophie turned to me, looking stricken. I motioned for her to come over. “Now, that wasn’t very polite of her,” I said, “but she doesn’t want someone to help her right now. Look around for someone who seems friendly, someone who smiles or would like for you to help and go ask them to play.” Then I caught myself. “On second thought. Don’t ask. Just join in.”

I believe for years I was making a critical error in teaching kids with disabilities to make social overtures by asking peers to play. When a child asks, “Can I play with you?” she places the power in the other child’s hand, and what child passes on an opportunity to wield power? Asking establishes hierarchy. It says “I am in the one down position from you.” It gives the opportunity to reject. But, after observing children, a confident child will just join in or suggest ideas that excite the other children.

Sophie went up to a slightly older girl and added a shovel full of sand to the child’s castle. The girl said, “Hey! Don’t step in my moat!”

To which Sophie replied, “Okay.” And suddenly, they were playing together.

It wasn’t long before a boy about three years of age came careering over and jumped on their sand castle. The girl was mildly upset and yelled at the boy, who wandered off. Remaining just close enough to observe when the castle would be ready for another wrecking. The older girl and Sophie rebuilt and the boy came over again, and stopped on the castle. This time, the girl ran over to his mother, who was mid-conversation with a friend, she turned in the direction of the girl, and loomed over her. “He stomped on my castle! Two times!” The girl cried, exasperated.

Still standing, the mother angled her body towards her child. In the most bored of voices she said, “Henry, come here.” Henry dragged his feet over to where his mother was standing and looked away, towards the rest of the activity on the playground. His mother was looking over his head, staring at some spot in the distance in the opposite direction. Anyone who looked at them would not know that they were in conversation. She continued in her couldn’t-be-bothered tone, “Henry. It’s not nice to stomp on other people’s sand castles. Tell mommy you’ll never do it again.”

“I’ll never do it again,” Henry parroted.

“Now go play,” waved the mother, turning back to her friends and drawing her cell phone out of her pocket.

At this point, Sophie and I had begun to play together. We had built a castle of our own, for me, the queen. She stuck a flag in it, and was trying to find a suitable dragon to guard the castle when you-know-who showed up.

Stomp.

My reaction was automatic. It was the same reaction I would have given Sophie, had she done this twice before and promised me she wouldn’t do it again. It was the same reaction I would have given my students, back when I was a teacher.

With a tone, I said, “Excuse me!”

His mother snapped out of her cellular stupor and came over. “What did he do? Did he just kick her?” The way she asked indicated that this was a distinct possibility.

“No, no. Nothing like that. He just destroyed her sand castle.”

“Oh, well from the way that you YELLED at him, I thought he had hurt her.”

“No, he didn’t physically harm her.”

“Look. If you have a problem with my child, you come to me,” she barked. As if I was supposed to know who, in this sea of mothers, was his.

Then she leaned over to Henry and said, “What that woman did is WRONG. NO ONE has the right to yell at you.” And she continued on in this way, talking about how awful a human being I was, dragging him off.

Of course, she said nothing about his role in the interaction. His behavior. From what I could tell she just reinforced, 1) it is okay to damage other people’s property; 2) if I tell you not to do something, you don’t have to listen; 3) other adults have no authority over you; 4) I will defend your honor, even if you have done something naughty.

Interestingly, after his mother talked to him, Henry approached me. He looked at me in earnest and, though his speech was difficult to understand, I believe he was trying to make reparations. I was kneeled down to his level and in the process of listening to what he had to say, when his mother came marching over again, and yanked him away by the arm, “Do NOT talk to THAT woman.”

Well, fine. I knew better than to argue. Sophie and I moved to another section of the sandbox and continued to play together.

Still, I felt rattled by the experience and couldn’t help but replay it in my mind over and over again. Had it been Sophie, I would WANT someone to reprimand her. In fact, just moments earlier, Sophie was seated next to another child on a wide metal slide. She was banging on it with her feet, which she had once enjoyed doing with a friend before. But this boy was disturbed by it. He asked her not to. Then she smirked and did it again. At which point, I jumped in and said if she did it again, she was coming off the slide. And she stopped. It wasn’t that I thought banging on the slide was inherently a bad thing to do, but it was bothering this other kid, and knowing that, Sophie still did it. Not nice.

It is my opinion that at this age, kids don’t have the skills to work out their difficulty with each other. There will be plenty of time for “work it out on your own,” after they learn how to do just that. But having that expectation, without giving them the tools to be successful, just leads to conflict. Oh, there are some kids who intuitively know what to do and say, but from my observations of the playground, that seems to be the exception, not the rule.

It’s a fine line between hovering and educating for success, fostering a socially skilled child now, so I don’t have to deal with the repercussions of a rude, bullying or entitled child later. But I'd like to err on the side of caution.

The way I see it, the playground is preparation for life.

The Very Best Stories...

2011-05-23T23:32:00.002-04:00

So good. I know I am not supposed to review the books I read for From Left to Write, but in this case, I cannot help but gush. Read Christine Watson’s Tiny Sunbirds Far Away. I’m not going to tell you anything else. Just read it. Neither the author nor the publishing company paid me to say this, however, I did receive the book gratis because I participate in the coolest online book club in the world. And, no, the book club did not pay me to say that either. What follows is a post inspired by the book. You can read other posts inspired by the book right here.

It is my hope and fear that one day Sophia will read my blog. My hope, because it is the story of her life, carefully and closely examined, lovingly told. Perhaps it will help her to know herself better one day, to understand how she came to be who she is. True, it is not her narrative, it is mine, but I believe that insight can be born of an outside perspective. If it offers her any wisdom, any pleasure, it will have been worth it. Of course, a person is more than the sum of her stories. A person is ineffable, defying description. I have only captured a flavor of her. My writing of her life will always be inadequate.

A person is like a book, part what is there and part the perception of others. We are our stories. And we are so much more.

I try to imagine having such a complex and complete literary portrait of my life and I cannot. Children of this generation are better recorded (both photographically and narratively) than any previous generation. I realize that this could have unintended consequences. Consequences beyond my imagining. She has had no control over this information. She may be hurt by it. She may resent it. She may despise me for it.

And so, I also fear that she will read my blog. I joke that, one day, she will start a rival blog, Life with Melissa: An Expose of How I was Parented. If she does, I will embrace whatever she writes, as long as it is her truth. Already, she has begun to tell stories. They are facsimiles of the stories I tell her, but increasingly, they are hers. They are expressions of her experience. Her attempts to entertain me and inform me: this is what I value; this is who I am; this is how I see you; this is how I want you to see me.

Christine Watson writes, “The very best stories are told to a daughter.”

Yes, Christine, I agree. And, I might deign to add, the stories a daughter tells her mother have a magic all their own.

Because I want to pass this book on--it is too good to keep to myself--I’m going to try something new. I’d like to do a random drawing. If you leave a comment and some way for me to get in touch with you (because I’m not technologically advanced enough to figure out who you are without it), I’ll put your names in a hat, pick one out, and send you the book. It’s in really good condition, except for a tear stain or two.

She Gives Me Naches

2011-05-22T15:09:00.003-04:00

Sophie could hardly wait for the day of her second visit to the dentist to arrive. Her first, six months ago, had gone splendidly. And she still remembered the appointment with great fondness. She repeatedly told me, “I’m going to tell the dentist that I eat jelly beans after dinner, but then I brush my teeth so I won’t get cavities.”

“That will make her very happy,” I assured her. At the library last Tuesday, Sophie asked, “Can we get the book, Charlie and Lola Go to the Dentist?”

“Soph, I don’t know if that book exists. We have to ask the librarian.”

So we did. It didn’t. But another character she is fond of, Vera, did have such a book. We ordered it through interlibrary loan.

The book came just in time, the day before Sophie’s six month check up. I was a little wary of reading this one to her. Vera Rosenberry writes autobiographical children’s books about her experiences with her sisters. They are very sweet and poignant tales of her youth, but the dentist one emphasized fear. When the dentist tries to polish Vera’s teeth, she bit him, hopped out of the chair and ran out of the office.

I didn’t want to give Sophie any ideas. I wouldn’t put it past her to imitate Vera’s behavior.

We had barely announced ourselves at the receptionist’s desk when the assistant popped her head out to call Sophie’s name. Sophie and I stood up to follow her to the examination room, when Sophie turned to me and put her hand up.

“No Mom. Just me.”

I was stunned. I had no idea how to respond. My face must have registered my shock and confusion, because the assistant looked at me with wide eyes and said, “It’s okay mom. You can wait here. She’ll be fine.”

REALLY?

Then Sophia marched through the door that was covered with brown paper and the words “We’re happy to see you here!” following the assistant without looking back even once.

I stood there for a moment, still recovering for the shock, before I began pacing. “It’s okay, Mom,” the receptionist told me, “this is a good thing.”

“But she’s three.” I had never even considered her going in for the appointment on her own. Then I remembered Vera. First each of her two sisters had been called back. Then Vera, who went in to see the dentist all by herself, while her family sat in the waiting room. It wasn’t the fear she had internalized, but the confidence. What she perceived as Vera’s independence.

I forced myself to sit and let myself feel awash in awe, shock and pride as I thought about who this person—my daughter—is.

Then I remembered the television hooked up to the dentist chair. No, I said to myself. You are not going to barge in there and insist on no television.

As if on cue, the dental assistant poked her head out, “I just wanted to let you know that she’s fine. And that when she saw the video screen she told us she’s not allowed to watch television.”

REALLY?

Okay, so what if it’s temporary. So what if she ignores every word I say ten, or even two, years from now. Right now, I’ve got naches. Full on Jewish parental pride. I’m bursting with it.

When she was finished, the dentist came out and gushed about the appointment. She jokingly asked if Sophie wanted a job putting other kids at ease.

“Actually,” I told her, “Sophie has aspirations of being a dentist when she grows up. She pretends to work on our teeth at home. I bet she’d love that.”

“I could really see her assisting here, as a teenager.” She sounded serious.

“Really?”

“Seriously. We’ll have to see if she’s still interested—but let’s keep it in mind.”

“Oh, I will” I assured her, my cheeks beginning to ache from my permagrin. “Sophie, you just got your first job offer!” I told her. Sophie poked her head out of the prize box for a second to consider this. “I don’t want to be a dentist. I want to be a mommy.”

“You can be both,” the dentist and I said in unison.

Every Little Thing

2011-05-15T20:21:00.001-04:00

Sleep deprived and locked in a brutal conflict with my meltdown queen, I’ve become highly irritable. I have zero tolerance for even the slightest of infractions. And, the fact of the matter is, I can’t let anything go with Sophia. If I give her an inch, she takes 26.2 miles.

Here’s the problem. On top of the usual battles, I’ve been manufacturing issues. I didn’t get it until my mother pointed it out after dinner.

While we were eating, Sophie crammed her whole hand in her mouth, triggering her gag reflex. Oh, she wasn’t quite to the point of retching…but she’d kind of turn red and choke for a second, pull her hand out, reinsert, and repeat.

Now, in my book, it’s dinner. And at dinner we eat. We don’t deep throat our fists. So I told Sophia to stop. You have to imagine me doing so not in a Zen mother kind of way, but in a totally grossed out, thoroughly pissed off, almost sisterly kind of way. And, thus, she reacted as any sibling would.

She smiled, reinserted her fist, and proceeded to gag herself with even greater enthusiasm.

I look at my mother and give her my bug-eyed look. The one that says, “I’m about to go completely insane.”

“Melissa, calm down,” my mother says in a whisper loud enough for the neighbors to hear. “This is not a big deal. She’s not hurting anyone. She’s not anorexic. She’s doing it to get your goat. Let it go.”

I wanted to whine: But mo-om! I can’t. She’s gagging at me! On purpose. Make her stop!

But, to my credit, I didn’t.

I tried not to look at Sophie. Still, I could see her, out of the corner of my eye. Her fingers slick with saliva. Drool leaking out of the corner of her mouth. Really? Was I supposed to let this go?

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer, “Sophia, finish your dinner or you’re going straight to bed.”

“Without a book?” She asked, weighing her options. In her estimation, the potential elimination of the book might make dinner worthwhile. But I was not about to withdraw it; the book is my only leverage at this point. I needed that leverage for whatever was about to come next.

“We’ll discuss the book later.” I say, “If you can’t keep your hands out of your mouth you must be done with dinner.”

“I am. May I please be excused?” She was already climbing out of her chair.

“Yes. But then we’re getting ready for bed.”

“With a book?”

“Yes, WITH A BOOK!” I said, completely exasperated.

After we fought to get her pajamas on and her teeth brushed and she ordered me to leave the door cracked so a little light will shine through and to please sing her goodnight song as a duck and I quacked her to sleep, I collapsed on the couch across from my mother.

“Melissa. You can’t fight her on every little thing. I almost feel like, you’re too intensely focused on her. If you had another child, you wouldn’t be able to do this.”

“If I had another child, I’d lose my mind.” I retorted. But I knew she was right. I can’t let every little thing she does get to me. But I also don’t know how to reel myself in. Maybe if I just get some sleep.

Well, that night I got some sleep. So did Sophia, for a change. (I had finally solved her run-to-the-bathroom-40-times-each-night problem by putting a potty in her room. Having a bedside toilet quelled her fear that she wouldn’t make it to the bathroom on time, and so her checking behavior: “Do I have to go now? Do I have to go now? Do I have to go now?” finally abated.) I don’t think she got up once that night.

The next day was the most conflict-free day we’ve had. Oh, I had to struggle to get her dressed because the outfit I brought to my mothers’ had some blue in it and wasn’t solidly pink. And she also resisted the tooth-brushing, running to her bed and pulling the covers up over her head. But she compliantly put on her shoes and followed me out to the car. And after nursery school she reported that she had “no fusses,” which her teacher corroborated. She ate her lunch without incident, and napped for a full hour and a half. Afterwards, we played Candyland, and she actually moved her pieces when she was supposed to and didn’t hoard the candy cards. We laughed and sang on the car ride home, stopping for a girls-night-out at Wegmans where we ate sushi overlooking the produce section. She sat beautifully through dinner (i.e. didn’t shove her fist down her throat), and afterwards she performed three improvised dances for me while I finished my salmon.

Heading home, I looked into the rearview mirror and told Sophie what a wonderful day I had. How much I enjoyed being with her. How nice it was when she was fuss free.

“I love you.” I told her.

And then, she said it back. Not in the rote way that she generally does, but with her eyes and voice filled with emotion.

“I love you, too.”

And in a quiet voice she added. “I’m always with you. Even when I’m not in the car. I’m always with you.” It was a variant of a reassurance I had given her, before I found the potty solution, as I put her to bed. “I’m always with you Sophie, even if I’m not right here in the room.”

She’s always with me. For better or for worse. She’s always with me.

Had Enough

2011-05-09T21:29:00.004-04:00

As a member of the From Left to Write online book club, I received a copy of this book for review. The following is a blog inspired by the book. All opinions are my own. You can read other members’ posts inspired by the book on May 10th here.

Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple’s new book, Good Enough is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood, collapses privileged American moms into two categories: the “Never Enough’s” and the “Good Enoughs.” Less sociological study than an attempt to fashion a “new” ideal of motherhood, Gillespie and Temple tell us that there is a “new wave of mothers who are learning to let go of the little things and focus on what each really wants out of her career, her family and her life.”

Here we go again.

There is no transparency with regard to the analysis of their data or the psychometric properties of their instrument, so, as a psychologist I find it a little hard to trust the results, let alone the authors’ interpretation of them. Rather, I took the book to be a compilation of anecdotal advice on finding success and happiness, offered up by mothers who are also CEOs, Founding Presidents, Vice Presidents, professors, psychologists, lawyers and physicians. By using their values as a rudder, these women have found what works for them. And I am happy for them.

What I take issue with is the black or white, all or nothing, wrong or right, never enough or good enough split the authors make between modern parenting styles. It is a false dichotomy that does not encompass the broader spectrum of ways of being a parent, and it does not take into account the varied contexts in which parents are parenting.

Here’s what I mean by this:

Gillespie and Schwartz put together a survey of 905 working mothers born between 1965 and 1980. Question 22 reads as follows:

Which BEST describes your approach to juggling work and family?
 Family needs FAR outweigh work and almost always come first; I only work out of necessity
 Although my children are very important to me, my job must come first—I need to be a superstar at work in order to provide for my family
 I try to be a superstar at work AND at home, even if it kills me
 Both family and work are important, and I try to do a relatively decent job at both and accept that I am not perfect
 Both family and work are important, but I constant feel as though I am not doing a good job at either.

I found it impossible to answer this question. Where is the “none of the above” option when you need it? I wanted to write in my own item: my family is my priority and almost always comes first…I give my family my very best; I work just enough to meet my financial, emotional and professional needs…and I also give work my very best.

Not “relatively decent job.” My very best.

And someone else’s (aka my husband’s) might read: "I have to work very hard to support my family, and though I find this work deeply fulfilling and I give it my best, I wish I had more time with my family, to whom I give my best when I am with them."

And I can also imagine many, many other shades of gray:

“I have to work full time, but unfortunately, it keeps me from being able to spend time with the people who matter most to me. I give work my best, but I wish I was giving my family my best.”

“Although my family is important to me, “mother” is not my primary identity. I need to achieve at work because my professional identity is such a large part of who I am.”

And so on.

Splitting moms into two categories—one fairly denigrating, that a mother clearly would not want to be in, the “never enoughs” who suffer from “unrelenting perfectionism,” have “dizzying to do lists and heaps of guilt,” and whose biggest obstacles are “themselves” and the other presumably more desirable, the “good enoughs” who are more satisfied at work, have time to connect with loved ones as well as time for themselves, and “know perfection doesn’t exist” does not actually support the thesis that there is a “new perfect.” In fact, the authors tell us that the mothers were roughly split down the middle into these two categories—which is exactly what you would expect to happen if you had a full bell curve of behavior, split it down the middle, and decided people on one side fit into one category and people on the other side fit into another.

I believe that we’re talking personality traits, not “movements in motherhood.” There will always be those who are at one end of the continuum or the other…and perhaps, those who fall into the “never enoughs” category might actually have happier kids than the “good enoughs,” or they might enjoy closer relationships with their children, or their lows might be lower and their highs might be higher—none of which was studied.

And where, oh where do the majority of women—those who make up the middle and lower class fall? What shall we call their category? The “had enoughs”?

My fear is that this placing moms into the artificial category, “never enough,” has the effect of making those mothers feel guilty for feeling guilty. Another should, layered on to a life of well-stratified shoulds. They are being told they are not living in accordance with their values, when in fact, they probably are. Most people are doing the very best with what they’ve got at any given moment.

I know, as someone who would likely fit into the “never enough” category, that I am.

Mommy, What Is a Gun?

2011-05-08T20:10:00.002-04:00

I was in the adjacent bedroom, cleaning up, when Sophie burst in, sweaty and delirious from her nap.

She turned her palms up and wiggled her fingers, “Look, Mommy! I’m shooting!”

I was quite sure I had not heard my daughter correctly, “You’re what?”

“I’m shooting! Like Marcos*.” Marcos is another three-year-old in her class at my mother’s preschool. Now, I know that my mother does not permit gun play or war toys in school. Still, it doesn’t stop the kids who have seen it elsewhere (television, video games, older siblings) from trying to shoot their less street-savvy preschool peers.

I touched her hands gently. “Sophie, I know Marcos was doing it. But shooting is naughty. Did Miss M make him stop?”

“Yes, she did.”

“So you see, shooting is something you are not supposed to do. Not ever. I know that you are just playing, but shooting is a bad thing to do.”

Words are failing me. How do I talk about shooting without talking about shooting? I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t understand. That she might as well be making tickling motions. But she doesn’t pursue if further. And she stops.

I call my mother. “Mom, I think you should know the three-year-olds are shooting each other?”

“What?”

“In your school. In Sophie’s class. The three-year-olds are pretending to shoot each other. With guns.” I told her what Sophie did.

“Melissa,” my mother sounded very tired, “we try to put a stop to it when we see it. But it happens. She’s going to get exposure to these things.”

“Yeah, but what do I tell her? How do I help her understand that it is a bad thing?” I feel…helpless. “Tell her they are bad. Tell her they can hurt people. You know, an 8 year old in Queens sold a gun to another kid for three dollars on Friday. It was loaded. In a good area.” This is not helping me feel better.

That evening I consult Kevin, after Sophie’s gone to bed. I do a demo, wiggling my fingers in his direction.

Kevin took one look at me and said, “He’s shooting webs. He’s pretending to be Spider Man.” Kevin has an expertise in superheros.

Of course! I gave a big sigh of relief. Spider Man! Why didn’t I think of that? Marcos LOVES Spider Man. He’s always getting into trouble for pretending to be Spider Man.

I call Mom, “It’s okay. Kevin, figured it out. Marcos was pretending to be Spider Man.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” my mother agreed. “He’s always pretending to be Spider Man.”

The next day, as Sophie was getting dressed she asked me, “Mommy, what’s a gun?”

My head whipped around at the question, “A what?” I really think I have a hearing problem when it comes to talk of weaponry.

“A GUN. What’s a gun?”

“Why do you ask?” I’m stalling.

“Because Marcos was shooting a gun at me.” My heart sinks. Why couldn’t Kevin have been right? Really, you’re supposed to cock your thumb and aim your pointer finger at your victim. Who shoots at other people by wiggling their fingers?

Three-year-olds.

I go with the most simple, benign explanation I can think of. I pull a copy of A Fly Went By off the shelf and open to the page that has a man with a gun. I point to the object in his hand. The thing I previously omitted from the story. “This,” I tell her with great reluctance, “is a gun. People use them to kill animals, so they can eat them. That’s called hunting. See, this man is a hunter.” I stop there. I’m not sure what else to say. I don’t want to freak her out about her food. I know she doesn’t have a concept of death yet.

She’s fascinated. “This is a gun?”

“Yes.” I tell her.

“A gun?” I think she is picking up on my distaste for the topic. “Yes, Sophie. Now let’s focus on getting dressed.”

“Can we bring this book with us?”

“Yes, we can.” I sighed, hoping we were not going to spend the rest of the afternoon talking about guns. I wasn’t satisfied with my response, but apparently she was, because she didn’t ask again.

Though I wish I could have kept weapons out of her awareness for another year or two, I do know that these questions are inevitable. The problem is that you can’t control the timing of them. They arrive suddenly, without warning, little bombs dropped out of blue skies, when you are least prepared for the assault.

So, knowing I had to arm myself, I conducted a little gonzo research.

Over a lovely picnic lunch at the Japanese Gardens, I shared the story with my friend Jen, who also has an inquisitive preschooler (one, who, by the way, just asked how babies are made). Jen and I talked about the conventional wisdom when it comes to answering difficult questions from kids:

1. Find out why they want to know.
2. Answer the questions in earnest
3. Give factual information in an a developmentally appropriate way
4. Give as little information as they need to be satisfied
5. When they stop asking, stop answering

Then we discussed what that minimal, factual, developmentally-appropriate response to “What is a gun?” might be. Jen said that, because she lives in the city, she thinks it’s important to convey the dangers of guns. I nodded my head, realizing that in my desire to shield Sophie from the evil that people do to each other, I had neglected to speak about this aspect of guns. And, having known someone who was tragically shot and killed right outside his own home, I am well aware that one does not have to live in the inner city to encounter gun violence.

Other parents offered excellent, clean, clear language in response to my inquiry on Facebook:

Kim: “A gun is a weapon. Only grown ups should touch weapons. Who are some of the grownups who have guns? Police officers, guards, etc. Kids should not touch guns. If you see a gun at a friend’s house, go tell a grown up, but don’t touch it.”

Ross: “There are lots of types of guns. They are used to shoot things, like water guns, clue guns, and the kinds of guns that police carry. Guns can be very dangerous…so it’s important that you talk to mom or dad if you see a gun or someone talks about guns. If you ever see a gun, you have to come talk to me about it.”

I loved the emphasis they placed on the instruction: if you see a gun, come talk to me about it.

I’m so grateful to be surrounded by wise, been there-answered that, parents who I can call upon in my moments of uncertainty. If only I had the prescience to know that next question, I could consult my team of experts and have a reply at the ready.

But now, my arsenal is ready:
A gun is a weapon. A weapon is something that can hurt or kill a living thing. Once something is killed and is dead, it is gone. It can never come back. So guns can be very dangerous. Only grownups can touch guns, police have guns, which they learn how to use in police school. Kids should NEVER touch guns. If you see a gun or someone shows you a gun, come talk to me about is right away. I will keep you safe.

Go ahead and ask me, Sophie.

Ask me.

*Name has been changed.

Yes, Sophia There IS an Easter Bunny

2011-05-01T14:06:00.003-04:00

Never have I regretted words like I regret telling Sophia that there is an Easter Bunny.

Maybe it’s because I wanted Kevin’s traditions represented in the household as well as mine. Perhaps I didn’t want Sophie to be denied the pleasures of an Easter Basket that I had as a child. Or maybe I’m just as easily caught up in the sweeping wave of consumerism that accompanies every holiday in this country as much as the next person. But I went to Target and I got the makings of an Easter basket.

Nothing crazy. A felt bucket decorated with Sophie’s power animal, a monkey, wearing a pink dress. I filled it with gardening tools, seeds, and gloves. The only candy it contained was a couple of naturally flavored and colored (Kosher) jelly beans from Trader Joes.

Then, just before sending her off to bed, I said, “When you go to sleep tonight, the Easter Bunny is going to stop by and bring you a basket. It will be here when you wake up.”

Sophie seemed pleased, went to bed without incident, and Kevin and I retired to the attic to watch a movie. Not long into it, I heard screams emanating from below.

I flew down the steps, popped open her bedroom door. Sophie was standing up in her crib, holding herself, sobbing, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom, Mommy!” I scooped her up, hopeful that we would not have an incident like the last time she cried out for me in the middle of the night, when she blazed a trail of urine from her crib to the toilet.

Thankfully, she held it and went to the bathroom, but when I put her back to bed, she protested. “No, Sophia. It’s time to go to sleep,” I whispered, and headed back upstairs.

Not much later, I heard her cry out again, “Mommy, bathroom!” Kevin raised his eyebrows at me. I knew that there was very little chance that she actually had to go. But I was willing to give her one chance before I moved to “planned ignoring” of her pleas.

I walked into her darkened room and warned her, “Sophia, you better squeeze something out into that toilet.” And she managed to, though it did look effortful. When she finished, I warned her: “Okay, Sophia. This was the last time. Now you need to close your eyes, rub your Snakey Pie and go to sleep.”

Less than a half an hour later she called out, “Daddy, daddy, Daddy!” At least she knew not to call for me. Kevin looked at me. She quickly escalated to full-scale bawling. “Just one more book! I need one more book!” came her cries. Kevin said he would go down, say that she was to go to sleep and not call out again. Because this behavior is so rare now, I found myself really rattled by her cries. They hurt, like when she was an infant. I stood on the stairs, listening to him, and then her, begging and sobbing. He closed the door on her and seemed satisfied.

But now I was on hyper alert. I could no longer focus on the film. My ears strained for her cries.
“I have to get the monitor,” I told Kevin,

“You have to?”

“Yes, I’m straining to listen for her. Being able to hear will help me relax.”

“Okay, if that’s what you need to relax, go get it.” He turned off the movie we were watching and channel surfed while I fetched the monitor from the kitchen. I set the monitor to voice activated and re-joined him on the couch.

A few seconds later, the wailing started up again.

“Do we have to listen to that?” Kevin asked, irritated. He didn’t see the point in it, if we weren’t going to respond. It was interrupting his ability to focus, his ability to relax. I felt torn. I knew what I was feeling was irrational, but I needed to know when she calmed down and feel asleep. I needed to know when I could stop listening. I turned down the monitor. Her muffled cries continued to distract us.

Then, suddenly, there was a slight rattling sound and it got quiet.

“See? She finally exhausted herself and went to sleep.” Kevin said, rubbing my shoulders. I had a brief flash—perhaps I should check on her? But the part of me that was relieved that she had stopped crying, that I could finally chill out and enjoy the rest of the evening with my husband overrode the impulse.

An hour later, we descended the stairs. The second floor looked like a crime scene. Sophia’s door was open, a chair was positioned under the light switch and the light turned on. We walked in. Sophia was no where to be seen. Her crib tent was unzipped and the crib was empty. “Sophia?” I called?

No answer.

I was vaguely worried. Though all of the evidence pointed to the fact that she had escaped, the Lindberg case popped into my head: the missing child, no one heard a thing, the ladder up to the room. “SOPHIA?” I called, louder this time.

Still no answer.

Kevin and I padded down the stairs to the living room. And there she was, sitting on the couch, sucking her thumb and rubbing Snakey Pie, not doing anything. When she spotted us she announced, “I’m waiting for the Easter Bunny.”

A pox on the Easter Bunny! Perhaps this is why Jews don’t worship idols.

“Sophia,” I began the series of lies parents tell their children that the seminal lie of the Easter Bunny begets, “he doesn’t come if you’re awake.”

“I am going to stay up ALL NIGHT!” three year old Sophie announced.

“Well, we’re going to bed,” I told her.

“I will stay right here. Daddy you can sleep there,” she said, indicating the easy chair in the corner. “And Mommy, you can sleep in your chair,” she added, pointing to the overstuffed chair-and-a-half.

“No, Sophia. We are all going to sleep, IN our beds.”

“No No NO!” It was about this time I considered telling her there was no Easter Bunny. It was all a hoax. Kevin read my expression and mouthed, “Don’t you dare.”

Rats.

Kevin started to reason with her, in his calm, psychologist way. But I could see she was beyond the point of reason. “This is going to end right now,” I announced. “You’re going to bed,” and I picked her up in the way that always manages to wrench my back and carried her upstairs.

I put her in the crib, zipped up the tent, said goodnight, and shut the door.

But now that she had figured out how to get out, there was no keeping her in. Thirty seconds later, she appeared on the stairwell. “I think we need to put her in the bed. There’s no point to keeping her in the crib now. She’ll only hurt herself trying to escape.”

“NO! I can’t handle the bed. I CAN’T HANDLE THE BED!!!” Sophia objected. Amid her protests, Kevin dragged the mattress out of her crib, plopped it in her toddler bed and flipped the crib over on its side, rendering it unusable.

What ensued, is typically referred to as "jack-in-the-box syndrome":

He put her in.
She came out.
I put her in.
She came out.
He put her in.
She came out.
I put her in, pulled a chair up to the door and waited. I stood stock still in my chair for 15 minutes. When I no longer heard her, I got up.
She came out.

Tomorrow night we are having braised Easter Bunny for dinner.

I told Kevin to go ahead to sleep. There was no point in all three of us being up all night. At least the next day was Sunday and I only had to be minimally functional.

I went into my room and got ready for bed. Sophia ran back and forth between her room and the bathroom. Repeatedly “trying to go.” She had no idea what to do with this freedom, how to conduct herself in a wall-less bed. It was a skill deficit she was going to have to work through. Upon her third trip back to her room, I walked in and announced.

“Okay, Soph. I’m going to bed now. I don’t want to hear you come out of this room again.” I locked the gate at the top of the staircase, so she couldn’t accidentally tumble down during one of her midnight runs. I took an extra helping of sleep medication. I popped ear plugs in my ears, and I went to sleep.

My eyes popped open at 6:30 am, to find Sophia breathing into my face. “I woke up!” she announced. This came as something of a relief, since it meant she must have gotten some sleep. “I looked out the window and it’s light outside so it’s time to get up.”

Curse the vernal equinox. Spring is conspiring against me.

She climbed into bed with me and we read together, just like old times. Then, we sat in my picture window and gazed outside, playing I Spy. When it finally seemed late enough to wake up Kevin, we headed downstairs.

There, on the kitchen table, was the Easter Basket. “OH! The Easter Bunny came!” Sophie shouted as she ran toward it and emptied its contents, exclaiming over each thing. I brewed the coffee and fixed Matzo Brei as she played with her new gardening tools, raking our Welcome mat, which had become a garden plot.

Outside our picture window, a feral rabbit made its way across our yard. In my mind’s eye, I silently gave him the finger.

Taking Candy from a Baby

2011-04-24T20:28:00.003-04:00

, I don’t know who originally thought taking candy from a baby was all that easy. Instead, I think talking candy from a baby should be a metaphor for something that people think will be a snap, but in reality turns out to be really, really hard.

Case in point:

It is well established with my family members, among my friends and in nursery school, that I limit my daughter’s sugar intake. I have to emphasize the word limit—I do not deny her altogether as I once did. I’m not an extremist, but I refuse to buy into our society’s obsession with sugar. I maintain that we do not have to frost the first meal of the day. We do not have to eat a dessert after dinner every night. And we do not have to celebrate every holiday—from Earth Day to Birthdays—with pounds and pounds of sugar.

All this refined sugar—whether it’s from organic beets or high fructose corn syrup is making us sick: replacing nutritious calories with empty ones; causing tooth decay; fostering insulin resistance, and possibly even leading to metabolic syndrome, which is now thought to be the culprit behind heart disease.

I am tired of being the mom who says “no” all the time: When everyone else is piling their plates high with homemade macaroons, and chocolate matzoh crunch, and jellied candies at the end of the seder. When I’ve promised my daughter a special treat after dinner, but I’ve found out that she’s already been slipped a goodie by a well-intended grandparent. When it’s a Spring Celebration in nursery school, and, right after the kids have just celebrated a birthday party with cake, juice and strawberries they return to their classroom for a second celebration—with cupcakes, chocolate, marshmallows, and lemonade.

The last episode occurred this week. I had gone into the classroom to return a book, but when I saw Sophie mainlining frosting at celebration number two, I lost it. I went to my mother, the director, and told her I was upset. My mother (who agreed with me this time) went vigilante—before I said anything, she walked into the classroom and took said candy from my baby.

Needless to say, my daughter was neither oblivious to the pilfering of her cupcake, nor was she down with it. She instantly fell to the floor screaming and crying. I hid in the adjacent classroom, debating, for a moment, whether to let her teachers work through it. But I also knew that none of this was Sophie’s fault, and she was just reacting the way any addict would if you blew the coke out from under her nose. I came in to clean up the mess. “Mommy, uppy!” she cried, when she saw me.

“What’s going on, Sophie?”

“Read me a book to calm me down!” was her response.

So I took her out of the room, read her a couple of books, explained why, grandma took her cupcake. “You had too much sugar, Soph. One slice of cake is fine, but cake AND chocolate AND a cupcake AND juice AND marshmallow peeps is way too much. All that sugar will make you sick and give you cavities.”

“I want it back!” she wailed.

“Of course you do. And its fine to have another treat another day. But we’re done for today.” Grandma came in the room. Sophie wouldn’t look at her. Grandma, after all, was responsible for the cupcake caper.

“Sophie, I wrapped up your cupcake for you to have another time.”

“After lunch?”

“No Sophie. Another day,” I jumped in.

“After dinner?” Ach. This kid.

“No Sophie. Dinner happens later on today. You can have it ANOTHER day.”

Of course, I’m lying. The truth of the matter is she will never see that cupcake, full of nasty artificial ingredients and dyes, again. I will be throwing it out. Right behind it would be the marshmallow peeps and the jelly beans.

And by the time I do, she will have forgotten all about it.

Here’s the thing. Children are not inherently sugar-crazy. We create the desire (this being the royal we—marketing, peers, the institutionalization of bad nutrition every where, from schools to hospitals). And once kids have that first lick of a lolly, that first spoonful of ice cream, it’s all over. Perhaps, before this introduction it might have been possible to take candy from our babies. But once the get a taste of the stuff, I pity the one who attempts to pry it from their grasp.

What's Good for the Grandchild Is Not Good for the Daughter

2011-04-10T14:32:00.005-04:00

This post was inspired by Adena Halpern’s novel, 29, the April selection of the online book club, From Left to Write. I received a complementary copy of the book from the publisher, but was not otherwise compensated to write this piece. Find out how other writers were inspired by the book here.

My mother does not spoil my daughter, Sophia, as much as she would like to. I won’t let her. After dinner one night, she asks if she can give Sophia a second helping of ice cream. A disappointed look crosses her face as I shake my head no. I watch her mouth tighten, and I know she’s holding her tongue. Still, she tries to back me up, saying, “Sorry, Sophia, Mommy says ‘no.’” It isn’t until Sophia is out of ear shot that she asks, “Come on, Melissa. Is a little bit more going to kill her?”

In my lectury teacher voice I tell her, “No, of course not, Mom. But she had already had a cupcake in nursery school today and I want treats to be special, not something that is routinely doled out after each meal.” My mother sighs. She knows I’m right. And then I remind her, “Besides, when I was a kid you were adamant about limiting our sweets. Have you forgotten? Why is it different with Sophia?”

It’s true. We were never allowed to have sugar cereals and the cookie drawer was strictly off-limits. There was always stuff around (my father had an insatiable sweet tooth), and there were no locks on the cookie drawer, but I was a pretty rule-bound kid. I tended to obey the guidelines my parents set forth, indulging only when my younger sister goaded me on. Jenny would barge into my room on a Sunday morning, before our parents were awake. “You wanna take some of mom’s truffles and melt them on the radiator and smear them on bread to make chocolate sandwiches?” she’d ask, a gleam in her eye. “Uh, okay,” and we’d do it, though I knew there’d be hell to pay.

Also, I can’t remember my mother indulging in sweets when I was a child the way she does now. A half-gallon of Edy’s Flavor of the Month is lucky to last a night in her freezer. And if you’re sharing with her, your wrist better be limber and ready for battle. So, maybe it’s part of a broader loosening of her rules as she gets older.

Or maybe, this is the grandmother dynamic. Be the person you could not be as a parent. The person who says “yes” to everything. The person who elicits broad smiles instead of tantrums. The person who for whom my daughter only has positive associations: going to her nursery school, visiting museums, reading books, staying up late, eating ice cream. Maybe after all those hard years of trying to shape, and instill, and promote, and push back, there is great joy to be had in indulgence. In letting go.

It might be different if Sophia was with my mother on a daily basis, and Sophia had to comply with requests my mother makes. But I am usually there, waiting in the wings to be the heavy: Listen to your grandmother. Sit in your chair. Eat your broccoli. Brush your teeth. Put your pajamas on. I deal with the push back; I dole out the consequences. My mother did it for me, and now it’s her turn to relax.

I suppose I just have to wait my turn, when Sophia has a child of her own who I can lavish attention on, and then hand back for the tough stuff. In the meanwhile, I am earning my stripes. Laying down the law. Following through on what I say. Teaching Sophia self control, because it is not the treats in and of themselves that are so sweet, but the departure from restrictions. Appreciation and gratitude are born out of limits, not excess. If Sophia is going to be able to pass along this lesson to her daughter, she has to first learn it from me.

Grandma is my foil and my counterpart.

Big Gurl Bed

2011-04-03T22:54:00.002-04:00

My mother has been on my case to transition Sophia to a big girl bed, but I’ve been very reluctant to do so. Sophia likes her cozy little house, a crib with a tent over it that zips shut, and I like having a place to put her in from which she can’t escape. I adopted a don’t ask, don’t suggest policy…if Sophia wasn’t asking to move, I wasn’t going to bring it up. Then, about a week ago, something happened to change my mind. First, a little back story: Oddly, Sophia was dry all night before she was dry during the day. Since she’s been in underwear full time, she’s only had two nighttime accidents. The first occurred UIB, under the influence of Benedryl, (She had a viral rash that covered most of her body.) She slept so soundly that she peed herself while sleeping and never woke up. The second was completely my fault—I gave her too much to drink at dinner time and forgot to toilet her before bed. She was so ashamed when it happened….I swore I would never make that mistake again. Back to a week ago: I hadn’t been sleeping much and so I took a little OTC sleep medication (coincidentally, the generic equivalent of Benedryl), popped in my ear plugs, and tried to make up for lost time. In a dream and far away I heard a voice calling, “Mommy! I need to go to the bathroom!” By the time I realized that the voice belonged to Sophia, she was screaming desperately, “Mommy! Help! I’m pee-peeing! I’m pee-peeing in my bed.” I ran into the room, unzipped the crib tent, but it was too late. She was already midstream, crying hysterically. Unthinkingly, I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom, as she continued to pee—in the crib, on me, across the rug, onto the tile—where I placed her on the toilet, still in her pajamas and still peeing. Her silky polka-dot pants ballooned out as it captured her urine before it soaked through and into the bowl. Humiliated and filthy, Sophie continued to bawl. I looked at my watch. 1 am. I had work the next day, but there was no other option. I had to clean her and the mess up. Sophie hates baths, and, as it turns out, she hates them even more when they are given at 1 am, particularly after she’s traumatized herself by wetting the bed. I tackled Sophie first, then the bed, then the floor. And I said out loud, as I shook my first up at the sky, clutching my sponge, “With God as my witness, I’ll never clean up a mess like this at 1 am again.” And then I sobbed a little myself. In the nights that followed, before I had an opportunity to put together Sophia’s toddler bed, I slept very poorly. Kevin offered to listen for her as well, keeping the monitor on in proximity to his room. But I couldn’t sleep knowing at any moment we could have a repeat performance of that terrible night. Finally, the next weekend while Kevin was away on business, I had a couple hours to assemble the bed. When I was finished, Sophie was elated. She immediately set to making it, covering it with blankets, pillows, and her entourage of 58 stuffed animals. At 5:30 pm, she began begging to go to sleep. “Please, Mommy? Please can I sleep in my new big gurl bed.” I was encouraged by this. Fool that I was. Three hours later: Over the monitor, I heard Sophia jiggling her bedroom door handle, the patter of her feet as she made her way across the carpet to the top of the stairs, and then her voice, punctuated by sobs, “Mommy, I can handle it! I can!” Apparently, she could not. This was now the fifth time she had climbed out of her big gurl bed in the last hour, and I was not having it. The first three times, I patiently returned her to her room and shut the door. The fourth time I gave her a warning: “You get out of bed one more time, Sophia, and you’re telling me that you can’t handle it and you’re not ready for a big girl bed.” “I can handle it,” she assured me, and climbed into bed. The monitor was silent for all of five minutes. Though it pained me to go upstairs, transfer the mattress from her bed to the crib, and lift her back into it as she sobbed, I was relived. This wasn’t going to go on all night. Once inside her crib, Sophia seemed to be relieved, too. She stopped crying almost instantly, popped a thumb in her mouth, cuddled Snakey-Pie and went to sleep. It was the last I heard of her until 7 am. Thank god. When I dragged my ass in there the next morning to retrieve Sophie from the crib, she patted her big girl bed thoughtfully, “I’m not ready for the bed yet.” She told me, “maybe when I’m a bigger gurl. Maybe when I’m four. Much much MUCH bigger,” she stood on her toes and reached upwards with her hands to emphasize her point. Could it be that Sophie is reluctant to let go of this last vestige of her babyhood? For all of her posturing, “I’m not a baby. I’m a big gurl,” and insistence that, “I can do it myself,” might there be a part of her that clings to the comfort of having all her needs met by another? Autonomy comes with a cost—personal responsibility. I think, intuitively, she knows this. And so for now, two beds fill Sophie’s room, one that offers boundaries and another that offers freedom. Each night the choice is available to her. I am confident she’ll opt for the latter when she is ready. Until then, I’ll keep my night job.

Surprise Day

2011-03-28T22:49:00.006-04:00

This post was inspired by Elizabeth Bard’s Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes, the March selection of the online book club, From Left to Write. I received a complementary copy of the book from the publisher, but was not otherwise compensated to write this piece. Find out how other writers were inspired by the book here.

In the memoir, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes, Elizabeth Bard likens her first date with her husband to the pseudo-snow days of her youth. Growing up, each year her mother let her choose her own snow day. The two of them would take the day off, sleep late, have a “backwards breakfast,” (ice cream first), and pretty much do whatever their hearts desired the rest of the day.

What a lovely tradition. It brought a favorite family memory of my own flooding back: My sister Jennifer and I were crammed into the backseat of Dad’s creamy Dodge Dart. Our parents, uncharacteristically happy, were giggling in the front. It seemed like we had been driving forever. “But where are we GOING?” we begged. They were silent on the subject and smirked in the rearview mirror.

An hour later we rolled into heaven. Until that day, I had not known a place called Hershey Park existed. It was like winning the golden ticket and stepping into Wonka’s factory. The street lights shaped like Hershey kisses. I imagined shimming up their poles and unwrapping the foil—but that’s about all I can recall. I don’t remember actually eating much chocolate that day, or even the amusement park rides I went on. All that remains with me is the wonderful spontaneity of the day—the liberty my parents took with reality. The message they sent that life doesn’t have to be just one way all the time.

I am excited, now, thinking of the possibility of creating my own “surprise day” ritual with Sophia. I don’t think I want her to pick the day, as Bard did. I want her to feel ambushed by me—the way I did by my parents the day we went to Hershey Park. I want her to realize, years later, that I secretly planned the day for her pleasure. That, though I make her eat her vegetables and take her naps and brush her teeth, I can also roll down the window, throw out all my rules, let the wind rush in and carry us away.

Cold Fish

2011-03-27T21:45:00.002-04:00

I am the demonstrative sort. Perhaps not always in the physical sense, but when it comes to words, I can’t help but say what I feel.

Years ago, when I was teaching, a lovely human being came to work in my classroom for the summer as an aide. She was remarkable with the children—it was just something she exuded—a deep calm and radiant warmth. There was an instant connection between us, an effortlessness, a simpatico that went beyond words. Not long into the relationship, we met for dinner. We spent hours sharing stories, hopping restaurants for drinks, then dinner, then coffee and dessert. As we sipped our lattes, I felt a welling inside, and, though I knew it was odd, I leaned in and said, “I just have to tell you.... I love you.” I waited for her to be completely weirded out and ask for the check. She smiled and said, “I feel the same way.” It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I believe it is important to not only tell the people you love that you love them, as frequently as it occurs to you, but to show them—by listening intently and being fully present, helping when help is needed, and expressing gratitude for what they bring. I know, at times, this can seem over-the-top, particularly to those recipients who return my affections in more subtle ways. But I’d rather have those I love be quite sure of my love. No one will go to the grave wondering if I truly cared about them.

My relationships are the most important thing in my life, and Sophia, of course, is among the most cherished.

Despite my own ambivalent relationship to physical affection, I am compelled to manhandle my child. I want to pet her head, trace the outline of her face, plant raspberries on her belly, pinch her tushie, and hold her close.

Some children love to be held and cuddled. They thrive on the attention. They beg to be picked up. They snuggle on the couch. They freely hug and kiss. Sophia is not one of these children. She never has been. Even as an infant, she would rather be exploring than held in the confines of my arms. Now, I scoop her up for a hug, and she wriggles out of my grasp. If I ask for a kiss, I get a flash of a peck. I eye my friends’ more affectionate children jealously. How did I wind up with such a cold fish?

It is actually one of the hardest things about being Sophia’s parent. I would love nothing better than to embrace her and whisper confectionary words into her hair, but the only way I can get her to stay nestled at my side is by reading her piles and piles of picture books. And if she is hurt, rather than reaching out for me, she pushes me away, bearing her pain on her own, recovering quickly, and returning to the world.

What do I do with my unwanted affection? “That’s why you need to have another,” my mother says in an unveiled pitch for a grandchild. I remind her that there are no guarantees. “That child could also have my prickly genes. No thank you.” I will stick with the devil I know. The one who refuses to hold my hand or lounge with me in bed. And I will continue to flood her with torrents of my emotion, unable and with no desire to dam my feeling, hopeful that, invisibly, it feeds her in important ways.

Yet, despite her obvious discomfort with caresses and nuzzles, I am quite sure of her love. The signs are everywhere. It’s in the music in her voice as she calls for me when she wakes; it’s in the comfort with which she leaves my side to be with others; it’s in the bright smile she casts my way when we are reunited. And then there are the subtle, sacred articulations of her love—an adoring look in my rearview mirror, “Mo-mmy,” said with a deep, satisfied, sigh, a small hand that sneaks onto my thigh as I tell her a story.

These moments sustain me, but, in truth, I’m always hungry for more.

Of Children and Monsters

2011-03-20T22:38:00.001-04:00

I don’t like to be scared. When I was ten, the PTA put on a haunted house at the local municipal building. Terrified, I refused to go inside, even after it was explained to me that the “monsters” were just other kids’ dads in costume and the eyeballs you had to touch were really peeled grapes. I was still walking the hazy childhood boundary between fantasy and reality, unclear about what was possible and what wasn’t. Perhaps, because I was already a fearful child and hated being this way, I couldn’t understand why anyone would intentionally seek out this sensation.

I still don’t quite get the fear-as-amusement industry. I don’t watch horror films. I don’t read Stephen King. And I don’t do amusement park rides that involve dropping from great heights, turning upside down, or scrambling my internal organs. My overactive imagination presents me with enough frightful scenarios to maintain a steady flow of adrenaline in my bloodstream. Another jolt just might push me over the edge.

Sophia, on the other hand, seems to enjoy the feeling of fear. On our way to the library this week she said, “Mom (note, no longer Mommy), I want some SCARY stories. Stories with monsters. And stories about crazy families.” Her desire to chase down what scares her is a thing that separates us. A way we live differently in the world. Sophia is seeking to gain mastery over her fear, and I do what I can to avoid mine.

It all started with a book about monsters that Kevin read to Sophia at a neighbor’s house. The next morning, Sophia told me, excitedly, that there were monsters in her closet. I’ve had experience with this. There were never monsters in my closet, but my sister had some rather tenacious alligators under her bed. Initially, they were kept at bay with special weapons that my father supplied, but eventually, Jennifer made peace with her alligators, even came to embrace them. She drew pictures of them and collected alligator chotchkes.

Perhaps I could have used a monster or two.

I peeked into Sophia’s closet. “Oh yes,” I said. “I see them. They are having quite a time of it.”

“What are the doing?” Sophia asked.

“It looks like they are having a party. They’ve dressed up in your fanciest clothes and they are eating cupcakes.”

“Really?” Sophia’s eyes widened.

“MmmHmm. Yes, oh, and what’s that?” I cupped my hand to my ear, “they want to thank you for such a lovely time. They say they really appreciate you letting them have your closet for the night, but they have to be going.”

Sophia looked apprehensive. “Are they friendly?”

“Hold on a sec. Let me ask them. Excuse me, monsters, but are you the friendly sort or are you mean monsters? Okay. I’ll ask….They say they are very friendly and would like to know if they can come back some time.”

“Sure!”

“She said yes,” I told the closet, and then I waved goodbye to the monsters as they walked out the door. “Come back soon,” I called after them.

“They were very friendly,” Sophia shook her head approvingly.

“Yes. They were exceptionally nice monsters.”

At the library, we discovered, there were volumes of unscary monster books. We took out about five and have been reading them obsessively ever since.

Okay. So this particular bugbear was easy to tackle. What haunts me now is her fear yet unformed. How do I walk her through fear of bullies, fear of war, fear of disaster, and fear of death—what do I do when she encounters the real things there are to be afraid of? How do I help her to understand the dark side of existence? As a parent, you want to always be able to protect your child, to be able to magically transform the malignant into the benign. To make sense of the senseless.

But we can’t.

I fear the day when Sophia faces something ugly that I won’t be able to turn into a happy fiction.

Why I Love Restraints (For Sophia. Not Me.)

2011-03-13T14:35:00.003-04:00

As a culture, we tend to be very anxious to move our children onto the next stage…transitioning them to a bed, a booster seat, underpants, walking independently at our side…as soon as possible. I think it’s simply part of our independent American ethic. We want them to be self-sufficient, capable people.

For some kids, good sleepers, good eaters, go-with-the-flow, kids or I’ve-got-an-older-brother-or-sister-I-seek-to-emulate kids, it works. They easily and readily make the switch. Then, there are the parents who have to do it out of necessity, e.g., a new baby is coming and they need the crib for the soon-to-emerge infant. For these parents, the transition may be difficult, but the need outweighs the difficulties.

But for the other group of kids…the ones who don’t eat well, who don’t sleep well, who are in constant motion, and/or who don’t have a positive sibling model to look up to...these are kids who tend to not do well with early transitions. At least not without a period of teaching and gradually fading back supports. For example, a child who does not eat well and who seeks to escape mealtimes will GROSSLY take advantage of being placed in a booster seat without a seatbelt.

I know this from personal experience.

It was Sophie who told, “Mom, I don’t want a high chair. I want to sit in a BIG person’s chair like you and daddy.” I know, one would think that if she is capable of articulating this, it probably is time for her to stop sitting in a high chair. Well, that’s what I thought, too. So, Sophia and I went shopping for a booster seat. She selected a portable, hot pink one that suctioned nicely to our chairs. Have I mentioned it didn’t have a restraint? We tried it out that night.

It was an unmitigated disaster. She was up. She was down. We put her back up, She slid back down. Our dinners grew cold and our patience wore thin as she enjoyed the novelty of her freedom. The next night was no better. Nor the night after that. We gave it several weeks, but no degree of prompting her to stay in her chair, engineering the environment to keep her in her chair, or reinforcing her for staying in her chair was working.

Now, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, if it wasn’t so important to me for all of us to sit together at the table for meals. But it is. That’s our sacred family time, when Kevin comes home from work, and we all share what’s happened that day. Some of my fondest memories of growing up are the conversations that took place over dinner—it was a place to pontificate, argue, discuss, and listen. Kevin’s family also valued the ritual of dinner together. We want to carry on the tradition.

And then there is the issue of eating. I know that we place too much of an emphasis on food in our culture. I know that Sophie’s picky eating is, in part, a result of the fact that I have made eating such a big deal in my home. Perhaps she would have eaten a variety of foods, however limited, had I not insisted from the get-go that she at least try a bite of everything I put before her. Perhaps, I could just let her go hungry every now and then, rather than wait out her stubbornness at the dinner table. But, I’m not convinced that I would have been successful at getting her to try kale and sushi, artichokes and shrimp, crabmeat and asparagus had I not been insistent. Had I not held her there (in that high chair) and withheld more desired foods until she took a bite. Had I not repeatedly introduced these foods time after time until she was eating them volitionally, with gusto. Had I not rewarded her with praise and an intermittent dessert for eating healthy food.

I’m not saying it’s the way. It’s just how I did it. And, quite frankly, this is how it is basically done in professional feeding clinics, successfully.

Sometimes, like when my mother says, “You still have her in the high chair?” I’m afraid keeping her in it appears to be cruel. That I’m strapping my kid down. Forcing her to sit, pushing food on her, laying the foundation for an eating disorder later in life. Or that others simply think I’m loony, still fretting over healthy, three-year-old Sophie, convinced she is still the underweight child she once was. When do my methods become overbearing?

I believe Sophia will tell me, herself.

It’s taken me a while to stop insisting she take “one more bite” and start listening to Sophia when she says me, “Mommy, I’m full,” or to let her go when, she has eaten her fill and asks, “May I please be excused from the table?” I’m not forcing her to finish, just to try. I’m not forcing her to sit interminably; just until dinner is over, just until she can sit on her own.

I’m hoping that it will go something like toilet training, which Sophie did when she was ready. And when she did, it wasn’t a gradual process. It was an all-at-once kind of thing: she put on underwear and never looked back. Maybe, one day, she’ll climb onto a chair and simply sit and eat.

Until that day, I am grateful that I’ve got a way to make her sit. Yes, to save me the aggravation of repeatedly fetching her and putting her back in her chair, but also to ensure that she sits long enough to understand what’s special about sharing a meal. And, it remains my hope that the thing that makes it special will one day be enough to keep her pinned to her seat.

Dreaming in Yankee

2011-03-08T23:05:00.003-05:00

The following post--which is about Life Before Sophia--was inspired by the book, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English, by the March selection of the online bookclub, From Left to Write. I received a copy of the book from the publisher free-of-charge, but was not compensated to write this essay. Read other posts inspired by the book here.

I made a promise to my husband. After spending five long years in graduate school in New Jersey together, I would follow him down to North Carolina. To live. Forever and ever.

My husband has a deep love of the South. His parents both came from Georgia, and though he was raised in Illinois, he felt more deeply connected to the South than the Midwest. I, on the other hand, was a diehard North Easter. I ate fast, I walked fast, I slept fast, I talked fast. Though I knew I had neighbors, I rarely spoke to them. And I like bagels, preferably with lox.

At the time of The Promise, I was terrified, but game. Having never been able to escape the throes of New Jersey (outside of four years of college in New York), I was ready for a change.

I went in good faith.

We moved to Asheville, a funky little town situated on the French River overlooking the Smoky Mountains. It was a liberal artist-haven oasis surrounded by rolling, rural country-side of staunch conservatism. It had a thriving center with steep, angular streets flanked by galleries, shops and restaurants. We rented a house in the historic district that was so huge (we couldn’t believe what we could get for our money), I’d have to call Kevin on his cell to find him. We were minutes away from phenomenal hiking and outdoor sports of all kinds—kayaking down the Natahala, mountain biking on rugged trails.

I was miserable.

I became a joiner. I joined a thriving group psychological practice—and was never at a loss for meaningful work. I joined a local gym and worked out for hours each day, getting into the best shape of my life. I joined a book club with so many participants you had to fight your way to be heard. I joined a knitting group and made small talk with hippie moms as I wrested cables onto a hat for Kevin.

I participated, but I could not assimilate. In fairness, I am told it takes time. At least a year. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I literally kept one foot in NJ, flying up there once each month to conduct trainings for curriculum I designed in alone in that big house in Asheville. I loved those whirlwind weeks—filled with friends, family and the familiar. I mourned a little every time I stepped back on the plane for Asheville and left what still felt like home.

Or perhaps it was simply that I was too identified with my Northern persona. When I left the house, I’d first peek out the windows, scanning for my neighbor with the 16 cats. If he caught me, I’d be drawn into a half-hour conversation about how much he adored Maxwell (my cat). I dreaded trips to the supermarket, where I was sure to be interminably stuck on line at the register as each person had a very lengthy conversation with the cashier about the weather. I’d squirm uncomfortably as women would discuss people they didn’t like while smiling and saying things like “bless her heart.”

No, I much preferred the place where it was socially acceptable to say, “sorry, but I’m in a hurry.” Or, “could you please open up another register?” Or, “She’s a real b****.” without raising an eyebrow.

I am a blurter. I have no filter. I say what comes to mind. I was exhausted at days end from holding back. My cheeks hurt from smiling too much. I felt like, in the South, even in Ashville, I couldn’t be my authentic me.

As fate would have it I didn’t have to stay there for long. An irresistible job opportunity opened up for me in the North, and we moved back. For ever. And for the first time, I really understood what Kevin was sacrificing.

Fortunately, we managed to find a place where we both felt at home. A place where we love our neighbors, and it’s okay to tell them we’re in a hurry. Now, I look back on the days in Asheville with some fondness. I’m glad I had the unsettling experience of living in another place. It helped me to understand how much place is a part of who we are.

She Feels My Pain...Sort Of

2011-03-05T21:53:00.003-05:00

The first day I hobbled around on crutches, Sophie brought me home a card “for my foot.”

On the second day, she stepped on it.

Sophie’s sense of empathy is ephemeral. One minute she’s gently patting my orthopedic boot, cooing “awwww,” (a sound she reserves for picture of kittens and babies). The next minute she’s demanding that I get her some dried apricots “right now!” She can’t seem to hold it in her consciousness that I’m hurt. At this point, I am so used to her general obliviousness to my emotional state, it’s the kindness that surprises me.

So, as she’s looking up at me and saying, “Oh, Mommy,” in the affectionate tone that I use with her when she’s ailing, I smile and my eyes well. It doesn’t take much.

“Mommy,” Sophie observes, “you are crying, but you’re smiling. Are you touched?” Kevin and I have educated her in the physical markers of this complex feeling—another concept she is on the cusp of grasping. One day, after throwing a fit, she declared, “I need calm down time,” and ran to her room where she sobbed into her snake. Minutes later she returned, truly calmer. Through her tears, her face broke into a smile. “Look, mommy, my eyes are wet, but I’m in a good mood. I’m touched!” (Nice try.)

But in this instance, she has hit the mark. “Yes,” I tell her, “I am. You are being very sweet and kind to me, and I really appreciate it.” Sophie smiles to, and I am encouraged to see that she feels proud of her ability to touch me. Perhaps she will not grow up to be a serial killer.

There was a time when it was believed that parental warmth was a critical factor in the development of empathy, the ability to both understand and enter into another’s feelings. But studies conducted over the last several decades have determined that warmth alone is not enough. In fact, parents who are warm but shy away from setting limits may actually foster self-centeredness. Turns out, it’s all about love and boundaries. To be able to focus on and empathize with another, children need to understand that it’s not all about them.

Certainly, modeling empathy, encouraging children to recognize and acknowledge the emotions of others, and pointing out when they have had an impact on others, good or bad, helps the process along through “external” means.

Internally, children must develop a “theory of mind,” the cognitive component of empathy. Theory of mind is the ability to take the perspective of another—to understand that other people have thoughts different from one’s own. Though some children will attempt to comfort others as early as 18 months, theory of mind typically doesn’t emerge until about four years of age. So I guess I can forgive Sophia for stepping on my foot. For now.

Next year, I expect an apology.

Banshee Moms

2011-02-27T20:54:00.004-05:00

I was just about to ease myself into a hot bath when Nan called last night.

“Got a minute?” She asked. Yes. I always have a minute for Nan. Except that it’s never just a minute.

“I have to warn you. The battery on my phone is about to wear out.”

“This will only take a minute,” she assures me. (I am skeptical.)

“What’s up?”

“I have a question. If you were about to go somewhere, do you think Sophia would know not to jump in a muddle puddle and get herself wet and dirty?”

I think about it for a second. I know I tend to be a bit generous in terms of that I think Sophia is and isn’t capable of understanding. “No,” I answer. “She still isn’t really able to conceptualize a future that is more fun than the present. A mud puddle in the here and now would definitely trump whatever is coming next.”

Nan sighed. “I thought so.” And I realized my response, though validating her own suspicions, gave her reason to beat herself up a little.

She pained a complete picture of that afternoon: She and her three children were getting ready to go to Chuck E. Cheese. While Nan was dealing with Mitchell, who was jumping in the aforementioned mud puddle, Reid had surreptitiously opened a jar of Play-Doh for Rachel, who proceeded to eat the contents. Nan announced that there would be no Chuck E. Cheese and that everyone was going back in the house.

After they did, Nan quizzed them: “Do you know why we went back in the house?”

Reid answered, “Because Mitchell jumped in a mud puddle, and Rachel ate Play-Doh.”

Though the facts were right, the spirit of its wrongness was absent from his response. Nancy went into the living room and screamed like a banshee.

“Have you ever done this?” she asked me

“You mean screamed?”

“Yes. At the top of your lungs.”

Uh, yeah. Like a couple days ago.

Sophie and I were, coincidentally, in the bath. The bath. The bane of my existence. I knew, before Sophia was even born, that I would hate giving baths. I don’t like to bathe myself. It’s so banal—the routine of it. Every day the same damn thing. And to have to do it twice a day is absolute torture. Just one of the myriad of reasons I should only have one child.

It may be that on an unconscious level Sophie is aware of my anti-bath attitude.

Or, it may be that she has sensory issues—a hypersensitivity to touch. When I wash her, no matter how gently, she screams, “You’re hurting me! You’re hurting me!” And the other day, when I tried to clean out her ears, she actually bit me. Hard. I’ve tried to be gentle, dabbing at her with the softest of washcloths, but she acts as though I am scrubbing her with lye soap and Brillo pads. As she grows older, stronger, and smarter, the battles have become fiercer. She thrashes around, soaking me, kicking me, all the while screaming she’s in pain.

But, the other day, I finally lost it. Partly out of extreme frustration, partly out a desire to shock her out of her hysteria, I screamed. I screamed until my throat hurt. It was a primal cry from the very base of my soul that reverberated all the way down my street.

And do you know what she did? She looked at me and smiled.

I will never be entirely sure of what that smile meant. At the time, it felt sadistic. A smile of satisfaction that she had truly rattled me. I pushed through the bath, angry with her and myself for losing control.

Nan offered another explanation—perhaps Sophie didn’t know what to make of the scream. Maybe she was amused by it, i.e. “What is my crazy mother doing NOW?”

All I know is that screaming did not accomplish my goal.

After that bath, I decided it was time to come up with a proactive approach for addressing her bath battle behavior. I now write a checklist of all her body parts on the wall with a pink bath crayon. As I wash each part in a predictable, routine fashion, Sophia checks it off the list. The point of this is that 1) she sees bathing has a concrete end (which we approach with each completed item) and 2) I have given her some control over the process. It was working fairly well, but I still encountered a good deal of resistance around hair and face washing. So I coupled my list with the art of distraction.

When Sophia was a little baby, I sang “Rise and Shine” to her as I sponged her fragile parts on our kitchen counter. I told her this the other day as we worked our way through the checklist. “Sing it to me, Mommy,” she asked. I began to sing, and Sophia was captivated, letting me work under her arms, between her toes, behind her ears, joining me in the chorus, “Rise and shine and give god your glory, glory. Rise and shine and give god your glory, glory. Rise. And. Shine. And. Give got your glory, glory, children of the lord.”

Later, when she requested the song at lunch, I told her, no. “That’s our special bath song. You’ll get to hear it the next time you take a bath.” She smiled at the possibility.

I pocketed the song as a “task-specific reinforcer”—something she will only get to hear when she takes a bath, made more powerful by its lack of availability.

Nan told me that after she calmed down, she took the kids outside to jump in mud puddles. After all, it was the path of least resistance.

And the futile scream was replaced with laughter.