(Too) Great Expectations

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”?