CityMama™

Dancing but not letting go (not just yet)

I've written before about how we tend to keep our kidlets a little sheltered.  They are five and seven and there's plenty of time for growing up. J. has been finding random videos of the girls when they were littler and they are so sweet and tiny, so precious and innocent, that they make me cry every time I watch them. He thinks it's weird that they make me cry, but they do. Almost to the point where it hurts to watch them.

They are only five and seven and I feel like I didn't get enough time with them when they were one or two or three or four. I want to go back in time and give their sweet baby heads one more smell.  I want to dress them in their puffy winter suits and tuck them into their strollers under warm cashmere blankets from Tata and go for a walk one more time. I want to hold them in my arms, fresh from a bath, and just kiss and kiss and kiss them. I miss them so much when I watch those videos. Maybe other mothers understand.

Now, Bunny can make her own breakfast. Take a shower all by herself. Text her papa on my phone. Remember things I ask her to tell her teacher. Make her bed more neatly than I can do it.

Wallie loves to help me cook. Asks me to turn the music louder. Writes me letters. Can finally wipe her own bum.

It's too much. Too fast.

(Except the wiping bum part. That's a welcome relief.  She even sprays the bathroom with a few quick bursts of air freshener when she's done which is also muchly appreciated.)

Recently the girls had friends over to play and as I was serving their dessert, one of the girls mentioned calories. I heard Bunny ask, "What's calories?" and I totally cringed inside. "There are good calories and bad calories and if you eat too many you get fat," her friend explained. "If you look on packages of food it will tell you how many calories something has. Then you'll know."

Bunny is very familiar with reading packages. We read packages together all the time at the grocery store but we focus on things like "iron" and "fiber."  We look to see how long the list of ingredients is.  If we can recognize any words. If something contains "high fructose corn syrup" or "sugar." She loves pointing out what's "gluten-free," since so many of her friends have allergies. One thing we don't look for is calories. My emphasis, especially because I have struggled with my weight for most of my adult life, has always been on health, and knowing what good, clean food is.

I don't want my seven-year-old to be counting calories. It's bad enough that because she's so tall, I've had endure adults commenting on her figure ever since kindergarten when she really sprouted. With parents who are 5'9" and 6'4", she's going to be a tall girl any way you slice it. I don't want her worrying if eating too many calories will make her "fat." Not in second grade. I want her to continue joyfully anticipating Saturdays, the day we walk to the farmer's market and choose our food for the week. I want her to continue wanting to go swimming or to practice yoga or to "work out" with her papa or to go jogging with me (a new habit--yes, I've been doing it for several months now so it's officially a habit).

Parenting is like a big square dance. You and your children are partners but every once in a while "Outside Influence" cuts in for a do-si-do or two.  You can allemande left and try to get back on course, but then you allemande right and suddenly your child is partnered with "Independence." Around and around the circle you go until finally your children are right back where they started, with you. Then you all go and have some punch and cookies and talk about the experience. Magical, yes, Dizzying, yes. Growing up, letting go. That, too. And I will, when it's time. Now is not the time. Not when my girls are still so small.

Hannah Montana. Kate Moss. Calories. I swear, you make me want to pick up and move to the mountains of Spain where you can't touch us. At least until Bunny and Wallie aren't so impressionable. Like when they're 40.

Note: Blogher asked to syndicate this post. I gave the okay, and they are paying me $50 for it.

Dear Santa 2009

I shake my fist at you and your commercials, PBS Kids Sprout!!!

Second grade is when you learn just how big your heart is, and Bunny, yours is SO BIG

Bunny has had a rough transition to second grade. The first month of school was brutal in the worst ways that transitions can be, but now that we're two months in, things are finally starting to settle.

It started with Bunny being upset that I picked up Wallie from kindergarten at noon, right when Bunny's class gets out for lunch recess. She'd see me walking away with her sister and felt like she was being left behind. I had to reassure her that we weren't partying it up without her while she was at school.  I explained over and over again that we went home for lunch, maybe ran some errands, then came right back to school to pick her up.

She'd cry and cling to me and I kept trying to make the transition as quick as possible so that she could get back to the play ground and her friends, but it was a mess. Parents would stop me and say, "Bunny is over at the playground fence. I think she wants to say 'hi'."  And I'd grit my teeth and sigh, "I know. I see her." We'd walk over and Bunny would melt and whine that she wanted to go home. I would give her a kiss and hug and tell her that I'd see her soon and walk away trying not to look behind me.

Seven

It's kind of scary how much she really gets it

Conversation with Bunny.

Bunny: Mamma, are you the boss of all the bloggers?
Me: No, but I am the boss of my own blogs.
Bunny: So you can make whatever blogs you want?
Me: Yup.
Bunny: I have an idea. I think you should make a blog called "Totoro Moms." Then all the moms who love Totoro like you will have a place to go and talk about how much they like Totoro.

And then I bought a domain name. I'll probably never do anything with it, but it's for her.

I'm the mother of a second grader today

Today Bunny officially became a second grader, and I officially became verklempt. How did my baby turn into such a big girl so fast?

My baby, who it seemed just yesterday was babbling and nursing and crawling, now writes us letter upon letter, keeps a diary, loves Broadway musicals and the Black-eyed Peas, has thoughtful conversations with me about life and death, and recently confessed to having a crush on the cute, little Korean boy in her class. (I know that warms her Tata's heart.)

Dearest Bunny, my first baby, my beautiful girl, I am so proud of all you have accomplished this year. You have a specialness that eminates from you that I have never been able to describe with words. To know you is to know you are truly something else. You are such an amazing person, and oh I love you!

Now let's have a great summer!

The real developmental milestones

Remember when we all hovered over our babies waiting for them to smile, sit up, crawl, walk, or talk? Some of us probably sized up our kid with all the other kids in playgroup, or constantly checked BabyCenter to see when our babies should have a pincer grasp or eat solids or be expected to sleep through the night. All those developmental milestones are encouraging to parents, but I venture to say they aren't as important as the real milestones of young childhood. Like:

Learning to wipe her/his own butt. At a meeting with teachers before Bunny started kindergarten two years ago, the teachers said that they expected the kids to be able to handle all their own potty needs. All. So the next day, I bought a box of Kandoos and went to town teaching eager-to-learn and independent-minded Bunny proper bum-wiping skills.  Two days later, she was solid. Wallie, on the other hand, refuses to even try and starts to cry when I mention it.  We have a whole summer to work on it. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Clicking her/his own seatbelt. At age four, I taught my kids to click their own seatbelts. Pull, pull, pull the belt, hold it, then click. Then, pull, pull, pull it tight. For several weeks I gave a final check until I was confident that the belts were straight and tight.  My back thanked me very much for not having to lean into a car, across two kids to click seatbelts. And I admit I am a little thrown when we carpool a kid who still can't do it, so I teach him/her how. They can do it! Let 'em!

Working the TV/DVD Player/AppleTV: "Wallie, push the button that looks like a house...yes, that one...take out the DVD...put the new one in DON'TFORCEIT!...Now push the button that looks like a sideways nose, the triangle button...It'll start...NODONTPUSHITAGAIN...just WAIT...it'll start....I said wait!"  You know what?  That is BULLSHIT.  Bunny is our official AV Kid and that's how I like it.  As long as she asks permission before renting or buying any movies on AppleTV, she can pretty much run the TV viewing show in this house.  (It's not a free-for-all, they have designated TV times and have specific shows they can watch, but not having to push the TV/Video button to get the TV on the right setting to watch regular TV or DVDs or AppleTV = priceless.)

Bunny's latest obsession

I am convinced no child can resist the dulcet tones of Harold Faltermeyer. Gather the kids 'round and hit play on this oldie but goodie.  You'll see I'm right.

Of schedules and routines

We've always been a pretty routine-oriented family. From a set bedtime routine that has been the same since both kids were babies to our habit of having coffee and pastries at the mall every Saturday when the weather is nice (it's an outdoor mall that is very pretty and pleasant) to Sunday mornings spent moving from one hippie church activity to the next until lunchtime, we're kind of set in our ways.

 The hardest times for me are the after school to bedtime hours, I know these hours are hard for a lot of stay-at-home parents. They are especially tough for me as a work-at-home parent because I am interrupted so many times during the day by appointments or phone calls or school volunteering or school picks-ups that oftentimes I'm not even really getting rolling with work until after lunch.  The afternoon is also when I try to schedule all my calls, something I may have to revisit.

We have after school activities that fill an hour or two here or there, but for the most part, we've been playing those hours fast and loose. And it's been a problem.  Left to their own devices, the girls will play for a while and then eventually start getting on each other's nerves. Then the day ends on a bad note where everyone is frustrated and pissed off at each other.

Who goes to the ER for a nose bleed? I do.

The vacation so far.

We kept Bunny out of school for a couple of days before leaving for Hawaii last Thursday because she seemed to be coming down with something.  She had a cough and was running a low-grade fever.  On the day we left for Hawaii, she was feeling better and the plane ride over was uneventful until a tray table that she thought she had locked properly came crashing down on her nose as she was bending down to reach for her backpack.

She was sitting a couple of rows in front of me with her cousin and came to me crying.  She rarely does that anymore, and so I scooped her up into my lap and rocked her like a baby while she shut her eyes, held her nose and sobbed.  After a few minutes, she felt better and went back to her seat.

When we landed, I noticed she was looking a little wan, and at the Korean restaurant where we stopped for a quick dinner, I made her a little bed out of three pushed-together chairs and she feel asleep.  The waitresses came over and clucked and fussed over her as only Korean waitresses will do, and found some towels with which to cover her. She didn't want to eat even when her favorite things were placed in front of her.