Lessons from the Boob Tube

Some day it will probably get easier, but managing play dates for my 6 year old is a little taxing these days. I have my other two kids to think about, and nap times to juggle, so now that summer is here, I think my daughter is re-thinking how great it is to be out of school.

I mean if I could get really organized (yes, even more organized than I am already, which is clearly possible) then I could probably work something out. But I'm really just feeling lucky to have food in front of my kids at meal times, even if it is shaped like little dinosaurs or consists of artificial cheese-covered Scooby-Doo shaped noodles.

Today my 6 year old is finally getting a play date, the first in a while, thanks to a very generous mother who offered to have her over. But it really wasn't very organized in the way it came about.

She was at a day care facility at our athletic club where a couple of her friends were as well. When it was pick up time, the other mother and I showed up at the same time, and what followed was a lot of begging and pleading for a play date. All done by my daughter of course. Which always puts me in an awkward position; I either say no and disappoint her and her friends, or I put myself in the position of pawning her off on another busy mom, when it's really that mom's decision to make, not mine.

My friend was very gracious to say that she could come over and go swimming with her twin daughters and that she would take care of swimsuits, lunch, etc. Many thanks go her way.

When my daughter found out she literally started jumping up and down screaming. As I was about to walk away she came running up to me and threw herself around my legs.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you a million times over!" she said to me, looking up at me with a huge toothless smile and sparkles in her eyes.

I started thinking to myself "Wow, that's one of the best thank yous I've had in a while." All the flashbacks are flooding me of my many lectures about being thankful for what you have and grateful for opportunities that my husband and I provide. And I am starting to think that FINALLY things are sinking in and all my words are not lost on little ears that only want to hear "yes", and are never in conjunction with a little mouth that says "thank you."

And then as she is walking away I hear her say to her friends "That's what Mitchie says in Camp Rock! Thank you a million times over!! She's so excited when...." and her story goes on about the new Disney High School Musical rival show, Camp Rock.

Apparently those shows that I consider too old for her and only centered on mean-spirited girls learning their lessons the hard way, actually offered a small tutorial on good manners. And it obviously got through to her more than me and all my many years of wisdom that I shower upon her every day.

Whatever. I'll take what I can get at this point.

Uninvited

Last night I was reminded of something I had said to a friend a while back. It went a little something like this: we need to help our children become strong, confident and independent in everything we do and say, and we need to make sure that we continue to build their inner strength until it is over-fortified.

Why, you ask? Because when they go out into the world, they will inevitably have experiences that chip away at their foundation and we won't be able to help them. One could really argue that they will be up against the world all on their own, or so it will seem. And at some point our work becomes less potent because their friends and social situations have more impact than our words. That's when we need to hope and trust that we have done all the work necessary so that when they face negative experiences, as they always will, they come away with minimal damage. Or better yet, they come away stronger, because we have not only done our work, we have also given them some tools to make their own repairs.

This little nugget of wisdom was rolling around my mind last night as I watched my oldest struggling to be included in a twosome that was not open to being a threesome. We were at someone's house for dinner, and she nor I had ever met the children before. There was a girl about 5 years older than her, and another girl about her age, and they were cousins who hadn't seen each other in a little while, from what I gathered. On this first night of their reunion, in walks my daughter to join the fun.

But the problem was, they didn't invite her, and the guest list was not open to negotiation. In my daughter's innocence, she didn't think she needed an invitation, she was just jumping right in to have some fun.

But try as she might, she couldn't keep up. They were literally leaving her behind as they rambled through the yard on their "obstacle course". When they built a fort inside they didn't let her in, as I found out later. At some points, the girls would question her right to her face, wondering why she did this or that, and in general just trying to get her to stop attempting to play with them.

When it all became obvious to me, I was sitting with my 3 year old daughter on my lap watching the older girls play. We were within about 30 minutes of leaving, so I just sat there and held my other daughter close, and watched. I kept saying to my younger daughter "are you still my baby?" and "you can be my baby forever!" and was hugging her tight. And then I'd look up and get a sinking feeling in my chest as I watched my oldest scrambling to be included.

I realized later that all I was doing and saying to my younger daughter was really meant for my oldest. My heart was ripping open and all I wanted to do was fold her up, put her in my pocket and announce that we were leaving.

But, being in this particular situation with virtual strangers that are connected through my husband's work, I decided to just watch and trust.

Finally my oldest began to play on her own. Every now and then, she'd go back and try to keep up, only to get shut down again. And back she would go to play on her own.

Then I said enough is enough and announced that we were leaving. Luckily we had the baby's bed time as a good excuse.

On the way home I asked my daughters if they had fun. Initially my oldest responded with a "yes" and then followed it up with "but those girls weren't really all that nice since they didn't let me in their fort". I told her that she did a great job being open to playing with new people, and that she did the right thing in handling the situation.

Instead of whining about it or coming to me crying, she just stuck with it. And then she realized on her own that it wasn't worth it. I commended her for being able to work through the situation and take care of herself.

This was one of those times when I was glad that I have spent so much of my own blood, sweat and tears pumping her up. She needed it. In the end, I think it helped her through.

Albeit a rare day when my daughter is in this kind of situation, I was glad I was there to see what happened. There will be so many more times like this in her future (hopefully the distant future), when I won't be there to make sure she is okay.

In the meantime I will continue to build and fortify. And make any repairs as they become necessary.

Now if only we could repair all those little tears in my heart just as quickly, we'd be in good shape.

It's a Princess Life for Me

At bedtime, after we read a couple books to our daughters, we let our oldest have “night-light time”. The 3 year old also gets night-light time, since they share a room, but she has to turn her light off after she looks at one book. My oldest then keeps her light on and reads for about 30 minutes. Or until we tell her time’s up.

Last night, when I went to say good night and give the 5 minute warning for lights-out, I see that my oldest daughter has taking a little creative license with her night-light time.

She has hunted down 15 specific books (which you would know is a project in itself if you have ever seen the book case in their room) and has categorized them.

Leaning against the wall are two Olivia books, three Fancy Nancy books, two books about the color pink, and eight books about princesses.

Not only are they each in their own little themed stack propped up against the wall, but each stack is labeled. There is a note sticking out of the first book in each pile that says their category type and the quantity for that type, all printed in her lovely Kindergarten scratch.

I inquire about her mini library, and she informs me of her project. She tells me she had a couple of them to read, and then she realized there were themes, so she looked and looked until she found the ones that she knew were in these categories.

“We have the most princess books,” she says. “Which is good, because those are my favorite.”

A big smile takes over my face and I kiss her good night.

Huh.

An overly organized, project-driven girl that prefers the princess life.

I have no idea where she gets it.

Pants on Fire

There has been a rash of graffiti in our house lately. It seems as though my oldest has discovered the power of the pen. Now that she can write, she feels compelled to do it everywhere.

It started out on pillows and cushions (that are in our play room, not the living room, thankfully). Then it spread to her hands, her sister’s hands, and any willing victim within striking distance of her marker. Most of these were just doodles and marks, without a lot of meaning.

Next was the baby gate at the top of the stairs. Along the top of the wooden gate was written “Come Enzo. Sit Enzo. Stay Enzo. Lie down Enzo.” Not sure where this tribute to the dog came from, but apparently there was a dire need to get it out in green marker.

After making her clean it up, I told her one more incident and she would lose any chance of a play date for a few days. Of course, we are in the middle of a play date-less week right now because she popped out of bed one too many times the other night at bedtime.

So fast forward to the next day and we are making thank you cards outside. Pens, glue sticks, paper, and lots of wind. Really good idea I had.

Upon clean up, I realize a piece of paper has been glued to the wooden bench we were sitting on. I immediately say “Who did this?”

“Not me,” my oldest says, with an entirely straight face. My internal lie detector fails to go off so I ask the other suspect.

“It wasn’t me, mommy,” insists my younger daughter. Now I am wondering what’s going on. My youngest doesn’t lie (yet), and my oldest is a terrible liar. She’s all smirks and giggles.

I ask my oldest again. Again she insists it wasn’t her. And again, no beeps from my maternal lie detector.

Here we go back to the youngest. Another denial.

Now I’m sure it was my oldest. Which REALLY concerns me because she just passed of a great lie. And not once, but twice.

After peeling off more of the paper, I see that there are words written on the bench underneath. Then there are lines on top of the words as if they were scratched out.

Aha. Now I see. She wrote on the bench, then scratched it out, as if this would make it go away. When that didn’t work, she glued paper over it as a last ditch effort to cover her tracks.

The kicker here is that I had JUST reminded her not to write on anything but paper mere minutes before this incident occurred. And she even thanked me for reminding her!

But apparently that little voice in her head telling her to spread the written word was louder than mine. No wonder she just got the "Author Award" in her Kindergarten class. I guess her teacher doesn't know that she's been writing a novel - all over our house.

Now that I have her cornered, she admits to it and says she didn’t want to get in trouble, so she lied.

I explain to her what her actions mean to me. And I tell her that she loses two more days of possible play dates for writing on the bench, and another three more for lying about it.

She huffs and puffs but eventually concedes.

I guess if I have to choose between the doodling or the lying, I’ll take the graffiti any day. This doesn’t bode well for the “tween” years that are looming ahead.

Is this the end of the innocence?

Damn, if she would only have smirked a little.

Familiar Sounds

Three year olds are a lot of fun. They are so simple and innocent, especially when compared to older siblings. The tantrums I could do without, but the rest is pretty darn cute.

My three year old likes to keep up with her big sister. So we get a lot of "Look at this!" going on around here. She shows us all kinds of wonders of the world, like how she can point her toes, bend over and lean on her head, or jump in the air. Real amazing stuff.

But we always humor her and say "Wow!'" and "Good job!" so she knows that she is not forgotten.

Except sometimes she is sort of forgotten. She will be showing off her talents and I will be in the middle of changing a diaper or pulling dog food out of my son's mouth, and I just can't give her the attention she wants. When that happens, I give the "Uh-huh, that's great! You are doing a good job!" response, withouth even looking at her. I know it's not ideal, but sometimes it's all I've got.

Apparently I do this quite often. And my oldest has noticed.

Yesterday we are in the kitchen and my oldest is digging through the "gum drawer". Yes, we have one, no it's not FULL of gum, yes it's sugarless, and yes I swore I would never keep that much gum in the house that it needed its own drawer, but that is neither here nor there.

So here is my oldest, doing her own thing, and me doing my own thing that I think involved emptying the dishwasher. And my youngest is saying "Look at me sissy! Look at me sissy!" and trying to show her big sister another one of her astounding feats.

And without skipping a beat, while her nose is deep in the search for watermelon Trident, my oldest says "Yea, uh-huh, that's great. Really excellent. Good job," without an ounce of inflection in her voice and not even a peep sent her sister's way.

I totally cracked up. I couldn't help it. When you hear yourself echoed back to you in the voice of a six year old, you just have to laugh. Which then made her laugh. And I had to call her on it, admitting that she must see me do that all too often. Which made us laugh a little more.

And there's my younger daughter, still showing us her trick.

Ah, the innocence.

I'm Not Sure I'll Ever Be Ready

Here we go again. The curiousity around tampons continues to build.

The other day I walk into my bathroom and find my daughters with mischievous looks on their faces.

"What's going on?" I ask.

My 3 year old holds up one end (yes, only one end with no string in sight) of a yellow plastic tampon applicator and asks, "What's this?"

It takes it a second to register what she is holding, and then it hits me like a box of Kotex. I panic as I think she has reached into the garbage to pluck out this little curio. Then I relax a little when I realize that my housecleaners have just left so the garbage is empty.

I ask "Where did you get that?"

"From sissy," she says.

So I ask my oldest about it and she says "I just unwrapped it. She's the one that took it apart."

My mind races. What to do, what to do? Make up something? A little white lie never hurt, right?

Then I think, okay, here's my chance to just put it out there and end the curiosity.

"This is a tampon," I say to my oldest. "Remember when you were asking me about them before? Well, this is it."

"What's it for?" she asks.

"It's for...it's a...they're for...," I stammer.

Oh Lordy. How can I explain this? There is just no way I can spin it that would not scare the begeezus out of her. Let alone her little sister that is listening in. No matter how you look at it, bleeding for 7 days from your vagina (close enough for explanation purposes) just ain't a happy topic.

I mean we just got passed the stage of putting a band aid on every injury, even those of a bloodless nature. Imagine the fright of realizing that she is headed right toward this red sea and there is no way of stopping it from happening to her, and no way to tell when it will appear and become a part of her life for many, many years. Every month, no less.

I can already hear the 2am nightmare screams from her room "Mommy! The blood was everywhere! I was dreaming about perioding!!”

Nope. There's just no way I'm ready for this conversation.

So I settle for this: "It's just something that grown up women need. And you don't need to worry about it until you are a grown up. So please just leave them alone and when you are old enough we'll talk about it. And DON'T PLAY WITH THEM AGAIN. It's not a toy."

I really don't know how I'm going to go about this when the time comes, but I guess I'll have to deal with it sometime. Just not this week.

And until then, I'll be putting that box of tampons someplace a little less obvious, starting next month.

Safety First

Apparently my 3 year old daughter is teaching the safety class at the School of Mom. Here is the sage advice she offered me today. Yes, this was all in the course of a few hours.

While driving in the car, I reach to the back seat and hand her an animal cracker.

“Thanks mom. But don’t look at me, mom,” she says.

I wasn’t actually looking at her at the moment, just handing her the cookie blindly. Thinking that she said this because she was doing something 'bad', which is usually when she uses this sentence, I ask the obvious follow up question: “Why?”

“Because you don’t want to get in an accident,” she states.

Oh, of course.

And she follows it up with “You can look at me in the mirror if you want.”

What a smart idea, wee one.

Later on, while playing in the family room where her little brother was busy at work taking things apart and generally making a mess, she exits the room, goes through the room I am sitting in with her older sister, and goes to the bathroom.

A few seconds later, I hear her little voice from the potty asking “Mom, can you check on little brother for me?”

Why yes, that would be a good idea too.

And still later, while I was helping my oldest fix something with staples in it, I put a staple in that always-available spot for holding things when your hands are full or you don’t want to put something on the floor. Yes, in between my lips. I just wanted it off the floor and out of reach from little hands.

My 3 year old sees this and says “Mom, don’t swallow that. You could choke and that would be bad.”

Yes, that would be bad, oh-wise-one.

Learning from you well I am.

Goose Bumps Schmoose Bumps

This was the second week in a row that I used a Friday morning to have time with just my 3 year old daughter and myself. If we go to our athletic club, I can check in my son at the day care. Then we can swim and hang out, just her and me. Our activities are a little limited to the pool, but that's not too bad if the weather's nice. And the water is always warm.

It’s sad to say that I could have been doing this MUCH sooner, but hey, better a year late than never. And even if it is only one hour, it’s all hers. Which says a lot when you have three young kids (oh, and don’t forget the dog, like I usually do).

Unfortunately my younger daughter hasn’t had a lot of one-on-one time in the last year. She had a lot when she was an infant and her sister was in preschool. And then that whittled down when she turned two and started preschool herself. And then it pretty much turned to dust when we had our third child a year ago.

Plus, I wasn’t going to be caught dead in a swim suit last summer after having a baby in May. No way, no how.

Anyway, back to the pool. We aren’t having the greatest weather around here lately, although I really shouldn’t be complaining. But the mornings are in the 50’s and overcast, which can make for chilly weather for bathing suits.

After we change out of our long sleeves and pants and into our suits, goose bumps start rippling over my limbs and I am beginning to dread this commitment. The joy and fun from last week’s outing are a distant memory and I am thinking that I’d really rather be reading a magazine exercising all by myself with both kids checked in to the day care.

Then I see a fellow mom friend who remarks that I am brave to take my daughter out in this weather and swim with her myself, without a lesson lined up.

As we get to the pool, one of the instructors in the middle of giving a lesson also calls me brave and says she wouldn’t be here if they weren’t paying her.

These comments are not really building the anticipation for me. Now I really don’t want to be swimming. Bless my daughter’s heart, but it’s not personal. I just want to be warm and lazy. And alone. It’s the end of the week and I’m ready to start a weekend of ‘daddy time’.

But I use my own best advice and buck up.

My daughter and I shed our towels and dip our toes in the water. We agree it’s not bad and then gradually enter the pool.

The 85 degrees washes over us and we swim for shelter in the warm water.

Then the giggles begin. And her radiant smile beams as we swim and splash and play.

I get unsolicited nose kisses and lots of hugs. I smile and laugh as I watch her unhindered love and enthusiasm reveal itself on her face.

She sings made up songs and laughs. She laughs so loud I have to actually tell her to try to laugh a little softer because it’s making an echo and might distract one of the other kids getting lessons.

Then we follow that play time up with a hot shower and a snack.

Perfection.

Yes, I remember why I said I would do this.

Because it’s a great way to start your day.