Posted by Kimberly on April 17th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the unexpected bonuses of changing schools this year has been the discovery that there really are kids around here. A whole neighbourhood of them, actually. And right in our backyard!
In the four years we’ve lived here, who knew?
Well, I suppose I always knew there were kids around here, but up until now Diva Girl’s social life has always taken place on the other side of the street–the drawback of a school boundary waiver being that nobody lives where you do. Our top floor address has probably also kept Sabrina out of the mix around here. Not that living in the penthouse makes us too cool to play with the other kids; it’s just darned inconvenient to introduce your daughter to the neighbourhood kids when your baby needs to nap and the big kid just isn’t quite big enough to be out on her own.
Now, however, there is a whole complex full of kids Sabrina knows–kids who are in her class, kids she rides the bus with, kids she sees on the playground, everywhere we turn, more kids. And with the warm weather here and the sun finally making an appearance, they are all outside the minute they drop their backpacks and grab an afterschool snack.
Best of all, Diva Girl is right out there with them.
This year I’ve been trying to loosen the apronstrings enough to at least give the appearance of freedom and responsibility, so I have on occasion allowed her to go out an play without my direct supervision. She’s not really unsupervised–there are a couple of moms out there watching the smaller kids. Moms I’ve talked to enough at the bus stop or while watching our children playing together to feel confident that Brina will be safe while skipping or playing tag outside, even if mine is not the maternal eye under which she is being watched.
Diva Girl doesn’t know that, however. To her mind, she is finally Big Enough to be a Big Kid and she is thrilled. These days she can barely wait to get out and get playing with her friends–There are balls to bounce, places to hide, ropes to jump, and bikes to ride. What there is not is time to wait for her mom and pokey baby sister to tag along with her. She’s much too cool for that now.
I thought it would be harder, watching her run away from me like this. Mostly though, I’m happy for her. Watching her run and shriek and laugh with a gaggle of other children, my heart swells and any sadness over my baby growing up and leaving me behind is wiped away by my satisfaction with how she is growing up–happy, healthy, and unfettered by most of the baggage that comes from living in the 21st Century with a mom who is parenting without a license.
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Posted by Kimberly on April 16th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the perks of being an adult is supposed to be finally having the ability to eat what you want, when you want it. I mean, who among us has not indulged in popcorn for dinner or pizza for breakfast? What nobody tells you about though is The Kid Clause.
Sure, you can eat whatever you want while you’re living the Carrie Bradshaw life, but once kids enter the picture–and get old enough to notice what Mommy is up to–it’s a whole new ballgame of modeling good eating habits and making sure that Hostess, Lays, Hagen Daz, and Hershey aren’t the names of your four basic food groups. Suddenly it’s all breakfast is the most important meal of the day and dessert after dinner.
We’re having one of those dinners tonight. You know the kind–even though the kids choose the menu, they’re still being pains about eating it. Whining about it. It doesn’t “taste” right. It’s tuna. From a can. How “not right” can it taste??? And of course, with at least half of the dinner I slaved over still on the plate (seriously, that can opener is hard to turn!), they have the nerve to ask for ice cream.
It’s not just that they’re asking for ice cream. Really, that’s just par for the course. The problem here is that I also want ice cream. But, since they can’t have ice cream until they finish their dinners, I can’t have ice cream.
And I finished my dinner. It’s not fair!
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Posted by Kimberly on April 14th, 2008 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
The Zen Baby has a boo boo and apparently it is all. my. fault.
I never told her, you see, that it is a bad idea to stick your finger on a lightbulb.
How could I possibly have been so negligent?
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Posted by Kimberly on April 3rd, 2008 — Posted in Diva Girl, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat
I’ve noticed in the past year or so the term “Helicopter Parent” has become part of the parenting lexicon, a label used to describe those overly invested parents who micromanage their kids’ lives–and especially their schoolwork–to the point of pretty much doing everything for them. Other than rolling my eyes at the idea, I’ve pretty much ignored the phenomenon because, well, clearly that’s not me: I’m a very hands off parent, especially when it comes to school; I’ve always believed in allowing Diva Girl to succeed or fail on her own merits rather than making it all about me.
It’s been a conscious choice, this hands off policy I have towards Sabrina’s academic achievement. I recognized early on that one of the more complicated aspects of balancing my career with my children–beyond the daycare juggling, working mom guilt, and other every day concerns of every working mom–would be resisting the impulse to turn my daughter into my student.
Teachers are in a uniquely difficult position when it comes to the education of their children–we have an insider’s understanding of the system and what is required to succeed, which makes it that makes it that much more difficult to refrain from stepping in to ensure that our little preshus gets the best grade possible. It’s a very tempting, very slippery slope, and one that I have no desire to slide down, so I’ve always made an effort to keep home and school separate when it comes to Diva Girl.
For the most part, it’s worked pretty well. Sure, I’ve been tempted to get involved in an assignment or two, confident that I could make it that much better, but the ability to recognize how fundamentally wrong that statement is has always been enough to stop the helicopter blades from rotating before they achieve lift off. Of course, the fact that Diva Girl has always shown herself capable of getting her As and Bs all on her own has made it easier for me to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground and focus more on encouraging her to do her best than what that best is deemed to be.
Until now.
For the first time, Sabrina has brought home a report card filled not with As and Bs, but with Cs and it is challenging everything I believed about myself as the parent of a school aged child. I used to believe that I didn’t put a lot of stock in grades, that Diva Girl’s willingness to put forth her best effort in any given area far outweighed any achievement in my eyes. How then to reconcile a report card that was–to my mind at least–not good enough with my oft-spouted philosophy that your best is always good enough, no matter what the numbers say? Especially when I do believe that despite the lackluster results, she is trying. However I also believe that my daughter is not a C student–two facts that unfortunately seem to be in direct contradiction with each other, given the evidence marching down the report card page.
All of my self-delusions about my lack of unhealthy investment in Sabrina’s school progress came crashing down as I held that report card in my hands, speechless in the face of this unexpectedly lackluster achievement. To be perfectly honest, each C felt like a personal affront–as though they were an indictment of my ability to parent rather than an assessment of Sabrina’s math and reading ability. In other words, as I processed that report, my maternal rotors started turning.
And then my Diva Girl brought me crashing back to Earth with one simple question, “Are you disappointed in me?”
Normally by now I would have already told her how proud I was of her and commented on her various achievements as reported by her teachers. Clearly th fact that I hadn’t done that this time spoke of my disappointment as loudly as if I’d shouted it at her. And looking at all those Cs, I thought about shouting. Looking into those big hazel eyes, however, I thought about how, in the grand scheme of things, a couple of Cs on a fourth grade report card isn’t really that big of a deal and about how my sense of self worth as the parent of a Good Student paled in comparison to my child’s sense of self worth as a Good Person, regardless of her achievements as a student.
I don’t want this not even failure to define my daughter’s sense of who she is and what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. While I clearly do not want her to believe that she is a C student, I also don’t want her to think that a C isn’t good enough when she’s giving it all she’s got.
So that’s what we talked about this time–what she thinks she can accomplish and how she can better meet those goals. And of course, as always, we talked about how proud I am of her and how confident I am that she can conquer the world if only she puts her mind to it. What we didn’t do was climb on board my mommycopter –not because I didn’t want to enact a rescue mission, but because even though it’s what I want, I’m still rational enough to know that it’s not what she needs.
Sure, I want to see Sabrina take to the skies and soar, but only if she’s the one at the controls.
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Posted by Kimberly on April 1st, 2008 — Posted in Kipple, Just Like Riding A Bicycle, The Man I Didn't Marry
The Man I Didn’t Marry gave me a ring for my birthday.
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