Posted by Kimberly on June 24th, 2008 — Posted in Zen Baby, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat
Between getting back into the swing of things at work and starting to get a handle on Diva Girl’s issues, I’ve been letting some things slide around here. Like…um….Kindergarten registration. Which was technically back in February.
Why yes, I have been putting off registering my youngest child for school for the past four months. Is that problematic, do you think?
I didn’t do it on purpose. There was no active plan to avoid the whole thing. It just never really felt like a priority is all. Even when Sabrina came home with a message from the Principal telling me I should “just come on down and sign her up,” it was always something that could happen another day; it didn’t have to be today.
Except today, it kinda did. What with it being the second to last day of school and all. Suddenly, getting the Zen Baby’s papers in order seemed a whole lot more important than it had yesterday.
Unfortunately, the urgency did nothing to lessen the trauma of the event.
My baby is going to kindergarten!!!!!
Ok, sure it’s still 69 days away. But still, MY BABY IS GOING TO KINDERGARTEN.
I know, I know. She’s not the first baby to be headed off to school. But she is my last baby to head off. And somehow, the fact that she’s a full year older than her sister was the first time we packed her Barbie backpack with her brand new pointy crayons and filled her Disney Princess lunchbox with nutritious snacks and headed off to meet her teacher isn’t really making it any easier to accept that my baby is going to school.
Regan is over moon at the idea of finally following her big sister onto the bus. She has been dancing all day, constantly reminding us that after this summer vacation, she gets to go back to school too. No fear or uncertainty here. The Zen Baby is good to go.
Which thrills me, truly. After all, this is the child I used to describe as “painfully shy.” Who had me googling “selective mutism” before she finally started to speak again post tumour. This is the child whose inability to deal with the world at large–and especially all the people in it–made is necessary for me to take an entire year off of work to help her work that out. This is the little girl who literally lived beside my right leg. Even now, I look down, expecting her to be there, right beside me. But she’s not anymore. Now, rather than cringing in fear beside me, or watching from the safety of Mama’s Personal Bubble, she is racing away from me to join in the fray. And nothing quite brings that home like realizing that not only is my baby going to kindergarten, she’s ready for it.
But she’s my baby. And she’s going to kindergarten. And as happy as I am for her, as thrilled as I am that she is not only going to be able to do this, she’s going to rock the socks off of it, I’m allowed to be a little bit sad. Because she’s my baby. And she’s going to kindergarten.
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Posted by Kimberly on June 22nd, 2008 — Posted in The Ladies, Diva Girl, Zen Baby, Kipple, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat
What do you when you want to eat the children? Turn them into cotton candy confections, of course!
I’ve had some Hannah Montana Hair Colour Sticks tucked away for a while now. When I bought them, I thought that it would be a fun First Day of Summer Vacation project to (temporarily and with a product guaranteed to wash right out) dye The Ladies’ hair funky colours. Last night, as I was contemplating eating my own young, my gaze fell on these stick and I thought, “why not.”
Yes, I was still Very. Angry. with Diva Girl. Forget ebay, I would have happily PAID to have her tweenilcious self taken off my hands. But seething anger and resentment wasn’t really getting either of us anywhere, and I didn’t really see that ending soon without one of us making some sort of grand gesture to end the hostilities. And I think we all know that it wasn’t going to be her; even if she had, if we’re being honest here, it’s not like I was in any mood to accept any sort of peace offering anyway. So, it was up to me to make the move and pull us all out of the pit into which we’d descended over the course of one spectacularly crappy day.
One would think that showering a child whose staggering sense of entitlement and lack of gratitude had caused many of the day’s conflicts would be counterintuitive, but it seemed to work. United in our common project, the stresses, slights, and slurs of the day fell away. She remembered that in addition to being the Meanest. Mom. Ever. I can also be the most fun and I remember that in addition to being a raging brat, my oldest daughter is also funny, fun, and kind of cool.
Regan was just happy that the yelling stopped. The pretty colours in her hair were just gravy, so far as she was concerned.
So yeah, no regrets over either giving one more gift to a child who didn’t seem able to appreciate what she already had, or about turning my children into something more likely to be found in a circus tent than a schoolroom Not even when Diva Girl reminded me that her class will be presenting the end of school mass on Tuesday. At which she’s doing the reading.
Because could there be a more literal representation of the direction “Be joyful in hope” than these two? What’s more joyful than being allowed to dye your hair hot pink and electric blue three days before school ends? And what’s more hopeful than the mother who allows it?
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Posted by Kimberly on May 29th, 2008 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
I’ve never participated in the Shape of A Mother project. I’ve read the stories and seen the pictures and applauded the idea of taking pride in our postpartum bodies as they are and not as the media would like us to believe they should be, but I’ve never felt compelled to submit my own struggle to embrace my maternal self.
Mostly, I guess I figured that I didn’t really have any issues. Not that I don’t have the same stretch marks, widened hips and residual 5 lbs that nearly every mother carries with her–I ballooned from 117 to 168 lbs with Diva Girl so trust me, I’ve got stretchmarks! It’s just that as a former “Fat Girl” gone tiny, I’d worked through a lot of my body stuff before I ever got knocked up. Or, at least I thought I had; the fact that nearly a decade later I still have total recall of those two numbers might possibly tell a different tale–one that is written by the stretchmarks scrawled across my belly.
Like many women, I’ve dealt with this scarred swathe of skin through the simple expedient of hysterical blindness. It’s not that I’m in denial about those sagging abdominal muscles and the roadmap of white lines that criss cross the; I know they’re there all right. But much like my red hair, freckles, and the mole behind my right knee, they are simply a part of the natural landscape of my body–something so familiar that I barely notice it anymore.
Regan, however, is four and therefore honourbound to notice everything–including the lines marring my belly that serve as a permanent reminder of the time I carried her (and her sister) under my heart as well as in it.
“What’s that?” She asks, pointing to the ruined skin.
How do you explain stretchmarks to preschooler? Especially one who bears her own scars on her belly?
“That’s where you pushed out all the skin when you were inside my fat tummy!” I answer with a smile and a tickle.
She giggles at this image, charmed as all children her age are that someone as big as themselves once lived in there. Then, in a gesture that takes my breath away with its gorgeous simplicity, she leans over and kisses those marks–and in doing so, heals wounds I didn’t even know I had.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 12th, 2008 — Posted in The Ladies, Diva Girl, Zen Baby, Kipple
Mother’s Day really isn’t a big deal to me. I of course make sure to honour my own mother with a specially chosen mushy card and token of my affection, appreciation, respect, but for myself the day is a bit of a wash. Solo moms are rarely gifted with tiny velvet boxes and our kisses tend to begin with the kids, not Kay, so the anticipation factor tends to be fairly low–limited to whatever teacher generated craft has come home this year.
Not that the crafts aren’t lovely, wonderful, meaningful, blah blah blah…But really….It’s not like the kid thought this stuff up on her own. And after the “Mom&Me Cookies” debacle back in the first grade, when I was presented with a jar of dry ingredients, a recipe, and an overexcited six year old who spent the entire day nagging me to essentially make my own damn gift, I’ve kinda been soured on the whole teacher-driven maternal appreciation thing.
So, since it seems somehow tacky to encourage the children to remember to tell me how much I rock, I pretty much just let Mother’s Day go except for using it as an excuse to buy myself something pretty. It’s not like I really need the cards and flowers to know that I’m a great mom and they love me, and really, if I have to ask for them, I don’t want them at all. Needless to say, my expectations for this year were, as always, fairly low. I was planning on calling it a red letter day if I got to sleep past 8.
Motherhood is nothing if not surprising, however. And sometimes, even when they make you cry, they are even good surprises.
That, my friends, is my Diva Girl, growing up before our very eyes. Up until now, she’s been reasonably oblivious to the whole Mday experience; like most kids, any occasion that is not designed to culminate in her being showered with gifts doesn’t tend to figure high on her list of priorities. This year, however, for the first time my daughter celebrated Mother’s Day without any external prompting. According to my Mom, who witnessed this little project in the making, it was all Diva directed–she decided on the shape and picture for the card, and then spent an hour with the Zen Baby working on her sister’s poem before creating her own ode to my maternal awesomeness.
You know, little velvet boxes are nice (I got one of those too–also Sabrina’s idea), but they really can’t hold a candle to the genuine love that shines through a poem that contains a line thanking you for letting the kid play in your room. I never really realized just how much I’ve missed getting a Mother’s Day card all these years until I held that painstakingly created cardboard butterfly in my hands on Sunday morning. But that’s ok, because those two poems, a decade in the making, were totally worth the wait.
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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 December 27th, 2007 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
Regan: “You wanna know why Bina gave me Princess Luciana for Christmas, Mama?”
Me: “Why?”
Regan: “Because she loves me.”
Me (melting into a puddle of maternal goo and wanting to prolong the moment): “And why did you give her Princess Ro?”
Regan: “Because you told me to.”
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Posted by Kimberly on December 25th, 2007 — Posted in The Ladies, Diva Girl, Zen Baby, Kipple
Few things put the vastly different personalities of my daughters into stark relief like Christmas Morning.Diva Girl is a whirling dervish of excitement, blowing through the Christmas tree like the Tasmanian Devil on speed; The Zen Baby, not surprisingly, takes a more relaxed approach to the festivities.
Where Diva grabs her stocking and immediately unpends it all over the floor, thereby ensuring sensory overload what with the jumbled mess of toothbrushes, lipgloss, temporary tattoos and various odd and ends strewn about before her, Zen Baby is meticulous in her stocking excavation, each item withdrawn, examined, and exclaimed over before moving on to the next–until her sister grabs it and dumps it all over the floor for her, that is.
Within an hour of waking me up (at the crack of dark, but it’s one of the few times a year I don’t mind) and racing to the tree, Sabrina will have gone through all of her presents. Everything will have been catalogued, touched, and tested. Practically the minute she processes what the gift it, she’s moved on to the next thing. In her half of the room, the toys are scattered with reckless abandon, mixed, mingled, dropped where she was when the next thing caught her fancy. Regan, however, is still playing with the first toy she saw, and half of her packages remain ignored under the tree. It’s not that she’s not interested or lacking in gratitude, she just hasn’t gotten that far yet. She will, given time (and the mom-imposed restraint shown by her big sister), but it’s just not a priority to her. She likes this toy, and she will savour it.
Two very different little girls with two very different approaches to presents, and I suspect, life in general. One who lives full throttle, out loud, determined to wring everything possible from every experience and constantly leaping before she looks, the other with the unique ability to immerse herself in life, to fully experience each moment before moving on to the next, and always careful to be sure exactly how high the ledge is before she jumps. Both perfect in their own ways.
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Posted by Kimberly on December 6th, 2007 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple, Scarlet Letters
“Yours can be the mum, Mummy, because you’re the Mum. And mine will be the baby because I’m the baby.”
We have a lot of books depicting all types of families, but the simple fact of the matter is, the overwhelming majority of children’s media promotes the traditional nuclear family concept: Mommy, Daddy, and Baby are clearly the main components of the family unit. One of the fun things about being part of a less than traditional family structure is watching how the standard taxonomy is often co-opted and manipulated to fit the experience of family the child understands, rather than those that are more commonly described. Regan has obviously internalized the accepted construct, but she’s clearly applying it according to her experience, in which family is a very female affair:
“And Bina’s can be the Daddy. You know, the girl daddy, because she’s a girl.”
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Posted by Kimberly on November 20th, 2007 — Posted in Zen Baby, NaBloPoMo
You know, I thought the epic three year old tantrum would be easier to endure from an actual three year old.
Yeah, not so much. Turns out it’s just as irritating when the irrationality is completely age appropriate.
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Posted by Kimberly on October 25th, 2007 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
I know the whole idea that the full moon has a freaky mojo over people is supposed to be worthless superstition, but I have to admit that after more than eight years as a parent, I’m a believer. It’s the only explanation I can think of for the fact that The Zen Baby is having more of an Exorcist moment right now, and I find myself saying in my most soothing voice:
“I’m sorry your feelings are hurt, but it is not ok to put nailpolish in Mummy’s hair.”
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