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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Posted by Kimberly on March 31st, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to come up with something to write about today, but what I find myself thinking about is all the things I haven’t written about in the past few months. All the milestones and moments that have passed by unrecognized and unremarked on as I sit trapped inside my own personal Bell Jar.
There was Facebook Guy’s party, Best described as “Home by 11 and it wasn’t even a school night.” First I got lost 2 blocks from his house and had to call a cab to get there Then, about an hour later, I fled the scene (also via cab). I tried, I really did. But the only person I knew in the whole crowd was Facebook Guy, and he was busy hosting. I tried to talk to people, and even made a new Facebook Friend, but after a while, I could just feel the panic starting to set in and I had to leave.
Oh yes, the panic attacks.
They’re not exactly panic attacks. Certainly not the fullblown, oh my god I forgot how to breathe! variety I was subject to during the Oncology Odyssey. But lately I’ve found that when I’m out on my own I can feel that sort of hyperventilating feeling stirring in the back of my head. Fortunately, it’s not like I get out much, so it’s really not that much of an issue.
Regan turned four nearly a month ago now and I have yet to talk about how that makes me feel. My baby is four. And no longer much of a baby at all. She is, in nearly all respects, a Big Girl now. And much though I love watching her grow up, I cannot help but mourn the loss of the baby she was–an attitude that feels ungrateful at best, if not flat out tempting fate.
There are experiences both big and small that have fallen by the wayside. Blog fodder that has not been forgotten rather than shaped into an amusing or heartwrenching anecdote for the internets. On the one hand, the argument could be made that it’s healthy to concentrate on living life instead of constantly reflecting on it, but really, didn’t someone say that the unexamined life is not worth living? I wouldn’t go that far, but it sure is more fun to turn it into a series of amusing stories than to simply sit around in pjs all day waiting for the next thing to happen.
Plus, I’m feeling guilty–a feeling that often goes hand in hand with depression. In my case, I’m feeling like I’m failing The Ladies not only in not creating enough moments for them, but also in not preserving the moments we do have. So, when I do blog, I feel like I’m spending too much time thinking about my life and not enough time living it. And when I don’t blog, I feel like I’m letting those moments go too easily.
So, Depression 962 Kimberly 2.
But still fighting. There’s that.
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Posted by Kimberly on March 25th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but when The Zen Baby asks me a question, I generally try to answer it with the correct information. I don’t whip out the flashcards or anything, but I figure, “hey, she asked. Might as well take the opportunity to teach her something.” Of course, in the way of all children, oftentimes I am the one who ends up learning a lesson. In this case, that the preschooler answer key is very much like the toddler answer key.
Case in point, our recent scientific discussion:
“Mama, what is the sun made out of?”
“Gas.”
“No, really what is the sun made out of?”
“Really, it’s made out of gas. A big ball of flaming gas.”
“Mama! Not that sun! The sun in the sky! What’s it made out of?”
“Oh, that sun. It’s made out of sunshine.”
“I thought so.”
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Posted by Kimberly on March 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the best things about having kids is that, if you’re lucky, you get to relive treasured moments from your childhood. Holidays are especially good for this. Christmas and Easter are once again infused with a magic that moves them beyond the realm of mundane, crass commercialism they descend into once the cat is out of the bag and all the secrets are told; that you are now the one trusted with the keeping of that secret makes it that much more precious and exciting a time in your life.
Next to stuffing Christmas stockings, filling Easter baskets is my favourite holiday tradition. I love the sense of power I get as I fill each tiny plastic egg with trinkets and nestle it safely into the plastic “grass” that I will be picking out of my vacuum cleaner rollers for months to come. This, to me, is a Motherhood Moment. These necklaces, lipglosses, hair ponies, and pinwheels are more than the detritus of another Christian holiday sell out: they are my Ph.D thesis in Zen Baby and Diva Girl.
Each item, from the types of candy to the colours of the eggs is chosen with care, designed to express both just how much I love my girls and how well I know them. Much like Santa Claus–and very unlike Mommy–The Bunny never disappoints. The Bunny always knows exactly what to leave, even if The Ladies themselves had no idea that it was just what they wanted.
I’ve just finished filling this year’s basket, and in doing so have skyrocketed straight past bone deep exhaustion into breathless anticipation. I cannot wait for the sun to rise and my girls to begin to discover the goodies that await them. And even though I won’t get any of the credit as they crack open their eggs and show me their treasures, I will get the ultimate reward of knowing that someday, when they are filling Easter baskets of their own, they will look back on this time and think, “Boy, Mom really knew us; and how much must she have loved us, to have done this year after year, always saving the good presents for the characters who didn’t really exist, except in the way she kept them alive for us.”
This Easter is all the more sweet because Sabrina is on the brink of the age of unbelieving. Right now Santa, The Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are all still alive and well in her world, but soon that magic will disappear for her, dimming mine in the process. So, while I still can, I am grateful that I get to weave a spell that will leave my children too thrilled to sleep past dawn. There will be plenty of time for that in the years to come and too few mornings like tomorrow’s to balance out the scale. So, while I can, I choose to embrace the magic–even if it does cut into my beauty sleep.
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Posted by Kimberly on March 13th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Sure, it might be nice to head down south for March Break. To take a break from the windchill and the snowstorms to frolic on a beach instead of vacationing in our own backyard (so to speak). But then, if we did that, we would have missed sights like this one, the magical winter fairyland that followed us down the highway from home straight up to the American border. And that wouldn’t have been worth the flight into sunshine.
I have to admit, I was dreading this March Break. Given the way I’ve been barely hanging on even with the luxury of having Diva Girl away at school five days a week, the very idea of a full nine days home with both of The Ladies made me want to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head for the week. Which in turn made me feel even worse about everything; nobody wants to start each day with her children marking the hours until bedtime, after all.
But that’s where I was afraid we were heading: a full week spent drowning in kid crap, refereeing sibling rivalries, and doing the broken record routine with the house rules–all set to a soundtrack of Hannah Montana.
Instead, we piled into my parents’ car for another family road trip.
I have to say, when I stop and think about how well traveled The Ladies are–this past year alone they’ve been to Niagara Falls, The Atlantic Provinces and Eastern Seaboard, the Toronto Zoo, and Northern Michigan (twice)–it fills me with pride as a mother. I love knowing that my children are not missing out, that even though on paper we linger around the poverty line, in reality their lives are full and rich and brimming with experience.
I also know that I have my parents to thank for a large part of those experiences. It’s not just the driving I’m grateful for, though. Or the willingness to share a hotel room. It’s the memories.
It’s the time spent with Grampa in the hotel pool. It’s the multiple trips to see the Easter Bunny. It’s hearing the Zen Baby order “Miley Cyrus faces” for dinner and having someone to share it with.
It’s about having a family. And about knowing that however much I may feel like I need to get away, when it comes right down to it I’d rather get away with them than get away from them.
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Posted by Kimberly on March 9th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Everyone has their parenting line–the point where they are totally skeeved out and just would rather really avoid the whole experience. For some, it’s the poop. For others it’s the needles, or the blood. Me, I’m fine with all that. I mean, it’s not like I’ve particularly enjoyed my education in the seemingly endless permutations of poop. And I really, really hate needles, but you do what you gotta. And the blood? Well, fortunately we’ve not really had a lot of that to deal with.
My line is the teeth. Loose teeth, specifically. They give me the willies; there are few things that make me cringe more than being asked to observe some child proudly twisting a tooth around by that last stubborn thread. Unfortunately, when you are a parent, the loose teeth are just as unavoidable as the poop in the bathtub.
I’ve been doing a pretty good job of just sucking it up since the Tooth Fairy started visiting our house a few years ago. I’ve kept the revulsion relatively under wraps and feigned enthusiasm when greeted with the dread “I’ve got a loosth toof!” announcement. I have even, on occasion, helped the Tooth Fairy out by playing midwife to some particularly stubborn baby teeth. Which is gross, but sometimes anything is better than the incessant whining about how wiggly it is.
Or so I though until last night when I ended up spending over three hours in the ER all because I “helped” Diva Girl’s maddeningly stubborn baby molar along on its journey to the garbage can Tooth Fairyland.
Now, ER trips are just as inevitable part of parenting as the poop, the blood, and the teeth. It’s just understood when you have kids that at some point, you are going to spend time in the emergency room. While I’m not the type of mother who goes running off to the doctor at the slightest sniffle or owie, I wouldn’t say I’m a “go rub some dirt on it” kind of parent, either. So, it really wasn’t blind maternal panic that lead us to the ER in a snowstorm after I saw all the blood welling up in Diva Girl’s mouth and what looked to be the root of her tooth still embedded in her gum.
I’ve not had a lot of experience with lost teeth. Other than DIva Girl’s, I mean. Most of my baby teeth were pulled by the dentist, so I don’t have a lot to drawn on when it comes to what is normal in the dental realm. I probably would have assumed that what I was seeing was just the new tooth poking its way up if not for the fact that what I held in my had appeared to be just the crown, with no root attached. Staring at that little piece of enamel, I started worrying about exposed nerves, abcesses, infection….
Three hours of 20 Questions, Rock Paper, Scissors, and Dix, a resident, an attending, and a consult with Tom, the on-call emergency dentist that ended in ME taking the dental x-ray in the deserted clinic later, we had an official diagnosis: I am a nelly.
Apparently, what I saw in her mouth was the top prong of her shiny new adult molar. And baby molars are supposed to look like that when they come out.
Good to know, since we’ll be losing about 6 more of them before the tooth fairy can finally hang up her wings. But embarrassing to require a trip to the ER to find it out. I think I’m all done with the amateur dentistry though. From now on, this Tooth Fairy is strictly about leaving the money and will be leaving them alone (except to dispose of them, of course. What is up with that whole keeping the teeth thing? Seriously, ewwww.)
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