“But Mom, I have to marry Zachary. He said if I don’t, he’ll be mean to me every day at school and he’ll bring a gun and I’ll be in jail. This is serious, Mom. Stop laughing!”
Never enough. Never, ever, enough.
We’re joined at the hip these days, these long hot summer days spent getting ready to move. There’s a rhythm to it: wake up slowly, pack a while, breakfast, play a bit, repeat. Between the hours of about 4 and 6 — right now, as it happens — it gets too close, when she’s got that frantic late-afternoon energy that plays out in spasms and I am too tired to conjure up patience or forbearance. We snap and fuss. Then it’s dinner time and the evening’s routine takes over and flows to bedtime and all is well.
So except for those spiky windows we’re good, so good that I’m fully in the paradox: the more time we spend together, the more time I crave. I truly cannot get enough.
Please excuse me, I need to go boil my house.
Our dog has ringworm.
Anna’s school sent home a notice today: several of her classmates have ringworm.
COINCIDENCE?
Every day’s a holiday
“We have to get an ice cream cake today.”
“Why?”
“Today is Daddy’s birthday.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So let’s get an ice cream cake.”
“Did he tell you that’s what he wants?”
“No. That’s what I want for Daddy’s birthday.”
Feeling sorry for the random 10-year-old boy who got ‘preschooled’ in the grocery store today
Mom, forgetting they are in public, to 10-year-old son: “Let’s go, Stinky. Dad’s waiting.”
Anna, immediately barnacling herself to the victim and following them all the way to the parking lot, when I finally used bodily force to intervene: “Stinky? STINKY! Your name is STINKY? Wow. That’s a GREAT name. STINKY STINKY STINKY. Do you like being called STINKY? I would! Can I be STINKY too? I’ll be STINKY ANNA. Are you STINKY something or just plain STINKY? Either one is SO COOL. STINKY STINKY STINKY. MOM! Guess what his name is???? IT’S STINKY!!!!
It’s the Valentine’s Pig!
Allan brought this balloon home for Anna for Valentine’s Day. She insists it is not a bear, but a pig.
Happy Pig Hugs, Everyone!
If 4-year-olds Ruled the Country
1. Daddies could fix anything.
2. School buildings would be razed to make room for expanded playgrounds. All lessons would take place in these new spaces and America would lead the world in education.
3. There would be no stigma attached to bedwetting; Victoria’s Secret and Calvin Klein would launch lines of sexy pull-ups.
4. Congress would override a veto by President Obama to institute the 28th Constitutional Amendment, which would ban baths. An underground movement led by bathing enthusiasts would see the rebirth of speakeasies, filled with bootleg bathtubs. Members would be required to show a special rubber ducky stamp for admission. No clubs would allow hair washing, however.
5. Twirly dresses and superhero costumes would be appropriate dress for any occasion.
6. There would be no need for negotiation at any level, because “I can do it on my own!”
7. The American flag would be recast in red, yellow, and blue.
8. Our nation’s capital would be moved from Washington, DC, to Disney World. The First Family would, of course, live in Cinderella’s castle.
9. Bikes would replace cars, solving the environmental crisis. Instead of professional football or baseball, crowds would gather to watch athletes compete on bicycles without training wheels.
10. Christmas would be celebrated once a month, and would be about Santa Claus only. There would be no religious connotations, because it’s all too hard to understand.
11. In a challenge to democracy, decisions would be decided by whoever could shout the loudest.
12. Nudity would be allowed anywhere, anytime, and giggling at each other’s ‘parts’ would be acceptable social behavior.
13. The news would be delivered in cartoon. The major networks would initiate a bidding war to lure Dora the Explorer and Spiderman to their evening anchor desks.
14. Current American currency would be replaced by stickers, which would be collected on charts and exchanged for goods and services. Stickers could be earned by such achievements as arriving at work within an hour of the time expected; eating everything on the dinner plate that is green; remembering to put one’s clothes in the hamper; holding hands when crossing the street without fussing about it; and remembering to wipe.
15. There would be a renewed interest in public art, specifically in the media of sticky jelly fingers, sand, and spilled milk. In London, the Tate Mod would premiere a 4′ x 500′ wall on which the public would be invited to leave their handprints, kissy-face prints, and nose prints.
Explaining Library Fines to a 4-year-old is as Impossible as it Sounds
Anna: Can we go to the lie-berry? I need to buy more books.
Me: Okay, we’ll go, but we don’t buy books at the library. We borrow them. Remember how we take them back when we’re finished?
Anna: Uh-huh. But if we’re just borrowing them, how come the lady never lets you have more until you give her money?
On penises and my daughter
Thinking of that word within six words of my daughter requires me to acknowledge, at least on some level, that she will one day grow up. NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo! But she threw me over that hurdle yesterday when she walked into the kitchen, pointed to the underside of the dog and said, “That’s his penis.”
Okay, she’s four, perfectly of an age to know the correct terms for anatomy. And she does, thankyouverymuch, for the ones that apply to her. It’s just that neither of us can recall addressing the other ones with her yet (see above re: acknowledging growing up) and so by all appearances it seems she just pulled that out of thin air. And it’s not the kind of subject, like ice cream flavors or the existence of Sasquatch, that I relish dropping out of thin air. On my kid.
So, the lesson for today: she’s gonna learn, you know, stuff, and ignoring said stuff won’t make that not happen so I’d best straighten up and teach her before she learns, you know, some other way.
Whew. I’m glad I got that one out of the way with just a vocabulary word. And a dog.
Sometimes someone else says it better than I ever could …
Working up to writing my own post about recognizing well into adulthood that my heart is not the abstract concept I thought it was, that goals and dreams can be 38″ tall and growing, that time really, really, truly and irrevocably is the only currency that is completely nonrenewable… I read this on Sweet Juniper, one of my favorites, and as often happens his words captured my thoughts perfectly. I read a few more blogs, scouted around for my own words, couldn’t shake this post from my head, and so … I’ll let him share my thoughts with you today.
In becoming part of a community of men and women writing and reading about the experience of parenting online I gained the support and validation I needed to abandon the trajectory I was on and focus instead on the life I actually wanted. This is where I get mushy. I know for most not-yet-parents, websites about parenting must be more unappealing than lactating nun porn. Twenty-somethings must tremble at the possibility of ending up like me, a man who abandoned everything he spent his twenties working towards because he became a father and was suddenly seized with the delusion that everything he thought was important when he was 23 actually didn’t mean shit to him anymore. I went through that same journey of fear and dread, knowing that creating new life brings unpreventable changes and new responsibilities. Of course, what I hadn’t been prepared for was how much love it would stir up inside me, this primal, riotous love; the calamitous melange of fear, and pain, and hope, and awe that comes when you finally get to know these new people you made with the one person who first stirred up enough love inside you to make it all happen.
And then I remembered my own parents, what they taught me about love, and that long, slow spacewalk they’ve watched me take since they cut the cord. I thought about the sacrifices they made. And I wanted to reach out and hold my kids as close and for as long as I could, before they slipped away. I have always spent my life living for the next decade: working hard, saving money, plotting out a safe career and a secure retirement. When I realized that continuing to live how I was living meant that I would barely get to watch my kids grow up, something snapped. I walked away. And I had this blog and the people reading it to help keep me from fainting. I learned to live for these precious years of their lives, and mine. And I know I’m better for it.
Mommy, PhD 