This is Violet's first time catching fireflies. We've come a long way from the days of screaming in terror at the sight of a moving insect. We called these lightening bugs when I was a kid, but after repeated readings of The Very Lonely Firefly, it didn't make much sense to confuse Violet with nostalgic vocabulary. Upon releasing her little beetle prisoners, Violet politely called to them, "Thank you Buggy!"
Allow me for a moment to slide into a cliched rant on my daughter's recent regression to child-raised-by-wolves. In the past, her most ardent stabs at ill-advised independence have been easily redirected. Now, she tells me no and sticks to it. Her selective hearing is in zero volume mode 80% of the day. Yesterday, she held her pee until it was physically painful to release it (there's a little story or her first therapy session). Removing her bathing suit is literally like trying to skin a live cat with your bare hands. Magazines are ripped from my hands and my hands are grabbed forcefully whenever I try to type for more than a minute (I am able to type now because she is in her room stewing over whether or not to put on clean panties, as I have requested). We have a strict limit of one glass of chocolate milk per day, so Violet now refuses to drink anything else. The sweet cherub enjoys pooping in her potty and waiting for the smell to inform us that she should probably have a little wipe down (ah, more therapy fodder). I'm just glad I don't have anywhere to go, because if I had to be patient and punctual five days a week you might see blood coming out of my ears.
Was it gangrene or frostbite? Did she step on a nail and procrastinate in seeking medical attention? Are Antastasia and Drusilla somehow involved in this? Perhaps it was the di-A-betus (as Wilfred Brimley would say it)? Violet will not say why, but C' lella's foot needed to come off. First, she tried with a spoon and then deferred to her father's expertise with a steak knife (she's a magnet). Yes, C' lella suffered mightily. Let's just hope that whatever led to this extreme solution is not contagious. Belle hasn't been looking so good lately. Violet is exploring a controversial and experimental therapy, but only time will tell.
My daughter has an ever evolving system of sleep evasion. I could equate her behavior to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Violet will allow weeks or months to go by without fussing about sleepy times, naps and all. Then, she will embark on an anti-sleep campaign lasting an equal number of weeks or months. I am constantly readjusting my strategy on making the child unconscious for an acceptable amount of time. When she was a newborn, she had to sleep with us. As an infant, she had to be nursed to sleep. Once she moved to her own bed, one of us had to stand sentry outside her door until she fell asleep. As time went on this became more complicated and it was essential that we be only partially visible. Later, she required visibility, but we had to be studiously disinterested in her or she would attempt to engage us in lovey conversation. I read entire books sitting in the doorway of her room. Now, she is out of diapers and my desire to keep her bed dry has caused to me break Rule # 1 of the bedtime handbook; responding to her phony cries. I am at once proud of her observational skills and infuriated by her manipulations. Violet's latest game goes as follows:
1. She will behave herself so beautifully during the crucial to-nap-or-not-to-nap time window, that I will allow her to stay up for the duration of the day.
2. Violet wears so much of her dinner, that an immediate change of wardrobe is required. At this hour of the day, it seems logical to me that these fresh clothes be pajamas. There is a protest, and I assure her that she is hours away from bedtime.
3. It is now approximately 2 hours too early for bed and my child is playing at putting herself to sleep. There is always a trigger for this. Tonight, it was putting the Tinkerbell sheets on her bed. The night before it was a change of blankets. The clean sheets are given a test run and Violet feels a pang of fatigue as she "pretends" to go to bed.
4. I entice my child back out of the bed with the promise of many books read aloud. Four stories later, she is crawling back into her bed. It is barely 6PM.
5. Around 8PM, refreshed from her evening nap, Violet is ready to party. I spend the next two hours taking her to the bathroom and returning her to her bed. Forcing her to nap in the early afternoon produces virtually the same result, except with more toothbrushing resistance.
6. I collapse into bed well after 10 and wake up every hour trying to distinguish Violet cries from the cat's whining.
Part of the problem is my absolute determination to keep her sheets clean. I have a perfect record of dry nights since the diapers came off. My lizard brain knows that if I ignore one "MOMMEEEEEEE", Violet's bedding will be awash in urine. Every time I imagine the wet bed, I am reminded of waking up at a childhood sleepover, soaked in my host's warm pee (said host continued to sleep peacefully and the next morning acted as if nothing happened). My vigilance now, will ensure that Violet does not became known as the "stinky-pee girl" of her elementary school.
I did not have a great relationship with my mother beyond the age of 11 or 12. By the time puberty awakened my hormones and my maturity surpassed that of my mother, I was pretty sure that we were not going to be attending mother/daughter luncheons together in my adult life. I have dealt with it, but it never ceases to be painful that I don't like my Mom. I can hear the collective gasp every time I utter those words. Women who have lost their Mothers, tragically or prematurely, will actually begin to argue with me. "You are lucky to still have your Mother," they say with barely disguised contempt. I feel for them, I do, but I also think that they suffer from a sort of grief induced amnesia. Suddenly, what was a typically complicated mother/daughter relationship becomes an idealized, pastel colored love fest complete with gently given and kindly received advice. I have listened to friends tell me these strange anecdotes about their dead mothers. The story is about how Mom crushed their hopes of pursuing a career in theatre and yet they tell it with this wistful, misty eyed tone and then end the tale with a little gem like, "Oh, she worried too much. She had a hard time being happy about anything." I guess I can only hope that when my Mom dies, the irritating scars of my youth will miraculously be replaced by peculiar false memories of the good times we shared. It would be better than living with the constant fear that my daughter is going to wake up on her 12th birthday and begin a lifelong dislike of all things Mom. I would never ask my child to spend time with someone she didn't like. I viciously concluded that Violet would not like my mother either, so when my Mother came to visit Violet for the first time, I never left them alone for any length of time. Of course, Violet was still in her exclusionary phase (Mama-Dada-Local Grandma being the only acceptable adults) and I didn't have to work too hard to keep her in my sight. It would break my heart into tiny, dust-like shards if my daughter grew to feel about me the way I feel about my own mother. So, why am I moaning about this (aside from the fact that I've never sought therapy)? I have what the parenting experts would call a "spirited child". She is bright, vivacious, outgoing and charming. She is also strong-willed, independent and clever. These are all the things you hope to hear in a workplace performance evaluation, but from the perspective of Mommy they are all daily challenges. I want her to be all of these wonderful things, but I also want her to stop pooping in her panties and take a nap. I am in the awful position of trying to temper all of these traits without stifling them. How do you say to a two and half year old, "Don't be afraid to use your voice, but maybe you don't use it quite so loud here at the bank." Maybe it is that simple and I am the one who needs an attitude adjustment. I have already been forced to pretend that I don't care where my child chooses to relieve herself. Perhaps, I need to pretend that I don't care whether or not she loves me? I mean, I loved her when she was a newborn and did nothing but suck the very life essence out of me. I have to remember that unconditional response when she is emotionally sucking the life essence out of me.
Shall I employ the immortal words of .38 Special?
Today is primary day in Ohio and seeing as I am torn between making women's history and making African -American history, I needed a little help making my decision. I enlisted the most unbiased, genuine person I know to make the choice for me. I sat Violet down in front of the computer and posted a picture of each candidate. I asked her to pick one. She immediately pointed to Obama and exclaimed, "That one!" In case you distrust the conviction of a toddler, my husband repeated the experiment later, with different photos and her mind had not changed. "That!", she said and pointed to the senator from Illinois. When a teenage Violet begins to study the historic presidency of Barack Obama, I will tell her that she knew just by looking and maybe she'll get interested in what it takes to make America run.
Who needs to be socialized, the parents or the children? At Music Jamboree, Violet immediately jumped up and began to dance. The other children were subdued at first, with the exception of one boy whose mother (or grandmother) looked like she was having a root canal. It was the first class and most of the kids needed a few minutes to get comfortable. Violet's exuberance spread quickly and the circle of seated tots became amorphous. It was at this point that the parents started to get uptight. The more the kids enjoyed themselves, the more the Mommies (and two Daddies) tried to reign them in. I don't get it. We all paid $27 for six mornings of music and dancing. Everyone is aware of the class description and yet, the other parents behaved as if their kids were bouncing off the walls waiting on line at the bank. I have actually seen children who were permitted to be crazier at the bank than these kids were encouraged to be at a sing-a-long. I say, as long as no one is causing physical, emotional or collateral damage, let the kids be. How can children be expected to learn the subtle nuances of socially acceptable behavior if we are always poking our noses in where they don't belong? Constant interference eventually leads to constant deafness in children. Grown-ups don't like to be nagged either.
Violet has a pattern in these social situations. She prefers blondes, little girls usually. I assume this is because her most frequent playmate is blond. Vi knows just how to zero in on a willing buddy and then the hugging and hand holding begin in earnest. I am always careful to monitor how Violet's chosen one is handling the attention. I discourage Violet's ardor when necessary. Today's buddy was a ponytailed
blondie named Cara. Cara was more than happy to be Violet's dance partner and yet her father (seated next to me) was clearly uncomfortable. I felt a little like we were on a double date and the other couple was having so much fun that is was embarrassing (to Cara's Daddy, not to me). It didn't help that Cara's judgy Mama was sitting in the corner with a new baby fretting about what an inadequate job her husband was doing with his child. I got the sense that it had been agreed upon that he would be in charge of Cara's entertainment during the nursing phase of new baby's life and yet mama could not let go. She was effectively grabbing the steering wheel from the backseat. In the meantime, I could see nothing objectionable about Cara's behavior. She was the very picture of moderation, having fun and not knocking people over or screaming. In fact, she was totally quiet. Her father kept pleading with her to come sit down. Those kids wouldn't have heard a jet engine over the dulcet tones of Miss Dorie and her acoustic guitar. It was completely pointless. When the jamboree broke up after 30 minutes, Cara's mother began to scold her. I distinctly remember hearing the phrase, "You HAVE GOT to calm down." I swear, I don't think that little sweetie raised her heart rate at all and yet she needed to calm down? I see now how kids end up on ADHD meds. These people have been reading one too many issues of Parents magazine. Children do not have the same social hang-ups that adults do. More importantly, parents and children are separate individuals and that little fact seems to be lost on some of these folks. I do not fear that Cara's parents will invite me over for a playdate and then proceed to try and hug me over and over again. I don't have out of body experiences with my child. I don't imagine myself in her place and have a crisis of personal space. As for possibly offending Miss Dorie, she is a professional musician in the category of children's entertainment and I guarantee she is quite accustomed to being engulfed by churning, wiggling little people. I wager that her feelings would be hurt if they all sat still in their chairs responding to her musical commands in very a restrained, very businesslike fashion. Then again, Violet never looked to me for encouragement the whole time we were there and I sang along anyway. My lack of inhibition will always separate me from most of these people. I just hope Violet doesn't pay too much attention to them along our way.
Phase One: Naked
Cloth diapers promised us many things as a family; ease of eco-guilt, thrift, reduced diaper rash and easy/early potty training. These promises were more or less fulfilled, with one glaring exception. Toilet learning has eluded us for the most part. Our daughter never caught on to the fact that having a soggy bottom is no way to live. The bulky diapers totally prevented her from exploring her options as a nudist. Other mothers worried about spontaneous strip shows. I found myself encouraging them. Even prescribed naked time didn't seem to make her want to shed her diaper full time. The inability to undress herself has been my constant discouragement from starting the training process. All the books, the pundits and experts say that this is an important milestone, an indication of readiness. I had allowed myself to be sucked into the baby-rearing machine. I was checking my every move against the internet and driving myself crazy. I kept saying, I'll wait until summer and just let her run naked. I started fantasizing about summer. We are a busy family from the moment it gets warm enough to go to the park until it's time to pick the pumpkins. After the holidays we settle in for a period of hibernation until the temperature rises once again. I find myself in that period of isolation right now and I am bored. The pieces start to come together now and I realize that I do not want to be struggling with the worst part of potty training right when we are ready to emerge from the chrysalis of winter. How much fun will we have at the park or the pool if I am constantly nagging an increasingly resistant child to make a pit stop? Do I have anything better to do right now, besides baking and eating too many cookies? I woke up as if from a terrible dream and remembered that I am the decider! Off came the diapers and lo and behold the miracle of mindful peeing was born. The road ahead of us is long, but I am confident that by summer we will be in a place where we can go on our adventures without too much trauma. I can see that warm temperatures would make this phase easier. I would not hesitate to take my child to the park without panties on under her skirt, but she is 2.5 NOW and we'll just deal with the time table we've been given. I have no idea when we will be able to begin Phase Two: Panties, but it will come eventually. Stay tuned.
