Be grateful that you’re having this conversation with your three-and-a-half year-old daughter instead of your twenty-three-and-a-half year-old daughter; perhaps saying it early will help her avoid saying it often:
Me: What did you say to the boy who was being mean to you?
Child: I told him he was not respecting me, but he didn’t know what respecting me meant.
Filed under parenting tips of the day
If a toddler demands that you lick your lips, I recommend you do it. Otherwise, finally overtaken with generosity, she may lick them for you.
Filed under parenting tips of the day
I loved my daughter before I met her. Those late nights, with my belly full of her, making sleep seem almost as impossible as ever donning skinny jeans, I loved her. Those delightful three seconds when she was a cooing, gurgling infant whose full weight easily rested solely in the crook of my left arm, I loved her. Her face streaked with most of the organic peas and spinach and apricot I’d so carefully smashed and frozen into neat cubes in a BPA-free ice cube tray purchased especially for her, I loved her.
My undying and ever expanding love has never been in question. What is coming as a shock to me, now that my daughter is approaching her third birthday, is that I kinda want to be her. Spending time with her is delightful, and with each passing day, I realize more fully that she is the best role model I’ve ever had (sorry, Mom).
I am sure there are (and will be) more, but for right now, here are the top five reasons I want to be my daughter when I grow up.
She’s an empowered, creative feminist. The other day, she walked into my exercise room where I happen to have a pole. Yes, the kind for dancing. Without hesitation, she flipped on NPR on the clock radio, and began to climb the pole as Neda Ulaby’s voice washed over us. NPR and pole dancing??!! Why had I not thought of this fabulous combination years ago?
She has an amazing fashion sense. My child has been choosing her own clothes since she was an infant. Seriously. We would hold choices up in front of her, follow her gaze and dress her in whatever she had “chosen.” Now that I think about it, she was probably already commenting on my wardrobe choices from the womb. I can easily imagine some of her more brutal rib kicks were meant as messages to me to take off the flippin’ gaudy moo-moo’s I was wearing. Praise be to Goodwill for taking them from my sight (and hers).
Now that she can dress herself, I am delighted by the concoctions she creates. Most notably, I envy the ease with which she trounces around the supermarket in a pink tutu. And skirted leotards are not just for gymnastics. They are to be worn with pride to the library, the park and Target. While I might not wear mine as short as hers, the mood improving effects of doning dance wear in public cannot be underestimated; I need only look at the grins of those taking in the vision of my daughter in one of her get-ups. Imagine how good it would feel to actually be the wearer, not just the viewer.
She naturally aspires to leadership roles. At least once a week, I have the joy of exercising in the presence of my child. She likes to choose my workout DVD’s for me, and her favorite, by far, is Jillian Michaels. When we do these videos, and sometimes just when we are hanging out together not doing anything remotely resembling exercise, she gets to “be” Jillian, and I am reduced to being Jillian’s exercise demonstrating minion, Shelly. ”Do what I’m doing, ‘K, Shell?” “K, Jill,” I am forced to respond.
Where I tend to defer to others on a daily basis, my Creature knows she wants to be the boss. Like Jill. And she is. ”Shell! get on your mat!” The kid’s got moxie!
She makes wise food choices. Even at her tender age, she knows everything tastes better when dipped in mayo. And while she likes to eat treats sometimes — the other day when I offered her some more dinner she said, “No! I want a snack or some junk food!” — she knows that junk food should be consumed in moderation. After throwing up a week ago, she blamed it on some cake she’d eaten a month before that. ”Too much cake can make me a tummy ache!” If only I could remember this advice.
She’s in touch with her needs, and she’s not afraid to ask for what she wants. More than once, in the middle of the night, I have awakened to some variation of the following, ” Mama! Come in here! I want to snuggle you! I love you! I need you! I’ve got to have you!” Needless to say, despite my sleep deprivation, I am a little flattered. I also love the way she just comes out and says it. There’s no, “I kinda like you,” or “Maybe we could hang out, I mean, if you want to.” I aspire to have adult relationships with this sort of clarity and passion one day.
—
Maybe Jodie Foster can hook us up with some kind of Freaky Friday-type magic… well, maybe after I teach the Child to wipe her own bottom.
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In 1995 when I was eighteen and living in Utah with my boyfriend after dropping out of NYU (I know, I know — that’s another story), one of my boyfriend’s co-workers gave me a present. Everyone in the small town where we were living was Mormon, and this woman, Jennifer (I think she was divorced — god forbid!), wanted to support the pair of us — teenagers in love living in sin whilst everyone else shopped at the big Wal-Mart and hung out at church socials.
Jennifer gave me a racy, lacy two-piece lingerie set. It was a cream-colored cropped cami, and a matching pair of loose-fitting shorts — similar to the sort runners wore in the eighties (and hipsters wear ironically now), except with lace on the sides and a little off-white bow neatly stitched to the front center seam. It was probably the sexiest thing purchasable in our little town, and it was certainly the sexiest thing I owned. I was awed and a little embarrassed that an “old lady” (she was probably forty) would gift me with such a god’s-wrath-inducing outfit. At the same time, I loved it.
For weeks I meant to write her a thank you note. First, I got pretty busy at my mall job — you know, the one at the Hallmark store where I needed to dust scented candles and check back-stock on Precious Moments figurines? Then, I really didn’t know what to say to her. Then, I realized I was living in Utah, freaked out, and moved back to California taking the lingerie (but not the boyfriend) with me.
To this day (nearly twenty years later) I still haven’t put pen to paper to thank Jennifer (god, was that even her name? I think so). With every passing day, then week, then year, the task seemed more insurmountable, less worthwhile. Once I was back in California and the chance of running into Jennifer at Wal-Mart was almost non-existent, the urgency of writing the note faded even further, but I am still sometimes riddled with the guilt of unfinished business, unsaid thanks.
And so here I am, trying not to have a whole new list of Jennifers in my life. Starting last December (not yet half a year ago!) some very gracious and thoughtful ladies began gifting me with some blogging awards. I felt much the same as I did after receiving underwear from a near-stranger; I was flattered, and I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Let me break the pattern and be a different woman than I was at eighteen!
Back in December, Mummy Big Bum, whom I feel like I know personally, even though she lives across the Pond and probably has a funny accent (I mean that in the nicest way), honored me with the Liebster Award. I feel like I know her because she has a delightfully honest way of sharing toddler hilarity — I feel like we are sitting and chatting over coffee (tea?) and sharing stories like the bestest gal pals. Her willingness to be vulnerable in her writing is a welcome respite from the snark that abounds in my world. Thank you, Mummy Big Bum! Please forgive my delayed reply. Can we blame it on the post?
As I understand it, in order to receive this award I am to pass it along to five other bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.
Then, in January, the ever-thoughtful and productive Red at Momma’s Money Matters gifted me with the versatile Blogger award.
I am convinced that this woman has super powers. Not only is she consistently adding interesting and thoughtful posts to the Magical Interweb, she is one of the most generous and thoughtful “commenters” around. I frequently see her name popping up in the comments of blogs I also enjoy, and she always has a word of encouragement or heartfelt advice. I am honored to be on any list of hers.
In order to receive this award, I am to share seven secrets about myself, and pass the award along to fifteen other bloggers.
Apparently, the Versatile Blogger Award is so versatile someone thought to use a different icon for it:
I’ll take all the variations of versatile the Web has to offer, and I am especially thrilled that receiving this award introduced me to Three Descriptors. Between her recipes, book reviews and links to other interesting blogs, she is surely versatile, and I especially enjoy her flash fiction. Color me inspired!
And lastly, I knew if I waited long enough to respond, the ever-talented, Red would be hit again with a blogging award and, in turn, make me the lucky recipient of some more blog love. Thanks, Red. I am speechless (almost).
In order to receive this award, I am to share seven things about myself and pass along the bloggy love to fifteen bloggers.
OK. That’s it. The benefit of being a procrastinating slacker who never posts waiting is that I am only going to post seven things about myself and fifteen blogs worthy of praise instead of twenty-one things, and fifty blogs. Procrastination does make life easier, see, Mom?
Also, because there is some part of my soul that is tormented by the “chain-letter” feeling I get when receiving/giving blogging “awards” I am not going to go and ping the receivers. If they come here and find the love and choose to take it on, right on! If they don’t, then no worries. You can go check out their stuff, and they’ll be none the wiser, and isn’t that the point of all this nonsense in the first place anyway?
Oh, and thank you, Jennifer! I loved the matching cami and undies set! It was super cute and aided in my fornication and provided much delight as I further established myself as a sinning, non-Mormon woman. You rock! And I hope you continued to give underwear to random half-Jewish women you met in Logan, Utah! Hallelujah!
Seven Random Facts about Moi:
1. I love cats. Really. I always have. I’m the proud owner of four volumes of Cat Books — photo albums into which I pasted pictures of cats cut from my Cat Fancy Magazine subscription starting at about age eight up through my early teens. I still look at them sometimes, and have been known to utter, “Oh! How cute!!
2. If I could eat nothing but pasta and chocolate for the rest of my life with no ill-effects I would agree in a heartbeat. Mmm… pasta! Mmm… chocolate!
3. I own over fifty exercise videos, and I sometimes talk along with the instructors (even the legwarmer-clad ones) whilst stepping to the beat. Yes, I have entertained the fantasy of donning legwarmers of my own and leading the class. ”And one-two-triple step…”
4. I am in touch with just about every ex-boyfriend I’ve ever had. I texted two of them tonight — one I dated in junior high, the other was my boyfriend the first year of high school.
5. My grandma died earlier this year. It took my family throwing a funeral for me to realize that they are pretty rad. I think one’s ability to throw a funeral says a lot about him or her. During the service, my not-yet-three-year-old daughter and I had a tea party with the miniature sample urns in the lobby of the funeral parlor. It is one of my proudest parenting moments.
6. I fit on my daughter’s Sit’n Spin. Really. I am wonderfully happy about this.
7. I just decided that my dining room table is so ugly that it is ok to put stickers on the legs of it — it can only improve the aesthetic. My daughter and I began the project about a week ago. We are not nearly half finished, and I love the glee I derive from sticking stickers in “forbidden” places. I also tried to steal the sticker my daughter earned from my dermatology appointment the other day for the table’s adornment. She removed it from the table leg and re-stuck it to her pajama shirt. I am hoping to retrieve it from the hamper. Really. I will use tape if I have to!
Fifteen Blogs I Enjoy:
Primal Body Building and Health
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Photo credit: http://thechuckler.com/
No matter how lacking your progressive school education may have been, don’t make up National Geographic “facts” that some birds make their nests out of their own poo, then pretend to be a bird with your toddler, then leave said toddler alone in the bathroom. You will not enjoy cleaning up the “nest” she has made.
Filed under parenting tips of the day
Before 7am on the Sunday before Christmas, I showed up at my local grocery store with glitter eyeliner and a ridiculous, off-the-shoulder Christmas tree shirt with a giant red bow on it and large, clanky buttons sewn on as ornaments. I made it myself for a tacky sweater party last year, and, admittedly (and understandably, no?), I am quite proud of it.
As I walked through the automatic door, I smiled at how silly I must have looked, and fantasized about what sort of story I would have made up for myself if I had seen me walking through the door. Worse, I began to dread what I would say if the lone checker asked me why I was dressed like that, with candy cane arm-warmers even, at such an ungodly hour on a Sunday morning.
“Oh me? I am just stopping here to buy cold medicine for my not-really-ex-husband, because I am on my way to a party at his house to celebrate Capitalism Day (a holiday he invented) with him, our toddler daughter and some of my ex’s friends whom I have never really met. And even though I don’t live there, I will make breakfast when I arrive, and I will prepare and serve a whole turkey to the guests, and at the end of the night (because I will stay there the whole day), I will be thanked by one of the guests for hosting the party. Oh, and then I will leave and go see my boyfriend.”
Crap! I am not buying enough groceries to say all of that! How can I answer honestly and not share my entire bio? This is a question I have been struggling with a lot of late. My current bio is way more complicated than I would like for it to be — than I ever imagined it being. House. Picket fence. 2.5 kids. Marriage. It all sounded so good to me (well, maybe not that poor arm-less child). I didn’t expect to be in this spot, driving to my legal husband’s house, where my daughter spends the night some of the time, to celebrate holidays platonically with my ex and his friends.
Like asking that arm-less child to pass the salt, I have been pretending everything is normal and nothing is wrong since before my daughter was born. I have signed thank you notes from the three of us, I have referred to my ex as my husband to distant relatives and insurance agents. It’s been easier than unpacking the whole story, the back-and-forth of it, the up and down of it. Slowly, over two-and-a-half years, the word has spread — I couldn’t quite conceal moving into a new house alone with my daughter. I couldn’t hide when my ex posted on Facebook that he was “single,” and then, “in a relationship” with another woman.
Last night, I went out dancing, and struck up a conversation with another woman — a stranger. We spoke of our children and bemoaned that it had been a while since either of us had been out dancing. She asked me what had brought me out again. ”Oh, I got dumped, so I needed to dance.”
“Oh, were you and your daughter’s father having problems?”
“Oh, no! Not him! He dumped me ages ago. This was someone else! Whew-hoo!”
I cheered at the ridiculousness of it, and we both laughed. When she was whisked away to dance with someone else, I was left feeling that I had exposed too much, that I was a little too naked. I suppose, like being arm-less, I feel like my current state of in-between-ness is visible to everyone — obvious.
So here I sit, no longer wanting to ignore the obvious: we are separated, I live alone with my daughter, I have a divorce lawyer, I take out the trash, I date other people, and not wanting to dump the obvious on everyone I meet just because I feel like they see it already.
Just writing these words makes me realize how long I have been dancing around these issues, writing ambiguously so as not to reveal my heart, my reality, my soul. So, even though one of my New Year’s resolutions is to dance more, this is not the dance I want to do. I need a place to share my soul, to dance my truth. If you know me and are uncomfortable with the possibility of hearing it, this is your chance to sign off. My parents both just graciously (at my request) agreed to stop reading my blog for this very reason. (And, Mom, if you are reading this and not telling me, that’s cool, too, and I love you. So much.)
As I left the supermarket that early Sunday morning (I had managed not to tell the checker the details of my story — she, instead, had told me about some great Halloween costumes she’d seen in the early morning hours of November 1st), I said aloud to myself, “I’m visiting family!” That’s what I could have said had she asked. I am on my way to a family party! Ha! So elegantly simple. So true. I found myself laughing again. And then, as I digested how I must have looked in that moment, still with the gaudy outfit, now not just smiling to myself , but laughing and talking to myself, too, I laughed harder.
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A little cross posting never hurt anyone, right? I just wrote the story that explains the name of my diet and exercise blog. I thought it might be worth sharing here. [Translation: it is almost midnight, and I just spent most of the night working on this piece, and I don't have it in me to write anything else, even a parenting tip.... well, maybe a parenting tip: If you want to make sure to post to your parenting blog on a daily basis, don't spend all your time writing a post for your diet blog.]
——
You know when you’re buying a butt girdle…. oh, wait, you don’t, do you? Who the hell buys a butt girdle? Um, I did once (cue flashback music a-la Wayne and Garth)…
Once upon a time, I was in a play in Castro Valley. No, not The Castro. Castro Valley. I was cast as the lead — a sexy 1960′s witch. Hot, right? I beat out the only other person who auditioned for this coveted role. Given the extensive budget of the community theater that was staging this elaborate production, I was to provide my own wardrobe. It is noteworthy that much of the existing budget was spent on rescuing a live cat from the animal shelter as the script called for a feline to have a leading role as well. That poor cat was rescued and given the name, “Sweety.” I think I’d rather be euthanized.
Anyway, back to my wardrobe. I found, in the back of my closet, a long, slinky black dress that I hadn’t donned in ages. I tried it on in front of the director who readily agreed that it looked fabulous, and would be the perfect dress for the show. I was relieved that he liked it because I had thought my ass looked way too big in it, despite my vigorous and regular heart-rate-monitored workouts. “See?” I told myself, “Your giant ass is all in your head. Foolish girl! Stop being so self-critical!”
The next night I wore the dress again, and this time the director’s wife was in attendance. She pulled me aside after act I, and said, “Sweety (she wasn’t talking to or about the cat), that dress is not… flattering on you. You look thin on top, but it makes your hips look even bigger than they are.” I inhaled so deeply, my flaired nostrils must have rivaled my buttocks in size and fullness.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile and no external tears, “Thank you for being honest with me. I really appreciate it [and I kinda wanna punch you in the head]. Thank you!”
I immediately went to the director, and told him I couldn’t wear the dress, that I would find something bigger, and better (emphasis on the bigger). “Absolutely not!” he raged, “That dress is perfect, and you are going to wear it, and my wife is not the director, I am!”
With less than a month until the opening curtain (wait, would curtains provide enough material to fashion a new dress big enough to cover my ass?), there was no time for liposuction, and my already extensive exercise regime was not going to cut it (so to speak). I went to the director’s wife, this time the tears were nearly on the outside. “What can I do?” I said. She sighed and did her best to look me in the eye, not the butt. Silence. “I know!” I said, “I can go buy some sort of shaping garment (girdle was not yet part of my vocabulary).” What I expected her to say was, “No, sweety (again, not the cat), it’s not that bad. The week you spent exercising since my initial disgust has done wonders! Your butt looks so much smaller, and say, is it me, or did your boobs get bigger, too? You know, I have a friend who’s an agent for models….”
OK, maybe I didn’t expect her to say all that, but I wasn’t prepared for her to say, “Yeah, that’s a good idea! You could find something to wear that would trim your hips.” Oh the suffering! Again, I took a deep breath, and on a sunny, beautiful day, I set out to the land of butt girdles: Walmart.
Upon arrival, it was a challenge to even find what I was looking for. Unlike electronics, or toddler girls’ clothes, the “shape wear” section (as I learned to call it) was not very well marked, and screw me if I was actually going to ask someone where to find the stinking girdles.
I finally found a sub-section of the underwear department that had lots of stuff with pictures of Queen Latifah on the over-sized labels. This must be it. I sorted through a collection of what appeared to be bike shorts for people with crazy butts that might, at any moment, try to escape and needed restraining much like inhabitants of an asylum need straight jackets.
I had made peace with the fact that I was buying a restraint for my ass, that I would don it under my skin tight (stupid, ugly, unflattering) dress and walk on stage in front of a paying audience. Right, so I may have body dysmorphia, but I knew that I had to be on the smaller end of the spectrum of those purchasing butt girdles. If I was going to subject myself to the humiliation of buying a girdle for my ass, please, at least let it be small, heck, extra small could do in a pinch! Med, Large, Extra Large, XXL. Where the hell were the small butt girdles?
I certainly wasn’t going to sink to asking a Walmart employee for help. Could they really be sold out? At Walmart? Really? Finally, I stopped staring at one of the many glossy portraits of Queen Latifah, and flipped a tag over to find a sizing chart which, I noticed, was also sorely lacking a size small. Seriously? They don’t even make small butt girdles?
Let me pause for a moment to say, that if I am ever in the business of making plus-sized clothing — butt girdles specifically — I would label those suckers, “small, extra-small, extra-extra-small, and ultra petite.” I mean really! Give a girl a break! She’s already sunken to buying restraining underwear, at least let it be the one thing in her closet that says, “small.”
Dejected, and nearly in tears already, I headed to the dressing room with an armful of size medium butt girdles, numerous pictures of Queen Latifah in various poses from “sporty” to “sultry” staring up at me.
“I’d like to try these on, please,” I said to the Jabba-esque woman behind the laminate desk, trying not to show her what exactly “these” were.
“You can’t try those on.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t try those on. Those are underwear, and you can’t try underwear on in the store.”
“Wait, so I can go home and try them on?”
“Well, I guess, but then you’d have to keep them. Underwear are not returnable.”
“I am sorry, I can’t try them on, and they are not returnable? How am I supposed to know if they fit?”
“Mmm-mmm-nnno.”
It took all the restraint in my body (I imagine I would have had more had I been wearing a butt girdle already), to let a quiet thank you slip from my lips as I set my armload of Queen Latifah restraints in front of the woman’s heaving bosom, and walked away. I was already crying by the time I squeezed my ass into the car.
I cried all the way to Macy’s where I was able to try on and purchase a butt girdle — still size medium, god dammit!
At the next rehearsal I modeled the dress with my new undergarment firmly in place. Great efforts were made to assure me that it looked much better — a totally new and smaller rear had surely taken the place of my existing ass-trosity. “Sweety, (I was beginning to get an inkling who named that poor cat) you look great,” cooed the director’s wife as her husband scowled at her from the front row.
The play opened, and closed. Each night, I spent most of act I (the act of the dress) trying to strategically carry that poor, small cat around in front of my hips while walking sideways so as not to reveal the depth of my booty. I even got reviewed as having “narrow shoulder’s,” which I translated to mean, “Wow! Look how narrow her shoulders are in relation to her ass! She looks like a Russian stacking doll with the first three heads removed!” I have not worn the dress to since.
I do still have the butt girdle, hidden somewhere in the dark recesses of my closet, but I have sworn an oath to myself that the waistband, with its stupid size medium tag, will never again make its way over my knees. When I want to eat boatloads of chocolate, or sleeping in instead of working out seems like a superior option, I think of my butt girdle, and how donning it again would be far more painful than any diet or exercise program I could ever conjure up. I’d sooner carry that poor rescue kitty around in front of my hips for all eternity than ever again wear a butt girdle, even if it came in size small.
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I have been reduced to spelling. I spell s-h-i-t and b-i-t-c-h. I also spell p-o-p-s-i-c-l-e-s. The Creature hears all these days, and what she hears comes spilling directly out of her cute little mouth, sometimes when I least expect it. Like today, when her dad was animatedly expressing valid annoyance, she said, “Well, Dada, I know you are frustrated, but…”
My mother and I coined the phrase “the mommy nod” to describe the head bobbing that ensues before my child utters one of her mommy-like phrases such as, “I Know you really like counting, but now is not the time for counting.” She has become quite an impersonation artist — I am not sure yet how thrilled I am that I am the primary subject of her “art.”
It is her near-constant mimicry that has forced me to question whether some substitutes for swear words are really any better than the words themselves. ”Crap,” for example, is a shitty swear word. I learned this the other day, after I edited my “shit” down to a “crap,” and then was subjected to a barrage of “Cap! Cap! We live in a cappy city!” (“R’s” are not her strong suit). Bursting forth from the lips of my toddler, crap sounded like a really cappy alternative.
You’d think I’d have figured out that crappy substitutes for swears in front of children don’t really work when my poor, sad, embarrassed mommy ears heard my precious Creature utter the phrase, “That’s effing ridiculous!” Why did I think for a moment that “effing” was any better without the other letters following it?
All this to say, that the fact that “content in” = “content out” is really hitting home these days. With this in mind, I am letting my subscription to satellite radio lapse, lest I accidentally develop an affinity for Howard Stern and am subsequently forced to hear his effing words rebroadcast by my cherubic toddler.
I am putting us both on a steady diet of NPR. Listening to the radio will prevent me from talking (and thus being mimicked), and it will give her a whole new cast of characters to draw from in her budding career as a celebrity impersonator.
Here are the results thus far:
Sometime in September, I started asking my not-yet-two-and-a-half-year-old what she wanted to be for Halloween. ”Cat!” she said loudly, and without hesitation, on my first query. Having spent much of my life around children, I was fully prepared for this answer to shift numerous times before October 31st. I put off acquiring fabric for some weeks, convinced things would change. Eventually, I got up the nerve to buy fabric and a pattern even — I hadn’t sewn with a pattern in over ten years. Sure that the non-returnable purchase of fabric and a pattern would change my child’s mind about her Halloween attire, I asked again what she wanted to be. ”Cat! A purple kitty-cat!” (Yes, I had just purchased purple fabric.)
My first stab at the pattern consisted of me cutting the fabric in half the wrong way. That was all I got done in two hours of work. Yep, that’s how good I am at pattern sewing. Weeks passed, and Halloween loomed in the not-too-distant future. Finally, after excessive use of the seam-ripper, I got to a place where there was actually a discernible costume for my child to don. At this point, I was sure she would flip out and reject it for being too purple or too fuzzy or too much manual labor performed by her mother. But the Child put it on and beamed. She clapped her paw-covered hands as she admired her kitty-self in the mirror.
That moment alone made my year. She likes it! She really likes it! I actually managed, with the help of some safety pins, to finish the costume before dark on Halloween. As per the Child’s instructions, I made myself a purple kitty tail and ears, and some pink dog ears and a tail for her father. ”Dada’s going to be a pink dog!” said she.
Halloween was a beautifully sunny day. I thought the heat might deter her from wearing her costume, but my sauna-suit kitty marched right along, zipper fully zipped, perky kitty ears perched on her hooded and sweaty head. She joined in a parade with a firetruck and all sorts of big kids. She meowed.
After the parade, some of her friends came over to our house and ate pizza on the floor, and no one got any food on their costume or the couch — praise be to the Halloween gods! As the gaggle of nearly a half dozen two year-olds walked from door to door, they giggled and screeched. They took turns knocking on doors, and even said, “trick-or-treat,” and “thank you!” at most houses.
When we arrived home, before bedtime even, my daughter chose one small lollipop to eat, and didn’t ask for more. She was thrilled out of her mind to have the one — she’s still talking about it a week later. She hugged her friends goodbye, and thought for a minute about sleeping in her kitty costume before she agreed to pajamas and a thorough teeth brushing.
We both fell asleep with big kitty grins on our faces. I am taking a moment now to offer up my thanks. I know there may come a time when she won’t wear her costume. I am sure there will be some teenaged Halloween when she forgets to call me. I imagine, at some point, she may even want to stop dressing up — not to mention dressing up with her mother. But right now, I am grateful for my delightfully agreeable and adorable purple kitty. Our Halloween was totally purrrrrfect.
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Science was never my strong suit. Had I been graded on impassioned arguments on the morality of animal dissection, I surely would have excelled academically in the sciences, but that was not the case so I eeeked out “C’s” in all my science classes in junior high and high school. And I was grateful for those “C’s.”
The most memorable thing I learned in science class was in eleventh grade chemistry when my lab partner, on different occasions, ate both the sugar cubes and unwashed lettuce provided for our experiments. The thing I learned was that it was really fun to secretly call her “horse” in my head and to anyone who would listen to my tales of her scientifically bizarre eating habits.
Thankfully, I did retain enough scientific information from my formal education to conceive (and bring to term) a real, live human of my very own. I say “thankfully” because it is largely through this child that I am finally learning about science. So far, biology is her area of expertise, but I trust she will branch out — that’s where my other teachers started, too.
The other day, for example, I learned that “Pee is made of water, and it gets rid of all the diarrhea my body doesn’t need anymore.” Brilliant! I am always looking to rid myself of unneeded diarrhea (as opposed to needed diarrhea), and it’s comforting to know that urination gets the job done.
And how about avoiding diarrhea in the first place? Part of science is learning proper nutrition. I always struggle with what to eat, and I was relieved to hear (in response to my offer of zucchini), “Well, Mama, greens have sugar and make me sick, so I shouldn’t eat them!” And to think of all those calories I’ve wasted on salad and ratatouille. Thank you, my little scientist for setting me straight.
It is not just the science of humans and their digestive woes where my toddler creature enlightens me. Recently, I was schooled about primates. Yes, really. In order to share my new-found enlightenment with the interwebz, I was able to record this lesson. I present, in the name of science, the first toddler-led telecourse:
Maybe next she’ll teach me about horses, and how they are also not primates and how they eat lettuce and sugar cubes and get “D’s” in AP Chemistry. But then, I already knew that.
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