"It's okay Mama, it's just puberty"

My Apron.  It has shorter and shorter strings.  And damn it, I miss them.  For every time I have silently screamed "Give me one minute of peace and quiet!" (or sometimes maybe not so silently), I find myself struggling with the tiny steps away that Sister Big is asking for. 

Not long ago I was in a workshop when I heard something that frightened me.  The average onset of hormonal shift initiating puberty is around nine in girls.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Excuse me?!?  I don't remember much of the next hour of presentation as I internally counted days until the next birthday, and took a few trips down "denial" river, trying to convince myself that our child would be a late entry into this race.  Surely we did not have to start talking and thinking about this yet.  Right?

And yet...

Recently we took our first tentative forays into pre-puberty conversation and I was both anxious and sad as we had the conversation.  First of all, it feels dreadfully important to get it right.  This is the foundation and framework by which she will determine what is normal (all of it), and what is okay to ask (any of it), and whether she is "okay" on her journey, (and you are my sweet girl.)  And this is the first of many times when she has to be able to ask me anything and I have to be ready.  All in all it went smoothly, but I was also amazed by her grace.  At one point, as I got temporarily stuck in determining how much information was enough for now, she interrupted me and said "It's okay mom.  It's just puberty.  It's normal.  Nothing to get upset or worried about."  When did she learn this gentle assurance?  And please, can I take credit for it?  Let her have gotten it from me.

We had our moments of hilarity as I tried to provide information on how babies arrive in a non-cesarean birth,(and for those of you who have yet to go down this conversational path, perhaps forgo comparing uterine contractions moving the baby along  to squeezing toothpaste from a tube.)  And for the love of all that is good and clinical, just skip trying to wade slowly into the water and start with the word vagina.  Or as Adele prefers, Minnie-Moo.  If not, your child may be left as mine, with the idea that non-cesarean births occur from "another area of the mother's body" and question with no small amount of panic, "You mean one day you open your mouth and a baby flies out?"

And leaving this territory, there is also the pulling away of hands in parking lots, and walking half an aisle away in the grocery store, and the sheer horror that crossed her face when I mentioned that I was invited to stay at the birthday party she was attending.  "Mom!  NO!  I want to do this like a big kid.  I don't want you to help."  What?  When did we get here?  I mean, I wasn't even going to be wearing a bathing suit and there was horror.  Can you imagine if I had shown up in my matronly, skirted, supportive one-piece?  Quarters in the therapy jar my people.

And finally, I cannot get a moment's privacy in this house, or anywhere else I might go.  Dressed, nude, bathing, sleeping...it doesn't matter.  Bring it on.  Mom's door is always open.  Even when it was shut.  But all of a sudden, this child cannot change her clothes on the same floor as any other member of the household.  All I hear throughout our waking hours is "I want privacy."  And the stunning double standard is that while she needs privacy, I am allowed none.  "Why are you wearing that?"  "Why do you do that?"  "Why was the door locked?"  "Why?"

So, much like childbirth itself, the first contractions are merely the opening act.    And like my first contractions, I remember thinking that this was so much easier than what I had been preparing for.   And if raising Sister Big is anything like her labor and delivery, I'm in for quite a ride.  To quote a new Mama friend who summed up childbirth as succinctly as I have heard it to date; "Labor.  Whoa!  No joke."  And that, my friends, is just the opening act.
 

XX XY

Just an observation.  There are no empirical, evidence based samples or charts with snazzy graphics  to back this up.  There is simply my in-the-trenches experience and anecdotes provided by others with whom I have shared my story.

Apparently, having two X chromosomes makes you impervious to barf.

Case in point, I was in a room of over one hundred children when one of them began to vomit.  The XY members of adulthood that occupied my space, stepped back, (one with hands literally in the air in the universal "Not Me" pose).  Another adult pushed the industrial, custodial-sized bin in front of the ill child and stated, "Um, she's throwing up."

Now I don't know this child, but I do know that a child barely topping 60 pounds and four-ish feet, cannot effectively make use of a receptacle that stands at nose height and outweighs her by ten or more pounds.  Nor is it fair to ask a child, already queasy, to stare into the maw of a trash bin filled with a building's worth of lunch leftovers.  This would not do.

I grabbed paper towels for the little one's face and began to move her to a better spot.  Other adults in the building, as we encountered them cleared the path for us, opened doors, etc.  And in my largely female dominant workplace, it makes sense that many of the assists were from women.  But it made me wonder, how would this have gone down if my double X was not in the room?

I have heard numerous stories from new parents about nascent fathers who say "But you're a girl!  You know how to do these things...(diapers, spit-up, etc.)"  And our own Mr. Unscripted who has gone into burning buildings and served as an EMT; who has seen traumatic injuries that I beg him not to retell anywhere near the dinner hour or table, can be quoted as saying prior to the birth of Sister Big, "Alright, I'll change the diaper, but if she spits up on me, I'm gonna lose it."  (And to give him his due, when the inevitable "spit happens" moment arrived, he did pull his parenting breeches all the way up and handle it with minimal gagging.  And I'll be honest, when the dogs have had an accident in the house, I'm always grateful when he is here to handle it as I am a hot mess of heaving, retching, gore if left to my own devices. 

So perhaps, XY can handle things outside the body that shouldn't be when there is a genetic link?   I just don't know. 

In thinking about the two adults in the opening of this post, if we were under threat of violence, I know that they would likely be the first to take on a traditionally male protective role.    So it isn't that they are weak or passive.  While I don't pretend to understand how a man who can face down a potentially armed intruder can be undone by vomit, I will go on record as saying that given the two, you take the bullets and I'll get the barf every time.

While this may seem a sketchy topic for Valentine's Day, I promise there is a connection.  Be grateful for the people with whom you have surrounded yourself, romantically or otherwise.   For each time you shake your head over the fact that you are, (possibly again), handling the bilious things life has thrown at you, remember that on any given day, these people might be the ones who would take a bullet for you, or in some cases, provide your bail money.  Be grateful for your own superpower and know that the person nearest you just may not have had the opportunity to show theirs yet. 

Annual Reminder That I Am Not Reasonable

Of all my favorite holidays, Valentines isn't.  It is a holiday that cannot live up to the hype and expectation. And every year, (really, EVERY year), I fall for it and end up filled with angst, and frustrated anger.

When I was an elementary school student, the biggest excitement was in eating scads of chalky hearts and giggling over the silly messages which we knew meant something, and even more importantly, something about boys and girls and dating and K-I-S-S-I-N-G, but there wasn't a layer of "Show me you love me in a big and meaningful way."  There were no Kisses beginning with Kay, or queries about whether or not he had been to Jared.  You made the big gesture if you gave the flashiest, most heavily be-stickered fold-in-half card to someone other than your BFF.

And then suddenly the boy-girl thing happened.  Suddenly those conversation hearts were a little more meaningful.  And just a little later, in junior high, there were carnation sales and rose sales as fundraisers.  Those days were killers.

Every class period that morning was disrupted by enterprising upperclassmen entering with an armful of flowers.   There was expectation and anticipation and disappointment in rejection all wrapped up in those single stems.  Would you be the girl who got the yellow carnation of friendship, or the red rose of love, or the pink of I don't-even-remember-what?  Would you be the boy that every girl bought a flower for in a shade of daring "date-me"?  Would you be the shy kid in the back whose anxiety made you both wish for just one flower and fear that someone would actually send one. (Every time, times six years.) I'm pretty sure one year the teachers took up a collection to send me  flowers just to keep me from crying.

In college, Valentine's Day was both another opportunity to party, and the night that you didn't want to be the leper washing your hair in the communal bathroom or schlepping to the rec room in bunny slippers while everyone else in the free world with a pulse and a pair of heels was making a mass exodus for amazing dinner and jewelry and wine.  (Not me this time.  My slippers were bears.)

Then the Valentine's that was certain to end in engagement, only it really ended with "I think we should see other people before we get serious."  (Suddenly the card with one chocolate heart in it  made more sense, it was not the decoy gift, it was the kiss-of-death.)

Then married Valentine's, part One.  If you marry a man who is not into big gestures, who buys his gifts at the grocery store on the way home from work, or buys you a gift that's really a boomerang gift for himself, Valentine's is going to eat your soul.  When your friend calls to say that she just opened an amazing piece of jewelry smuggled into her dinner entree and sprinkled with pixie dust and unicorn sparkles, you might want to stick a fork in your eye.  Or hers.

 It might make your hand-drawn on a post-it note in Sharpie Valentine a little less...well, just less.  You might wonder how you have failed, again, at celebrating Valentine's in a way that will leave you with a memory for your golden years.  You might try to plan elective surgery to avoid the lunch table conversation around "What did you guys do for Valentine's?"  You might briefly contemplate homicide, but you live in a cold New England region where burial will have to wait at least six to eight more weeks, and nobody has that much quick lime.

And then Married Valentine's, part Two.  Years pass and you find yourself divorced, single, and remarried over the span of several of those damn V-holidays.  And you think that this time, yes this time, you will be the girl of a thousand flowers, with golden debris in her entree, and an amazing story at lunch on Monday.  However, silly you.  You have married a pragmatist.  Handy for when your burning desire is to have the brakes replaced on your car, not so applicable in holidays of the gift-giving nature.  Handy when you need someone to build a device to lift a mattress into a third story window of a two hundred year old house because the stairwell is too narrow, but not when just once before your dotage, you want to be the star of your own Romcom scene.

And so, my Valentine's loving friends, I wish you all the best with your holiday plans, but this is one celebration that I no longer take part in.  I've heard the refrain "I don't want something on one day, I want to be shown that I'm loved every day"  and I get it, but honestly, my brain and heart have a disconnect on this holiday.  I want to be loved every day, and a little extra on Valentine's Day.

I tell myself that not all good things begin with Kay, but honestly, very few good Valentine's begin with kettlecorn.  And if your holiday fare goes well with ketchup, we probably have vastly different expectations.