Time keeps on slippin'...into the future. If you look closely, you will see that my fingernails have left imprints on its slippery hide as it passes me by. My babies are getting bigger, bolder, and bossier, and I am getting older. The combination lends to an interesting fusion of slow down and hurry up already that has us all reeling.
Miss Little Middle has boldly gone off to kindergarten. On opening day she bolted down the sidewalk and onto the bus so fast that I didn't even kiss her little face goodbye one last time before she became a full-on school-ager. I tried to get even a wave, but she was already in the zone. And I'm glad for her, but the apron string stitches have begun to fall away at an alarming rate and I'm beginning to have tugs of "Did I do enough?" and "Have we given her what she needs?" and for all that she looks like a mighty big kid, she is still so little to me many days. And then out of the blue, two teeth fall out within days of each other, and suddenly she is that jackolantern-y, slightly goofy, and precious mix of baby and big that gets me in the soft and unprotected place in my heart.
Tick-Tock.
And recently, Sister Middle informed me that she knows her new kindergarten male friend "LOVES" her. I asked how she knew and she answered me with, "Oh Mama, it's how he says my name. Like this..." and proceeded to demonstrate a sighing, breathless production of her name that made both giggle and want to home-school immediately. (At least she didn't quote Cher, "It's in his kiss, that's where it is!") I promptly informed her that it was illegal to have boyfriends in kindergarten. Against the law I tell you. But I also recalled that on day one of kindergarten she came home to say she had made friends with two boys, "...and they're the mischief boys Mama." Holy hell. My child has a thing for "bad boys" at age five.
Tick-Tick-Tick
Sister Big attends the school where I am employed. This has been a huge learning curve for both of us. But biggest of all, has been the rude awakening that when she tells a teacher something, it will get back to me in short order. Within the first two weeks of school she had told stories that would have brought tears to children's services workers' eyes.
They weren't accurate mind you, but it did make it sound as though we let the children collectively free-range, fending for themselves, until there was blood, and then, (maybe), would we rise to the occasion of parenting them. What makes this so ludicrous is that we stop just shy of being employed by Chinook we are so prone to hovering. ( Listen closely now, you can almost hear the "whup-whup-whup of the maternal rotor-blades as I type and listen for even the slightest hint that Mr. Unscripted has let them out of sight. ) We have talked about the boy who cried wolf so often that Sister Little, now two, can recite some of the story. "And den da woof came and da boy 'Hep! Hep! but nobody comes." And yet, each day is a new chance to start a conversation with a colleague in the following manner..."So what you need to know is..."
Tickety-Tickety-Tock
Sister Little is verbal. Very, very, very, verbal. I both long for the days when she was Moby-wrapped into tacquito size against my body, and that point a few months out where she might be slightly less full-force terrorist, and slightly more "Hey! Let's play this game for five or six minutes, and NOT fling anything to the ground, smear anything with goo, or stuff a food-based object into an orifice not intended for ingestion." She is a ball of energy, inquisitive thought, and intent on grasping the world by the tail with both sticky hands. But I am a tired, tired Mama. And she is smart. She knows when my defenses are down, and she can stealth-mode into action in that brief interlude between "Where did I set down the coffee this time?" and "Who put peanut butter on the fish?" when I'm not attentive enough.
Tick, Tick, Tick
And all the while, the world continues to change. I know that parents of every generation have said "It's not the world I grew up in!" And yet, I worry about how to teach, inform, and protect my girls while giving them the room to grow. How do I prepare them for the world they are going into, which is truly nothing like my childhood days? Despite the fashions trends that are circling back around, (Talking to you neon, and harem pants, and high-waisted jeans...), nothing feels as mild as the threats did then. It was easy to listen to Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No", but to quote my childhood, "I'm not sure we're in Kansas anymore Toto".
And in moments like these, when crazy propeller brain has taken over, I have to force myself to think about the other half of the time passage equation. Tock, or rather "Talk". My girls talk to me. And I to them. I will do time-out for particularly egregious behavior regardless of where we are, I will tell them why and what they need to do to repair the problem. I will tell them how I feel, how I think, and what I wish, but I also try to get at those same elements from their perspective. I try to surround them with extended circles of safe friends who can be the sane Mama brain when I cannot. I try to fill their world with quality "talk", but balance it with quality "listen". And I hope, and I wish, and I pray, and pray some more.
And now, I have talked to you. I need to go and check on my merry band of three boisterous, bossy, and bold babies. Somewhere out there, those three are up to no good and Mr. Unscripted's propellers are tuned to a different rotation than mine ;)
Miss Little Middle has boldly gone off to kindergarten. On opening day she bolted down the sidewalk and onto the bus so fast that I didn't even kiss her little face goodbye one last time before she became a full-on school-ager. I tried to get even a wave, but she was already in the zone. And I'm glad for her, but the apron string stitches have begun to fall away at an alarming rate and I'm beginning to have tugs of "Did I do enough?" and "Have we given her what she needs?" and for all that she looks like a mighty big kid, she is still so little to me many days. And then out of the blue, two teeth fall out within days of each other, and suddenly she is that jackolantern-y, slightly goofy, and precious mix of baby and big that gets me in the soft and unprotected place in my heart.
Tick-Tock.
And recently, Sister Middle informed me that she knows her new kindergarten male friend "LOVES" her. I asked how she knew and she answered me with, "Oh Mama, it's how he says my name. Like this..." and proceeded to demonstrate a sighing, breathless production of her name that made both giggle and want to home-school immediately. (At least she didn't quote Cher, "It's in his kiss, that's where it is!") I promptly informed her that it was illegal to have boyfriends in kindergarten. Against the law I tell you. But I also recalled that on day one of kindergarten she came home to say she had made friends with two boys, "...and they're the mischief boys Mama." Holy hell. My child has a thing for "bad boys" at age five.
Tick-Tick-Tick
Sister Big attends the school where I am employed. This has been a huge learning curve for both of us. But biggest of all, has been the rude awakening that when she tells a teacher something, it will get back to me in short order. Within the first two weeks of school she had told stories that would have brought tears to children's services workers' eyes.
They weren't accurate mind you, but it did make it sound as though we let the children collectively free-range, fending for themselves, until there was blood, and then, (maybe), would we rise to the occasion of parenting them. What makes this so ludicrous is that we stop just shy of being employed by Chinook we are so prone to hovering. ( Listen closely now, you can almost hear the "whup-whup-whup of the maternal rotor-blades as I type and listen for even the slightest hint that Mr. Unscripted has let them out of sight. ) We have talked about the boy who cried wolf so often that Sister Little, now two, can recite some of the story. "And den da woof came and da boy 'Hep! Hep! but nobody comes." And yet, each day is a new chance to start a conversation with a colleague in the following manner..."So what you need to know is..."
Tickety-Tickety-Tock
Sister Little is verbal. Very, very, very, verbal. I both long for the days when she was Moby-wrapped into tacquito size against my body, and that point a few months out where she might be slightly less full-force terrorist, and slightly more "Hey! Let's play this game for five or six minutes, and NOT fling anything to the ground, smear anything with goo, or stuff a food-based object into an orifice not intended for ingestion." She is a ball of energy, inquisitive thought, and intent on grasping the world by the tail with both sticky hands. But I am a tired, tired Mama. And she is smart. She knows when my defenses are down, and she can stealth-mode into action in that brief interlude between "Where did I set down the coffee this time?" and "Who put peanut butter on the fish?" when I'm not attentive enough.
Tick, Tick, Tick
And all the while, the world continues to change. I know that parents of every generation have said "It's not the world I grew up in!" And yet, I worry about how to teach, inform, and protect my girls while giving them the room to grow. How do I prepare them for the world they are going into, which is truly nothing like my childhood days? Despite the fashions trends that are circling back around, (Talking to you neon, and harem pants, and high-waisted jeans...), nothing feels as mild as the threats did then. It was easy to listen to Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No", but to quote my childhood, "I'm not sure we're in Kansas anymore Toto".
And in moments like these, when crazy propeller brain has taken over, I have to force myself to think about the other half of the time passage equation. Tock, or rather "Talk". My girls talk to me. And I to them. I will do time-out for particularly egregious behavior regardless of where we are, I will tell them why and what they need to do to repair the problem. I will tell them how I feel, how I think, and what I wish, but I also try to get at those same elements from their perspective. I try to surround them with extended circles of safe friends who can be the sane Mama brain when I cannot. I try to fill their world with quality "talk", but balance it with quality "listen". And I hope, and I wish, and I pray, and pray some more.
And now, I have talked to you. I need to go and check on my merry band of three boisterous, bossy, and bold babies. Somewhere out there, those three are up to no good and Mr. Unscripted's propellers are tuned to a different rotation than mine ;)
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