Here's a little secret to all children out there - your parents always want to give you treats. If there's a reason to celebrate, we want to shower you. We want you to be bathed in all things glowing and sweet and wonderful.
If we're out on an adventure, say, at a planetarium or a museum and you have been well behaved, we want to reward you. And if there's an ice cream stand on the way home - we want to stop and share the simplest of summer joys together as a family, jimmies and all.
Unfortunately, we do not want you to grow up rotten or demanding. We do not want you to feel entitled to every good thing that there is on this earth, simply because you were so kind as to bless it with your presence.
As parents we must be measured in our rewarding, in our discipline. And so, when you decide to deliberately disobey, and to throw your little body down on the ground and whimper when we simply tell you that you need to try to use the bathroom before we leave - you force us to do what we must.
Not without warning of course. We give you chances. We count to three - waiting patiently, hoping, crossing our fingers - that you might stand up, apologize and wrap your little arms around us. Or at the very least, pull it together and use the toilet without any more scenes.
But when we've let the number T H R E E stall long enough on the tips of our tongues and you are still prostrate on the floor, consequences happen.
No ice cream for you.
Even though we still want to give it to you. Even though it hurts us to watch you pout and watch your brother and cousin slurp chocolate soft serve from their plastic spoons and gleefully wipe rainbow jimmies from their chins.
Even though as we sit, you are well behaved and you are listening and though your lip quivers, you do not scream or shout or whine. You simply sit and watch with your round saucer eyes glistening, reflecting sunlight and hope - hope that we might cave perhaps and let slide one of our spoons to your lips.
But no. Alas, there are consequences for your actions. And though there is nothing we'd rather be doing than sharing our frozen treats with you, we can not. We must not. In the hopes that you might learn, might not sob when we tell you to try and pee before we take a long car ride, so that you might not wet yourself and your seat and the only pair of pants that we brought with us for the trip.
Please. Let this lesson of ice cream stick. May you remember the feeling of not eating the cool, creamy confection as much as your father and I are going to remember the sadness and longing in your eyes. Because really, truly, and you probably won't actually understand this until you have children yourself - I know I didn't - we always want to give you treats.
In another attempt to earn some extra income at home, I've decided to go ahead and pimp myself out, offering my phenomenal Editorial & Mentoring Services to the world at large.
Because, of course, in "this economic climate" (I swear if I hear that phrase one more time, I might actually slap the person saying it to me) who wouldn't want to shell out their hard earned income to improve their home grown writing projects?
In family related news, it turns out that Lila is going to be in for a big disappointment when she realizes that this baby we keep talking about is actually going to arrive. She sat on my lap the other night and this conversation ensued:
Me: Lila, where's your baby brother?
Her: Uh, right there.
Me: No, that's your big brother. Where's the baby?
Her (quite huffy actually): The baby is all gone.So don't talk about it any more.
As noted by Phx on the video post of my daughter doing a face-plant off of a slide, she's a tough cookie.
And I admire the heck out of her.
At the park again the other day, she found herself between a couple of "big" kids who were jumping on one of those bouncing bridges that usually connect two slides or ladders or poles to slide down. So, while wobbling between the kids, trying to get her own little legs to lift off, she falls down, this time smacking her face on a metal rail. Ouch.
Of course she cried, but even as I reached to pick her up, she was clamouring (rather indignantly) for me to put her back down so that she could master that stupid bridge.
Even after the other kids left, she kept going back to it and jumping, very purposefully - as if to say, you're not the boss of me.
Yesterday, I made the mistake of leaving the ladder to my son's bunk bed up in their room while I walked out to grab the laundry. Of course, within a minute of my leaving, she was climbing it and, according to Alex (and the loud scream that came from their room) - she fell from the top. I panicked, tried to look her over for anything broken, bleeding, bruised...nothing. And then I realized she wasn't screaming or crying out of pain, but out of frustration. She wasn't begging for Mama, she was yelling "Ladda!" and pointing. Not because she was telling me what happened, but because she wanted to get back at it.
Of course, I moved the ladder this time, brought it out to the kitchen with me, leaned it against a wall while I went back to trying to switch over the laundry. Two seconds later - CRASH. She had followed me and managed to climb up it and fallen backwards - again, this time, taking the ladder with her.
And again, she had no visible marks, nothing wrong, just bruised pride.
Unlike her brother who was born with apparently more common sense (though, he's also the one who found poo to be an source of entertainment, so I guess it's a draw), who approaches everything with an touch of caution, and avoids things completely if they've hurt him in the past, Lila is like a steamroller. Don't get in her way.
Makes me want to bubble wrap her whole world to keep her safe.
It dawned on me recently how much less time I spend chronicling my daughter's life than I did with The Boss. It's a phenomena that I associated with lazy parents prior to having my own second child, the syndrome of having boxes and boxes of nostalgia from their first child's first few years - and then nearly nothing for the second. Yet, here I am. Even in the blogosphere, I haven't given her the focus that I gave her brother.
I don't feel guilty, it's really just more the acceptance that life does get in the way. And that working two jobs and taking care of kids/house/husband and trying to somehow construct a worthwhile writing life, it all sort of leaves you a bit lacking - not as much time to time to sit back and ponder things.
For my son's first birthday, I ran a countdown here of now and then, a timeline showing how we'd grown and changed, how life had spun us and where we'd wound up. For Lila, there is only this. A happy family, albiet in the midst of a whirlwind, still waiting to see where we'll wind up. And perhaps then there will be more of a chance for retrospection and creative expression.
But in the meantime, I'm going to take my beautiful birthday girl out for a birthday ice cream. And enjoy the moment while I'm in it.
Because I have so much extra time on my hands to be thinking of things like contests involving brands of yogurt that I don't even buy - I started snapping pictures of Lila for a Cover Baby contest. Which one says to you "I love yogurt!" Or at least, "I'm so cute, you'll buy what ever I tell you to." I think that they're going for either look...
I have a little time before the deadline. Maybe I'll try to take her outside and get some pictures in the natural light too.
For those of you with super-cute babies and toddlers also - here's the link to the contest (which also has information on getting a free sitting/8 x 10 picture from The Picture People when you enter...)
This is what I'm trying to do - as days go by without the peace of nap time - as nights go by spent away from home, working a job that will never be a career - as I try to find moments to sit and write.
If for no other reason than this - that I have never been so motivated to write and succeed at doing so, than I am at the moment - the entire MFA program was worth it.
Sure, my motivation is partially born from my natural inclination to scribble and doodle and spend time caring deeply about worlds that no one will ever know exist if I don't sit down and create them - but it is also born of a desperation and a desire to achieve that has not been there prior to now.
Perhaps it's from watching as Lila takes her first steps - how she falls and rises again and again. How she applauds herself in between, perhaps for learning better how to fall, for learning better how to anticipate and prepare herself for the inevitable, the soft bump of her bottom on the carpet, the tile, the wood planks of the floor. And there's the determination in her eyes as she pulls herself back up - focused only on using her strength, on straightening her legs, on balancing her weight, on doing everything in her control to reach her goal. She strives. She succeeds. She claps. And then her face pinches for a moment, as she prepares again for the fall, and we begin again. With applause.
I want to tell her that this is where I am too.
But there's time for that yet.
*Challenge update: Muddled. Been writing, not nearly enough, perhaps an average of 1100 words a day. But what has become interesting is how this (supposedly new) novel has begun to teach me about Grace - about her character and how perhaps there was more to her story that was waiting for the right quiet moment to present itself. And so, I say the writing is muddled, because, I'm not sure what it is that I'm writing anymore. Is it new? Or is it simply a back entrance to a work I thought I'd wandered too far away from?
She's taking steps, not entirely successful beyond that first one yet, but considering that she has only just gone from standing on her own to taking that step in the span of a week, I think it's safe to say that by her first birthday she will be asking for keys to the car and then giving me attitude when I insist on a curfew.
The Boss has been both helpful and difficult as Lila has begun showing an interest in walking. He wants to hold her hands and guide her, as I do, but this often turns into the two of them on the floor and both of them whining. Lila, upset that she has been seemingly mauled by her brother, and The Boss, because he wants the sympathy that I give to Lila.
Boo Boos! He cries umpteen times a day. (And most emphatically after he has popped his sister off the head with a toy or tumbled himself while climbing over her on the carpet...)
But I don't mind his asking for me to kiss for his Boo-Boo's. It's amazing to me how quickly a gently laid pair of Mommy-lips can cure anything that ails him. If only it could always be so simple.
In writing news - I was struck recently with a new idea for a novel. Something that actually kept me excited about the prospect of coming and sitting here to write. I'll be at work tomorrow - and I plan on utilizing the time away from being Healer of All ThingsBoo-Boo, to hopefully make some headway on the first chapter or two.
I feel the need to tackle this aggressively, as though it were as simple as a short story - just purge it all onto paper and then tidy it up later. The process of finding an agent or publisher seems like such a daunting and lengthy one, that I fear if I don't get something prepared to begin it soon, it might never happen.
And since school loans and mortgages don't care what your potential is as a person - only how timely you can repay your debts, I must begin to think the same way. That potential as a writer is not the same as being a writer.
Oh sure, there is personal success, and I won't take the title of 'writer' away from myself, should I never even achievemonetary success. Because more than money, there is the satisfaction that you have communicated and created and used the giftings given you in this life. And that certainly extends beyond any monetary gain.
That being said though - monetary gain would certainly do this writer no harm, but perhaps even speed the writing process by allowing less time to be spent with finger's plugging the dams and more time with them tapping on keys.
And coffee. If I had more money I could drink better coffee in larger quantities - perhaps on the porch of a farm house, as my kids play in a field and I write the afternoon away on a fancy new laptop.
Almost two years ago, we were in our condo during a sweltering summer evening. Heat that sticks to you, sliding on your skin as you move, thick heat. Miserable, suffocating, horrible heat. And The Boss was teething.
I mostly remember him screaming, waling from his crib, and then in my arms, unsoothable. Uncalmable. Making himself hotter, his skin clammier and stickier with each scream - as I held him, nearer and nearer to myself, to my own warm body, humming Jingle Bells, of all things.
And eventually, walking, humming, pressing his head against my chest, his limbs began to dangle, giving up the fight and just moving with me as I swayed us both in his nursery.
I remember thinking at that exact moment, how precious this time is - the time when they're holdable, when they're no longer from head-to-toe than my torso, when I'm able to simple hug them 'till they're sleeping.
Lila is at the same stage now. Teething. Needing cuddles and soothing humming. Summer's coming. Life is repeating itself, in a sweet, comforting way, while my older child spins around my calves on the floor, offering me plastic hot dogs and telling me to put Lila down to play with him.
But I can't put her down. If I do, this time will pass - quicker, perhaps. And I'm just not ready to let it go.
