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"Home is just another word for you."
- Billy Joel, Piano Man Album

Conversations

Conversation #1:
Me: I wish you would trust me, I think you'll like the (Terriaki) chicken
You: What's trust?
Me, pondering: Trust is when I say something and you believe that it's true.
You, pondering.

Conversation #2:
You: Mommy, how many are you?
Me: Forty, well, almost forty in a couple weeks.
You: I wish I was forty.
Me: Why?
You: Then I could be like you.

I love you, sweet girl.
Mommy

The llama in the bolcano and other Ava stories

Yesterday you and I were playing a game with plastic easter eggs. you cracked one open and whooshed as something exploded out of it. My task was to guess what exploded.

a fountain? was my first guess
no

a geyser? second guess
no

what is it? i asked, out of ideas

LLAMA!

Llama?

Yes! The llama that comes out of the bolcano!

I tried to explain that you may mean lava and not llama, but you would hear none of it, and was trying valiantly to muffle laughter.

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A few days ago, on a rare quiet evening you and I were making mixed up chip cookies, when you commented, as nonchalantly commenting on the weather, that you kissed Ben at school today.

I picked up this comment, inspected it mentally, pretending you had just said something as blase as you had broccoli for lunch, and replied, Really? Where did you kiss him?

All over, again so unemotionally attached that you could be commenting on the weather.

Did you kiss him here? I replied, pointing at your nose, or here? Pointing at your stomach.

I kissed him ALL OVER! you said with amusement. Like this, you said, and kissed the air in front of my face a dozen times with your daddy's trademark air kisses. AND THEN I grabbed the back of his shirt and chased him around the playground.

What could I say to that? I just thanked those on duty upstairs that you would tell me this, and hope it's planting good seeds for when you're a teenager.

love,
Mommy

Professions

You, as we are watering the vegetable sprouts:
"Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a gardener!"

You, later, as we are making mixed-up chip cookies:
"Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a baker!"

Me:
"A baker and a gardener?"

You:
"Yes! I can be ANYTHING!"

Me:
"Yes you can, my love, yes you can!"

Friends

This is Fluffy, Because Conejito Wasn't Available

I'm almost embarassed to write this ...

Me:
Will conejito go with you to school today?

You:
No, conejito is sick.

Me:
Really? What is wrong with little rabbit?

You:
She drank too much of Mommy Rabbit's beer and now her tummy hurts.

Me:
Oh! Let little rabbit she is too young to be drinking beer. She has to be 21 to drink beer.
While I'm thinking, she really did notice that bad-assed hangover I had last week. Ouch!

You:
No she's not. She's two and a half.

Oh man, what do I say to that?

Five Years

Well, my big little girl, you are now five years old. The shift in your personality over the last couple weeks has been vast and minuscule simultaneously. You need me more and you need me less. I could easily say you are a beautiful dynamic contradiction.

Daddy and I cleaned up the house, the yard, and hosted a party in our honor. Sure, you were the birthday girl, but Daddy and I were also celebrating five years of successful parenting. You are ten feet of personality packed into that tiny little frame, ferociously independent (surprise, surprise), and demanding attention. Really, you're not that demanding, it's more that you want regular attention, which can be a bit challenging these days.

Back to our party ... five of your friends from school came (Daniela, Izel, Kylie, Joseph, Fiona) , along with their parents. Along with those friends, Nana, Papa, Jacque, and a sprinkling of other friends and our neighbors up the street came for a while. The weather was beautiful, bright sunny skies and warm enough for shorts and t-shirts. Daddy and I are not sure which diety you appeased with your birth, but the weather has always been gorgeous the three years we've had parties for you.

Highlight of your party for you ... at one point you decided that you needed to put on a bathing suit, the new little mermaid one from Grandma Bear, and then all of your school friends also had to put on your bathing suits. We didn't realize how many bathing suits you had until that point! We had four little girls running around in states of undress changing into your bathing suits, then you all headed for the trampoline to bounce at the same time!

Highlights of your party, for me ... when I saw people from vastly different parts of my life chatting, immersed in conversation; when people who are normally reserved and cautious around others become bold and vivacious; when Nana and Papa took over the barbecue grill and got all the meat done easily; when everyone came in to eat and Daddy's homemade macaroni and cheese along with my first run of baked beans were the hit of the party; when the other parents commented on the butterfly cookies I'd made as parting gifts instead of gift bags. Perhaps you know by now, but for me, giving away something I've baked is the ultimate delight.

The biggest highlight though, for me, was to see how far you, Daddy, and I have come as a family. The last few months have been bumpy, like rutted muddy road without a 4WD truck bumpy. My job with the food company went away, we parted ways not as amicably as friends but not as hostile as bitter lovers. I took a break, started a new job that is not quite right for a few reasons, and have been on the lookout for a new one which is achingly close and agonizingly distant. Daddy and the food company finally parted last week, after two departures and returns. He had a promising interview last week in an area that he's a rock star, so I'm making my offerings of prayer and devotion to those on duty in the great cloud in the sky that miracles shower us today, like the warm rain of the Hawaiian islands.

Also the realization has hit that you start Kindergarten in the fall. No messing around, no being late to school anymore, a big school with lots of older kids, and my sweet little big girl is going to be more big than little. I think you're more ready than we are. We're going to try the SF Public School system, grateful for the break of paying $1000 a month, and see how it goes. We're also both going to take on full time jobs, and see how that goes as well. The last few years Daddy and I have been working more part time than full time, and now it's time to gather up our resources and get to work.

I'm a little scared, a little nervous, but excitement colors the darkness of fear. This morning I felt overwhelmed, with the massive amount of work ahead of me at my current job but I read the first section of Walking In This World, and the task at the end suggested doing something creative for someone else.

I knew, with that grain of certainty that is so immense that it was time to write to you.

But now, it's time for work.

I love you, one hundred million,
and that's a lot.
Mommy

Taking the first step, next step

Soon I'll add something clever and witty or at least a rambling cliche, but for now, you can guess what this is.

love,

Mommy

Tales of discipline and devotion

Hi sweetie,

My last post was more about what happening with me than with you lately, so this one, my little love, is for you (but someday when you are in college, it will be for me, which Grandma Bear already understands and you will someday...).

Last week I saw that your perfectly white straight teeth were almost perfectly white. Almost, with the exception of two upper molars didn' t look so white anymore. They looked a bit brown, like you'd been hitting the black coffee during the afternoon.

I told you about this, in a way I thought made sense even to someone who is almost five, as "you want to have pretty teeth don't you?" Really what it meant was the days of letting you brush your teeth by yourself were over and it was time for me to step in and assist. Although as some of our studio audience can imagine, you didn't want to play that game. I even threatened, that first night after I saw my negligence, we can do this the hard way or the easy way, and I vote for the easy way.

My vote obviously was not the deciding vote, which is odd, because the hard way involves usually me holding you down in some fashion while I pry your mouth open enough to get the toothbrush to your back molars. Do I even need to say that this involved multiple threats, a couple timeouts, and CPS don't listen, even a spanking.

I hate spankings. Most of the time I feel like it's some caveman like behavior intended to show dominance over someone else. Okay, maybe it's not just for cavemen, but I don' t like it anyway. More than a few screams, yours and mine, and more than a few threats of no TV for the next century, and I got enough of your back teeth brushed to declare a truce. This day I felt like I failed my Mom-test, big time, and somehow it should be easier.

When I picked you up after school that day, you said "I told Tatiana that we were mad at each other last night but not anymore." Fair enough.

Sometimes the biggest challenge as a parent is defining the boundary between lenience and dominance. How much should I let you do, how much is about finding out where the boundaries are and letting you inch over them until I say stop? How much about parenting is negotiating instead of dominating? I don't know these answers, I suppose they are too experiential and subjective for a glib response.

But what I do know is two days later I passed the Mom test with flying colors. Imagine this: Friday, day before Valentine's day, and I can't even say it slipped my mind because that would be the equivalent to a mile long stretch of black ice and I skidded for that whole mile stretch rather than a comic banana peel slip. Anyway, nobody in our household remembered that it was pajama day in your preschool, especially not when I was urging you to pick out the shirt and leggings to go on under your school uniform jumper a little bit faster. I didn't have one thing on my mind to distract me, I had a whole herd and it was about to catch up to me.

We walk into your classroom, a bit late, and all twenty kids simultaneously shout "you aren't wearing pajamas!!!" Ugh. I look at one of your teachers, hanging out in a white robe, and say "I'll be back." At that precise moment I am grateful I'm not working and that I could go back home. I ask you quickly, which pajamas you want. No hesitation: Kitty cat pajamas.

There is no dillying or dallying as I drive the couple miles return trip. When I return you are seated at the table with your pint sized friends, who see me first and squeal my arrival.

We duck into the back of the room and swap clothes. Your eyes open wide, you declare:

"MOMMY YOU'RE THE BEST!"
And throw your arms around me for a hug that lasts at least 90 seconds.

Thanks love, I needed that.
Mommy