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