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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.

-------------

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

Two Arm One Leg Wave

Read when you're sixteen, again when you're thirty

Hi sweetie,

I received an email from an old friend on Friday saying that he was looking for something inspirational, needed something for the particular mood or moment, and found he'd bookmarked this blog, these letters I write to you and the world. I'm going to paraphrase what he said, although reading the actual email is only a TAB away. He wrote that he read these letters about a mother that loves her daughter and how they were full of rich and amusing details and brought him up from the place of being down.

I needed to see that message, right then, at that moment when I felt like the world was crashing down, my familiar world being destroyed albeit to create something new. I needed to see that my writing made a difference to someone, that I make a difference to someone.

It's so hard to let go of what isn't working, especially when what wasn't working had a regular paycheck. We're going through a lot of transition in the household these days, my 18 month contract gig and I parted officially last week. Was this your choice or theirs, a friend asked recently. I tell an elaborate story full of drama, but really, it's mutual. I was done, they were done with paying me to work for them. I feel like I've told the story so many times that the amusing part of the drama has dissipated leaving nothing really of interest except a few measly details. It involved time, and money, and egos all around.

So it's gone. Adios. Sayonara. So long and thanks for all the fish. I'm doing my best to breathe life into my yoga company, breathe more life, more energy, more me. It's doing well though building a company, running a company are intensely creative activities and require more attention than a newborn baby. I wonder if all that I go through now will catapult you forward into your destiny, beyond what I've already accomplished. WHEN I create a wildly successful company, one that makes a difference to those it touches, does that give you a more solid platform to move from, move beyond into your own missteps rather than ones that stopped me?

Ah, we shall see. I often think it's a child's destiny to go beyond where her parents stopped, either by choice or chance. See, my love, I want an unusual life. I stopped wanting to be an 8-5 employee in 2001 when the towers fell and I was laid off from my last real full time job. I wanted to forge my own path, create my own way, be a contractor but not let someone else have that much control over my time for the sake of money. I'm not lazy, I like working, but I like working at an office a lot less than 40 hours a week. All the drama and chaos and personality headbutting and chauvenists and glass ceilings. Argh. It's enough to give me a headache imagining it, remembering it.

So really, my job and I parted ways because I didn't want to be glued to a desk and an office and a job 40-50 hours a week for a regular paycheck. I saw I was capable of doing a job given to a VP, but didn't want that job. Is that bad? You decide, you, my sweetie and our studio audience. I have a dozen crazy ideas in my head, I want to hire instructors to teach classes through my company, be the facilitator, the instrument through which yoga happens. I want to teach a bit, and play with formats involving writing and movement. I ponder whether I want to go back into the world of high technology, it's still there, but heaven it interests me as much as a mismatched pair of socks. I'm afraid I'd get stuck doing what I hate, the day to day support that sucks the life out of me.

Okay, now I'm being dramatic, but seriously that's what gets under my nails and makes me bite people with problems I don't want to solve.

So we're in a period of transition in the house, as well as in transition in your room as it's slowly coming into focus with new paint, new window, patching and repairing around where the old closet door was and the new closet is. Your bed has been downstairs for a while now, but soon, I'm hoping one more week soon, it will be back together.

I'm also hoping that in what's left of February, I figure out with some clear picture of what is next for my career. It may seem odd that I'm writing this to you, although you're a bit less than 5 years old, and won't read this for a few more years, but perhaps what I want to say is that I bet everyone goes through this life angst, everyone at some point says what the heck am I doing and is this it? Is my life really only about going to work and coming home and picking up kids and making dinner and going to bed and doing it all over again except on weekends the rules are suspended except if work emergencies supersede any plans that may involve fun?

I'm sure it's not me, as much as I'm sure one day you may ask this question as well. Planning for that one day, just know you are not alone, but you are among a few if you do something different.

I love you
One million,
Mommy

Merry Christmas 2008

Hi sweetie,

Wow! A few months have passed since my last letter, and predictably some things have changed but mostly life is the same.

This was the first year you enthusiastically wanted to decorate a Christmas tree. Daddy & I postponed the tree purchase until a week before Christmas, when we drove down to the tree place and you & I walked around in search of the perfect small tree for our small living room. You did great, picking out a four foot tree that slid in perfectly between our TV and the front door. Daddy and I had agonized a bit over how to put the tree by the window and where we'd have to move the TV and re-wire the cable, but alas, the worrying was in vain.

You love putting ornaments on the tree, but not as much as you like wrapping presents. You like finding things to wrap, even if you've played with that thing for days already. This morning you wrapped a travel toothbrush we got last weekend, that you used this morning to brush your teeth. You also wanted to wrap a present you got last weekend from Papa and Deb-Deb for Mommy Rabbit.

We haven't pushed the idea of Santa, and I'm on the fence whether we ought to create and propagate the idea that there's this guy who makes toys and delivers them by chimney every year based on whether you've been good or bad. There are parts of the Santa tale I like, and some I don't, especially the part that feeds holiday compulsory spending and the rampant consumerism that is plaguing our country's economy right about now.

That's a little heavy for four and a half years old though, mostly I don't want you to plunge unconsciously into the "what am I getting for Christmas" attitude I see so much. That you make a list and get what's on it because that's what you're being fed by media as what should happen for Christmas.

But to walk out of the darkness of the politics of spending and into the light of the season, the light that is family, friends, helping others, and rejoicing in what we have. Among all of the financial turmoil, we have a home, we have each other, we have enough money for right now, and although life isn't perfect and Christmas has been usurped by large corporations selling products, I still go Christmas shopping and look for small things, small, thoughtful, inexpensive gifts for others around me. If anything, it's a good time to acknowledge those who matter to me.

Today I'm grateful that a trip to Target with you doesn't involve a crying fit around the toy section on what you want, what you say you have to have, and Conejito is still your favorite toy of them all.

love always,
one hundred thousand,
Mommy

And a picture for fun

Update

Hi Sweetie,

A dozen times a week I notice something you say or do and think I want to write about it here, now, before you stop saying and doing such wonderful spontaneous Ava-things. But alas, I'm human and bogged down by the limitations of physical time and space and sometimes I write them down but not always.

You started in the big big girl pre-K class at your school a couple weeks ago. New teachers that don't adore you on sight (yet) but most of the same friends as your last class. Along with the move to the new class there are no longer three teachers 'fighting' to be the chosen one to hold you momentarily as I walk away. Momentarily, because you run to the windows to give your trademark two arm one leg wave, which I gleefully return, not concerned in the slightest at decorum or propriety of a grown woman looking silly.

Yesterday we saw a picture of a caterpillar in one of your books and you told me, quite insistently, that a caterpillar goes into a racoon to become a butterfly. You were so sincere, I really didn't want to tell you that it's a 'cocoon' not a 'racoon' but I absolutely loved it.

Other Ava-quotes from a couple weeks ago:

"Mommy, when I grow up bigger like you I could hold a cat. A little cat."

You: "Mommy, baby rabbit doesn't want to go to sleep."
Me: "Maybe she's not tired."
You: "Yes she is!"

"Do you want to do the shaking all over dance?"
Yes, absolutely, yes. How would I not want to do the shaking all over dance?

Speaking of dancing, for a couple weeks you originated a "Sun Dance" that was a flowing yoga-ish modern expressionist dance with waving arms and body. Absolutely beautifully hilarious, especially with the serious look on your face.

Alas, I'm hit by that time/space crunch and need to go fetch you from school.

I love you,
one hundred thousand one hundred thousand
(and that's A LOT)

Mommy

I love you game

Me: I love you
You: I love you too
Me: I love you three
You: I love you four
Me: I love you five
You: I love you six
Me: I love you seven
You: I love you eight
Me: I love you nine
You: I love you ten
Me: I love you eleven
You: I love you twelve
Me: I love you thirteen
You: I love you fourteen
Me: I love you fifteen
You: I love you one
Me: ?
You: You have to say I love you two!
Me: I love you two
You: I love you three
Me: I love you five hundred and eighty seven
You: I love you one hundred and one
Me: That's a LOT!
You: I love you hundred and puppy.
Me: I love you one hundred and lion.
You: I love you one hundred and your hair.
Me: I love you one hundred and your feet.
You: I love you envelope in the car.
Me: Laughing

My sweetie, you are all over the board this week with a tantrum every other hour over something that nobody can predict. Despite the tantrums, the mood swings, the stubbornness, the fixation on getting what you want and screaming about it,

I love you one billion and three.

Party of Two

Four years old

Hi my sweetie,

Last weekend you became four years old. Yes, it took 365 days between three to reach four, and 4 x 365 days to reach four from the day I gave birth to you, but as all parents seem to say, it sure went fast.


You are quite the manifesting delight! You asked Daddy a couple months ago if we could go to Disneyland for your birthday. He said yes. What can only be a testament to your manifesting powers, was that we were at Disneyland on exactly your birthday, which fell on a Saturday this year.

When I asked you "what do you want to do at Disneyland?" you replied, "I want to play games and win tickets and have a parade." When Daddy asked you "what does Disneyland look like?" you replied "triangles and squares." So I'm not sure you knew what delights and surprises awaited you at the happiest place on earth, but the Disney marketing folks call it that for a reason ...

When we walked up to buy our tickets, Daddy told the ticket booth attendant it was your birthday and they presented you with a big round button exclaiming "Happy Birthday Ava" (okay, they wrote in the AVA with permanent marker, but still!), and said if we went to Town Hall you could hear your birthday message. We dutifully toddled along to Town Hall, sat you on the counter near a big old-fashioned phone where you were told happy birthday by none other than ... Goofy! "It was Goofy," you told us, "he said Happy Birthday!"

What a brilliant start to a wonderful day. We all got hats, including Daddy's peter pan and Jacque's minnie mouse. Mine was a gift from Auntie Brie - one I'd wanted since our trip to Mexico in November when I gazed jealously at hers ... we rode rides, we played games, didn't win many tickets, but your favorite ride, you tell others now, was the ROCKET CARS! Yes, you say it loud and exclamatory every time! Yes, that's right, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster cars were your favorite ride of the day, or perhaps the most memorable.

My sweetie, you are a wonderful delightful sometimes stubborn but altogether lovable girl. you talk and talk and talk and if I'm not listening to your satisfaction, say louder "Mommy I'M TALKING TO YOU." I'm slowly patiently teaching you about interrupting people when they're talking, but as with most parental lessons, feel like I need to clean up my act first.

Sometimes you don't want to go to school. I laugh, Daddy laughs, and we say to nobody in particular that you are of course the first child to ever say that in the history of modern education. So then I tell you that you can go to work and fix computers and I will go to school and play with your friends and paint and play with playdoh and play on the playground. You then shake your head, predictably, and say "No, I am going to school and you are going to work!"

I also love it when you ask "Why?" You're reaching the age when you ask "Why?" frequently, and a good friend who is also a parent said his son does this a lot so I shared my secret for reducing frustration. I may answer "Why?" if I know, but if I don't know, then I say "I don't know, what do you think?" I love, love, love to hear the variety of answers you deduce. Your favorite, of late, is to ask "Mommy (Daddy), Why do tigers have stripes?" Daddy responded the first time with "Because if they had spots they'd be leopards." So now if I say "I don't know, why do you think?" you respond with "Because if they had spots they'd be leopards or baby elephants or mommy or daddy elephants." Most amusingly, a few weeks ago we saw a tiger presentation at Marine World and Daddy said a bit too loud "Why do tigers have stripes?" and the tiger trainer, standing next to a very large tiger, responded "so they can be well camouflaged in the jungles where they live." Daddy looked a trifle embarrassed and said he wasn't really looking for an answer.

What else can I tell you about you at four? One of our (mine and yours, but definitely not Daddy's) favorite meals is ... noodles and tofu and carrots. I boil soba noodles and then cut up tofu and a few different types of veggies and throw them into a shallow pot with a bit of water and seven minutes later ... dinner. Yes, my sweet, you ask for tofu by name. You like it even more than me. But being a normal kid, or normal enough, you also love pancakes, french toast, your Nana's tortillas, rice, but not ... beans. I like beans, Daddy likes beans, but you, no way no how, not in a boat not with a goat.

Which brings me to your favorite books of the month ... Chicka Chicka Boom Boom was the running number one favorite we both have memorized but it has been usurped in popularity by Green Eggs and Ham. You just got a new book from Grandma Bear called "It's hard being a bunny" which you also love, and read to your Baby Rabbit last night before bed. Well, to say you "read" it is a slight exaggeration, but you told the story from memory. You read letters, but not words yet. I look on, smile, and mumble to myself how your whole world is going to open up as soon as you read your first word. For now though, I tell you that letters make words and words make sentences and sentences make paragraphs and paragraphs make books.

But now, it's four o'clock and I said I'd pick you up early from school to get a haircut. I may even surprise Daddy and get it cut Dora-short to make our morning grooming rituals easier.

I love you, more than there is water in the ocean.
Mommy

Cherry Blossoms

San Francisco Zoo

Yes, these are in chronological order. Always good to end with a smile, before the long walk to the car!