Big Girls and Little Girls

I imagined it in reverse.

I thought my baby would be the one telling me that she was the Big Girl, while peddling at breakneck speeds on her tricycle to get to the corner where she would inevitably halt and turn, breathlessly smiling that smile that says, I have far outpaced you, woman!  And with each step closer to my trike baby at the corner, I would be thinking, I have spent whole afternoons watching your glacial progress in controlling your popsicle stick toes, waiting to see if they would push that green toy car a microscopic nudge farther.

But instead, she is the one that is resisting it.

"I not a big gahl, Mommy. I a wittle gahl."

And I have to agree with her.

Until she asks me, "Mommy's a big gahl?"

Reminding me that I am, yes I am a big gahl, honeypie. In more ways than one.

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The Big Girl/Little Girl tug-of-war is profound and painful.  Girlhood is so fleeting and there are times I know that I grew up too fast, partly because I willed it and partly because I had no choice.  And there are times when the air is warm and musky and I want to ride my bike around another suburban cul-de-sac with a few wilting dandelions flipping around in the plastic wicker bike basket while I sing some hybrid song of lyrics I am spontaneously inventing and lacing them with Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy."

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There is so much sweetness from my girlhood that I am willing like an heirloom to my daughter, but like any heirloom, it is all so fragile and cannot be replicated by any modern day tools.  My little girl has to ride her own bike and pluck her own dandelions and write her own songs, mingling them, I hope, with a few notes I have taught her, which someday she might know by heart.

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Shots from that very fun wedding we attended where Baby Girl thunderjacked the Daddy/Daughter Dance.

St. Paddy's 2010

Attention Hog

See this girl?

We took her to a wedding today.  A Pi Day wedding with no pie.  But excellent cake, that was for certain.

That girl in the picture thought the DJ's stage was her personal platform from which she was meant to stage-dive onto the dance floor.

And when that dance floor was cleared for the daddy/daughter dance?  That pint-sized girl with the rosy cheeks thought the floor was being cleared for her.  To stagedive onto the dancefloor and announce, "Yay I did it!!!  I did it!!" and run around and spin and wave her arms and pirouette just a few feet away from the father who had emptied his heavy pockets to entertain and feed hundreds of people on a rainy Sunday, on the occasion of his daughter's wedding.  That father just wanted to dance with his own daughter.  But instead he found himself sharing the dancefloor with his daughter and someone else's daughter, who clapped vainly for herself, while an entire wedding reception venue exploded in applause for her.  During the bride's dance with her father.

Baby Girl soon exited stage left.

Out the Rabbit Hole

There are some things we have to do in order to get the urge out of our system, no?  I don't mean nefarious deeds or illicit affairs.  I mean more alone the lines of indulging our curiosities until we flush that curiosity right out of our system. In my case, that has meant:

- Eating 3 Aunt Annie's pretzels in one afternoon.  Glad I got that urge out of my system.

- Yelling at the top of my lungs in the college weight room at two guys that kept changing the radio station to super misogynist song station.  I don't think I will be creating another scene like this, again.  Out of my system.

- Marrying an Asian.  So glad that whole desire was fulfilled and put away.  And I kid!

- Applying to law school.  This is pathetic, but there was a time when I just needed to get the whole application and acceptance song and dance out of my system.  To prove that I was that smart, based on some faceless law school admissions committee decision.  I got in, I never attended, and it's out of my system for good.  For sure.

- Snorting a Pixi Stick.  It was red, it was messy, it hurt.  Out! Out of my system.

- I am sure Loverpants could rattle off a mile-long list of other things I just neeeeeeeded to buy/see/chew/do so that I could tuck away that burning desire.

But the latest includes getting our pictures made with the mall bunny.  Just had to do it.  Glad we did.  No regrets.  The bunny's name was Dennis.  Crossed Dennis off the list.

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