Epic Fail, Reversal

There once was a weary mum with a big belly, who spent most days operating off adrenaline fumes. That mum did not take well to the unseasonable 90 degree temps in her urbane 'hood yesterday.

In fact, she moved molasses-like about the usual chores of life.  Including cleaning piss and popsicle off of her living room floor.

So when her daughter resisted the potty, the nutritious dinner, in lieu of spilling bubble solution all over the patio, that tired mum relented.

Later last evening, the tired mum's tired friend came over with her toddler.  To the park they all went, with lovely picnic basket in tow.

Upon their arrival at the park, there were teens doing dark deeds on brightly lit benches.  The tired mum could only huff and find another bench with naughty teens out of her periphery.

As the tired mums enjoyed their picnic dinner, the tots played nicely.

Until.

Until a particular daughter proceeded to whiz her pants and split her lip in the course of five minutes.

As the tired mum rushed her bloody-lipped daughter back into the house, abandoning her guest friends at the park, a fleeting thought of whether or not there was a toddler-for-lease section on craigslist did pass her mind.

Bidding farewell to the friends, the tired mum scrubby dubbed the pee-stained daughter in the tub and prepped her for bed.

* * * * * * Then. * * * * * Dagnab it, Robert Munsch.

You made a marshmallow of that tired mum.

After a hardish day, all that tired mum wanted to do was watch some Oprah on DVR and wallow.

But then you inspired that tired mum's daughter to say,

"I love you forever, mommy."

There would be no wallowing, as she wet-swiffered the residual piss and popsicle off the floor later that evening.

Sometimes You Need a Little Time Away

Sometimes, the theme song to "Cheers" is not your theme song.  Because sometimes you need to go where no one knows your name, where everybody is not the same.  You need to make that 2.5 hour drive to North Conway, New Hampshire, to the nice albeit cheesy resort place to do things you wouldn't normally do, but that you need to do, just because you can. Sometimes you need to spend a few hard-earned quarters in the game room...

...and humor your enormous mother in Dance Dance Revolution...

Sometimes you need to hug a penguin...

Sometimes you need to wake up to the White Mountains, to the sound of gutters dripping instead of horns and buses and construction zones.

Sometimes you need to try on your first life jacket, even though you'll pitch it the second you get inside the indoor waterpark.

Sometimes you need to hear your kid say, "I had fun with you, Mommy!" and know she means it.

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.

***

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."

***

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.

***

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

St. Paddy's 2010