This Is Puppy.

Pin It

The quintessential rag doll tagalong

This is Puppy.

You’ve probably seen him before. If you know us in person, I know that you have.

Puppy follows Matthew everywhere. The skating rink. The library. The doctor’s office. The bathroom. He tags along for every game of catch in the park. Sits between our laps and every book we’ve ever read together. And when Mary is not in the car with us, he takes her place slumped calm and composedly under a seatbelt, next to Matthew’s booster; his front legs wilted happily over the heavy nylon stretched across his lap. He has stains of every color variation and texture embedded into his fur. He gets washed almost as often as Matthew’s underwear and he is worn with the sands of being well loved.

Yesterday it occurred to Matthew that with the speeds he’s learned to ride his bike at now, he can’t comfortably hold puppy by the ear while simultaneously holding onto the handle bars and keeping his balance. I wasn’t bringing the stroller either, so Puppy couldn’t come.

This was an issue.

I started to put my foot down. I started to tell him that it isn’t going to be a catastrophe if puppy misses out on this one bike ride just this one time, just around the block. I knew that Matthew would understand. He usually does, even if he persists a little. He’s attached to Puppy enough to want to bring him everywhere, but he isn’t so attached that he falls apart if we forget now and then. But then I stopped myself.

I looked at my son; long legs draped over a tall huffy, one foot resting carelessly on the pedal, the other keeping him upright and steady on the pavement, not straining to reach at all. His face looking on in that thoughtful way, but void of all that stark anticipation it used to be filled with just last year when he mounted a two wheeler with training wheels for the first few times. This year, he isn’t gripping the bars as tightly. He isn’t nearly as entranced by the idea of going (all the way!) around the block. His tongue isn’t going to be stuck to the inside of his cheek when he first pushes off. And he won’t even bat an eye when his tire goes slicing through a puddle bigger than he is; If anything? He’ll laugh and look back and say, “Whoa, Mommy! Did you see that?” He might even just call me “mom.”

He’s getting so big.

Matthew’s grown out of a lot of things in his four years of life; a lot of things I’ve really dreaded having to let go. His Nautica crib sheets. His Winnie-the-Pooh snowsuit. His argyle sweater vest. His habit of putting his pants on backward. His use of the made-up term “amn’t” (am not), Even, to a large degree, his intense fondness of Thomas the Tank Engine. These were all things that, for a time, I pictured when I thought of him… that I don’t anymore. The weird thing is that it never stings quite like I think it will when I pack one of them up to donate or I realize all at once that he hasn’t needed (or done, or wanted, or said) one of these characteristic things in a long time. There isn’t even usually much more than a passing thought and maybe a little, biting wince of sentiment paid to it after it’s whisked off, inevitably replaced as it will be by something new and twice as integral to who he is.

I’ve learn to give away stuff by the boxful without even bothering to give it a once over like I used to, just for the sake of breathing it all in, one stuffed animal at a time, before it’s meaning is no doubt lost on someone else who will never love it like he did. Who has time for senselessness like that with three kids around..

But I know that on the day that Matthew looks on this creature for the first time and only sees beads where he once saw sympathetic eyes; feels nothing more than stuffing sandwiched between long-threaded fabric where he once felt an unshakable, beating heart; hears nothing where once there was a voice… we’ll both have lost a little something worth remembering in a very big way. This animal, more than anything else he has ever loved as a child, holds the magic of his youth.

　

　

Until then?

　

　

“You know what? I bet we can find room, somewhere…”

Puppy will be there. 

"Mommy, Leave Her Alone. She's Just Being Cur-ative!"

Pin It

So Scarlett has a new thing.

It’s called: being covered in marker for the larger part of everyday no matter how many times I bathe her. I mean, it’s called drawing.

This is where my mom jumps in to complain about how I only bathe my kids every other day unless there’s some dire reason to do it more often. Apparently only bathing your kids every other day is a generational thing and my brothers and I were bathed everyday of our lives, whether we needed it or not, not that she’s judging or anything ;-). Marker on my childrens’ arms and hands and face and behind their knees and in between their toes and on their teeth used to constitute a dire need for bathing. But as of yesterday - the fifth day in a row Scarlett’s gotten a bath at both the middle of the day before we left the house and bedtime, only to become soiled twice as badly ten minutes later with the same marker I just wiped off - IT DOESN’T.

I can’t purge my house of these dry erase markers either because they’re literally a staple in Matthew’s daily life. He learned to write using this Melissa and Doug dry erase board when he was two. He learned to tell digital time with it by using it to practice writing down what time it was on the microwave every time it changed. He writes me sentences now and little notes on it and I use it to teach him letter combinations and math now. Plus, he can draw 32,000 different pictures on it a day without any one of them winding up on the kitchen floor because the baby pulled it off of the fridge AGAIN. And again. And again. And again. This board is like magic, and I love it, and Matthew loves it and once I showed it to Scarlett SHE loved it. Which I just thought was the bees freakin’ knees until this showed up for the first time:

And honestly, even after that I still didn’t mind. I just thought I’d have to keep a better eye on where the markers wound up. I talked to Matthew about how to be responsible and put them away immediately after he’s finished using them. He readily agreed.


But then he forgot.


And she wrote on the table.


Then he forgot again.


And she wrote on the floor.


Then he forgot again.


And she wrote on his carpet.


Then he forgot again.


And she wrote on the cabinets.


And every time that she wrote on something, she accidentally wound up with it inside of her ears and under her fingernails and over her eyebrows and in her hair and all up and down her arms and positively covering her clothes. And that was without trying to write on herself.


Then, oh my word!, she discovered that you CAN write on yourself. What a fun new thing! And life for me has been a very long series of baths and baby-wipe rub-downs every since. And shockingly little else. Seriously. Shockingly.


The up side though? (Because with a face like that, there’s always an up side…)
She really does love to draw. And it’s just hard to hate anything that makes her this happy.

Even when it drives me FREAKING BANANAS.

This Is The Motherload of Misery They Were Talking About.

Pin It

It’s my honest opinion that Scarlett is becoming kind of a psychopath.

To be fair, she was never really not crazy before, so it’s not like I’m being caught completely off-guard. She was ten months old when she threw her first balls-out temper tantrum, and ever since her father and I have attentively (and even somewhat admiringly) taken note of the fact that the healthier and stronger and more brilliantly energetic she becomes with age, the crazier she shows us she is.

I say admiringly because back then… you know, before she could throw stuff, her temper - however big for her age - was still packaged small enough not to have to duck for cover from.

Nonetheless: “This one is going to be a real pain in the ass.” is a phrase we’ve gravely exchanged many-a-time during her infancy. Yes, I said infancy, and no I don’t feel bad for it either. Because we were right. And it’s not like we ever held it against her. If anything, we exalted her for it. (‘What a personality!’ We’d always say. This is what parents of difficult children always say to make themselves feel better for having unruly, nutcase children.) Scarlett was too helpless to be unruly as a baby, but she was definitely a high-maintenance nutcase right out of the gate. I could tell it by the way she cried the day she was born. It was the way my mom always described my oldest brother’s cry. She practically warned me about that cry. And I recognized it immediately.

And this is a child who never, not once in her entire babyhood teethed. Which, from what I hear is really supposed to be the only thing babies who aren’t colicky are even capable of doing that’s difficult.

So you can imagine how, now that she is an all-the-more capable, irrational and ridiculously short-fused toddler, that whole teething thing is going down.

Yeah.

NOT WELL.

My child hates life on an epic scale right now. In the span of… three months I guess, Scarlett has popped six enormous teeth. And judging simply by how many fucked-up notches she’s kicked up the crazy in the past three or four days, I think it’s fair to say that the rest are coming in all at once. NOW. Just like everyone told me they would.

Everyone said the same thing when Matthew was a year old before he got any of his teeth, too. They said that by the time they did come in, they’d be coming in all once and that he would drop a motherload of misery on us, the likes of which we poor inexperienced parents could not even comprehend. But it wasn’t that bad at all. Especially because the worst of it happened while his dad and I were hundreds of miles away on our week-long Floridian honeymoon and the most we had to endure of it was my mom calling our hotel room to tell us that Matthew was practically dying of an ear infection. We felt really bad about it, but then accidentally wound up on a topless beach about ten minutes later and forgot about it pretty fast. By the time we got back home he was totally normal. (Best baby ever, that kid.)

I love Scarlett to death, but I don’t think a single day of her infancy/early toddler hood has been easy on us. It’s been joyous and all that, for sure. But certainly nothing resembling easy.

　

And honestly, I’m okay with that. I am.

I’m really just taking the time to write it down because I’m clinging to the hope that her being a tyrannical maniac-child now means that she’ll be a delicate flower in her preschool years; that she’ll inexplicably transform the way that Matthew did around the age of two, except in the opposite direction. You know, the way that evolves out of being a lunatic instead of into it. Remember how I said Matthew was the best baby ever? Yeah…. Let’s just say that if some kind of magical transition doesn’t work out in my favor this time around, I’m going to feel really jipped.

　

Let’s hope they’re just tag-teaming me on a larger scale. Otherwise, I’m really in for it when Scarlett’s three and Matthew, (maniac that HE is) turns six. As for right now? Mary holds the title for being the least difficult child. And really, that's just ludicrous. I think even she herself would agree with me on that one.

You Are My Adventure.

Pin It

Last night when I put Matthew to bed and we finished saying our goodnight prayers, he said to me, “Peter Pan said in our book that ‘to die would be an awfully big adventure.’”

-- “Well, I guess it would. Don’t you think?” Matthew always gets pensive about death and weird shit when we say our nighttime prayers because of the whole ‘if I die before I wake’ part.

-- “Yeah,” he said. “but a scary one. But… adventures are supposed to be scary, right, mommy?”

-- “I dunno. I guess. You know, I’ve never really thought about it before.”

-- “Have you ever had an adventure?” His eye brows jumped when he said the words, and he held them there while I answered.

-- “Well,” I reminded him, “in the movie, Peter Pan also said: ‘to live would be an awfully big adventure.’ And I feel like I’ve lived a very special life so far.”

-- “Me too… I wonder why that wasn’t in the book.” He said, searching up into the corner of his ceiling, like maybe that's where he would find the answer; his arms tucked behind his head now, the way they always are.

-- “I don’t know. But I like that they put it in the movie because I think it’s a really pretty line.”

-- He pursed his lips and nodded, as if he had no idea that he was only three, and he were agreeing to something of grave importance. “I don’t think I want my living to be like that though.”

-- “Like what?” I asked, a little confused. “An awfully big adventure?” He nodded. “Why?”

-- He dropped his eyebrows very seriously, and shrugging, he said: “Who wants to have a adventure that’s ‘awful?’”

　

Sometimes I think that if he were any more wonderful, any more seamlessly charming, any more of a joy to mother, even in the smallest possible way, my little heart wouldn’t be big enough for all of him to fit.

-- "You are my adventure," I laughed, kissing him on the head and tickling his sides, not really meaning anything of it in the moment. But he is.

And he is the greatest one I will ever have.

A Lot of Over-Analytical Jibberish About Being a SAHM and Teaching Kids Stuff.

Pin It

It almost doesn’t even feel right to still say that I’m “home-schooling” Matthew, because the truth is, I think it’s too unstructured to really call by any name at all.

I don’t know what an actual home-school situation looks like. I’ve never seen one in action, and I don’t plan on home-schooling him in the future, so - unlike most things concerning my kids - it’s not something I’ve put a tremendous amount (read: Alicia-amount) of effort into researching. I actually like it that way too. And I’ve kept it this way on purpose.

There aren’t a lot of things I “firmly” believe in when it comes to parenting. I’m open-minded almost to a fault that way. I think narrowing the number of ideas a person’s willing to consider on any subject only narrows their understanding of it, which can only ever cripple their scope of knowledge. The downside to this is that sometimes it can be difficult for me to stand firm on things. Even the ideas that I don’t like, even the ones that piss me off, I have to consider. The one exception to this, though, has been that of educating my children. Even before I knew how I wanted to do it or what ‘being involved’ meant for me specifically, I knew that it’s what I wanted. To be involved.

I know that there are a lot of moms out there who feel very strongly otherwise, but I feel like for me, being able to stay at home with my kids is a luxury. Not that it is always luxurious. But it is something we don’t need, and that we choose to sacrifice so that our family can have. When we decided to make it work for us, I vowed to put my EVERYTHING into this position. To be blunt, I overcompensated, BIG TIME to make up for all the guilt I’d racked up having to spend so much time away from Matthew when I worked; trying to do it all, and giving him less of myself because of it. A lot has changed since then.

Of course, another part of what’s changed is that I learned from spending time with him at home how advanced he is for his age. Which made me pull the reigns in even more, and for a time, to stop teaching him at all. I learned that there’s a lot of debate about whether parents should teach “gifted” children anything before they go to school. So while I thought about the different sides to that argument, I stopped. Until I started to feel with more and more conviction that for any parent to willfully avoid teaching their child whatever their child asks to learn, would be grossly irresponsible. I just do.

So I sat down and I reevaluated what being home with my kids was going to mean for our family.

When I say that I home school Matthew, now, I feel like I need to be clear that I use the term very loosely. A way that is so lax, that when I look back at what I’ve done with him at the end of even my most purpose-driven days, it’s hard to say that I’ve done anything more with him than really just be his mom. Because, to me, the two are one and the same.

I am proactive with it. I do seek out learning opportunities. But because he digests information in big, heavy gulps the way that he does, it looks like I do a lot more formal teaching with him than I really do. The truth is, I strive for it to all kind of happen organically. I promised myself early on that I would teach him to climb trees the same way I’d teach him to tell time the same way I’d teach him to make his bed every morning. Nothing is more or less important. I believe that his childhood experience as a whole is the only true priority and that that blankets every aspect evenly.

There are standards and goals oriented to what we learn, but they’re pliable. If there’s anything I really believe in firmly, it’s preserving the simplicity of childhood for as long as humanly possible. That’s one of our most important goals, which helps to keep the rest of them in check; less like a destination and more like a reminder of direction.

I kept telling him he only had to "color in" twelve of those little boxes, but he insisted on writing the number twelve in each of them instead. My little nerd overachiever. :-)

Matthew can spell an impressive amount of words correctly without any help at all anymore.
But the other day Mary REALLY pissed him off. He called me into the dining room as if it were an emergency and said, "Is this how you spell nanneh-nanneh-boo-boo!?"
No, my love. It's not. But it sure is cute.

Which brings us to The Little One.

Now that Scarlett is becoming less like a precious little package of nagging sounds and smells and more like an actual human being everyday, I’m putting serious consideration into everything I’ve done to shape Matthew’s childhood so far. I’m trying to figure out how I want to take everything I’ve learned from my guinea pig of a firstborn son and put in into her. Like any parent wants for their child, I’m aiming as close to perfection I can get with this new opportunity. Obviously, that’s what she deserves.

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done, too. I mean, what the heck does perfection look like anyway? Do I see it the same as I did for Matthew?

Part of me wants to go big with Scarlett. If I can be candid, part of me is gently eager to learn whether she’s gifted or not -- in the same way that a newly pregnant woman is all happily aflutter to learn the sex of her baby; knowing that each possibility will be magic in it’s own form and an exciting experience to navigate accordingly -- the idea of either disappointing me, completely nonexistent. On the other hand, part of me thinks I should actively avoid educating her at all for fear of comparing her on any level, to her brother. But a bigger part of me thinks that wouldn’t be fair, either.

I’ve even found myself picking up letter-oriented toys and games for Scarlett, and putting them back because I thought: 'am I favoring this toy over a baby doll because I’m trying to mold her in that direction? If I buy the baby doll over the letter activity, aren’t I doing exactly what I felt was negligent in regards to Matthew?' It got to the point where I was overanalyzing everything.

I just want to give her all that I can, as both a mother and a teacher, and I know that I can’t do that if every move I make is based on some fear of doing this or some fear of doing that. I know that keeping it simple, unstructured and unrestricted by fear or expectation is going to be key for us here.

I’ve always tried to raise Scarlett as I would if she were my only child. I feel like both Mary and Matthew have had to compromise a little too much sometimes for the sake of one another, and even though I feel like there’s a lot to be gained from such an experience, I also feel like the pendulum can swing too far in any good direction. Recently I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this, and I’ve found myself applying it to the way that I want to “home-educate” Scarlett while she’s young; which in my book is really just a fancy way of saying “raise her.” And that is, in a way that is only benefited and in no way hindered or handicapped by my experiences with any sibling that has come before her.

Maybe it’s possible, maybe it’s not. But shoot for the moon, settle for the stars, right?

The Age of Pretend.

Pin It

It is a known fact that Matthew is only actually Matthew as you and I know him about 40% of the time. The other part of the time he’s some form or another of alter Matthew ego. A one-man swat team. A police officer. An evil villain bent on world domination. A magic frog. A pirate. A wizard. An astronaut. A paleontologist. Sometimes he’s even a skateboard or a bike or a dump truck that’s come to life, and can walk and talk like a person -- but is NOT a person, because they are a skateboard or a bike. Or something really weird like that.

Of course, more than anything, though, he pretends to be a cowboy. Matthew thinks cowboys are the shit. In fact he loves to pretend he’s a cowboy so much that sometimes he blends his alter-cowboy-ego into another. Like a cowboy frog. Or a cowboy paleontologist. Or a cowboy dump truck that’s come to life and learned to practice wizardry with Harry Potter and is now a magic cowboy dump truck who pirates on the weekends.

I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of Matthew eating cereal or coloring a workbook page or crafting a sock puppet or sneaking cookies or even just sleeping in nothing but racecar underpants and a great, big, old cowboy hat. Obviously. I mean, cowboy hats take priority over pants any day of the week.

So it shouldn’t have been shocking to me when Scarlett came thump-thump-thumping with her big, heavy toddler steps into the kitchen the other day with Matthew’s red cowboy bandana tucked between her chin and her chest, trying diligently to hold it there while she walked around. I laughed it off at first. And I tried to ignore how cute it was because SERIOUSLY, I HAVE TOO MANY COWBOY HAT PICTURES ALREADY; A woman has to draw the line somewhere. But she circled the downstairs eight times, going no where, just holding that bandana under her chin. Picking it up every time it dropped and putting it right back into place, so that she could walk around some more. Then came the clencher… She went for the hat.

For three hilarious minutes she tried to juggle holding the bandana tucked under her chin, and lifting the cowboy hat to her head. Unsuccessfully. While I laughed at her. And took pictures.

Eventually I tied it around her neck the way I’m always doing for her brother. And I helped her balance the ten gallon over her head.

And in the following few moments, sitting there, playing with my children on the floor, snapping silly photos over peels of shrieking laughter, I fell in love with motherhood as if I were only meeting it for the very first time. And I found myself thinking something totally profound:

“Oh my Gosh, I love these people.”

I really, really do.

To Sum Up What We've Learned About Punctuation Recently:

Pin It

The other day Matthew comes walking into the kitchen, giving me the air-quote gesture (or whatever it’s called) while he asked me for some water. “What are the air-quotes for?” I asked, assuming they’re called air-quotes, maybe.

“They’re not air quotes,” he corrected, still framing everything he said in little finger hooks. “They’re quotation marks. Quotation marks are to let people know someone is talking.”

“Right…” I said, smiling.

“Well, I’m talking to you aren’t I?”

“That you are.” I said, laughing.

“That was a question. At the end of a question you draw a question mark. Right, momma?” he asked, drawing an imaginary question mark in the air.

“Mm, hm. Right.”

“NOW GET ME SOME WATER, WOMAN!” he yelled, out of nowhere.

“Matthew Spencer! What in the world are you yelling for?”

“Because! I wanted to use my sex-clamation point! … [finger hooks] ON THE WORLD!”

So, This Might Sound Sexist, But.

Pin It

Alternatively Titled: BANGS! 

I very excitedly took Scarlett for her first haircut over the weekend.

I should explain first that a lot went into this decision. Scarlett’s freakishly long baby hair had a legacy, after all. It got so long that we called her Rapunzel. It became a conversation piece. It was fun! Having a girl with naturally long, pretty hair was like winning the lottery: people loved it! Toward the end, though, opinions started to turn. Some people wanted it cut so badly that they threatened to do it behind our backs while they babysat. Others gave us dirty looks for even considering it.

This was a huge debate. We even took her once, and walked out of the salon before it was her turn because Spencer couldn’t go through with it. And while we mauled it over for an unreasonable amount of time, her hair just kept growing and growing until eventually, it was just starting to look neglectful. And since I care more about what people think of my parenting than I do my actual parenting, I decided it was time.

Bangs! I thought, on the drive over to the salon. Bangs are adorable. Scarlett will make them look even more adorable because she’s already the cutest baby, ever. This is a good thing. I should not be sad.

The whole experience was awesome and Scarlett had a ball, asking to be held by every strange customer who walked in the door while we waited our turn. She was the center of attention and everyone gushed over her long, pretty hair, and agreed that, yes, bangs on her would be the cutest thing, ever. I should not be sad. Of course, she squirmed a lot in the chair, but the stylist did nothing wrong, and cut her hair exactly the way that I asked her to. She even gave us a certificate at the end that read: MY FIRST HAIRCUT!, and they taped the first snip of hair to it.

Turns out though…?

Now that her wild, unruly little locks have all been trimmed into submission, she looks… Well, a little like a boy. Exactly what, right or wrong, sexist or not, my husband, and our daughter, (and, okay, even me a little) were worried would be the case. Not worried in a this is a huge deal! kind of way, but still, you know… aware of.

I wasn’t at all upset -- and hey, I’m just glad that the child can SEE again -- but as we made our way through the house the ensuing afternoon post-haircut: Matthew said she looked like a boy… then Mary walked in the front door with her friend and said she looked like a boy… and then Spencer pouted his lip and said she looked like a boy, and even gave her a sympathetic hug.

Apparently a few inches of hair over her face was the last, remaining thing saving her from looking exactly like her older brother. I mean, exactly.
It’s cool, I mean… She still looks adorable, because, well, let’s face it: She’s Scarlett. (WITH BANGS!) …I did however, make sure (like any truly responsibly mother would) to dress her in the absolute most lace and frill-laden, flower-patterned top that I could find for the next day’s family get-together wherein she was introduced to a number of new people.

I know, I’m horrible. Worst feminist role model, ever.

Speaking of, I’ve been keeping a mental tally of which sex so far is more difficult to raise. Hair is already responsible so far for giving boys the upper hand on like, six accounts. And we haven’t even gotten into the era of French braids and lop-sided, pain-in-the-ass pigtails.


...


Pigtails. Pigtails are so adorable…

One Basket of Toys and a Baby Doll.

Pin It

When it comes to parenting I draw a lot of inspiration from parents who are much more minimalist than I have it in my own blood to be. Our home is not one hundred percent plastic free, and everything that we own is not recycled or handed-down, but I can get behind the idea of keeping things simple. Especially because I’m all about keeping organized (even if I fumble pathetically at it sometimes) and simplicity is a big part of that.

Before I tried to regulate it at all Matthew could have been buried twelve times over in the number of toys that occupied every crevasse of his small room. Since we’ve moved him to a bigger room, the battle has crossed over with even bigger and even better toys that he has only become even more attached to with age. Two years ago a thought like this would have never even crossed my mind, but with Scarlett, I decided that we’d really strive to free her from the burden of owning too many toys. She has a small basket filled with developmentally beneficial playthings that have been handed down from her brother, and for a long time, that was it. Once that basket is filled, I decided, we’d gift them out to other children and fill it anew with updated, more age-appropriate games and puzzles. Her room is the smallest of the house, and one basket of toys seemed more than sufficient.

I idealized that with her, I’d foster a healthy imagination by not relying so heavily on factory-made toys for all of our creative play. Her room would never be a mess, even if she played with every toy she had at the same time. She would never grow to dread the task of picking up after herself because it would always be so easy. It all sounded so Zen.

Then she started to collect stuffed animals, and truthfully, I didn’t even know where they all came from at first. I started picking them up and contemptibly trying to figure out how in the hell toys we don’t buy our children always end up sneaking their way into our lives. Until one day I thought back to her time in the hospital and realized that I recognized a lot of them from the corners of her hospital bed. These annoying little stowaways were actually gifts that doting aunts and uncles and mom-moms and pop-pops and friends of ours gave to her to make her feel more at home in the sterile confines of her old hospital room. Now generally, I don’t give a shit about throwing stuff away so that I just, quite honestly, have less crap to pick up at the end of the day. But even just the passing thought of giving these weird, little animals up to someone else made me wince with shame… They were all in great condition, Scarlett really did seem to enjoy them, and besides all the practicality, there was just something pleasantly symbolic about them coming home with her that made me want to cling to them in that moment as much as I did to her.

So I pulled a matching basket out from the storage room and then she had two: one basket for wooden/plastic pulley, push-button toys and another filled to the brim with feathery, plush creatures of every known species, real or ever imagined. And we were still good.

…And then Christmas 2011 happened… Scarlett’s first Christmas old enough to tinker with toys, and she was spoiled by all of the same adoring family that she was in the hospital, about a thousand times over. And the toys were all fantastic! And she loved each and every one of them! And they all served so many purposes fundamental to her development! …and her intellectual growth! And I’ve even seriously thought after we tore into a few of them at home ‘Oh my gosh, this toy is so cool! How did we ever teach her such-and-such a skill without it?’! …The downside, though? Exactly two of them (out of about thirty) fits inside of a linen lined wicker basket from Target. So my one-basket-of-toys limit is a little benched right now, and the organization of my house has seen better days.


But you know what makes it worth it?

A picture like this. A picture wherein my little girl is just lost in love with a small, cushy baby doll with heavy lashes that close over it’s beady little eyes when she sleeps with it cloaked between her arms.

Being the failure minimalists that we are, Scarlett has always been more in love with hot wheels cars than anything else, just because that’s what was available to her most. (Naturally, since Matt has all the toys, she just says the hell with her basket after about five minutes of rummaging through it and ends up raiding his lego/hot wheels/make-it-blocks bins for anything sized just right to block an airway.) She’d never owned a baby doll before, but I kind of figured that if stuffed toys were any indication of the interest she had in snuggling or nurturing inanimate creatures, that she was probably going to be a bit of tom-boy anyway. And I actually thought that was kind of cool. (For the record, I think anything she does is cool. If next year her thing is rainbows and unicorns I will undoubtedly think both of those things are the shit.)


But that doll of hers is something else entirely. It’s as if it sets a surge of womanly instinct pacing through her blood whenever it’s near. Her maternal radar ignites. Suddenly, it doesn’t occur to her that she’s a child anymore. All reality and calculation of time is out the window. In her world, she is a mother, caring for her child, as if somehow without ever being taught, without even knowing so many other basic facts of life or survival, that is something she already understands. She instinctually craves.


And I think to myself, watching her, I want to remember this.


I want to remember the way she lights up. She pulls it close. She kisses it’s face.


I want to remember the way she folds it between her shoulder and her ear with a sing-song-y ‘aww,’ and pats it dotingly on the back.


I want to remember the way she throws it headfirst into it’s stroller and then exclaims Uh-Oh! when it ricochets off the seat and thumps to the floor. I want to remember the way she runs after it again. She sniffs it’s butt. She rocks it from side to side when I throw my voice to make it cry.


I want to remember the way she struggles to hold the bottle to it’s face, throwing it to the floor behind her when the baby is done, as if that is exactly what you’re supposed to do. 

I want to remember the way she tries to put it’s pants on by placing them methodically on it’s inanimate, plastic head, and then breaks into a sudden flurry of applause at her accomplishment when they wind up somewhere, anywhere, even remotely touching the doll’s body.

I want to remember the way she tucks it under her arm while she waddles from room to room, the little one bouncing indolently at her hip in a clumsy, thump-thump rhythm around the house.

But more than anything, I want to remember there being a time in her life when her wildest dream in the world was just to be somebody’s mom.

Ninety percent of the time I’m thinking so much bigger. I dream of running the perfect household, and of raising worldly children, and of owning a studio where I paint without end. Of course, among being an artist and the world’s most perfect mom in my wild, unlikely dreams, I’m a writer, too… and a photographer, and I’m fluent in like six languages, and I don’t forget my purse everywhere I go.

I intend to teach Scarlett to dream the way that I do, and to reach for them harder than I ever have, and to put endless heart and soul into every endeavor she takes on. And I intend to teach her that life stretches so far beyond the apron strings of motherhood.

But even still. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that some of the world’s most enriching experiences are the ones that take no ounce of effort at all. Like that of simply loving a child, like it’s the only thing that has ever, really mattered.

As if, of all your wildest dreams, loving that child was always first.