totally harmless

I have a secret crush on Scott Hoke. I have never met the man. I have no idea what he looks like. I don’t even know if he is a nice person or not.

But I do know that every morning I listen to our Indianapolis NPR affiliate, and his dulcet tones reading me the local news, traffic and weather actually get me a little hot. I find myself wondering what he looks like, how he dresses, whether he takes his wife and kids (if he has them) on fun winter family outings followed by apple cider and hot cocoa and wet scarves and mittens hanging by the fireplace. These are the things that turn me on.

This morning, he was telling me about a car accident in front of Avon High School and the mess of local property taxes and I thought about how I actually notice when he’s on vacation or called in sick. Is this an illness? I want to rub myself up against a man’s voice?

I wonder if he can sing. I’ve always had a weakness for men who could sing…

FYI, this secret crush all falls under the heading of “innocent schoolgirl crush totally allowable in a long-term, fully committed and monogamous relationship.” Kind of like the office boyfriend…

I am evil and will destroy you

 Don’t mess with me, Mommy. I can cut you dead with my devil eyes.  And get me some more puppy chow while you’re up.

Dr Jekkyl and Miss R Hyde

The new school was happy to report that Miss R was wonderful all day, ate her lunch, took a nap, asked after Daddy a few times but then would return to playtime when she was told Mommy or Daddy would return to get her.

She sang songs, played with play-doh and, when I arrived, she was riding a little “bike” around the indoor play area. She showed me her cubby with her coat and other particulars. She waved good bye to her new teachers and new friends, saying, “Bye-bye, see ya ‘morrow.”

We walked out to the car together and she turned into a raving, lunatic beast who wouldn’t consent to anything – sitting in the car seat, eating a snack, not eating a snack, eating dinner, not having dinner ready immediately, taking a bath, watching television, not watching television, putting on her pajamas, brushing her teeth, taking her medicine, reading a book, not reading a book, giving Mommy a kiss good night…

And I was actually okay with that. We rocked her little world yesterday. We deserve to be the ones to deal with it as she struggles to adjust. The only thing that broke my heart just a wee little bit was when she looked up at me from her high chair after dinner and said she was scared. Now I don’t know what she was scared of, or if she even fully understands the concept of fear, but I squatted down to her level and told her Mommy would always come get her, Mommy would always be there for her, Mommy would always protect her. And she hugged me so tight.

Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. I know I shouldn’t promise to always be there, when I don’t know what every day will bring. But I do know that I made her feel better. And that was what she needed.

And it was what I needed too.

Helicopter mother hen

The first day at the new preschool/day care is proceeding.

I have called twice, once to ensure that they found her gloves in her coat pocket before playground time and once to check on her status.

She was fine, playing with puzzles, asking after daddy a few times. Having a good day.

Me? Feel weepy and a little sick. Dave has said I’m not appropriately articulating why I feel the way I feel in a way that makes sense. Who said I have to make sense?

One more thing…

Oh yeah, everybody! My sister is pregnant. I was sworn to secrecy for so many months that when I was finally able to spill the beans, I forgot. She’s due in early May, and it’s a little boy. R will be so glad to have a little boy cousin to play with!

My sister is closer to me than most other people in the world, Dave and R excluded. She is the reason I want R to have a sibling. Lisa and I share a common past, a history. We are 17 months apart and neither of us has a memory without the other. I think that is so important for people to have, and I want R to share in the challenges and joys of having a sibling.

Lisa never thought she’d be a mom, but when she took a job working with kids, she grew to realize she did have that nurturing instinct. Despite her tough-girl exterior, she was amazing with those kids, so patient and so involved. And she will be an amazing mother.

It’s me, not her

R and I spent several hours Tuesday afternoon at her new daycare/preschool. She had spent an hour or so there with her father last week while I was in Savannah. This visit served a dual purpose – helping ease R’s transition to her “new school” and helping me continue the process of letting her go.

I think the plan has been successful on the first point – R asked if she could go to her new school again on Wednesday morning. On the second point, I’m afraid it may have made things a little worse. As I alternately sat quietly in a corner of the classroom or watched from outside, I saw R as she interacted with her new teachers and classmates – or, more accurately, played by herself in corners of the room opposite where everyone else was congregating.

There were glimmers of intermingling – she seemed to like one teacher, Miss Courtney, quite a lot. And she sat with the other kids during story time. And she played with the play-doh alongside the other 2-year-olds. But most of the time, she was off on her own, exploring, getting into things, making a mess.

I know this is normal. The center director assured me that she’ll get into the routine in a few weeks, following the other kids. She may have some rough patches, even several weeks into the transition. But I think Monday will be a rough day for everybody, with R in a new place away from all her friends and her beloved second Mommy, me wondering if she’s sitting by herself clutching a Lego and Dave sitting in the city-county building waiting for his juror number to be called.

I also know that this will teach her so many things that I never learned as a child. This will teach her resilience, independence and that life sometimes changes unexpectedly. And she will learn that no matter what, Mommy and Daddy will keep her safe and always love her.

Confessional

In perusing some of the posts I’ve made over the last 11 months, I realized that I may have given you the wrong impression of R. Like Mallory once feared, I am concerned that you might think I believe her to be the perfect child. Or that she never misbehaves and is never angry, grumpy, unreasonable, petulant, crabby, bossy, sassy or bratty.

This is not the case.

R has her foibles, her quirks, her moods. For example, food is almost always an issue with her. Lately, she wants me to hold her while we stand in front of the pantry and I list off all of the snacks available to her. She refuses each one, her voice quivering more with each option, inching closer and closer to a tantrum as nothing (not cheetos, not Goldfish crackers, not an apple, not a banana, not crackers, not Cheerios, not raisins, not applesauce, not Dora fruit snacks) fits her fancy. But if I dare to close the pantry door or move away from it, the tantrum begins full force. Yesterday, I sat her on a chair in front of the open door and just let her look inside to her hearts content. I made dinner.

We’ve been trying to work with her on saying “please” and “thank you.” Usually she is pretty good about it, but lately she’s decided that if she doesn’t want to say please, she’s not going to, and you sure as hell better give her whatever she wants anyway. Because if not, she’s going to throw herself into a puddle on the floor in Babies R Us and scream so loud that a salesgirl rushes to ask you if she can help you with anything. Meaning, get that kid off the floor and out of the store, you’re scaring the pregnant women from registering for more useless crap like expensive bibs with cute sayings like ‘Spit happens.’

She hates having her diaper changed, screaming “pants on” or “Doras on” or “Pooh on” (for her Dora the Explorer and Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas) throughout. This is especially fun in a public restroom.

She went through a hitting stage (which thankfully wasn’t a biting stage) that retreated for awhile, but seems to be coming back with a vengeance. She’s started calling her father by his first name on occasion (only encouraged by my riotous laughter, I’m sure). If she wants something (blanket, baby doll, juice, an opened toy box or a light turned on), she wants it NOW, not in the time it takes to retrieve said item from wherever it may be or complete the task.

In short, she’s a regular kid. But she’s mine. And that does make her special.

just a quick note

Just wanted to say something about what happened at Northern Illinois yesterday. As the daughter and sister of NIU graduates, and someone who has attended many, many events on a campus just a short drive from where I grew up, I just feel so sad today.

When Virginia Tech happened, I was stunned, but it was so far away and I was so far removed from it. This hits way closer to home, figuratively and literally. I have such admiration for so many people involved in this situation. When I was in Nashville earlier this year, I attended an educational session on communicating in a crisis. Officials from Virginia Tech and Bluffton University both spoke on their experiences in the wake of their tragedies. I was so impressed and moved by the stories. And now I’m just saddened that it’s happening all over again, just 25 miles from the house my mother lives in today.

This scares me as a parent, as someone who works in higher education, as a former Illinoisan, as an American.

I love the ivory tower. I loved the college experience. I love visiting campuses now, seeing the students, all fresh-faced and idealistic and ready to conquer the world. It’s energizing and reinvigorating. That experience is about to be taken away from all of us who aren’t attending or working at a higher education institution. College campuses will turn into high security zones with armed guards, ID swipes and metal detectors in doorways and no access to the public. Like my high school. And the Pentagon.

Is this a good thing? Will it really make our kids safer? And how would I feel if R were a college student?

helpless

So, we know each other pretty well now, you and I. What do you think my state of mind would be if I were in a lovely hotel room in lovely Savannah, Georgia, talking on speaker phone with my lovely husband and lovely daughter and she suddenly began spewing her lunch all over our bedroom?

I bet you can guess. If I were home, I could handle this efficiently. Going to work tomorrow wouldn’t even be a possibility. I would nurse my little R back to health with lots of Mommy love and maybe a trip to the pediatrician. After the bladder infection scare, subsequent VCUG and sentence of antibiotics for a year, you can never be to careful.

But I guess daddies are different. Dave, who took a sick day today because of a late night out last night, said she just had a little belly ache and would be better tomorrow. He’ll take the day off only if he had too. Most day cares, including the one we send R too now, has the 24-hour fever and vomitting rule. I wouldn’t want another parent sending their kid to infect R, and I wouldn’t want to send R to infect other kids.

But I’m here, hundreds of miles away (again), and unable to make that decision. I hate it. I hated listening to her heave and retch on the phone. I hated having to weight those interminable minutes for my cell phone to ring to hear what had happened. She’s a kid and I know kids get sick, but this really doesn’t help with the whole working-mommy guilt thing.

I arrived in Savannah about three hours before my meeting started, so I took the time to walk around (without a coat!) the downtown area and look for souveniers for my family. Then I remembered when I was in elementary school, how one of my friends’ fathers always traveled for work. He’d always bring her home great presents from Dallas or San Francisco or New York City. And she never really said anything, but instead of those presents, she would have rather had her dad at our fifth grade choir concert. And she would have liked to have him come to parent-teacher conferences and have lunch at school.

It was an early lesson that presents can’t replace people. And as I walked around the beautiful, green squares of Savannah I thought that was exactly what I was trying to do - replace my presence with presents.

But I beat myself up a lot over these trips. And the whole situation is heightened when she’s sick. So I’m trying to give myself a break here. Daddy can handle it. She’ll be okay. I hope.

ready… FREAK OUT

It’s almost comical, how I freak out about things that eventually turn out to be okay. If I would just relax a little bit, not be so high strung and prone to emotional fits, my life would be a lot easier.

I dreaded telling our babysitter that R would be moving to preschool in two weeks. I even started crying as I was telling her. And she was totally fine. She asked when, where and offered to be an emergency contact for us. She said it was a good thing, and could I please talk to one of her other parents who is threatening to leave her daughter there until she’s five.

It was a huge relief. And then, when I asked R on the way home if she wanted to go to school soon, she said, “Okay” and began talking about the time she went to our babysitter’s daughter’s school to see her in a play. We drove by R’s new school, and she was upset that we couldn’t go in immediately.

Now that doesn’t mean the entire transition will be smooth, but it’s a good start. And I go to Savannah on Monday, so Dave is taking the day off and he and R will spend a few hours at her new school. And I’ll probably take a few hours off the week after to do the same. So we’ll try to make the change as easy as we can for her.

But thanks, all of you, for the collective head-pat and consoling words. They helped SO MUCH.