Special

I realized recently that my most vivid holiday memories from my childhood involve my family acting different than they did during the rest of the year. It's not that my parents, dog, brother (that's right, Tom, Trouble still outranks you), grandparents and other relatives were mean or boring or petty during the course of the year, but Christmas always signified something "special" - be it wonderful-special, hilarious-special, sad-special or just weird-special (like "special ed" special) - and perhaps that's what makes Christmas such a huge holiday in my mind. I was asked to recall my favorite childhood holiday memory recently for an office game and I immediately thought of the year my dad sat in our living room and impatiently, but thoroughly, put together, one painful, tiny, pliable plastic part at a time, the Barbie Dream House. I love my dad and he is a good guy, but handy? Patient? Given to playing with tiny Barbie refrigerators during the regular days of the year? Not so much. I also remember my mom FLIPPING out on my brother and me one year, because we raided her stash of  terribly hidden Christmas gifts. Fun memory? Not in the typical sense, but I like it, because my mother was almost saintly in all things "mom", and I like to remind myself when I'm less than patient with Piper, that even the most June Cleaver of mothers lose it once in a while. I like that when I was 6 years old and our dog, Trouble "escaped" during a Christmas party that, as I sobbed uncontrollably, my brother walked up and down our snowy, Cleveland street with no shoes looking for her. I like it even better that she was sitting safely next door in our neighbor's yard the whole time. I like that my dad used to force us into the car every freaking Christmas Eve to look at "the lights" for, in my mind, 16 hours straight across the entire state of Ohio, since on typical days, he was pretty quick to get us the hell out of the car. Christmas made things different. Sometimes that difference did not signify the happiest of times, in fact, sometimes they were the worst. There was the year that my mom was scheduled for a bone marrow transplant on December 26th, but as an adult and a parent, I've learned to appreciate how hard my family worked to make that day special too, successfully or not. There were times that the imperative to make Christmas "special," as I grew older and more cynical, felt like a heavy burden, but there it is. I've inherited it as a parent and a human being and have come to accept it as my legacy.     

So what to do as a mom for my own child on this special day? It wasn't until Piper was 3 years old that I decorated my own house for Christmas, because in my head, there was NO way I could compete or even compare to the jolly, glittery, sparkly, Santa-y, dizzying and perfect way my mother decorated our house, yard, roof, selves, dog, really anything in her path. Why bother, I asked. Ah, but it matters, I came to see. I will never do it the same way my mom/s have done it - it will never be quite as perfect or as together or as pretty or traditional, but it will be mine. And one day it will be Piper's. I put my toe in the water last year with the help of my supportive best friend who brought me cast-offs from her 4,000 Christmas decorations and I put up some childhood mementos that my parents forwarded, but then this year, I don't know what happened, but I dove in. The day after Thanksgiving, Piper and I went to the Family Dollar Store and now our house looks like, well, the Family Dollar Store at Christmas and it is craptastic. It's not the traditional Anderson kind of special, but damn it, I like it and Piper loves it. I don't know if she'll share the significance that Christmas held for me as a kid, but I know she will remember it as special too. I know she will appreciate the fact that we sprinkle flour on the floor and have Jaime walk through it with his boots to mimic Santa's footprints in the snow. I know she will remember calling "Santa" (Tom comes through again) every Christmas to discuss the details of her gift demands and I know she will think fondly of going with her god mom and god brothers (??) to pick out wreaths and ride the weathered old pony swing from the 1970s that probably is seeping lead poisoning.

So for all that, I'm glad for Christmas, although it has been a conflicted holiday for me for so long. Conflicted because it was so different, sometimes so happy, sometimes so sad as a child and so very big for me to live up to as a mother. But like most things, you have to accept the subtlety and hidden imperfections of any vivid childhood event and go forward as an adult to make it magical for the sake of your own child. The world will not allow you to have a perfect Christmas, as we are reminded by the horrific shadow of Sandy Hook this year, but you have the power to take a day - any day, really, not just Christmas - and make it "special" for those you love. So, Piper, your joy and delight with the Rosas Family Dollar Store Christmas 2012 will make this year's holiday an almost-perfect one for me. And that is perfect.

Unsolicited advice from a recovering fear-monger

I have a dear friend who is expecting her first child, so I started thinking about what advice I would give a new mom if anyone was wacky enough to ask me. I had Piper when I was in my mid-30s and had 9 nieces and nephews when she was born as well as lots of friends who were parents, so I felt like I had some solid proximal parenting experience. And I did, but of course, that means very little when having a face-off with a screaming newborn at 3am. I think of the most helpful pieces of advice - or solace really -  that my friends and family gave me during those difficult first months when I was so tired I couldn't eat and bounced for so many hours on the exercise ball that Piper loved that I when I got up, I would still bop around the house as if riding an invisible horse and they were all pretty much the same - it's OK. There were times when I wanted specific guidance, like how to bathe a tiny human being who was so fragile and foreign to me that I treated her like she had a grenade in her diaper, but for the most part, I wanted people to tell me that they understood how totally overwhelming having a baby is, that it would get better, and that what I was doing was OK for me and Piper and poor Jaime. Things that I was so sure I would do as a parent, things that I felt I was expected to do by the Great & Powerful Mom God in the Sky started to seem burdensome and stressful pretty quickly. I should have realized things were not going to follow my peaceful, crunchy granola, pseudo-hippie plan at about Hour 34 of my unmedicated and unproductive labor, but I still went into motherhood thinking I would be filled with rose-colored, lavender-smelling, harp-accompanied, all-natural bliss at the mere sight of my child. But I wasn't.

I hate to put that in writing even 4+ years later - I still feel judged and ashamed, but bliss was not what filled me. I was filled with fear - overpowering, panic-inducing, reality-denying terror just about every minute of my very AWAKE life. Even though Piper was a great baby - she slept well, she ate just about anything you put in her mouth, she stared at me peacefully while I read books to her in French, she loved to watch our dogs and cats, she was gorgeous and tolerated every frilly dress and ironic onsie I put her in, cuddled with Jaime for as long as he wanted and looked contentedly at the ceiling fan while I watched Matlock reruns - I lived in a state of rigid fear. I was convinced that something was wrong with her, wrong with me, that she would be mentally challenged if she wasn't breastfed exclusively, that she would have trust issues because she hated co-sleeping (THEN, hated co-sleeping THEN, now it's the best idea in the world, goddamn it) and she would be some kind of frigid control freak, because she could sense my apprehension. And that was the easy stuff - I also was sure she had every disease my hypochondriac mind could come up with (see my pediatrician blog from August for how that was alleviated, hallelujah) and forget the many accidents that were waiting around every corner. On top of all that, I also felt guilty that all I wanted to do was sleep for 20 hours straight and go out to dinner without her. And on and on and on...until it stopped. I don't know when it stopped exactly, I suspect after 3 months of maternity leave, but slowly, I started to be part of the world again. And the best thing happened to me - I realized it was OK. I was actually a pretty good mom, Jaime was the finest dad I knew, my dogs kind of liked Piper or at least tolerated her enough not to maul her, my friends and family deemed her a keeper and Piper was...well, Piper was the world's best kid for me. She was sensitive, dramatic, adorable, defiant, chunky, hilarious, foul-mouthed, inquisitive, loving, aggravating, and perfect. And even better than all that, I looked back at photos and thought about those difficult first weeks and I realized, I really had loved her unconditionally before she was even born, which was extremely lucky for her considering her delayed entrance.

So, what would my unsolicited advice be? It really is OK. It will never go as you plan, there are a million things you did not prepare for, no amount of gear or clothes or nursery rhyme knowledge will make it easier, it will be the hardest, most humbling experience of your entire life, you will toss out long-held beliefs faster than diapers, you will make a million mistakes, you will lose your patience, be resentful and it will never be like the fuzzy montage of love songs, sunshine and flowers that you have lodged somewhere in your brain or you'd never have gotten knocked up on purpose, but you will love that kid in a way that makes it all worthwhile despite every reasonable impulse in your body. Oh and you will need good people in your life to remind you of that when your child takes 27 minutes to choose a pair of socks every morning because they all make her feel "too lumpy," but I'm just working off the assumption that one day, that will be OK too.   

Thank god for my pediatrician

When I was pregnant with Piper, I "interviewed" a handful of pediatricians, because, well, that's what you do. Having no idea what I was doing or anything about newborns, I asked them 2 questions that were about me and my beliefs - how do you feel about me giving birth with a midwife at a birth center (hilarious now, because I was in labor for 2 days and had an emergency C-section and then we fell so in love with the hospital that I convinced the staff I should stay an extra 2 nights and Jaime actually ate a final meal at the cafeteria when it closed...about a year after Piper was born) and circumcision (again, rendered moot). I know my chosen pediatrician answered those questions in the manner I wanted, but mostly I chose him because when I told him he looked like a giant version of my dad, he said, "I hope he didn't beat you as a kid or anything then." He didn't, by the way. It took about 2-3 visits for me to realize that my doctor is a born-again Christian and right wing Republican zealot. If you're just joining us, I do not share those particular views. He never said anything about it, but Jesus was in the air, in a quote on the bathroom wall and on his newsletter and at one visit, I saw what I viewed as a legally insane political endorsement hanging in his office. Piper was born in June 2008, so our regular (what seemed like daily) appointments when she was an infant were during the heat of the Presidential election. I understood the moment I saw that sign as one of the those bad Western movie moments when the villain walks into the town saloon and stares down the sheriff. I'm not sure which one of us was which, but in my mind, it was ON. Granted, I was exhausted and overwhelmed, so I didn't give my protest my normal vigor and inappropriate confrontational focus, but I did wear my Obama t-shirt to every single appointment until WELL after he was elected, it was  too small (after I put back on all the baby weight), often covered in baby puke and always in dog hair and embarrassing to Jaime. But I couldn't quit him. He's been a pediatrician for 30+ years and had the infuriating habit of always saying the right thing. The first appointment we had, I unknowingly brought Piper wrapped in a poop-covered blanket and burst into tears as he unraveled her. I was sure he was going to call Social Services, but all he said was, "Good, so now we don't have to look in her diaper. Stool looks healthy." When I told him Piper was a terrible sleeper at 11 weeks and asked if/when would she ever "sleep the night," he took one look at me and said, "You look pretty well-rested. Does she sleep more than 6 hours at a stretch?" I look shocked and said, "well, of course" and he said, "She sleeps the night. Here's a prescription of Ambien for you to sleep it as well." God (or Jesus) help me, he got me. He laughed gently at all my neurotic concerns about Piper's (lack of, in my mind) development, but never once made me feel stupid. He assured me it was normal that she had tantrums and probably not an early sign of psychopathy and that the fact that she wasn't walking at a year did not mean necessarily mean she'd somehow acquired polio. So, four years later and another Presidential election to contend with, we're still together.

And while I don't necessarily credit a higher power with that fact, it has turned out to be damn lucky. At age 4, Piper is, um, strong-willed, obstinate, maybe - full on drama queen really and genuinely horrified when "forced" to do something she does not desire to do. I put those annoying quotes around forced, because it is physically impossible to force her to do anything and she proved that strength at the hands of 4 adults while at the doctor's office recently. She was pleasant in the car, OK in the waiting room, weeping when asked to get on the scale, full-on crying when the doctor entered the room, wailing when he suggested he needed to take her photo, and flat-out violent when he asked if I would help her undress. I don't want to replay the whole scene for you as I still have a bit of PTSD, but let's just leave it at this - Piper left without being examined and screaming as if on fire, I left crying and sore from trying to hold her, Jaime left half-naked and bruised from an amazingly powerful right hook by a preschooler and the entire office staff watched as Piper ran out of, not just the exam room, but the entire office suite. The doctor said from the beginning we should probably not pursue the exam, he followed us out to the car to check on us after her dramatic escape and answered my email the next day that no, he did not think we abused her and no, she is not banned from the office. In fact, he wrote, let's bring her into the office a few times before we try to examine her again, so she can play in the office and with the equipment. Oh and that no, he's pretty sure she won't be a serial killer. So, while I won't be eating at Chick-Fil-A anytime soon, damn it, that Christian Republican is going to keep getting my money...with my pleasure.

Cow King

Piper was playing with that cow in the back of the tractor last night and was "singing" the following song; tunelessly and in the highest falsetto I've ever heard including the Neville brothers. She was flying him around the room at the time. I wrote this down so I could get it exactly right.

I'm so happy to be a cow.

I'm so glad to be at home today.

I'm so happy to fly sooooo hiiiiiiigh

Yeah! 

Go cow king

I'm friends with a parrot

Moooooo!

I'm a cow king.

Go fucking cow king

So fucking high

Moo



Sticks and Zombies

I'm getting some complaints from my fan base that they need more Piper...Piper every day. Well, that ain't happening, but I will step up my game because I did not enjoy the comment that when you log on to my blog you see "virtual tumbleweeds" blowing across the screen, GARY. Hater. Sooo, in the interest of just putting shit down on virtual paper, here are some entertaining quotes from Piper as of late. Oh and I find that she sounds a lot like the Tracy Jordan character from 30 Rock, so say it in that voice. Oh and also, she only wears one of two bathing suits or a size 2T Dora half-shirt these days, so again, picture that.

"I eat anything on a stick."

"I want princess Legos. The pink princess ones. Only the pink ones....so I can play zombies with them."

"I like Robin. He a little boy and Bateman a...what? Like a robot?"

Me: "Piper, what do you want to do for you birthday?"

Piper: "Have a big party and you not invited."

"'Member when you smashed the car? That was so bad of you. I cried a lot and didn't forget it now."

Me: "Piper, please stop climbing on the couch/throwing your cup across the room/pulling the dogs' tails"

Piper: "It's all I can do."

Me: "Piper, you have to calm down. It's time for bed."
Piper: "I can't. My legs are too silly."

"Mommy, you pick out your favorite book tonight. No, that not your favorite. No, that not your favorite. No...I just do it."

"MOMMY you clean the toilet??? That is so beautiful."

"Poopie poopie butt butt butt." I know that's not funny at all, but she says it 40 times a day, so you can read it once.

IMAGINATION (said in the dreamy SpongeBob way)

What, pray tell, is so great about a kid having a vivid imagination? Isn't real life enough? Doesn't it present enough bizarre, inexplicable, baffling, hilarious, horrifying things to satisfy anyone? And aren't kids new enough to this world to be content to contemplate that the sun rises every morning or how the bees make honey or why Rick Santorum has become a viable Presidential candidate in the year 2012? Frankly, kids are a pretty easy-to-please audience in terms of entertainment. Have you seen the crap that's on Nickelodeon? Ever really thought about some of stupid toys you buy for your kids - pour cold water over Rapunzel's hair and it turns pink is about the pinnacle of preschool toy entertainment. And it's enough for them. It really is. Faithful readers of this blog will know my thoughts on Dora the Idiot Explorer and she is hands down the most interesting person on TV for Piper. OK, not really, Batman is, but - and I really like Batman - he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm pretty sure Alfred is doing most of the work in that relationship. But despite this really low standard of entertainment, kids are endowed with insane and unstoppable imaginations. Every mundane situation can be turned into something weirder and more terrifying than the world's worst acid trip. You can probably guess that in this department, Piper is pretty gifted too.

Ever since she's gotten a whiff of what Halloween is all about - and that was in utero thanks to her Halloween-obsessed godmother, who, while I'm tossing blame her way, also introduced Piper to her pice, but she makes up for it all by coming over and playing Drunk Playdough with Piper, so it's a wash - Piper has told me literally every day a new costume that she would like to be for Halloween. Some of her favorites include things like Bateman, Sleeping Beauty, a whale and a butterfly. Fine, normal, but lately the costume ideas have been more like this (these are quotes) -

* A sleeping, angry, nice green dragon with a long tail and fire in his mouth - real fire
* A giant bald eagle with no hair and wings with flag stripes (I'll take the hit for that one since she got the idea from watching the opening credits of the Colbert Report)
* A pink mermaid with a green tail and sparkles and a crown who is always under the water even while trick or treating
*A beautiful pink flamingo with shiny pink fur and loooooooong legs
*Broccoli

There are also the usual IMAGINATION trips like finding a ghost in every corner of our house, talking to her fingers and shoes like they are her students at school, nonstop role-playing with really angry horses and the requisite imaginary brother named Contest who lives in our toilet. OK, normal, sure, but what really started pissing me off about the age of IMAGINATION is how she's convinced she's going to turn into anything that she does too often. Yes, I may have once mentioned that if she ate one more chicken nugget, she would turn into one, but it was a joke for god sakes. She dissolved into tears immediately and regularly asks if it's a possibility. She turns to Jaime with plaintive fear in her eyes and says in this quivering voice "I don't want to turn into a chicken nugget." Ignore everything else I've ever tried to teach you and take seriously chicken metamorphosis. Right, you'll turn into a chicken nugget, but the dogs definitely won't bite you if you pull their hind legs off the ground by their tails. I'll plead guilty to a bad joke, but she won't let it go. I told her not to climb our fence once and she asked me if that was because she was going to turn into fence. Turn into a fence?? The city permit issues alone make that idea absured. So, bah on IMAGINATION. Whenever I think of that word, I think of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and frankly it has always creeped me the hell out. That movie is disturbing from the first scene of those gross grandparents all sleeping in one bed to the last rocket out of the candy factory AND don't even get me started on those sadistic Umpa Lumpas, so I'm putting a moratorium on it in our house. We will stick to real life and sit around discussing real issues - the popularity of Jersey Shore and the Maryland guy who got drunk and shot at his lawnmower because it wouldn't start.

I've turned into an asshole

Hey...I'm back. I feel terribly guilty that I've let another 6 months go by without posting about Piper's antics. It's like her whole childhood is going to pass undocumented on the web. What kind of life is that? She'll have to rely solely on her memory during her future years of therapy instead of conveniently printing out these pages. For that, my favorite daughter, I'm sorry, but I'm trying to make amends now.

I was rereading my last 2 posts and I realize Piper has really grown up in the last 6 months. She doesn't complain as much about my driving since I allow her to drive most of the time. There are not a lot of traffic situations that a bad attitude and 6 phone books can't solve. She is finally potty-trained after a family vacation with my much more disciplined sister and 7-year-old niece who took over the process entirely. What I couldn't accomplish in 8 months, they pretty much tied up in 5 days. My next battle is with the f'n pacifier, which has recently given Piper a herpes-looking sore on her mouth, but retains a power over her I liken only to heroin. She sometimes suggests giving the pice to various younger "babies" she knows from school, but coincidentally will mention a few minutes later that she is no longer friends with said babies and would prefer never to see them again. I guess I'm going to try bribery, which is the only way I can get remotely close to washing her hair and has led to what has got to be an odd experience for my neighbors to overhear when Piper runs around soaking wet, sobbing and screaming, "I DON'T WANT A PRESENT."

She's hit the WHY???? stage in a ferocious way and I don't even pretend to try and answer all the whys like some lunatic parents I've heard patiently explaining why tigers have stripes, why dogs scratch, why the moon is only out at night, why there are 2 CVS stores on the same block (I really have no answer for that) why mommy is drinking so heavily. On the fun side, in the last 6 months Piper has grown to love princess movies (I don't care what you are thinking, womyn, I played with Barbies for 11 years and I am a well-functioning female, albeit with a fondness for walking on my tiptoes and dream houses), hugging and kissing us, Santa, discussing potential Halloween costumes, cooking most nights with Dada, counting (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 11-teen is actually correct for those of you still using the old math) and wearing the cheapest, most flammable, dirt-magnet nightgowns...with princesses on them.

So, she's keeping up her end of the bargain in terms of precociousness/OCD/general nuttiness and I'm doing my best to become my worst nightmare of a parent. Piper is 3 and a half years old and I have spent a pretty decent portion of the last 2 weeks setting up and conducting tours of various private kindergartens. Yep. I've become an asshole. I remember living in New York City in my early 20s and laughing at the tales of Manhattanite parents bribing, threatening and crying over getting their kids into the "right kindergarten." Fast forward 15 years and you'll overhear me say that "kindergarten sets the tone for Piper's whole academic future." Yeah, I used the phrases "sets the tone" AND "academic future." I try to tell myself that I'm different than other parents and don't mean it in the way that those elitist New Yorkers did, because I want Piper to go to a laid back, nurturing school where the emphasis isn't on standardized testing, but I suspect I may be splitting hairs here. Regardless, going from a kid who deliberately flunked the entrance exam to the my local private high school to go to public school with my friends to someone asking questions about academic philosophy and a school's theory on play, I feel I may have lost some of my edge.

That's what no one tells you about parenthood - or one the 6,000 things people don't tell you...you want a child because you love your husband and just know it'll be fabulous and make everything perfect, you lug it around in your own body for 38 weeks of full-time nausea, go through 47 hours of unmedicated labor, spend nights sobbing on the floor as she screams inexplicably from 2-4am, wipe her poop for 3 years, accommodate every mood and complaint, give up movies, comfortable sleep, adult tv, conversation and any semblance of an independent existence and just when you think you can't GIVE any more or LOVE any more or move further away from the surly, rebellious, cool person you once were, you realize you are spending nights awake thinking about the Waldorf educational model and you just know that your total metamorphosis into a soft, wimpy, guilt-ridden, puddle of mommy goo has only just begun.