"I Don't Have a Tail"

“I don’t have a tail,” Adella announces as she awakens in my bed, going from 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds. Most mornings she is up before 6, so Mom can drop her off at Granma’s house well before 7. Often, but not always, she spends the first hour or so asleep in my bed. And lately, the soporific effect of her gold blanket, an unwieldy tattered tied quilt, and her thumb extend her morning slumber an extra hour or two.

Waking is my favorite time of day with a young child (provided he or she or I am not sick). This is my reward as granny nanny—to watch once more as the world begins anew for this Child of Joy. Only hours after valiantly and unsuccessfully attempting to fight off sleep, fearful of missing something, anything, she now rushes to embrace her wakefulness.

I can only assume that to Adella her grand opening statement of the day is not a conversational non sequitur to my “Good morning.” It is as if she is continuing a conversation from the night before. 

Hoping for a little more context I ask, “Who does have a tail?”

“Daniel Tiger.”

Oh yes, it is beginning to make a little more sense. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is one of her favorite series. Only later do I learn that she has watched an episode in which Daniel discovers he is the only character with a tail.

I am determined to tease out more. “What about Curious George? Does he have a tail?”

“No,” she giggles, as if I should know the answer to this question. “He doesn’t have a tail. He has a belly. Like me.” And that is the end of our conversation. We hear Marshall stirring in the other room. Adella is up and on to the business of the day, I to catch a glimpse of Marshall’s happy wake up face and gurgling. I know enough to enjoy these brief moments before the practicality of life with two young children takes over, before Adella, the monkey, attempts to consume all my bananas and Marshall attempts to crawl everywhere and eat every crayon in sight.

I remember Adella’s waking statement last week, “Granma I need a pocket for my cell phone.” I really must create a list of all these waking thoughts, I conclude. Think what insight they will give me into a preschooler’s mind.

Of course, I know how long my attention span is. I also know how easy it is to pursue long-term projects with children in the house, even if they are only here twice a week. (Three times if you count weekly family Sunday dinners.) Just remembering these two statements might be as good as it gets.

"Are You Crazy?": From the Mouth of My Babe

 My baby, Chrissy turns thirty today. In honor of her birthday, I post a piece I wrote about her when I was thirty and when she was just as impish as her daughter Adella. Hard to believe it has been three decades.

"Mommy," my two-and-a-half-year-old Chrissy asks in her inquisitive voice.

"Yes, honey," I reply, my cheeriness reflecting a rare eight hours of sleep the night before. This of all mornings of motherhood past and future, I am determined to be a perfect mother. I give her my full attention.

"Mommy," comes her lilting voice again. "Are you crazy?"

I choke over my cereal, then direct a few dagger looks towards my husband. His lips scrunch tightly to contain his laughter. Then he innocently hunches his shoulders as if to say, "Don't ask me where she gets such absurd ideas."

I look back at her, slurping her Raisin Bran, the only cereal she will eat, from her special breakfast bowl, the only bowl from which she will eat. Why has she interrupted her morning breakfast ritual with such a question, I wonder. And why on the day I have determined to be perfect. Defensive, I am tempted to question, "Just why do you ask?" Instead, I sweetly reply, "Are you being silly?"

"Yes," she giggles and dives her spoon back into her bowl.

She does not even understand what crazy is, I assure myself. It has no more meaning for her than the word yesterday, which signifies all past time from the era of Danny's Dinosaur until seven-thirty last night when I unjustly sent her to bed. Chrissy is a child who, after a glance at her watch, declares it is twenty-nine o'clock. A child who stuffs her size nine right foot into a size four left sneaker just to see if it fits. Chrissy does not understand time and space. How could she ever perceive a fracture in my psyche? I will yet have my perfect morning.

Chrissy's fingers probe among the milky bran flakes and she delicately plucks out a raising between her thumb and forefinger. Holding it high above her head, she carefully examines each wrinkle and then zooms it to her gaping mouth. Then she grins and asks again, "Mommy, are you crazy?"

"No, silly," I answer, hoping my jocular tone does not betray my sudden lack of confidence.

Of course, Tim, my husband's colleague, might agree with Chrissy. I certainly looked the part the other afternoon when he stopped by to deliver a crucial document. Chrissy had just finished doing my hair. With seven "ponies" topped with bright yellow, blue, red, and purple kiddie barrettes, I answered the door. As he eyed these ponytails flopping around my face, he very slowly and very simply explained that I must be very careful and not lose the document before my husband returned home.

More than likely my neighbors must think I act crazy. I am a thirty-year-old woman who sits in the neighborhood sand pool, building castles and cooking sand soup. I slide down slides, swing in swings, and scale spaceships. And on warm summer days with Chrissy's help, I embark on long dandelion safaris. On hands and knees we stalk the long park grass in search of dandelions ripe for blowing.

When I am driving and stop at intersections, I get strange looks from the passengers in neighboring cars. Is it that I am off-key when I belt out our "Green and Red Light"song? Or do I sound crazy? At crosswalks fellow pedestrians look the other way while we wait for the light enthusiastically singling "Stop, Look, and Listen." And I must admit we sing our favorites, "Ba, Ba, Black Sheep," and "Old MacDonald," wherever whim strikes--grocery stores, playgrounds, airports, or museums. Normal adults have passed that stage, I suppose.

I know for a fact that my mother thinks I am crazy for indulging my daughter. One car trip rife with Chrissy's rituals convinced her. Waiting while Chrissy struggled to open the car door and then played tug-of-war with the backseat seatbelts, trying to strap in Big Bear, Little Bear, Catty and her kitten Koko, all the while repeating with as much energy as the little engine, "I think I can, I think I can" was more than Mom could take. "This is enough to drive a saint with the patience of Mother Theresa to madness," she mumbled under her breath.

My husband kindly does not think I am crazy. Or so he says. He has spent too many hours with Chrissy. But in the back of his mind, perhaps he ponders the same question as Chrissy. Sane people live orderly lives in orderly homes and hold coherent conversations. Maybe he has taken my shrieks that welcome him home from a hard day's work too seriously. Perhaps both he and Chrissy have heard me complain that I am going crazy once too often.

But I do not really think I am going crazy. That is, until I remember the milk. Just last week I lost a gallon of milk somewhere in my house. I used to be a meticulous woman with a photographic memory. I could recall names and conversations from years ago, construct grocery lists from recipes I had not cooked in years, and give an instantaneous report on each item in our well-stocked pantry. But I could not find that milk. I searched the cupboards, the bedrooms, the bathroom, the closets. No one in her right mind loses an entire gallon of milk. Furthermore, no sane woman looks behind shower curtains and under beds for a lost gallon of milk.

"Mommy, are you crazy?" Chrissy asks a third time. Quests are a game for her. But I think she also senses her question unnerves me. Is this child sent to me as Lear's fool, I wonder. Maybe, just maybe, I am crazy.

Tired of the question, I ask, "Chrissy, what do you think?"

"Yes," she giggles.

And I guess I am. Part of motherhood is being crazy, I conclude, beginning my less than perfect day.

Not “How does she ever do it?” But “How did I ever do it?”

It was one of those SuperMom, or rather Super Granny Nanny mornings. The stars aligned and for a short while both Adella and Marshall were asleep. I had managed not only to tie together two bundles of cardboard and get them to the curb before the sanitation crew arrived, but also to rewash that lingering load of laundry and get it into the dryer. The dishwasher was humming, the kitchen counters and sink were clean and as Adella continued sleeping, Marshall “helped” me make the bed, that is to say, he allowed me to make the bed. I was just about to start vacuuming when Adella, in her pink elephant sleeper, announced herself.

She rubbed her hands up and down her legs. “Grandma, I need pockets for my cell phone.” I laughed. Only after I dressed her in her jeans with pockets did I discover she was serious. She slipped Uncle Daniel’s retired cell phone into the front pocket of her jeans.

After a few phone calls with Justine, who had a dead battery, another load or two of laundry, and some play time downstairs where Adella determined that she wanted to read the bright yellow and black Cliff Notes for Huckleberry Finn—I gave her an even more abbreviated version of the plot, boy and man on a boat raft in a river, to which she replies "That is an adventure"—it was time for lunch.

The day was going a little too well. But I tempted fate. I chose a mixed vegetable puree and a cute plastic baby spoon  that looks more like a miniature shovel than a spoon that has taken up residence in my silverware drawer. Marshall ate with relish and without too much mess, until in my haste I flipped back the spoon a little too quickly. Orange muck on my white t-shirt. And then it happened again. Me, not Marshall, making the mess, which now reached my “Mom sweatshirt.”  I gave Marshall an ample supply of Cheerios and retreated to the sink.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured myself. “You just need a cup of milk to give yourself some energy until you have time to eat your own lunch.” I poured a cup of milk.

“I need a cup of milk, too,” Adella announced.

I pulled out a cup. “Not that cup. My sippy cup,” she said.

I reached over her to get the sippy cup on the top shelf of the cupboard, and then it happened. I knocked over the entire cup of milk, all over the floor, all over Adella.

“My stool,” she cried. “My stool is dirty.”

“It’s o.k., we can clean it up,” I said and she promptly got on the floor with the paper towels and energetically tried to wipe it all up.

There was no use crying over spilt milk. But I did grumble a bit. In that brief moment, the order of the day had erupted into chaos. A chaos that then seemed to reign until their father came to pick them up.

After I shut the door on my departing cherubs and before I jumped into the shower to rush to get ready for work, I sat down for a minute. Just one. 

I contemplated the day. I am always one cupful away from disaster.  Just one.   

I am only granny nanny two days a week. Just two. As I contemplate the chaos of two days a week, I am mystified. The question is not “How does my daughter do it?” But “How did I ever do it?”  

  

Thankful somehow all three children made it to adulthood.

Teddy Bear Deja Vu. Is it Nature or Nurture?

Until she entered the Barbie phase, my daughter Chrissy was strictly a teddy bear person. No dolls for her. Big Bear and Little Bear were it. And they lived the good life. Chrissy stole her brother Nathan's diapers for them, she nursed them, and, much to my chagrin, she insisted on carefully seat belting each bear into his seat every time we got in the car. Big Bear even had a pack of crayons that was his pancreas that stopped working when he came down with diabetes like her.

This week Adella became enamored of two bears at my house. Is her discovery Nature--a genetic link to Chrissy? Or Nurture--toys found at loving Granma's house? Or sheer cousin rivalry--Jim discovered the bears downstairs on Sunday--which leads us to yet another layer of Nature vs. Nurture: was Jim attracted to the bear that belonged to his father as a child or does he just like bears?

Regardless, the interaction at breakfast yesterday reminded me of littlemommy, what Adella calls the young Chrissy. (A term, I suppose, Adella has invented in order to wrap her head around the fact that her mother was once a child--a fact she is often reminded of because Granma keeps finding Chrissy's childhood toys as she rummages through her basement and announcing to Adella these treasures were once her mother's toys.)

"It's time for breakfast," she announced and put each bear in his (or her? or its?--I am not sure of their respective genders) seat at the kitchen table.

"I want the purple cereal." Raisin Bran--a cereal Chrissy liked at age 3. I poured Adella a bowl, knowing enough not to top the cereal with milk. Adella likes it dry, unlike her mother.

"Granma," she said with a distinctive didn't-you-forget-something tone. "The bears need bowls." 

"Oh, of course," I reply, finding the two smallest bowls and pour the smallest possible amount of Raisin Bran in that I estimate will satisfy her demands. 

"And spoons." She fished around the silverware drawer until she found two spoons that satisfied her.

"Of course," I replied in a what-was-I-thinking voice.

She sat down, satisfied. I became absorbed with feeding Marshall who was happily smashing banana pieces between his fingers in the high chair. And life went on.

Later as I cleaned up the bear's cereal, I noted they had hardly touched their breakfasts. All the bran flakes were still there, but the raisins were conspicuously absent. 

"Hmm," I thought, "just like Chrissy." And I fondly remember the days when she used to pick out the raisins from Raisin Bran. The days when she still ate raisins.