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When toddlers attack: What would you do?

Picture this:

We're at the play place at the mall, A and I. Well, A and I and about a dozen other moms who dragged their kids out with the same rainy day sanity-saving idea. 

After saying hi to the slide, tunnel and carpet (I mean that literally, she wanders up to every inanimate object, crouches down and shouts, "Hi!" like it's an old college roomate), A spots the climb-in car 10 feet away. She bolts over and swings a tiny thigh over the edge, grunting gracefully as she hauls herself in.

This car already has a driver, though: A 2-year-old girl with rosy cheeks and big, brown eyes.

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May 30, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Happy birthday, Mads!

Time flies.

Well, at first it creeps. Up every few hours, staring at the same four walls, listening to that same tiny wail. Day into night and then back into day again. At first It's painfully slow.

And then somewhere along the way things start to pick up and suddenly she's walking! And talking. And talking back. The first playdate rolls into the first day of preschool and then on into kindergarten and before you know it she's asking, When can I walk to school with my friends? Meaning, without you.

And suddenly she's 6, my sweet baby girl who turned everything upside down and inside out. But before too long we found our course and it's been heartbreakingly beautiful ever since.

So happy 6th birthday to the little girl who slipped into our world with her big, brown eyes and big, huge heart and somehow managed to make everything even better than it was before.

I adore you. xo

March 30, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

She lost a tooth... & I can't find it

Mads has lost her first tooth.

When I say that she lost it, I mean that literally. It fell out sometime yesterday and we haven't been able to find it, which is very typical of us. We lose everything: School lunch forms, library books, even wedding rings from time to time. Why should a tooth be any different?

It all started a couple of weeks ago when she met me at the door as I got home from work: "I have a surprise!" she announced, bouncing up and down. I assumed it was a drawing from the dozens she churns out each day: Hearts and rainbows and traffic lights are her specialty at the moment. Instead she jutted out her jaw and wiggled her bottom teeth with a fingertip. "I have two loose teeth!"

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March 26, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

She go crazy

It's probably a good thing that toddler-dom is a relatively short phase, because society as we know it likely wouldn't survive if it stretched on much longer. I know I wouldn't survive.

Like a lot of almost 2-year-olds, A. operates on a switch: She's either the cutest, fuzziest little peach of a person you've ever met in your whole, entire life or she's a complete raving lunatic. You never know what you're going to get. She comes weaving her way toward me across the kitchen floor and I brace myself, not sure if she's going to wrap my legs in a bear hug or bite a chunk out of my thigh.

It seems sort of impossible that A. and Mads share the same gene pool. But, having not quite managed to mentally block out that whole childbirth thing, I have it on fairly good authority that they do. They're just about the spitting image of one another, but beyond that they're as different as night and day.

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March 9, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Is it summer yet?

Pardon me if this post reeks of VapoRub. I'm drowning in it over here.

Amelia. Good lord. I love that girl to bits, but she's one of those kids who always has something going on. She's always teething or has a strange rash or a bad cough, always dripping and drooling and itching. "Oww, Mama," she whimpers, scratching at her tummy or pulling on her ear. Heartbreaking. She does her best, poor thing, but it must be awful to always feel kind of awful.

Add to this the fact that Mads now goes to that cesspool of germs down the street school every day and it's safe to say that this has been The Winter From Hell.

It started in September when she brought home the gift of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease from her kindergarten class. She had a fever for a day and then bounced back. Amelia was out of commission for almost 2 weeks. And if you haven't yet had the pleasure, take my word for it that Hand, Foot and Mouth disease is every bit as disgusting as it sounds.

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February 3, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Growing pains

Mads has been whimpering her way through some growing pains these days - not the emotional kind, though there've been a few of those as well. But the physical ones, aches that settle into her limbs at night. I remember having them myself as a kid and they're awful. It's an afflication of the soon-to-be tall.

"You know why my legs hurt, right?" she said last night, ice pack against her hamstrings. "Because I'm growing now."

"Your legs used to hurt too, right?" she asked. She loves it when she finds similarities between us: You used to like Strawberry Shortcake too, right? You used to wear pink too, right? You used to fall down  too, right? It's a phase I know will pass too soon. But as for the growing pains, I told her that yes, I did have them.

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December 5, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Kindergarten is killing me

My memories of my own first year of school are pretty hazy at this point. I seem to recall some finger-painting, show-and-tell, a shoebox full of finger puppets. I don't recall it being an emotional minefield, which is what the past two months have been for poor Mads. Though I thought it was a crazy person's venture to this point, I'm almost starting to see the allure of homeschooling. Almost.

I understand that this is the real world and she's going to have to learn to live in it... but not yet. She's still too little to be outside of our happy bubble, my tiny girl with her big eyes and big heart. Her skin is just too paper-thin to withstand betrayals and bullies, no matter how small. And I know that she probably needs to toughen up, but not yet and not like this, a new wound and new callous every time she's cast aside.

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November 21, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

School days

I spent last night, the night before Mads' very first day of kindergarten, poring over old photographs. I meant to be in bed by 10:30, but it was almost midnight by the time I finally dragged myself away, wiping tears aside with the back of my hand.

I really didn't think it would be this hard. After all, I've been desperate for her to get to this point. I just wanted her to be a little bit older, a little bit more independent, a little bit less... turbulent. And now we're here and I suddenly just want it all to stop. I know the day will come when she won't want to curl herself against me on the couch, when she won't need me to tuck her in, to count stars in the summer sky, to play pirates or princess or "homeless girl" (it's a new one... don't ask). I just don't want it to come too fast.

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September 6, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Love, loss and 5-year-olds

 
I was attacked as soon as I walked through the front door.

"Moooomm!" Mads screeched as she threw herself at me. "You have to see this! It's the most exciting thing in your whole world!"

She grabbed my hand and tugged, pulling me toward the bathroom.

We're thankfully past the stage where I have to bear witness to every deposit left in the toilet ("Look! A mommy poo and two baby poos! Maybe they're going to the bookstore!") so I wasn't really sure what all the fuss was about. But I soon found out.

"A butterfly!" she breathed, pointing at the ceiling. "A butterfly came to live in our bathroom!"

Now, to be honest, it actually wasn't a butterfly but a tiny black-and-white moth. But as far as Mads was concerned it was the most amazing creature on the planet. And it had come to live with us.

Unfortunately, though, it died with us, too. Last night when I sent her in to brush her teeth she came right back out of the washroom, stricken.

 

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July 7, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

Time keeps on ticking

 
Right now I'm listening to 'Landslide,' the Dixie Chicks version, and crying. There's just something about this song. Every time I hear it I'm done, sobbing like an idiot.

But then, maybe I'm just quick to tears these days. It's been a hard couple of weeks. My grandma died on the weekend. It wasn't sudden, I guess, but it seemed that way, and came just as we were all trying to wrap our heads around a different family tragedy. It's strange, isn't it? No matter how prepared you think you are, no matter how clearly you see it inching closer, death always seems to come as a surprise. An entire day passed before it struck me that I have no grandparents left.

I suddenly feel very conscious of the passing of time.

I can see it in my Mads, in her changing face and long, lean limbs. I can see it in the way she chews on the ends of her hair, in the way she has little time left for bluebirds and ladybugs. I can see it in my sweet baby A, who is becoming less of a baby every day. Sometimes it seems as though the days are racing by us.

Things are framed by sadness at the moment, but through it I see how lucky I am: For all the memories already made and all those yet to come.

care xo

(pic: Granny & Mads)

June 30, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top

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