First Lost Tooth

Let it be known that a tooth has been lost in this household! 

Let the child celebrate!  Let the mother who gets squeamish at the sight of a severely wiggly tooth rejoice!  And, most importantly, let the tooth fairy remember to show up.

1

The Injustice of Justice

My oldest daughter, now eight, recently came to me with a request.  "I've finally saved up enough money to buy high top sneakers. Can we please go to Justice today so I can buy them?"  (The request may also have involved a great deal of hopeful hand-wringing.)

I still recall the first time I entered Justice.  After gaining my bearings amidst the proliferation of peace signs, glitter, and neon, I had one thought cross my mind: I'm not ready for this stage of parenting.  A second thought came close on its heels: this store makes my teeth hurt.  The animal prints, the conflicting patterns, the music, the slogan-strewn shirts, the overwhelming saturation of pinks and purples -- the entire store, in fact -- seems calculatedly fabricated to incite dizziness, cloud judgment, and dull reasoning until you're deluded into thinking, "Oh, a storewide 40% off sale... that's a novel thing..."

But there was something so genuine about my daughter's request.  She had saved up her own money, after all, ferreting away loose change and the occasional dollar bills that had been tucked into cards from grandparents and relatives.  So, we went.

Originally, she gravitated toward pair of hot pink high tops decked out with plaid and lace.  I gently talked her down from that ledge, and she then turned her attention to these sneakers, which are downright neutral in comparison. 

She carried them to the counter, paid with a combination of coupons, coins, and scrunched up dollar bills from her change purse, and carried her package home proudly.

I thought that this story was finished at this point.  I really did.  But later that day, a loosely-formed question flitted across my consciousness. "Reese, we were just near the mall earlier this week, so why did you wait until yesterday to tell me that you had saved enough money?"

"Because I didn't have enough money until yesterday."

Gears started spinning. I couldn't recall any opportunity for her monetary advancement in the previous 48 hours. "So, how did you get the extra money?"

"Oh, that's simple. I sold Brooke some stuff."

I felt my eyebrow involuntarily rise. "What stuff?"

"You know, that bracelet that I just broke.  She always liked that bracelet."

I'm not sure I want to know, but I'm compelled to ask anyway. "How much did you charge her?"

"Just eight dollars. Maybe nine."

Safe to say, we've now had a brief lesson on the ethics of extorting younger siblings.  You know, it's all part of taking small steps to prevent further injustices at Justice.

8

The Littlest, Biggest Cheerleader

While cleaning the garage I found a container of sidewalk chalk.  Not just any container of sidewalk chalk, but the mother of all containers of sidewalk chalk.  Enough sidewalk chalk to draw a seventeen-mile line (give or take a few feet, I'm guessing) before scraping our fingers to nubs on the sidewalk.

It should last us until the end of June.

While my oldest daughter was playing at a friend's house and the youngest was napping, I showed the box of chalk to Brooke.  Her eyes widened and she nodded before I could even ask if she'd like to head outside. 

We sat on the sidewalk side-by-side, drawing.  She chatted about whatever crossed her mind: whether butterflies and moths were related (cousins?), how it's hard to draw rainbows just right, why cats are her favorite animal, at least for that day.

I began to talk freely, too.  I shared about a recent presentation I had made and commented, "I think it went okay."

Without looking up, Brooke replied, "Oh, it definitely went okay."

I stopped chalking, curious about her assertion of my good performance, even when she wasn't there.  Even when she doesn't fully understand what I'm talking about.  "Why do you think it went well?"

Her response was so simple.  "Because it was you, Mommy."

Because it was you.

No other explanation provided, and -- in her mind -- no other explanation needed. 

Right at that moment, I chose to believe her.  If Brooke, my littlest, biggest cheerleader, believes that the presentation went well, then who am I to think otherwise?


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2

It's Birthday Season

One of our family's claim to fame is that we knock out four out of five birthdays in less than a one-month time span.  This particular weekend is a real hotbed of festivities, being that Brooke's birthday is today and Kerrington's birthday is on Monday.  Kind of like a Mother's Day sandwich. 

In other words, there's no risk of any of us going into hypoglycemic shock from a lack of sugar intake, that's for certain.  We're all about prevention here.  Safety first.

Earlier this morning Brooke and I attended a Moms are Magnificent breakfast at her preschool, which was a lovely event.  So lovely, in fact, that pretty much every other mother came looking beautiful -- refreshing spring colors, pretty sundresses, fun accessories.  Apparently, I missed the "be cute" memo and arrived in jeans, a casual tee, flats, and no makeup.  But this is okay, because Brooke, the day's star, made up for me.

This girl dazzles, I tell you.  She's never met a color combination that fazes her, and in her eyes, no patterns are too busy to work together.  I love this about her.

Run with it girl.  Do your thing.  I'll always be here to high-five your brilliance, my exceptionally colorful five-year-old.


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3

The Price an Artist Must Pay

We're past Thanksgiving,yet my one daughter cannot get enough of drawing turkeys.  She traces her hand again and again, creating different color combinations.

Just yesterday, she illustrated a small storybook with six pieces of paper stapled together.  Each page presented a new turkey in a new scenario, except for the page that showcased her drawing of a stick-figured dog in an open field.  Why put a dog in a book about turkeys? I had asked.

Because I didn't know how to draw a hyena, she had replied.

Of course.

For the past week, the contours of her hand have been stained with marker.

It's the price that an artist must pay.

4

Short and Sweet: When Letters Form Real Words

A story about what happens when random letters come together to create actual words in 100 or fewer words:

Brooke is fascinated that letters form words when combined.  She'll rattle off a string of letters and ask what she spelled.

Normally, it's jibberish -- some combination of nine consonants and no vowels like "Ygrjvslhv," which I'm quite certain means nothing but is likely a name in Serbian-Cyrillic. 

It doesn't spell anything.  It's not a word; you made it up.

Then she gets me.  "B-O-N-G.  What does that spell, Mom?"

I pause.  "It spells 'bong.'"

She looks at me.  "Bong?  Bong!  That's silly.  Now that's a made-up word."

I look at her, smile, and offer only one response.

"Yep."

6

Alternate Reality

I have a child who possesses an altered perception of reality.  Scratch that statement.  All children have altered perceptions of reality, but the child that I'm referencing specifically has an altered understanding of time.

On a regular basis, she'll drop cryptic statements like, "When I was an adult, I had three kids, too, and their names were Reese, Brooke, and Kerrington."  Or, "When I was in preschool, I made a ceramic nest and wrote my name at the bottom."

These statements represent a distinct category of fallacy because they all stem from her speaking about a fabricated future as if it were the past.  They're not to be confused with regular statements of inaccuracy, such as the time that she claimed, "When I was a baby, I once was sucked up in the vacuum."

I attempt to speak truth into her young life.  But you're not an adult.  In fact, you're not even four.  Or, But you're not in preschool yet.

Each time I utter these corrective statements, she regards me with pity as if I'm delusional.  She seems so sure of herself at these moments.  It's unnerving.

I add evidence to support my claims.  "Honey, you didn't make a ceramic nest in preschool.  Your sister made one when she was in preschool."  I hold out the nest in my palm, turn it upside down, and point out the letters carved into the bottom that spell her sister's name.  "Look.  It spells Reese.  R-e-e-s-e."

She shakes her head.  "Well, that R looks like a B, so it spells my name: Brooke."  She returns to her coloring, unaffected, "I did make a nest in preschool, you know."

It's like she has a time machine.  Perhaps she's stopping back to share stories about a time yet to come, and if only I'd listen I'd realize that my eventual invention of a flux capacitor will make time travel in a Delorean possible.

Or, she has a very loose understanding of grammar rules surrounding the future tense.

One of the two.
 

3

3:30 a.m.

I'm jolted awake by screaming from my daughter's room.  I throw off the covers and run down the hallway in a clumsy 3:30-in-the-morning fashion: bumping into walls, extending my arms as soon as I enter the room to grasp her even though my eyes haven't adjusted well enough to the darkness to discern her from her tangled sheets and stuffed animals.

It's the type of scream that you don't easily forget: so pained, so irate, so distraught.  It's a scream that I can imagine coming from a child who just witnessed their most precious toy yanked from their grasp and cruelly stomped on in spite.  Or, from someone being mauled by a bear.  That bad.

"Brooke!"  my voice is a whisper-shout.  "What's wrong?  What's the matter?"

It takes a moment until she can articulate coherent words, but when she does this is her proclimation:  "I want a milkshake!"

At three-thirty in the morning.

Let me note that this request was denied.

As well as one can, I talked with her about the ordeal this morning as we ate breakfast.  "You can't just wake up screaming in the middle of the night, especially about something like a milkshake.  Other people are sleeping.  You're waking us up."  (And when I said "us," I really meant me.)

Brooke appeared compliant.  "Sorry, Mommy."  She looked at me and smiled, "But, I was thirsty."

9

One-on-One Time

She sits on my lap as we color the same picture together.  Occasionally our hands bump as I attempt to stay in the lines and she brainstorms unlikely color schemes.

I love one-on-one time with each of my girls, those small windows when I can remove them from their siblings and attend to them -- just them -- with open ears and attentive eyes.

"If I had shoes that looked like that," she says, tapping the paper with her crayon, "I could run even faster."

Oh, Brooke, you have no idea just how quickly you always run right into my heart.

3

What Workbooks Don't Teach

Normally, I don't get worked up about things like this, but as I'm standing in line to drop off my daughter's preschool application I have a brief moment of unease.  We're not part of the "preferred" waiting list since she wasn't enrolled in the preschool this year.  I count fourteen people in front of me. What if she doesn't get into the three-mornings-a-week class that we hope for?  What if there are only fourteen available slots for "unpreferred" people and they stamp the fifteenth application -- ours -- with a big, fat rejected?

Hmmm.

I look at the parents and children in line.  One mother opens a book and begins discussing it with her son, who I've gleaned is still two years old and will be enrolled in the three-year-old class next year.  As they look at the book, I realize that it's no ordinary book.  It's a workbook.  "Yes, you're right!  That is the number 73."  Her voice carries throughout the room.

I feel a smidge worse.

Her two-year-old can identify the number 73?  Really?  Is this normal?

We're really not intensive workbook people here.  We educate more by experiment and experience.  We grab stacks of books and see how many we can read before I start tickling everyone or until someone requests a glass of juice or a bathroom break.  We attempt elaborate architectural feats with couch cushions, clothespins, and bedsheets.  We carry brown papers bag outside as we search for interesting leaves and rocks that are shaped like hearts or perfect squares or a banana.

We make sure that our children are up to snuff on their emotional intelligence -- able to discern between two distinct expressions: mad face and happy face.


Brooke's got it down cold, don't you think?  And did you listen to the chaos in the background when her little sister yelled?  Did you notice how she wasn't even flustered?  Did you note how she persevered in the face of distraction?  How she stayed the course and stayed in character?

No workbook can teach that.  That's sophisticated education in action.

10

Getting My Bearings

Earlier today I sat at the kitchen table with my teaching notes while Brooke sat across from me with her coloring book and crayons.

That dear child could not stop talking.

Mommy, what happens if someone falls into a pit?  Would it be dark?  How would someone get out of a pit?  Would they climb out?

Her questions advanced from practical to philosophical.  Why are there pits, anyway?

Typical of three-year-olds, her monologue shifted directions: how she wanted to make a pinata out of napkins and Scotch tape, how she planned to convert our kitchen into a movie theater by taping pictures to the refrigerator, why she wanted to wrap all of her stuffed animals in blankets like packages.

I realized afresh how challenging it is to straddle the dual worlds of home and work simultaneously.

I'm not particularly good with change.  Given this, whenever my schedule or my family's schedule drastically changes (like the start of a new semester), I remind myself that it's okay to take a moment to get my bearings.

It's okay to push the teaching notes aside and answer a surprisingly thorough series of questions about pits.  Then it's okay to request thirty minutes of uninterrupted time to work.

Grace, I remind myself, grace, grace.

There's enough grace to navigate these full days.

8

Matter of Perspective

When your three-and-a-half year old commandeers the camera, it's fascinating to download your next batch of pictures.  We found one photo of a suspicious little sister.

Thirty close-up shots of a Tinkerbell backpack.  (I'll spare you the other twenty-nine.)

Her limited backseat view, which mostly constitutes of my right elbow.

Her shoe.  It sparkles, she reminds us on a regular basis.  Obviously she's preserving this for posterity.

And sundry other photos of the ceiling, the floor, the steps, close-ups of what I think is our screen door, and this fluffy item, which resembles her stuffed puppy.

It's all in the eye of the beholder.

2

Baby Jesus Action Figure

"Brooke, look here."  I gesture to a small wooden nativity scene, and Brooke hunches down for a better view.  "This is a manger scene showing where Jesus was born."

Brooke picks up the camel figurine in her small hand and closely inspects it.  Within moments, she makes it gallop in front of the manger.  Over the manger.  On top of the manger.  She clusters the wise men, engaging them in conversation about the donkey.  Next, given her swift hands, a swaddled baby Jesus is running.

I have to draw the line somewhere. "Okay, Brooke, baby Jesus is just a baby.  Babies can't run.  Babies can't even crawl.  They're just swaddled; they just lay there."

She glances up at me, her eyes wide.  "Little babies can't run," I repeat, somehow thinking that this will induce her to reverently return Jesus to his manger.

Instead, her arm shoots into the air with Jesus clutched in her fingers.  "Okay.  I'll make him fly, then."

And that is how Baby Jesus the Action Figure was born.

3

Giving Thanks for the Middle Child

My sweet Brooke, you are such a precious little person, and we are so thankful that you're in our lives.  You're the middle child, and as such, you're engaged from all sides all day long.  In the pecking order, you're both one who pecks and one who is pecked upon.  You handle it with intermingled toughness and sweetness.  Sometimes you're sneaky, too.

Child, you have no internal thermometer.  You'd be content running throughout our house all winter long wearing just a tank top and tutu -- or less -- and I doubt that you'd ever feel cold.

Your imagination cannot be rivaled.  You play for hours with Play-doh, shaping and cutting and sculpting.  You immerse yourself in the world of Strawberry Shortcake figurines, creating elaborate scenes and adventures.  You empty a bucket of Legos, building houses and trees and puppies and people.

These characters have discussions with one another as you swoop them through the sky and across the table.  You take it in stride when the pieces crumble, adding dialogue in your remarkable voice like, "Hold on, puppy friend, my legs just fell off."

Whenever we play at your toy kitchen, you already show culinary flair.  Just the other day you were my waitress.  I ordered pizza.  Moments later you appeared carrying a plastic tomato, a piece of cheese, and a slice of bread on a tray.  I was impressed.

Each time I order tea from your kitchen, you warn me that it's hot so I don't get burned.  The tea that you serve always is too hot.  Despite your impressive imagination, you cannot seem to imagine tea at any other temperature than scalding.  Not even when I blow on it.  Not even when I add imaginary ice cubes.  In essence, you serve your customers molten lava in dainty tea cups.  I do not know why.

Brooke, my sweetheart, I will love you always and forever.  This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for you.


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3

Short and Sweet: Honesty

An honest exchange with my three-year-old in 100 or fewer words:

Even though Brooke no longer naps, she still spends quiet time in her bedroom in the afternoon.  Today I tucked in Kerrington and then led Brooke to her room and pulled out several toys.

"Brooke, if you get tired, you can lay down on your bed to rest.  Otherwise, it's quiet time for you to play."

She looked thoughtful.  "Mommy, I think I like loud time better.  You know, not quiet time.  Noisy time."

Yes, Brooke, I know.  I know.


Click it. Go ahead. It'll be the best thing you can do with one free second all day.

1

Goodbye, Nap. I Will Miss You.

Our middle child, Brooke, has stopped napping.  I've suspected that she was headed in this direction for many weeks now, but I've been hesitant to put it in writing.  Secretly, I've entertained hopes that she'd rebound with consistent afternoon slumbers.  This hasn't happened.  She's embracing mid-day wakefulness like a champion.

Oh snap.

Of course, next month she'll be turning three-and-a-half.  Some mothers could quickly point out, "Well, my kid stopped napping when he was two," and another could chime in, "And mine stopped napping at one," and someone could potentially add, "My daughter never napped well -- never -- so there's no room to complain when a child naps for over three years." 

To which I will preemptively respond: true.  I'll also add that that many other women probably had longer and worse labors than I did, and they'd hate hearing that I never once got stretch marks during my three pregnancies.  But, I might fall behind in a host of other categories, and life is just too short to get caught up in the comparison trap because it's never beneficial, is it not?

So, where was I? 

Oh, yes.  My daughter has stopped napping -- and I am in mourning.

Doesn't she recognize how tired I am in the afternoon directly after lunch?  Doesn't she know that I feel better when she sleeps?  This is a faulty strain of logic, I know.  It's similar to asking a child to put on warmer clothes and cover their bare feet with socks because you're cold, or asking your husband to please drink something when you're in labor simply because you're unbearably thirsty and the nurses will only let  you suck on a measly dixie-cup's worth of ice chips.  (For the record, I'm guilty on both accounts.)

I want to look at her and say:  "Dear child, if I was given the option to slow down and settle into a cozy bed in the middle of the day, I would take it.  I would revel in someone tucking me in and telling me that it was permissible -- good even -- to rest.  I wouldn't do what your daddy does, which is to wake up from a nap ten minutes later, refreshed and alert, with a new vision for the rest of the day.  I would turn that nap into a two-hour daytime coma and wake up in a haze where -- for a few moments -- I couldn't recall what month it was, let alone what day it was." 

In return, she would look at me blankly and say, "So, do you want to play?"

I would sigh and say, "Okay.  Let's play something very still and quiet.  Let's play a game called Mommy Pretends to Nap.  It goes something like this."

And then I would curl up on the floor with a pillow and play for as long as she would let me.


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2

It Does Sell Everything

Brooke's voice is unique.  It's sweetly gravely and deep, as if the treble has been turned down and the bass has been turned up, which is rare for a three-year-old girl.  Once they hear her talk, strangers occasionally ask if she has a cold.  Nope.  This is normal.

I think it's delightful, especially when she sidles up beside me and says, "I love you, Mommy."

Recently, my father-in-law asked her, "Where did you get a voice like that, Brooke?"

Her response was simple.  "Wal-Mart."

Well, it does sell everything.

5

Short and Sweet: Backseat Driver

When children become backseat drivers in 100 or fewer words:

I'm driving with the girls, and for once the entire van is silent.  There's no talking, no yelling, and no singing -- just the sound of Kerrington sucking her thumb.  It's bliss.

Brooke sees her opening.

"Mom!"  (Most everything she utters is exclamatory.)

"Yes?"

"Don't bump into that other car!"  She points to the single oncoming vehicle urgently.  "And stay on the road!"

For a backseat driver, she's aiming relatively low, I think.

"You're welcome!" Brooke responds, satisfied, when we successfully pass the car without colliding or veering onto the berm.

Obviously, I couldn't have done it without her.

5

Short and Sweet: An Unlikely Mash-Up

A description of an unlikely musical mash-up, in 100 or fewer words:

We're driving, and as customary, Brooke is singing.  At some point this summer, Reese learned a few lyrics from We Will Rock You, and Brooke, a quick student, added them to her own repertoire, creating this morning's back-seat, patchwork serenade:

"Got mud on your face... saying grace... we will, we will wock you... Jesus had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb... we will, we will wock you."

Oh, Brooke, my little lamb, you wock.

2

Short and Sweet: Improbable

A mathematical probability that I can't figure out in 100 or fewer words:

It's safe to assume that Brooke has a 50-50 chance of putting her shoes on the correct feet each morning.  It's like a true and false test.  The odds are equal.

Why is it, then, that she only wears the left shoe on her left foot and the right shoe on her right foot 25 percent of the time?

5