This year for Halloween, I fell into my annual routine of trying to find last-minute costumes for my children and a half-baked one for myself — as I vowed to start looking earlier for one next year. The kids’ cute and adorable suits are always easier to find then mine. The pickings are slim for women who don’t want to wear costumes that could double for an outfit in an X-rated adult film. I mean, the sexy nurse, slutty cheerleader, and ultra-hot super hero just don’t work at my daughters’ harvest festival or the pumpkin-patch parties. For a moment I thought maybe I should just settle and go out as the alter ego I have taken on as a mother: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, that’s who I have become when it comes to my youngest daughter climbing into my bed in the middle of the night.

At the darkest hour, my bedroom door creeps open. My cute and adorable 3-year-old nestles between my husband and I. At first, feeling her little fleshy body and smelling her cocoa butter-scented skin is so sweet. I welcome it. I cuddle with her for a moment, kissing her cheek until I fall back into my slumber.

But then, as the hours pass and her foot becomes lodged into the side of my neck or stuck in the center of my back, I think, “Why is this big monster in my bed?” At times I have tried arranging her nimble body to lay straight so I don’t have to get out of bed to put her in her own. But after the second or third slap to the face, I’m enraged at myself. I march her back to room and tell her she can’t get into my bed and that she has her own. I don’t know if I am more mad at myself because I am letting this happen or the fact that my husband sleeps peacefully through the entire ordeal.

I know consistency is the key and I have to let go of trying to hold on to my little baby girl, even for the momentary late-night cuddle.

As for the Halloween costumes, I decided to ditch Jekyll and Hyde and instead the girls and I opted to tap into our animal spirits.

Hope you have a happy Halloween. Enjoy!

C.G. Rawles

It started out innocently enough. Tired of watching the same garish cartoons over and over with my children, I thought, “Let me get a movie we could all enjoy.”

It hit me. “Look Who’s Talking?” A classic. You know the movie with the talking baby and a young John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. No one would lose.

And it was a hit! The talking baby fascinated my girls, and I enjoyed the light flirtations and adult banter of Travolta and Alley. So like all the movies my kids enjoy, it went into heavy rotation. But of course my children’s favorite part became the three-minute intro with the computer-simulated sperm on its quest to reach the egg. With the funny narrations of Bruce Willis, my kids laughed and giggled.

And then came the questions.

“What are those small things swimming at the beginning of the movie? And what is that ball it goes into?” asked my 6-year-old daughter Skye.

“The things swimming are called sperm,” I answered. “And the ball is an egg. Women have eggs and men have sperm. Together, they make a baby.”

She looked at me satisfied.

“Great,” I thought. “That was easy enough.” No collateral damage.

Two seconds later, however, Skye screams to the next room, where my 3-year-old Sage was playing. “Sage, come in here! The sperm is coming! The sperm is coming!”

I cringed but stayed calm. I mean, I have to teach them about where babies come from, right? Besides they’ll probably forget the technical terms by the end of the day.

A week passes. We keep watching the movie. All is well.

Until…

I take Sage to day care one morning and am chatting with her teacher. Sage plays at our feet with a toy snake wiggling it in the air. “Mom,” she says, ”here comes the speeerrrm.”

All I could do was smile at the teacher, my face an ungodly shade of red. The teacher kindly returns my smile, but her eyes longed for an explanation. And I eagerly explain because lord knows what was running through her mind. Before she has even a nanosecond to judge me, I told her about the movie and we had a good laugh.

Then two weeks later I’m in the car with my husband and my daughters. As my husband and I chat about nothing in particular, Skye interrupted the conversation.

“Mom, how much does sperm cost?”

Before I could say a word, my husband spit his mouth full of coffee all over the dashboard! His head spun around and he looked at me part bewildered, part incensed. I knew he was wondering what the hell I’ve been teaching his children.

I gave him a comforting look and patted his hand. Then I turned around to address the question as clear and simple as possible.

“Skye, honey, sperm is free. Daddy makes it.” I turned back around and shrank in my seat.

“Great!” Skye exclaimed. “Dad, when we get home, can you give mom the sperm so that I can have a baby brother?”

Well, when we got home, my husband and I did convene in our bedroom but he did not give me the sperm.

He expressed his discomfort with his children talking openly about sperm. And I had to agree. We told the girls that some terms and talk of private body parts should happen only when we’re at home.

Of course, Sage took this to mean that she had permission to torture me at every public function by talking about sperm and eggs and making babies with everyone we encountered. She even told her cousins about it at our last family vacation. And I had to explain the whole story once again to my sister-in-law, whose kids were stunned by their three-year-old cousin’s vast knowledge of the birds and the bees.

The movie has been conveniently “lost.” I guess I learned my lesson. We are now back to watching those same ole animated shows that would never mention sperm or anything else my children could repeat that would embarrass me. And those shows really aren’t so bad to look at over and over.  Really.

C.G. Rawles

]]> http://www.samedifferencebook.com/2011/10/how-much-does-sperm-cost/feed/ 15 http://www.samedifferencebook.com/2011/09/our-first-day-of-school/ http://www.samedifferencebook.com/2011/09/our-first-day-of-school/#comments Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:15:06 +0000 artistcalida http://www.samedifferencebook.com/?p=851

I never thought I would be that mother. The one who blubbers and voice choking, as she drops off her kid for the first day of school.

But, alas. We often become the one thing we swear…

I never thought I would be that mother. The one who blubbers and voice choking, as she drops off her kid for the first day of school.

But, alas. We often become the one thing we swear never to be.

My daughter, Skye, is attending a new school for first grade. Throughout the summer, she was anxious about leaving her former school and making new friends. So, as the pre-emptive woman that I am, I went into overdrive to get her prepared for what I knew would be an emotional experience for her. I made play dates with her future classmates, Skye chose a new book bag and lunchbox for the occasion, and we visited the school together a few times and even met her new teacher before the first day.

And then it arrived.

We ate breakfast together, got dressed, and sat down to do Skye’s hair. In her timid voice, she whispered, “Mom, I am scared.”

“I know, baby,” I said calmly. “ It’s natural to be scared before starting a new adventure. Or doing anything new. But you will be fine and make a lot of new friends. I am sure in a few weeks, you will love the school.” She gave me a hug and we headed out.

My aunt came along for the ride to drop Skye off for her “big day.” As we drove, all seemed fine. But when we arrived and parked the car, Skye emphatically declared, “I am not getting out!”

I calmly went to the passenger side and opened her door. Kneeling at her seat, I gave her another reassuring hug. “Honey, it will be okay. “ I am here and Auntie is here. We are going to walk in there together.” She got out of the car apprehensively.

As one of the first families to arrive, Skye’s teacher personally showed her where to place her book bag. I thought this would be a good time to make my exit. I gave her another hug and announced, “It is time for me to go, baby.”

And as my body shifted to leave, she dug her razor-sharp nails into my arm and commanded, “No, you aren’t going.” I looked up for her teacher for help, but she was welcoming another family that had just arrived.

“Skye,” I said, “I have to go. You will be fine” “No, Mom, no” she pleaded. Then the tears began to pour. She pulled both my aunt and I to a corner, positioning us like a shield between her and the class. I tried a desperate tactic. I started pointing out books on the shelf that we had at home.

“You know all these books.” You will love it here,” I said. But Skye was focused. Focused on me leaving and new children flooding the room. As her tears continued to stream down her face and I kept up my measly attempts to reassure her, it happened. My eyes began to swell up and my strong front was broken. I began to cry.

Some other parents saw the emotional scene and came over to welcome us. One mother began patting me on the back and reassured us both.

“It is going to be okay. Your daughter will be fine here.”

I wanted to scream out, “ I am not that mother!” But I could not get it together to save my life.

When did I become the crying parent at the school drop-off? This whole time I thought I needed to be preparing Skye for her first day jitters. It turned out, I failed to prepare myself for feeling inept at helping my baby when I am unable to make it all better with Mommy’s words, kiss or hug.

I wiped away my tears as the teacher came over to help diffuse the situation. She told me I could sit outside and get a coffee.

Ugh! I couldn’t hide my embarrassment no matter how hard I tried. But I managed a weak goodbye to Skye and left.

My daughter made it through the day and she now loves her new school.

 And I got schooled, too. I will no longer judge all those “hysterical” mothers because I know now that I am one.

What am I going to do when it’s my youngest daughter’s turn to go to a new school? Somebody send me a box of tissues and an Ativan.

C.G. Rawles

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One night as I as I was making dinner, my 6-year-old daughter Skye was coloring at her table in the kitchen nook, which has subsequently been converted to the kids’ art area. As I was mincing garlic, I heard Skye say, “Man, this is gay.’” and then she crossed out the image on her drawing.

“What did you say?” I asked, my head whipping around like the little girl in the Exorcist.

Without missing a beat, lifting her eyes, or breaking her stride with the crayon, she responded, “This is gray.” I turned back around to finish chopping my vegetables, but my little girl’s tone echoed in my mind. It was too emphatic.

“Skye, do you know what gay is?” 

I looked right at her, but her eyes held firm on her paper. A smile spread across her face and she replied “Happy, right?”

I was completely blown away on many levels. The clean, seamless transition from gay to gray. The slight sarcasm. It was clear I’d been underestimating my baby—a lot. I guess I should have known she’d know what gay was in this day and age. Times are changing. Same-sex couples on TV or in movies are no longer an anomaly. So I played along, “ Yes, Skye, gay does mean happy, but it is also another word for homosexual.”

She quickly interrupted. “Yeah, Mom. I know. I won’t say it again,” she said, slightly annoyed.

Wow. Shut down by my daughter.

But I felt like I should say more. You know, as a responsible parent and all.

“So, you know gay or homosexual is when two men or two women have feelings for each other. Like how mommy and daddy feel for one another. But did you know that many people really don’t like it? There are even laws that say that two men and two women can’t marry each other in most parts of the country. And some people say, “that’s gay!” instead of saying they don’t like something or they think it is bad. But I think all people have the right to love one another. We are all the same in the inside. We all just want to be loved and be accepted for who we are.”

I could see Skye’s eyes glaze over as I finished up my soliloquy. She was respectfully looking at my face while I spoke, but mostly I suspected she was thinking of what doll she was going to play with after my lips stopped moving. My speech was as clear as one of Charlie Brown’s teacher’s rants.

“OOOOOKKKKKKKAYYYYY. Thanks, Mom. I gotta go to my room and do something,” she said.

Shut down again. 

She may not have been listening to me, but I know that smart little girl got the message.

Story…

The other day, I bought my daughters a pack of markers. And, of course, as soon as I turned my back, they managed to draw all over each other’s faces.

Cue angry mother.

It is extremely difficult to wash markers off little faces -even if they are labeled “washable”. I’m talking vigorous scrubbing of turning and twisting faces. Why do my kids think everything is make-up?

After I snatched the markers from their hands and verbally scolded them, they scampered away to their room. About five minutes later, my youngest, Sage, came over to me with a wide smile.

“Mom” she said, “ Come with me. I gotta show you something. Watch…it will make you happy again.”

I was in the midst of searching my walls and couch for possible marker graffiti, but my little girl persisted.

“Come on, Mommy,” she said, grabbing my hand. “You will be happy.”

She led me to the bathroom, right over to the toilet, and inside was a pile of poop. “See mommy,” she said, smiling ear to ear, hands on her hips, clearly proud of herself. “Are you happy now?”

And I actually was happy. Very happy, because in that moment I recalled the months that had passed and my needless worry over her regression with the potty after she fell ill in the beginning of the year. Retraining her felt so frustrating since I knew she knew how to go.

Now here she is…her old self again. I was proud — proud enough to look past the fact that there was no toilet paper in the toilet and that my daughter probably did not wash her hands.

“Yes. I am happy,” I told her, smiling, as I changed her soiled panties and washed her hands. My anger from the marker fiasco subsided as I realized what a turning point we had reached. I noticed my camera nearby and snapped a picture of both of my girls, their faces decorated in a rainbow of colors, before scrubbing them as they whined and protested loudly.

In that moment, I realized the importance of letting go of the small things and appreciating the bigger picture. That day, I ended up taking a really funny picture of my daughters, one that I’ll cherish forever. Kids grow up so fast. It’s been said many times, but it sure is true. It’s important to take a moment to enjoy the crap they give you — literally!