Ways Frances Has of Protesting Bedtime

1. I'm not tired! (Burst into tears) No, I'm not! I'm not tired! Really, Mummy!

2. Why am I in bed, and the sun is still up? (Sometimes, with an imperious finger pointing towards the window.)

3. But it's not even dark yet!

4. I don't want it to be bedtime.

5. But I have to finish my project. See?

6. But I didn't get to play outside today!

7. (after lying in bed for two minutes) Mummy? Mummy, I have something to tell you. I tried to sleep, Mummy, but I just can't.

8. Mummy, you forgot to say goodnight to the duck/Bella/Ella/Sishi/other stuffed sleep-time friend.

9. Mummy, my finger still hurts!

10. Mummy, I love you. Can I have a hug?

(I figure so many of you are BlogHering, even if you're not there, that I'll wait the heavy posts until sometime next week. Happy weekend!)

Posted by Andrea at 9:20 AM | Comments (5)

definitions are important

(overheard while Frances was playing with C in the backyard.)

Frances: I love my Mummy. I love my whole family!

C: That's nice.

Frances: I love you too. You are my sister.

C: Aww...I love you too. (hug)

Frances: You are my honourary sister.

C: Yeah.

Frances: Honourary means nice.

Posted by Andrea at 9:19 AM | Comments (2)

Canada Day

Yesterday we went to the free Canada Day celebrations at Downsview Park for Frances's introduction to fireworks. We got there at 4:30 so we could enjoy the shows and rides for a few hours first, and rode a small ride and went down a very big slide (that was fun), saw a person juggling knives off the top of a pole, had a small supper, and found a spot on the grass to set out our blanket. With two hours to go, Frances entertained herself (and me) by running around with her Canada flag. Tiredness was beginning to make her hyper, but not so hyper that she couldn't stop and make friends with the occasional baby and puppy when one presented itself.

We watched the sky get darker and darker, and the lights on the midway rides shone brighter and brighter, and eventually we snuggled down beneath our blanket, and the practice fireworks started going off. "Wow," said Frances. "Fireworks are cool."

Then the first real one went off. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Wow."

For the whole show she alternately watched with her mouth open, murmured words of amazement, covered her mouth with a hand. "They look like flowers," she said. "Ooooh. Sparkles in the sky! They're so pretty." Sometimes, she would break into spontaneous applause. Watching her face was as entertaining as watching the fireworks--and they were very pretty. I put the camera away. I wanted to just watch her and remember her face as it was, and not be distracted by focus and framing.

We walked back to the car afterwards talking about which fireworks were our favourite. "Did you like our girls staying up late party?" I asked.

"Yeah."

She was asleep within five minutes of getting into the car, and it took us an hour to get home--forty-five minutes of that getting out of the parking lot. But it was worth it, to have Frances wrapped up in a blanket on my lap, fireworks lighting up her face with rose and gold and violet, all open with wonder.

Posted by Andrea at 9:04 AM | Comments (6)

Day One: Not the rousing start I'd hoped for

Today's plan was a playpark and the video store for a rental. The playpark was rained out--again, I can't remember a rainier June in Toronto. Looking at the rain I decided at the last minute to take the car rather than the subway and head to the Best Buy instead of Blockbuster, bring a new movie home (at slightly greater expense, but Frances is still at the stage where she likes to watch something new a thousand times, so this will be more satisfying for her). We picked up a few cheap movies and were out our door when there was a "Hey, guys" behind us.

It was Erik. "Daddy!" said Frances, and latched herself around his neck.

"I was doing some shopping too," he said, "but I didn't get anything."

For a few minutes we chatted by my car while Frances hugged her Daddy. Then he tried to say goodbye so we could head home. Frances's face knotted up and she sobbed.

It's hard for her to see her Daddy for just a few minutes and say goodbye again when she misses him so much. I asked her if she would like to spend some extra time with Daddy before going home, and she nodded, and he suggested going to a playpark (it was sunny by then--though it's raining again now), and she nodded again, so that was the new plan. Except that when I got up to get into my car, she sobbed again.

"What would you like to do?" Erik asked her.

"I don't think we should do that," I said. "Let's just go with our new plan." I didn't want her to feel that she was being forced to choose sides, to pick which parent she wanted to spend time with that afternoon.

Poor little bunny. When she's with her Mummy she misses Daddy; when she's with Daddy she misses Mummy; they're never in the same place at the same time except maybe when she runs into them in the middle of a Best Buy parking lot. It's hard enough for a grown-up to deal with. But she is just a little girl who must desperately wish sometimes that things were still the way they used to be.

It's freedom for me, but it's a huge loss for her.

Soon she will be here again and we will watch a new movie together on the couch, and eat some snacks. I'll snuggle her up and wonder what to say and how, and wish there was some way I could make it all right.

Posted by Andrea at 2:19 PM | Comments (5)

Half-Birthday Celebration

When your birthday is just before Christmas, as Frances's is, half-birthdays take on a greater importance; and for a while now, Frances has been counting the days until she could officially be four and-a-half (and not allowing anyone to call her four-and-a-half until the magic day arrived).

"Mummy, how old am I today?" she asked me yesterday morning, sitting on the floor in her whale pyjamas, surrounded by Little People.

"You're..." I blinked. "Today is your half-birthday! You are four-and-a-half today!"

"I know!" she said. "Now I am bigger. My hands and fingers are bigger and stronger. And I can run faster!" She got up and ran across the living room and back.

"Wow, look at how fast you are."

"I know! And I can gallop faster!" She galloped across the living room and back, laughing.

"Wow!"

"I am four-and-a-half! I am strong. Look at my muscles!" She flexed her arms. "See?"

"I see!"

"Yay!" She jumped. "Mummy, when is my party?"

"Weeell, see, we only have birthday parties at birthdays, so you will have a birthday party when you turn five."

"Oh. That's a big number."

"Yes. But if you'd like, we can go out for dinner and have a special half-birthday dinner at the restaurant with the M on the door." (Montana's.)

"Can I have cake?"

"Sure. And in a little while, we can go to the flower store and get some petunias for your flower garden. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah." She played for a few minutes. "Mummy, I want Mumms and Grandpa to come to my party."

"OK. Would you like to invite them? I can give you the phone and you can call them and ask."

"Yeah!" This is a girl who frequently refuses to talk to anyone on the phone, her parents included, which is a chore because she is supposed to talk to one or the other of us every night. When I called her at her father's on Friday and asked her what she did that day, all I got from her was 'I don't know!' in a tone mixed of equal parts of exasperation, amusement and impatience. Which was almost all she would say for the entire ten minutes of the call, and that's not unusual. But not yesterday: she took the phone, dialed the number, and when my father answered said, "Hi Grandpa. Would you like to come to my birthday dinner tonight? It's at the restaurant with the M on the door."

After bringing home some purple petunias and a few other plants to round out the containers in the back yard and getting them planted and watered, and chasing her around in a game of camera tag ("you can't take my picture, Mummy! I'm running too fast! Ah! You took my picture! (giggling) I'm going to hide behind this tree, now you can't take my picture .... ah! You took my picture! Can I see?"), we came inside and she took out her craft box full of buttons and glitter glue and scraps of fabric and ribbons and began making presents for her dinner guests.

First she took a boxboard blank christmas ornament and decorated it with christmas glitter glue, scraps of white microfibre and christmas buttons and put it in a cast-off gift bag that otherwise would have gone out with the recycling. Then she made them a thank-you card, and waited impatiently for it to dry after smearing the entire centre with glitter glue. All the while I was making her a card that I didn't let her see, a light pink cardstock card with bright teal-and-pink paper and a bright green four on the front, with "and a half" lettered beside it, and some pretty sequin and felt flowers besides. Then I gave her a bath and trimmed her bangs and dressed her in an orange stripey dress (which she would later lift above her head in the restaurant so Mumms and Grandpa could get a good view of the stripes).

This was followed by a detour to the bookstore. The plan was to let her buy herself one book as a special treat--but--there was a sale, see, buy 3 get the fourth free, so we got four, but they were all small inexpensive books, two of which were Scooby Doo picture books. And then she begged for a little grey stuffed elephant in the lineup which I didn't have the heart to refuse her when it was her half-birthday. And then there was the little fairy toy I snuck on to the pile without her seeing it to surprise her with at the restaurant. And a little notebook with bright flowers on the cover. But your half-birthday only comes once a year. Right?

So: flower store, gardening with Mummy, camera tag, playing, party dress, bookstore with new presents, restaurant with favourite meal, surprises, guests, and home just in time to talk to Daddy on the phone before bed. I think that counts as a pretty good half-birthday.

And I think she agrees.

Posted by Andrea at 9:54 AM | Comments (12)

A Good Day

Any Monday that begins with a one-hour sleep-in is bound to be a good one. I actually woke before Frances yesterday, and had gone downstairs to check the weather forecast online when I heard "Good morning Mama" from the top of the stairs.

I'm not sure why I'm Mama again. I was Mummy, then Mommy, then Mom for a few days; now Mama. In any case, I carried my sleepy girl in her mermaid pyjamas downstairs and set her up with a minigo and another watching of Shrek 3 (for the babies at the end, you see. The rest of the movie is just leading up to the part where the shrek babies appear and she can ooh and aah over how cute they are) while I blogged, after which we played ("Psst," I whispered, and when she leaned in, "I love you." "Psst," she whispered, and when I leaned in, "You're a great mommy") and got dressed and then I rode her to school in the bike. It was a nice enough day that she got to wear her crinkly pink skirt and her pink t-shirt with the butterfly on the front that makes her look, as she says, like a ballerina. An especially adorable one, since the preschooler belly pushes the skirt down a bit in front so that it poofs up behind her.

I had a lot to get done while she was at school yesterday afternoon; so after dropping her off I rode my bike down to the Don for an hour (#1--exercise), then went home and changed and headed off to Ikea on foot to get some organizing things to tackle some of the messes that developed over the winter and take care of a few nagging issues that are more apparent now that we've been living there for a while, and also a bathroom mirror so that Frances can brush her own teeth (#2). Took the subway home and reorganized the front hall and the closet, and good god, I have shelf space after all, also the floor is no longer littered with shoes of various sizes (#3). Put the other organizing gizmo in my closet and got all the sweaters my Mom gave me off the floor, where they'd been living for a few months because I have nowhere else to put them, and I'm not quite sure when or if I will ever wear so many sweaters (she was downsizing after changing careers herself) but they have to go somewhere (which reminds me: anyone in the Toronto area interested in some sweaters? Or some size 8 or 10P clothes? They're nice, I'm just not short enough for them) (#4). Put the clean dishes away, cleaned the bathrooms, engaged in the never-ending battle against the sand that Frances tracks in and dumps from her shoes to the floor (#5). Off to the mall across the street for a pitstop at the toy store and to pick up a few groceries I'd missed on Saturday (#6).

There's all kinds of plans I have for organizing the apartment over the summer; like, getting all the christmas stuff into semi-attractive storage boxes and keeping them over the kitchen cupboards, since there is all kinds of space up there that is otherwise going unused. Then taking the empty storage cabinet from the storage room and putting it outside, to use as a shed for Frances's outdoors toys (which otherwise get muddy or leafy or stolen), since it is waterproof and has space for a lock. This will clear up space in the storage room, so I can keep my bike there instead of in the living room; which will clear up a handy bit of space that could be used for a small bookcase, when I get around to getting one, for all the books currently stacked on the floor of my bedroom. At which point I could entertain getting a small desk for the computer gadgets that have nowhere to go right now; and I will probably get rid of the small green desk currently in the dining area because I never use it with the kitchen table right there, and it ends up just holding crap; so I'd take that out and maybe store it at my parents' and then get a small shelving unit to hold the crafty stuff instead. But one thing has to lead to another, so the first thing is to get the storage boxes that will fit over the cabinets in the kitchen.

Anyway.

It was a busy afternoon; after which I picked up my girl from the school and we walked home. At times she would let go of my hand and run off, small legs pumping, ponytail bouncing, staring back over her shoulder at me to see how I was taking it as she laughed. "Look at you go!" I'd say. "You'll never catch me," she'd reply. "You're right. I'll never catch you. You're too fast. Look at you!" At other times she would grab my hand and kiss the back and tell me she loves me.

"I have a surprise for you at home," I said.

"You do? What is it?"

"I can't tell you, or it won't be a surprise. Let's go home quickly so I can show you."

We got home and she found the plastic bag from the toystore in the front hall, and in it, two new balls to replace the ones that were evidently stolen from our front walk in the last few weeks. "Balls!" she said. "Oooh, I like this one, it's pretty." It is, too; it's a pink-and-white-and-purle o-ball with sparkles in it. "Let's go outside and play with them!"

"OK, but now we have a new rule: we can take one ball outside at a time, and when we're done we bring it back inside so it doesn't get lost again."

She picked the blue ball with green polkadots to start with and we went out front and played catch, Frances giggling all the while, and laughing harder when she missed and went to chase it than when she caught it. Soon C and two other neighbourhood children, both older than her, came riding by on their bicycles. "We're having a party by the rocks," said C. "Do you want to come, Frances? It'll be fun. We're going to have balloons and snacks and prizes and everything."

Frances jumped. "A party! How exciting!"

The mother of the older boy was also there. After a few minutes of chatting about this very exciting party, she said, "She's so advanced for her age! My goodness, look at you, walking already."

"Actually," I said, shifting my weight from one leg to the other, "she's four."

"Oh, my goodness. Isn't she adorable. I'd just like to eat you up!"

I laughed. "See, Frances, it's not just me. Everyone wants to eat you."

"It's true." The other mother knelt down. "I'd like to eat you with salt," she said, miming a salt shaker over Frances's head; "and pepper, and ketchup, and mustard," while Frances laughed. "Can I? No? Oh." She stood, and sighed. "She is so adorable. And you can just see her personality in her face, it draws you in."

I beamed. It's true, you know, but I never mind hearing it from other people.

The party was to start at seven. We played catch for a while longer and then went inside so Frances could have a small supper and call her father before it started. Good thing she was already in her party clothes, we both agreed. We came back outside and C joined us and said she'd been fired from the party so she wasn't going anymore, so here were the prizes and they could play their own game, and they did, and Frances "won" a few of C's small toys. Her favourite was the little fairy with the orange bendy wings, from which she could hardly tear her eyes; then C's mother came outside and took her to the park.

We went to where the party was supposed to be, but while the two older kids were there, no one else was; and (without addressing either of us, I'd like to mention) they decided to postpone it. I felt like telling them that when you fire your friends from the party you can't really be surprised when no one shows up. Frances was disappointed and didn't at first believe me when I said there wasn't going to be a party after all; I could hardly just take her home to bed after such a build-up, could I? So we went to the park, too.

She ran, she climbed chain ladders and bridges that looked much too big for her while I hovered anxiously behind in case she needed help, which she didn't; she went down big slippery slides. I remember the first yellow toddler slides only about half my own height two houses ago, and the light in her eyes when she first went down them. Now here she is zipping down some contraption way over my head, fearlessly. I watched the parents of the toddlers stare at us in something like fear or amazement or both, because Frances doesn't look older than their children but there she is on the big kids' playset and there I am, letting her. Then a few minutes in the chair swing and a very, very unhappy decision to go home to bed when it was already twenty minutes past her bedtime. "We'll come back on the next nice day," I promised her, "except for tomorrow because I'm going to need to give you a bath. Look at those filthy little feet!"

At home were two more surprises: a little nightlight that looks like a ghost from Ikea that will live on her flower table downstairs (except a bulb looked to be flickering a bit this morning, so I might need to exchange it), and her new mirror upstairs, where she brushed her own teeth for the first time (with some help) in her mermaid jammies before reading Little Miss Fun all snuggled up on the big bed, and then sleep.

Then eight hundred words for the novel, more tidying up, a talk with the boyfriend, and bed.

It was a perfectly ordinary, absolutely wonderful day; the kind I wish I could somehow trap in amber so I could always go back and see it again just as it was, every detail unaltered. The way her soft little lips pressed the back of my hand when she said, "I love you Mama." Her giggly grin over her shoulder as she ran, those tiny muscled legs winking. Patting the head of the ghost nightlight. Her tiny feet all crusted over with sand, the way kids' feet should be after a beautiful summery day, and her face streaked with dirt where she had rubbed it with her grimy little fingers. Laughing while she is admired by others, and showing off her pink ballerina skirt that rides up in the back. I want every bit of it etched in translucent stone so that twenty or forty years from now, it's still there. One of those days when even if you could, you wouldn't trade your life for anyone's.

Posted by Andrea at 9:18 AM | Comments (6)

Nothing to see here. Move along.

I am way too distracted and much too tired to manage any profundity today. Sorry.

You can blame the boyfriend and the bloggers who have organized the very official and highly structured Maritime BlogHer in Halifax this weekend for my current state of mind. I'd love to write something meaningful but it's just not going to happen today.

Well, let's see what happens when I concentrate....

Yippee!

No, wait.

See, it's hopeless.

Maybe I can dredge my mind for a happy Frances story to tide you over.

...

She's cute! No, wait....

Frances says something adorable. This happens all the time, you'll just have to take my word for it. I say, "Frances, can I eat you?"

"No!"

"No? Oh... Can I nibble on you?"

"Nooooo!"

"Aww. How about, can I lick you?"

"No! I'm not a lollipop!" She laughs.

"Oh. OK. Uh, can I give you a kiss?"

"Yes." And she turns her cheek. I kiss her. She says, "You can hug and kiss me, but you can't eat, nibble or lick me."

"Oh?"

"Because I am not food. I am all covered with skin, and I have bones."

"That's true. I can feel them in your fingers."

"I am a person. Persons are not food."

"Can't argue with that."

There you have it, Dear Readers: the received wisdom of Frances. Persons are not food.

Posted by Andrea at 10:16 AM | Comments (6)

Frances Sees a Horton

I decided to take Frances to see Horton Hears a Who late afternoon on Friday. We didn't have a stroller or a car so we hoofed it to the subway station, in the slush and snow and ice, which actually wasn't as bad as I feared. Many escalators and staircases later, we were the proud possessors of a couple of tickets to watch Horton, as I'd told Frances--on a really big tv screen as big as a wall! And we'll buy popcorn! Won't it be fun?

She was so excited she begged me to leave for the movie early, so we did and got the full 20 minutes of ads and previews.

The movie was really great. You know I never do advertising or product reviews here, so that was sincere: it is easily the best full-length-feature Seuss adaptation I've seen. It was faithful to the spirit of the book; the additions made sense and weren't treacly or cliche. The mayor/jojo thing was a bit odd, but not so odd that it spoiled the movie, at least not for me. I would have liked to see more of the scientist character. But these are pretty minor complaints.

Frances and I shared a small bag of popcorn, and then a box of Reese's pieces; and for much of the movie she sat on my lap, hands on her knees, leaning forward, absolutely riveted. Toward the end when she'd returned to her own chair, she seemed a little teary, so I leaned over to see if she was ok and she grabbed my hand and wrapped my arm around her for a hug. Afterwards, she must have said, "That was so, so great!" and "I had such a great, great time!" a dozen times as we walked back to the subway station. I got a chance to introduce her to the convenience store owner who is always calling me "gorgeous neighbour" (the theatre is across from my office) when we went to get some post-movie orange juice.

It was so much fun to go see a movie with my little girl, especially a movie about an elephant she idolizes.

The frogzibitz at the Zoo was fun, and seeing our friends was fun, and seeing Mumms and Grandpa was fun, and I'm guessing today's egg painting adventure will also be fun; but I think Frances's first movie in a theatre will be the part I remember--sitting side-by-side and sharing a bag of popcorn while the Whos all shouted "We are here! We are here! We are here!"

(She liked Jojo best, if you're wondering.)

Posted by Andrea at 9:03 AM | Comments (9)

Down With Love. Sort of.

Not all of us are happily coupled on Valentine's Day, you know?

There are those of us who are happily uncoupled, unhappily coupled, or unhappily uncoupled.

All this balloon hearts and chocolate boxes and roses stuff--the last time I really got excited about Valentine's Day I was in highschool. More power to those of you whose hearts are fluttering as I type with wondering about what your sweetheart has planned for you today, and my sympathies to the ones who only wish their sweetheart was planning anything but you already know that despite store windows filled with pink-and-red signs for the last four weeks that you're not getting anything because s/he's somehow managed to forget.

For the rest of us, a potpourri of smug news about romance:

1. Hey, you know that old trope about how men want beautiful women and women want rich men? You know that it's hogwash? That people will say that it's true but when their behaviour is measured both men and women value attractiveness over money? Yeah, take that Bill Gates.

2. Did you know that kissing transmits information about health, intentions, willingness to commit to raising children, and genetic compatibility? According to Scientific American Mind (and really, why would they lie to us?) it might have evolved from the primate feeding tactic of chewing food for children before passing it directly to their mouths. So romantic. (Still, read the article.)

3. Of course, Frances's school is going all out. There is a Danceathon! Everyone is to wear pink or red! There will be a special snack at kindergarten! There will be the annual exchange of tacky, punny, branded cardlets! It is all too exciting for words! Valentine's Day, hurrah!

I much prefer this version.

A few nights ago we were curled up on the sofa and she started talking about getting married, for some reason. Knowing Frances it came right out of the blue, as her topics of converstation frequently do.

"Do you want to get married someday?" I asked her.

"Yeah."

"Do you know who you want to marry?"

"I want to marry my Daddy," she said. "But he told me that I can't."

"That's true," I said, lips twitching, trying not to giggle. "There are rules that say daughters can't marry their daddies. But there might be someone else one day."

She had no reply but a heartfelt sigh.

With two divorces under my belt my belief in marriage and monogamy might have been ground to a fine powder, but love is still beautiful. Even if it doesn't stay.

Posted by Andrea at 10:16 AM | Comments (13)

The Talk (which didn't go the way I thought it would)

Wednesday was a self-declared snow day. I took one look at our slushy, snow-laden, uncleared sidewalks and declared them impassable by stroller, and we stayed home. I got a fair bit of work done for someone who was being bounced on by a small child demanding repeats of hide-and-seek and Candyland, and she went only marginally stir-crazy.

While we were playing Candyland, it came out that someone at school told her Wiccans are bad guys. I can't get out who, but in the end I suppose it doesn't really matter. "I'm Wiccan," I said. "Am I a bad guy?"

"No," she said. "Are Wiccans good guys?"

"Some of them. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. Just like everyone else."

And we sat down and I gave a little speech about how wiccans and witches are the same thing, and it's not like the books or television, and if she ever has any questions about wiccans or witches or if she hears anything about them she should come and ask me. "Do you have any questions?" Her eyes were very large and blue.

She nodded, looking solemn. She pulled down the neckline of her shirt, stared at her chest and said, "Where are my breasts?"

OK. What the hell. "You'll have breasts when you're a teenager. But that's a few years away still."

"Are you a teenager?" She climbed into my lap.

"No, I'm a grown-up lady."

"Oh."

"What are you going to do when you're grown up?"

"I'm going to teach you stuff." She squirmed herself into the four inches of empty couch between me and the armrest.

I shifted over to give her more space, and put an arm around her shoulders. "Oh? That's nice. Thanks."

"Yeah. Because you don't know anything yet."

Truer words may never have been spoken.

Posted by Andrea at 7:57 AM | Comments (7)

Monday Mission: Imperative

(This week's exercise is 300 words written in the imperative. I've flouted the length requirement again because I couldn't have told this one in a short space.)

How To Run a Child's Birthday Party

First, get the date wrong when you email your friends. Put the correct date on the paper invitation and don't bother to tell them what happened. Apologize for the confusion several times. Then cancel it altogether for a snowstorm. Your daughter will be disappointed. Feel like a heel. Reschedule for January.

In the meantime, eat the snacks you'd bought for the party. Wonder why your blood sugars are high.

Re-purchase the snacks in January.

On the morning of the party, pour milk on your daughter's breakfast cereal. Realize that you are out of milk. Realize that you can't make icing for the cookie decorating without milk. Decide to be ok with this because you can go out and get milk when your ex comes over to help set up an hour before the party starts (at 1:30). Begin the frenzy of final preparations: scrub the table, scrub the snack bowls, put out coasters and napkins, sweep, mop, set out crackers, fruit and cheese. Find yourself holding a stack of half-read books, a notebook, an armful of stuffed toys, a dirty glass, two plastic forks and a half-eaten apple with no earthly idea how to put them all down again. Almost put the forks in the fridge and the apple in the sink. Knock your head against the wall. Remember: it will be over soon.

Watch the clock. Become increasingly grumpy while watching the clock. Get yourself dressed, get your daughter's outfit ready. When she asks you for the five millionth time that morning if she can get dressed now, say No, I don't want you getting your party dress dirty before your guests arrive. When she asks you for the six millionth time if she can decorate cookies yet, say No, that is for when your friends are here. When she asks you if she can dump out another bin of lego, say No, for god's sake I just cleaned up in here. When she begs you for Horton, say yes. Let her watch Horton, for the love of all that's holy, and tape up streamers. Nod your head when your daughter advises you to put them up straight, like this. Continue to let them hang. Remember to keep watching the clock. When it is 1:15, fume. Ask the air: where is he? What is taking him so long? Doesn't he know you're out of milk?

Run out to get the milk as soon as he shows up. Find three of your friends in the parking lot all arriving at exactly the same moment. Apologize. Get the milk. Run home. Pressure your guests to eat the food you set out even though they all just finished lunch.

Make far too much of four different colours of icing (pink, teal, green and white) and the sprinkles and sparkles. Set the Shrek plastic cloth out on the floor. Cover it with the decorating goodies, a bunch of plastic knives, and the brown-sugar shortbread cookies (hearts, flowers, dinosaurs and circles). When the sprinkles get dumped in moutainous heaps on the plates, and the plastic knives are scrubbed by a guest's tongue, and the round sprinkles bounce and roll across the floor like a hundred brightly coloured miniature ping-pong balls, and everyone wants to use the green icing all at once, and they insist on eating the cookies now even though chocolate birthday cake is coming, and the knife for the pink icing ends up in the blue, laugh.

Later, when all of your guests have gone home, look at the leftovers. Groan.

Posted by Andrea at 12:22 PM | Comments (6)

The advent calendar countdown is done. The advent set family stood holding hands in a circle, just like the Whos in Whoville, waiting for the big day.

Meanwhile, just because I have a family of two doesn't mean I can't bake for a family of six. Someday we are sure to finish the chocolate crackles, gingersnaps, raspberry cream sandwiches, truffle brownies and lemon squares. (But I'm willing to accept volunteers to assist us, if you are interested.)

And it's not Christmas without daisybraid, even if, at two people, there is one loaf each and only a few days to eat them.

Christmas Eve, as I mentioned already, Frances celebrated with her father at his apartment in the Swiss tradition. I'm not entirely clear on what went on yet, except that Santa came, and it must have been very exciting because when she came back, just past her bedtime, she was limp with exhaustion and happiness. She expressed firmly that Santa only liked chocolate milk, and she was not happy that we had none to offer him. We opened her Christmas pyjamas and read her Christmas book (a tradition I'm carrying on from my family), and I poured her into bed, where she slept (thank the gods) until 7:00 in the morning. It still came too early, but not nearly as early as I'd feared.

"Should we go see if Santa came?" I asked her.

We went downstairs, and she stood and looked around the room. "He did! He came!" she said. "There are snowflake presents!"

"Look at that!" I said. "And there are presents in your stocking too. Why don't you start with those, and I'll get the daisybraid on?"

I did, and she did, and she found stickers and chocolates and a Mole Sisters book and a pen with rudolph on the end and little wooden letters that spell her name. And that was fun. But later, when the daisybraid was in the oven, and I asked her if she wanted to open her presents from Santa, she said "I'll start with the little one." She began. "There's a lot of tape."

"Yes," I said. "Santa uses more tape than Mummy does."

"Yeah." She continued on, until she pulled something small and soft and yellow out of the package. "It's a duckie." She stared at it. "It's a little yellow duckie! Mummy, it's a little duckie! This is just what I wanted! See? See?" And she thrust it toward me, it's blurried and over-exposed face to be preserved for posterity by the camera.

"Yes, I see," I said. "Did Santa bring you what you asked for?"

"Yeah! This is just what I wanted!" And the look on her face--something between breathless shock and transported joy--was the highlight of Christmas.The rest of it (the craft supply restocking that I'd packaged from Mummy in the teal paper (foam sheets and construction paper and glue and markers), the little tool set that she is planning to use to build the old house and the small lego set she got from Santa, the lego sets she got from my parents, the purse that looks like a yorkshire terrier that she got from my Mom's dogs (yorkies themselves), and the little Tanzanian Dora doll and Littlest Pet Shop toy she got from my aunt (though, to be fair, the Littlest Pet Shop fascinated her for hours and I'm sure it started a new toy craze in our household)) could not match that moment when she pulled out her first present and got just exactly what she wanted.

Later, when we'd returned from my parent's house at almost ten, and I undressed and pyjamaed her with her eyes still almost shut, pulled her sheets up to her chin and turned off the light. Then I went to get her little yellow duckie from the bag in the hall, and she opened her eyes for long enough to stretch out her arms and wrap them tightly around her new baby. She fell asleep just like that and stayed that way until morning.

Posted by Andrea at 7:36 AM | Comments (8)

Tomorrow is Christmas, it's practically here!

Friday: Daycare Birthday Party

Saturday: Out to dinner with Mummy, Daddy, Mumms and Grandpa

Sunday: Mummy's friend had a Christmas party, where two other little girls came. There were presents, toys, running games, and orange juice (now I know why I water it at home).

Monday: Christmas Eve, to be spent with Daddy, whose family celebrated and opened their presents on this day.

Tuesday: Christmas, to open presents at home and then go to Mumms and Grandpa's house.

Wednesday: Crash.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it. I won't be posting the next few days, but that's ok, since almost none of you will be reading anyway. See you on the other side of the mayhem.

Posted by Andrea at 8:47 AM | Comments (2)

When you are perfect

When you are the World's Best Kindergartener Ever, Bar None, and you and your Mummy and Daddy and Mumms and Grandpa go out to dinner at your favourite restaurant (the one with the M on the door--no, not that one, Montana's), and you sit quietly and happily through the meal and eat your chicken and french fries with dipping sauce (the sauce is for the fries. I always thought it was for the chicken, but I have been set straight), and you drink your apple juice, and you don't shout or yell or bang or whine or whimper or do anything at all that detracts from the angel-blond hair and enormous innocent-seeming blue eyes, it is just possible that an elderly man you have never met will come up to the table and ask your parents if they would be offended if he gave you a birthday present. And then he might give you a toonie. Just because you're perfect, and everyone loves you.

Posted by Andrea at 7:43 PM | Comments (10)

Smile

My Mom always said that she couldn't see any resemblance between me and her side of the family--I look like my Dad. I have his height, his eyes, his skin-tone, and his sisters' build and bone structure. I'm the one who gave birth to you, she'd say; why do you look so much like your father?

I, too, told everyone who ever asked that Frances looks exactly like Erik to me. People tell me all the time that she looks "just like me," and I think they are on drugs. It's true that we have the same colouring, that her hair is about my shade of dishwater (though at her age my hair was very blonde), and our skin is similarly pale (though she is not quite as pale as I am, and can tan in the summer), and both our eyes are blue. But her blue eyes are large and glowing and expressive, whereas mine--well. If you took a picture of Frances now and a picture of me at four, and put them side by side, they would not look anything alike. So I have always maintained.

When I was in grade four, my Mom volunteered to be a group-leader on one of my field trips. I think it was Ontario Place, but it might have been Canada's Wonderland (the educational value of both excursions is apparent to all, I'll assume). While there, I spent some of my allowance money on a caricature portrait. I don't know why, I must have thought they were amusing and wanted one of my own.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" the caricaturist asked.

"An author," I said. (I've been giving that answer since I was five, with brief excursions. I still give that answer, and I'm 32.)

After our ten minutes, she handed me a large piece of paper with a sketch of me, as an adult. It was in profile, and I was holding a small book called "The Mystery of the Missing Goldfish." She'd put a male fan, panting and drooling and prostrate, in front of me, which was a nice touch, considering it would be six years from then until anyone would think I was dateable.

It's a little eerie, how well she drew what I would look like as an adult, except that my head is not ten times the size of my body. I still have that sketch, now ripped and creased and faded.

That night I showed it to my Dad, and he looked at it with my Mom; she said, "You look just like Aunt Heather in this." (Minus, I'll assume, the disproportion between the head and body.) Aunt Heather is my Mom's sister (and one who did indeed often have boys drooling and prostrate).

Somehow, this stranger found and elucidated a familial similarity between two people she'd never met. It was the first time either my Mom or myself had seen any physical resemblance between me and her side of the family.

And it must have been about eight years ago now, when my parents had just moved in to where they are living now, and were in the midst of one of their renovation projects and proudly showing it off, when I saw a Sears family portrait of the four of us that was taken when I was probably about seventeen. My brother was, by then, already taller than me; I was wearing a purple velvet dress, and my hair was long and brown, and my Mom's hair in this picture is 80's curly and highlighted blonde. We all stared into the camera and grinned. I saw, for the first time, that my brother and I had both inherited my mother's smile.

Identical. You could have cut it off of her face in that photo, if you were very careful, and pasted it onto ours, and if you could accept the idea of a fourteen-year-old boy wearing lipstick, you would not have been able to tell the difference.

A year ago I saw that smile again when I got Frances's daycare photos back. There it was, plain as anything: my mother's smile on my daughter's face. My smile.

And now, when she gives me on of those nuclear-sunrise smiles, and her eyes light up like two blue suns, and she looks like the very platonic ideal of happiness, beaming and glowing all over the place, I think--she got part of that from me. It's obvious that as is expected in the course of evolution, her version is an improvement on mine; still, there it is. One of my favourite things about that cherubic face, with its perfect round cheeks and adorably pointed chin, is something she got from me.

(Her smile makes me smile. We make quite the mutual admiration society, the two of us; where her grin gets me grinning, and we grin back and forth, each grin amplifying the other like candles by a mirror until, grinnier and grinnier, we collapse in laughter for some invented reason or another.)

And there might be something else, too--something else of me in her, though like my own mother, I can't see it. Since Frances herself is perfect (or as close to perfect as a person can be), it only stands to reason that whatever she got from me, must be good.

It's a nice antidote to what sometimes can feel like the continual ego-blows of parenting. Like the first time you realize that you have learned how to diaper a crying baby and can burp successfully--you're getting better! You don't just suck as a mom! There is something redeeming and hopeful about the first time you realize that part of this gorgeous, amazing, loving little person you made actually came from you--and you can point to it, and name it.

She got my smile.

Posted by Andrea at 6:02 AM | Comments (8)

Worry

Saturday evening I opened my front door to a sad sight: a small Frances collapsed on her father's shoulder, half-asleep, transferred to me without a sound. "She had a bad cough last night," he explained. "I think she's coming down with another cold."

"Oh, poor kiddo." I pulled off her hat and boots and mitts, took off her coat, with as much care and solicitation as I could muster, but relishing in part the feeling of her sleepy weight on my shoulder, her soft round cheek against mine. After an hour of eating and drinking and TV, I put her to bed.

Sunday was expected to be worse, and it was--she had a hard time sleeping Saturday night and was cranky and tired and coughing, which is typical for a Frances wintertime cold. But we played and made crafts and did our normal Sunday things, though at half-speed.

Another hard sleep Sunday night complete with a few feverish nightmares led to a Monday at home. She was a bit warm and had some hard coughing fits--to be expected, for a Frances wintertime cold--but played and watched TV and did her craft projects (with sparkles! and fingerpaint!) again, pretty well normally, but at half-speed.

Monday night brought the croup cough. That heavy, horrid, barking cough so hard it leaves no space to breathe. Her longest stretch of sleep was from midnight to three, and her cough kept her up from 3-5 (which ended only because I remembered that croup coughs often go away in cold dry air, so we walked outside in the snow for a minute, the little pyjamad girl wrapped in blankies and heavy on my shoulder, discussing how the snow was comign straight down like rain, and how fluffy it was, and it made the lamps and the trees pretty). Near five she finally fell asleep again, and slept until 8, waking with another fever. Higher, this time. A dose of tylenol, a drink of water, a minigo, a viewing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer later, and she was ready for a nap. I set her up on the couch with a pillow, Laura's quilt and one of her sleep-time friends (Ella the Elephant, a soft yellow elephant with a rattle inside I bought her before she was born).

She stayed there all day. Sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, but with no interest in doing anything. Tv? "No!" Snacks? "No!" Temperature drifting between 38 and the low 39s (that's 100 to 103, I think, for the Americans in the audience). Not much to drink. "I'm sick, Mummy." I know, little girl. Do you want a hug? She nods.

But she spent the night awake and coughing--surely a day napping on the couch is not excessive?

I could not, could not stay home again on Wednesday--mostly because I would be out of family leave. And Frances spent half the day telling me how much she missed her Daddy, so we arranged for him to take her Tuesday night and Wednesday, so I could at least get in to work and get something to bring home with me for Thursday. After--by hearsay this time--another bad night, and a persistent fever, and a small wilty girl who still doesn't want to play, she is going to the doctor with Daddy.

(I called her just now at her Dad's house. "How are you feeling, sweetie?" "I'm still sick," she said, in her soft, high-pitched voice, which always seems so much younger when I talk to her on the phone. "How's your tummy?" "It still hurts." "Did you eat anything for breakfast?" "No." "Did you have anything to drink?" "I had apple juice, and water, but only because the medicine was yucky.")

Every bit of instinct and experience is telling me that this is just a very bad bout of croup, but still, the Canadian taxpayers are not getting their money's worth out of me today (my apologies to those of you who count yourselves in that group). I am staring at an inbox full of emails and a desk full of paper, and wondering what the hell I'm doing here.

Posted by Andrea at 10:54 AM | Comments (24)

Going

Tuesday morning we walked to school because I wanted to take the subway to work. Frances decided to run; inevitably, she tripped hard and skinned both her knees. I had no kleenex in my purse (bad mother) and only one bandaid, and that for blisters (extra bad mother), but we cleaned her up and kissed her owwies better and continued on our way, more carefully, the small soft fingers of her right hand wrapped around my left index finger. As warm and soft as a cat's belly. I hope I remember it always, the feeling of her tiny trusting hand, the sheer pleasure of it, even if constraining my steps to her gait does feel like tripping over my feet constantly. I walked her into her classroom, and while I hung up her lunch bag she walked fearless up to a table of larger kids and asked to be included in their game. I kissed her hair and walked out--she did not even notice my leaving--and as I walked back down the hallway again, I smiled at the tempera paintings already lining the hallway (still lifes of purple flowers in a vase, childrens' families, colour wheels), and peeked through the open door of her junior kindergarten classroom. This afternoon she will sit there in a circle with her friends and learn about letters and numbers from her teacher. One day soon she will know how to read.

What hits hardest about parenting, in my experience, is how joy and loss, pride and grief, are mingled in every moment of it. Every one of their accomplishments is another step on a road that leads them away from you. We want them to be successful, we want them to grow and to learn, but oh how much we also want them to need us, to come to us when they are frightened, to put their small warm hands in ours.

One day when Frances was an infant, I decided to plop her on her tummy on the big bed for some photos. Every time I put her on her tummy, she'd stick her butt in the air, and it was so cute and funny, I wanted to remember it. She lay there, squawking and hollering and crying (but as every good mother knows, they need tummy time, so I didn't feel too guilty), writhing in helplessness, until--shift--over she rolled. I was so taken by surprise, I didn't even get a picture of the significant moment, but sat there staring until I thought, "She just rolled over. I should take a picture." Then I put her back on her tummy, and she did it again, and I took some more pictures. I was thrilled, of course. (She rolled over! No baby has ever rolled over that way before!) I was proud. I wanted to show everyone. I can't remember if I knew then, if I saw, that the first roll would become the first creep would become the first crawl, the first steps, the first jump, the first run, all leading inevitably to the moment when she has all her things packed into boxes and a moving van is in the driveway to take her away from me altogether. I can't remember if I knew, then, that every instance of her developing mastery and independence would be an instance of my loss of her.

I see it now. She comes in the door from daycare, sits down to take off her shoes and puts them by the front door. She asks for television. She plays with her friend C until it is time for supper. She climbs into her chair and drinks out of a regular cup, uses regular utensils to feed herself supper. She talks to Daddy on the phone, telling him what she did in daycare, and who her friends are, and how much she misses him. She picks out books at bedtime. She can recognize her name, written down. She can type it on the computer. Tomorrow morning she will pick out her own shirt and ask to wear her brown shoes with the flowers and decide she wants to wear the pink jacket and off we'll go. For ten hours she will be away from me, learning things, becoming bigger and smarter and stronger. Then one day, she won't pick a book at bedtime; instead, I'll come into her room that night to find her reading under the covers with a flashlight. One day, she will pick up the remote, pop a dvd in, and plop down on the couch with a handful of cookies that I specifically did not say she could eat this close to dinner. One day, she will open a free email account with some godawful handle and use it to write letters to her friends about how horrible I am. One day she will sneak out of the house to see a boy (or a girl). One day she will come home with clothes she bought with money from her own job. One day she will ask me for help with homework and I won't be able to. One day her beautiful little hands will stop making houses for the baby mole.

Everything she learns to do is a step she takes towards her true self and away from me. I was warned, you were warned, we were all warned. "Treasure every moment, it all goes by so fast." What we thought they meant was to find joy in the sleeplessness and vomit and screaming and exhaustion and tedious repetition of it all. We thought they were crazy. But that's not it. What they meant was to treasure their needing us, their belonging to us wholly, for the incredibly short time that it lasts. Already it's over. Frances is as much the world's as mine, and even more her own. It's right, it's good, and it's happening too damned fast.

~~~~~

(This is my contribution to Julie's "Hmm" for this week, reinterpreted from "A good thing going" to "A good thing, going.")

Posted by Andrea at 6:49 AM | Comments (11)

Taking the Advanced Course

Frances's new daycare sent home a helpful note about resiliency, and how to cultivate it in children:

Resiliency has been defined as the "ability to persevere and adapt when things go awry." It is also the ability to deal with stressful situations and be accepting to new challenges. ... "Resiliency thinking skills can be absorbed by children starting from a very early age. Children as young as two years old can mimic the thinking style of the adults around them. Resiliency thinking skills can promote development of strategies that can help children bounce back from life's inevitable pressures and prevent them from developing life views that can lead to depression."

I'd say Frances could use some resiliency thinking skills, all things considered, wouldn't you agree?

During your child's daily interaction with other children, they may encounter challenges that trigger a multitude of emotions. Conflicts as common as sharing can be very stressful for children to deal with. A change in their regular routine is another challenge that creates stress in childhood. Supporting children to identify their emotions and control their impulses are foundational resiliency abilities and a cornerstone to developing resilient thinking habits.

Sharing is a tough one.

At this time of year many children are facing the stressful challenges of changes to their regular routines; starting school, new teachers, new child care centre, etc.

Sure. And watching your Mom and Dad split up, moving, getting used to a new neighbourhood, getting used to living in an apartment after you've spent your whole life in houses, losing all your old daycare friends, your old neighbour friends, hardly seeing your Dad anymore. Lots of changes to one's regular routine.

How can we help children become more resilient?

Don't ask me. Frances just does it.

All this. All this. Such a heavy load to carry for someone much much older than she is. Three years old, and she just does it. Still greets every day with an "oh boy!"; still skips and jumps for joy all day long. Still rushes to embrace new people as close friends, even though she knows what it means to lose them. No temper tantrums, no regression, no nightmares, no crying fits.

I think the school board should hire Frances on to teach everyone else how to be resilient, adults included.

She doesn't just persevere and adapt when things go awry. She keeps joy tightly clenched in both fists. She keeps smiling.

She doesn't just bounce back from life's inevitable pressures.

She just bounces.

Posted by Andrea at 6:38 AM | Comments (10)

Wherein I Try to Keep a Straight Face

Frances is graduating today.

She is going to wear a cap and get a certificate and have a ceremony and everything. There will be treats and, of course, Mummy and Daddy will be in attendance.

(mouth twitching, trying not to giggle)

Frances will be wearing a special party dress we bought for the occasion yesterday evening, when I discovered that the only dress she has right now is sized nine months and is actually noticeably too small. Mummy is wearing a skirt; Frances requested that I dance "like a ballerina" in it. And we have been told that she wants to be a "beyooootiful princess." So she may be wearing a crown when she is not wearing her cap.

I will try very hard to take a blog-safe photo, Dear Readers.

Posted by Andrea at 7:21 AM | Comments (9)

Monday Mission: Mountains and Molehills

If there is one thing I need to teach Frances, it is that her size says nothing about what she can do or how high she can reach. This is important for all children to know; but especially for her, when her size will make mountains out of molehills, when she will constantly confront a world that has been built for larger and stronger people.

I question my ability to teach Frances this. I believe in change, that people can change if they want to, if they're determined to; I believe that hard work will win out over talent almost every time, and that it's the combination that makes geniuses. I don't enjoy tasks or settings that are too easy. But I also was educated in an Enhanced Program that took intellectual and other abilities as givens that education could prevent us from throwing away, but nothing could really increase or develop. School was a place for showing off how smart you already were, not learning how to become smarter. And so, while I believe in change and the value of determination, I know there are large swaths of my mental habits that also believe that our destinies are written in the stone of our innate abilities. This would be a disastrous habit for Frances to learn.

It's true that her social precociousness, an inborn gift if ever there was one, will stand her in good stead for life. But what she needs more than a talent of making friends is the determination to overcome obstacles and barriers--because there will be obstacles and barriers, and she will have to work harder than other kids to master things that they find easy. She will not be the fastest runner; climbing stairs and opening doors will present challenges; the long-jump will not be her forte. She needs to believe that hard work is what will make the difference in her life--because it is. Fortunately, she already knows this, as was beautifully demonstrated to me at the park last week.

It was an unnaturally gorgeous day, the kind that convinces you of the reality of global warming--when there still ought to be snow on the ground but teenaged girls are wearing tank tops. Groups of teenagers and older kids were playing a game called "grounders" all over the playset. I was not impressed. Frances didn't seem to mind, though; she'd watch them intently, then try to do what they did. They were all much, much larger than she was, and could easily jump distances that she couldn't.

She was determined to climb the ladder--the metal ladder with rungs 18 inches apart or more. She stood on the lowest rung and, straining herself to her fullest height, managed to grasp the rung over her head. I stood right behind her. "It's big, isn't it?" I said. "This is meant for big kids."

She pulled and pulled and almost made it up a rung; I put my hands on her back to give her an extra inch and she made it up. "Good job, Frances!" Repeating her straining, reaching and pulling, with just a little bit of help she made it to the top, and from there to the top of the big twisty slide. By herself. She had to work for that ladder--work hard. I've never been so proud of her.

Frances amazes me. She does not see her size as a barrier to anything she wants to do. If there is something she wants to master, she busts her ass to make it happen.

Now if only I can keep myself from convincing her otherwise.

~~~~~

(This week's mission: to write a post in the reverse of traditional blog format. Instead of anecdote-epiphany-rumination-resolution, try resolution-rumination-epiphany-anecdote.)

Posted by Andrea at 9:44 AM | Comments (8)

Another Possible Career Choice

Somebody got a digital camera today.

The picture quality is not great.

And I'm not crazy about her primary subject matter.

But does she ever love it.

And, if I do say so myself, she's very talented.

I'm not biased, either.

Posted by Andrea at 12:36 PM | Comments (11)

(Back) to School

Do you know what I'm doing this morning?

I'm lining up to register Frances for junior kindergarten.

How is this possible?

(Hmm? What's that you say? Lining up? Yes. Apparently, in our municipality, you need to show up 30 minutes before registration starts in order to get a number so you can stand in line again to get your child into junior kindergarten in the public school in your neighbourhood. And here I thought this was something that those of us who couldn't afford private school wouldn't have to deal with. So I'm taking the morning off work to stand in the snow so I can ensure that Frances can attend public school.)

Posted by Andrea at 7:19 AM | Comments (15)

Breaking News

We had Frances's three-year check-up on the 29th. Frances is now just over twenty pounds.

Fully dressed, but still. She is almost legally big enough to sit forward-facing in the car, and probably large enough that no one would think to check her size if they pull us over for something else. And also hopefully big enough that the car seat will function as designed and protect her if we are ever in an accident.

I was looking forward to them measuring her height standing up, since I gather that normally happens at three; but their height bar starts at thirty-seven inches and Frances is nowhere near that, so they measured her lying down again. On the plus side, she now lies still for it. On the minus side, it's completely inaccurate.

"Thirty-two-and-a-half inches," said the nurse.

I laughed. "On the wall chart at home, she's just over thirty."

"Yes. Well. Lying down isn't quite as accurate."

"No."

"We actually find that when we start measuring kids on the height bar, they ...."

"Shrink?"

"Just a bit. Yeah. Still, we'll take the thirty-two while we can get it."

"Sure." Which is fine in principle, but when we go back next year and they decide she hasn't grown because of this year's inaccurate measurement, I'm going to remind them of this conversation. Also, I suppose I shouldn't expect them to be able to measure her height standing up for at least another three years.

Still, even without the extra inches, being over twenty pounds means we're closer to a few other important milestones. Like cheap underwear that fits and being able to purchase non-infant medicine in the drugstore.

~~~~~

Erik and I celebrated the end of 2006 by purchasing a new piece of furniture.

Actually, we purchased it as our joint Christmas present. It's our "thing" that we don't buy Christmas gifts for each other, just stocking stuffers; then we pool a bit of money and buy something for the house. This year's was a new "entertainment centre," aka TV cabinet. It was inexpensive, but a vast improvement over what we had, which was nothing. The TV was sitting on a seventeen-year old TV stand, a broken stereo was beside it in a cabinet badly listing to port, and the DVDs and CDs were in the dining room because there was nowhere close to the TV to put them that wouldn't be hazardous with a toddler around. Even a small one.

So we tested our relationship by assembling furniture on New Year's Eve. Unlike previous experiences with furniture assembly, there was no shouting, minimal swearing, and no stomping out of the room; also, we didn't put any pieces in upside-down or backwards, and all the doors hang straight. The DVDs are now in a sensible location, and the TV stand has been relocated to the basement, where the other TV (the one for the xBox and the gym) had been sitting on the carpet.

Not that anyone cares. And honestly, neither do I. It's a cabinet. It is not going to bring about an increase in our standard of living nor will it improve our happiness (though it is nice to have the DVDs in the same room as the DVD player, and the cascade effect of moving things from one piece of furniture to another has had a beneficial impact on almost every room in the house, tidiness-wise). But it feels obscurely significant that we were able to assemble it in good humour.

~~~~~~

I feel like I should say something to mark the end of the year. 2006 had some Himalayan highs and some Marianas Trench lows. Good riddance.

Posted by Andrea at 7:08 AM | Comments (10)

And So This is Christmas

I managed to get myself up off my ass on Saturday, whipped up some truffles and cheesecake brownies and the pieces of a gingerbread house, though those are still unassembled in the dining room. But who cares? Is there a deadline? Will they turn back into raw ingredients if I don't have them decorated by a certain point? No.

Everything got wrapped (this was a concern) and I even managed to get my mother's present finished (I embroidered a Santa and turned it into a mini pillow/decoration) and Frances's backyard book, a book I made by hand, each page cut out and trimmed, the photos selected to tell a story and then the story printed on top of them, then the whole thing stitched together, covers decorated and glued to the front and back. The stories themselves aren't remarkable, just some funny things that happened in the backyard this past summer, but I thought she might like the visual reminder of what the summer could be, over the winter.

We watched the holiday specials, and I dragged myself up far enough and long enough to celebrate the opening of her Christmas Eve present (a pair of fleece pyjamas, striped like a candy cane and with buttons down the front of the shirt, and a Dora book) and read her several dozen holiday books. Or at least it felt like several dozen, though it might have been only three or four, over and over and over again. Then the stockings were stuffed and the cookies eaten and the presents laid out for Christmas morning, which came too soon because Frances was much too excited to sleep well.

She woke just after six, and by 7:30 I could hold her off no longer. We woke up Daddy and went downstairs. She took it all in, gradually--the new presents, the full stockings, the dollhouse! It's a dollhouse! Look, Mummy, a house a house! Is it for me? Did Santa bring it?

Yes indeed, Santa brought it, with a bit of help from Oma; and Santa also completely furnished it and supplied it with a doll family, because Santa went a bit overboard under the influence of your grandparents. And you were so taken with the dollhouse that for thirty minutes (while the daisy braid cooked and cooled and was drizzled with icing and eaten and while Erik and I opened our own presents) we could not persuade you to leave it and even touch your stocking. Presents? No. You didn't want presents. You wanted your dollhouse. You wanted to open and close doors and put the little girl in the bed and tuck her in and put the Daddy on the couch watching TV and then move him to the kitchen and open and close the windows and make them all go up and down the stairs again. Which is, I think, the definition of a winning present. Santa also stuffed your stocking with playdoh and playdoh toys and sticker books and chocolate Santas and a bridge for your Thomas trains. And Santa brought you a tent for the basement, which you adore, as it is like a little house all your own, and for thirty or forty minutes at a stretch you will enter and exit it over and over again, saying, "It's my own little tent!" Santa brought you a tiny mouse and a Dora game for the laptop which you can play sometimes, and a few books, and another doll--this one talks and has been named Susie, and some clothes that will fit you when you are five or six. And when we got to Mumms and Grandpas we found that Santa also brought you a fairytopia thingie and a stuffed puppy that breathes, which is kind of creepy, but you love it and have named it Hodo. I don't know why.

Santa brought Mummy some workout things and carbon offsets. Which is oddly perfect. For a short while, I can drive guilt-free.

At Mumms and Grandpa's your parents had a marvelous feast, which you disdained (except for the mashed potatoes), silly girl. And you chased the Yorkshire terriers around the living room and laughed and laughed.

Ever since Christmas Eve, you have greeted your sleep and naptimes with tears. No! No sleep! You want to stay awake and play with your bounty; and the only way we can coax you into bed is to promise that it will all still be here when you wake up and we aren't going anywhere, no work or daycare for a week. This mollifies you; but your sleeps are still disjointed and broken and very short, and you are tired and cranky, for Frances, which means you whine and pretend to be Lucy from Charlie Brown's Christmas. "Buy me something!" you say, not knowing what it means, but liking that when Lucy says it on TV the person she is talking to falls over backward. I think you could have chosen a better role model. We've been talking about how it's funny when Lucy says some of these things on TV, but it's not nice and no one should say them in real life, but I don't think you get it yet.

I love you so much, baby girl. Every minute of the last month has been worth it, to give you these wonderful, magical days.

Posted by Andrea at 2:24 PM | Comments (7)

Frances Friday: Chef

"Do you want to help me make Hallowe'en cookies, Frances?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I'm going to be rolling out cookie dough and making cookies...."

"No."

"...and using the special Hallowe'en cookie cutters."

"Yeah!"

"Oh. OK. Let me get ready."

"Me too me too! I want to help! I want to help!"

"Ok. I just have to tidy up. Do you want to hold the cookie cutters while you're waiting?"

"Yeah!"

She helped me roll out the dough. She tapped the cookie cutters in flour and pressed them into the dough. She sprinked Hallowe'en candies on top and patted them into the cookies. She helped for every set; her interest did not flag until we were all done. When they came out of the over, she carefully and proudly carried a plate of her very first cookies over to Daddy, and they had a snack.

I got a snapshot of her standing in front of the oven, holding her plate of cookies, grinning hugely and covered head to toe with flour. It was inevitable that she would be wearing a black top and black pants that day, wasn't it?

Then she had a cookie and declared that she would rather have chocolate chip.

~~~~~

Wednesday was "What, Presentation? You're not doing a presentation on Friday" Day, on which I attempted to convince myself that all the ironing and printing and pdfing were unrelated and frivolous activities, in order to preserve what is left of my stomach lining.

I did what I always do when I want to distract myself and reduce my stress level. I played with Frances. (You'd think, with such ready access to such a reliable stress-reducing technique, I would be less anxious than I am. This is one of they modern medical mysteries of our times.)

The first game was "throw the basketball." I threw it to her; she threw it to Erik; Erik threw it to me. "Yawn," you say. "Whatever, Andrea." But no. First of all, she can really throw. For a 30" girl, she's got a great arm--and she puts herself into it, lifting the ball above her head and heaving it across the room while jumping off the ground. Sometimes, after a particularly energetic pitch that bounced off Erik and sent him mock-crumpling to the ground, she would laugh and say, "Did I scare you, Daddy?" Then run over to give him a hug for comfort.

Sometimes, she would jump off the ground and heave the ball--only for it to dribble out of her fingers and bounce off her head. At this she would laugh so hard it made her fall down; which got Erik and I laughing, increasing the volume of Frances's laughter, and on and on in a merry circle.

Then it was time for extreme hide-and-seek. There were no decorous ten-second countdowns in this version, boys and girls. No coy seeking of calm hiding places. No peeking around corners or behind doors. No. There was running, and standing behind walls, and jumping out from behind while shouting, and shrieking, and laughing, and more running, and getting dizzy, and falling over, and uproarious laughter. There were two parents crumpled in exhausted heaps watching Frances race around the basement, careening around obstacles, tipping this way and that, shouting "Come catch me, Daddy! Come catch me, Mummy!"

It did my stomach lining a world of good, though I can't say it did much for my energy level.

Posted by Andrea at 6:02 AM | Comments (11)

Frances Says

Frances had something very important to tell all of you.

Here it is:

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ.,BO0NMKXPCOQUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UR"

Translation:

"Hello! I'm so happy that all of you come here to read Mummy's stories about how cute I am. I know she writes about a lot of other boring stuff too, but you can ignore that.

"And isn't that a lot of Js?"

(Marla, I told you Frances had a thing for keyboards these days. Guess what's going in the letter to Santa?)

Posted by Andrea at 6:00 PM | Comments (1)

This might give you an idea of the division of household labour around here

Edited to add: Comments seem to be functional again. Please let me know if you are trying and it's not working.

~~~~~

Said Frances to Mummy this morning while I was sweeping the kitchen floor in anticipation of a friend's visit:

"That's Daddy's broom! Give it back to Daddy!"

By the shock and dismay in her voice, I think her entire universe may have crumbled around her ears for a few minutes.

~~~~~

It seems comments are down for some reason. I can't figure out why, and I won't be able to look at it probably for a day or two. Sorry about that! If you are trying to reach me re: WHOYC, Annika, WholeMom, or Radio Free Frances from yesterday, feel free to email me.

andrea AT athenadreaming DOT org

I'll let you know when it comes back up.

Posted by Andrea at 8:08 AM | Comments (2)

PINK!

How does it happen? Is it contagious? If it's viral, how does it afflict only girls? What is the method of transmission?*

Yes, you've guessed it: Frances has come down with a bad case of Pinksis. This dread illness is characterized by frequent and insistent dressing in a single colour, consistent preferences of toys in the same shade and random exclamations of "Pink!"

Symptom 1:

Frances has a number of toy food items as part of her toy kitchen set, including two pretend ice-cream cones, a vanilla and a strawberry. During any play session involving the ice-cream cones, Frances must hold the strawberry one. Ditto for the pretend donuts, one strawberry and one chocolate.

Symptom 2:

Yesterday, Frances's mother was overwhelmed by the sudden need to view online depictions of little girl holiday clothing. The rationalization was the upcoming intensive schedule of frequent holiday and birthday-related gatherings, at which photographs will need to be taken. (Please note: This may or may not be related to the subject's involvement in a viral hobby known as "scrapbooking.") Photographs taken at holiday gatherings necessitate holiday clothing that is neither red nor green, or the photographic subject will blend into the background (this is especially true for Santa photos).

Fortunately for the subject, there were many online depictions of little girl holiday clothing to be found, and Frances was brought in to voice an opinion.

"Would you like a skirt, or a dress?"

"A dress!"

"Maybe some nice pants?"

"No! A dress."

"OK. Which dress would you like?"

"That one!" A small finger jabbed into the laptop screen, causing it to waver.

"The ... the pink one?"

"Yeah!"

"You don't like the blue one?"

"No."

The mother was visibly deflated, as blue brings out the colour of Frances's amazing eyes.

Symptom 3:

Andrea: So I told Frances were were going to go shopping for party clothes and shoes this weekend.

Frances: Yeah!

Erik: Oh? That sounds ... fun.

Andrea: What did you want to get, Frances?

Frances: A pink dress.

Andrea: Do you want a purple dress?

Frances: No.

Andrea: How about a blue dress?

Frances: No.

Andrea: An orange dress? Maybe a yellow dress?

Frances: No! NO!

Andrea: Well, what colour of dress do you want, then?

Frances: PINK.

Andrea: And the party shoes? What about them?

Frances: PINK!

It's clearly a severe case of Pinksis.

Sadly, there is no known cure for Pinksis; only time will resolve it.

(Confession: I am really looking forward to our shopping trip. It will be the first time Mummy and Frances go shopping together where Frances has definite opinions about what she wants, but where she is still small enough to be easily overwhelmed should she ask for, say, a padded bra. And, because it's all for Frances, Mummy will have fun too. Also, I find her insistence on PINK for everything adorable and mostly harmless.)

~~~~~

* Several reports (McDowell, 2005 & McDowell, 2004) suspect that the method of transmission in cases of severe Pinksis might be well-meaning relatives with a mild case who, unable to resist the siren call of cute pink clothing for tiny girls, stack the wardrobe against them.

Posted by Andrea at 11:50 AM | Comments (13)

Cutest Ever

Incidentally, today was Picture Day at Frances's daycare.

Frances has one aunt in the States with exceptional taste in clothing and a good chunk of disposable income. When Frances was born, this manifested itself as a hefty package full of adorable and pricey girl clothes, sized 12 m to 2 years (depending on the outfit). At the time, we assumed she would be wearing those clothes on schedule. Not so much.

Last Christmas, she wore the fuzzy purplish-blue dress with a butterfly on it for her Santa pictures (some of you have seen it). That was sized 12 months. Today for picture day, she is wearing an outfit sized 18 months. It's a small 18 months; the important thing is, it fits.

Over top of the cream-coloured 12-month tights and turtleneck-bodysuit I bought her last winter, she is wearing the forest-green corduroy skirt with tan and cranberry flowers stitched on it, and the cranberry-coloured knit vest that her Aunt S sent her almost three years ago. I could tell they were expensive because the tags were printed on cardstock with a paragraph about how the innocence of childhood complements the use of fine fabrics and craftsmanship. I think Frances agrees.

When I dressed her in it this morning, and laced up her black patent "party shoes" and combed her hair, she ran excitedly to the mirror to admire her gorgeous self. Then she walked primly around the first floor, stepping gingerly to avoid scuffing her special shoes, until it was time to go.

Yesterday, a six-foot-tall colleague of mine wore a nearly-identical outfit: white shirt, forest-green skirt (only it was a fine plaid, not corduroy), a cranberry-coloured knit vest. This colleague clearly loves clothes and is much more up on the styles than I am, and often looks like she just stepped down from an Elle photoshoot.

This morning, Frances modeled the same look for the under-30-inch crowd. And clearly loved it. She practically glowed with pride over her special party clothes.

I am not one for dressing up. I had a phase where I wore miniskirts a lot when I was fourteen, but since then, it's been jeans. I wear jeans to work four days out of five. I dress Frances in practical, low-maintenance clothing that is easy to play in and wash. Blue jeans. T-shirts. Running shoes. Overalls. But when I give her the choice?

Skirts.

If I want her to wear pants, I have to not offer skirts. If she knows skirts are on the table, that's what she wants. One day this past summer she chose for herself a bright pink-and-yellow flowered skirt with a bright pink t-shirt, her black-and-yellow rainboots and a big floppy flowered straw hat. On another day, when we were to meet friends at the mall, she chose a flounced-and-ruffled blue dress with white polkadots.

She didn't get this from me; it came straight from my mother. Most days it's something we have to work around so she can wear clothing she likes that doesn't restrict her movements. But today, we let her inner diva out to play for picture day.

And I can't wait to see the photographs.

Posted by Andrea at 1:59 PM | Comments (12)

Carrot Soup

(On the weekend)

Andrea: So what do you want for lunch, Frances?

Frances: Soup!

Andrea: Soup?

Frances: Carrot soup!

Andrea: Did you have carrot soup at the daycare yesterday?

Frances: Yeah!

Andrea: Was it yummy?

Frances: Yeah.

Andrea: Well I'm sorry kiddo, but we don't have any carrot soup. Would you like to help Mummy make some carrot soup next week?

Frances: Yeah! Carrot soup is yummy.

~~~~~

(Today)

Andrea: Do you see what I bought at the grocery store today?

Frances: Carrots.

Andrea: What do you think I'm going to make with all these carrots?

Frances: I don't know.

Andrea: You don't know?

Frances: No.

Andrea: I'm going to make carrot soup.

Frances: But I don't want carrot soup!

Andrea: Tough luck, little girl. I'm going to make carrot soup, and you're going to like it.

Posted by Andrea at 6:03 PM | Comments (9)

Cheek

Andrea: You know, Frances, your birthday and Christmas are coming up.

Frances: Yeah.

Andrea: In December.

Frances: Will I be able to go to the birthday party?

Andrea: Well, actually, you get to have your own birthday party. And other people will come to your birthday party.

Frances: Yeah.

Andrea: And you can have party favours, and maybe even balloons. Does that sound fun?

Frances: And cake!

Andrea: And cake.

Erik: Does that sound like fun, Frances?

Frances: No, it's not big enough.

~~~~~

Frances: Daddy, are you talking to my mother?

Erik: ... no, I'm not.

Frances: Are you talking to me?

Erik: I think so.

Frances: Are you happy to see my mother, Daddy?

Erik: Yes. Yes I am.

Andrea: *heeheehee*

Posted by Andrea at 7:45 AM | Comments (5)

Another thing I never thought I'd do

I'm sitting outside, talking to acorns.

Mm hmm.

Frances went on a nice walk with her Daddy in the forest (the real forest) and came back with two pockets bulging full of acorns--ten in all--which have since been divied up according to size into family relationships. There are Daddy acorns, Mummy acorns and Baby acorns, and I have been pressed into voice duty.

"Mummy, can you talk to the Baby Acorn?"

"I don't know what a Baby Acorn would say."

"Hello!"

"Oh! OK." I put on the squeaky voice: "Hello, Frances."

"Hello, Baby Acorn. Are you little?"

"I think so."

"Are you small?"

"Yes. I'm small. Are you small?"

"I think I'm little."

Yet another thing I'd never pictured myself doing. Along with rigging kleenexes into diapers for Little People horses and making party favours for Winnie the Pooh, Mrs. Quack and Mr. Frog consisting of squares of red construction paper and stickers so that Frances can host a proper tea party.

Posted by Andrea at 5:23 PM | Comments (4)

Honesty

Frances: I have a poopy bum.

Andrea: You do? (thinking: I just changed a poopy diaper thirty minutes ago)

Frances: I have a poop in my diaper.

Andrea: Do you want to come here so I can check?

Frances: (solemn pause) I can't listen to you right now.

Posted by Andrea at 8:22 AM | Comments (2)

Collecting

Some people collect stamps. Some collect random objects. Some collect baseball cards, clothing, keychains, or shot glasses. Some people collect butterflies. I collect Francesisms--any pretty, shiny bauble of a memory that shows who she is right now; like bits of broken glass worn smooth at the beach, I bring them home and line them up on the mantle, where I can see them often.

I desperately want to pin these memories down. Like butterflies, these memories are delicate and beautiful, nearly impossible to catch, and once caught and pinned they lose their liveliness and half their beauty. Like butterflies, it is impossible to catch them all, and if you spend all your time trying, you will be so fixated on the one being pursued that hundreds of others will fly by unnoticed. I try to balance simply watching with netting and pinning, but no matter how many I capture it is never enough. And whatever is not caught is forgotten. It is only what I record of Frances's life that I remember.

There is the blog. Without it, would I remember that she was once so tiny that my left hand covered her entire torso? Would I remember that afternoon when all she did was cry, and I lost it and started to cry myself and ranted about how much I hated life as I carried her up the stairs, and for the first time she lifted her wobbly head off my shoulder and looked me in the eye, and all my fears and sadness were converted in that one moment to joy: "Look at you! You're lifting your head! What a strong baby! I'm so proud of you!"

There are the photo albums, several of them, filled with every photo I have taken of her that turned out even halfway decent; archival albums with plastic sleeves and spots for notes. The notes are mostly simple--the day, the occasion. Without them, would I remember now how round your cheeks once were? You've always been a slim baby, you never were covered with rolls of fat, but once your cheeks were like baseballs; once your hair was a fuzzy blond pixie cut, and before that, a two-inch mohawk thanks to the two crowns on the back of your head. The photos are backed up on DVD and stored in your memory box, organized by your age and the event.

There is the video. We're not as good with this. Our camera loses its charge easily, so we have to remind ourselves to plug it in. But we have enough to make a two-hour long movie for every year of your life which is then given to your grandparents at Christmas time. Without them, would I remember how you used to say "Mama" and "baw," how you used to cruise around the furniture barely able to reach the top of the coffee table, how you open your mouth like a fish and fly like a bird? Would I remember the way you danced outside of the casinos on the Strip in Las Vegas, bouncing up and down on your feet?

There are the scrapbooks; I've just filled your third and bought a fourth. You have more scrapbooks than years, despite my intention not to fill them so quickly. I never use the original photos, and they're not stored in the same place as the albums. I can't say what moves me to record one event and not another, unless it's the availability of a particularly delicious photograph. We have no page about your teething, nothing about you learning to run, nothing about toilet-training. But I have a page about how adorable you looked in that fruit t-shirt-and-skort ensemble from your Oma and two pages about how much you love to dance, not to mention the two-page spread on your love affair with Elmo. Without them, would I remember how one day I put you down for tummy time and thought you were so cute sticking your little tushy in the air that I had to get a picture, so I put you down on the bed and starting snapping away, and you flailed and writhed and flashed me anguished faces until--flip!--you rolled over on your back, and I was so shocked I forgot I had the camera in my hand so had to put you back on your stomach to catch the moment of triumph again? Would I remember that you learned to walk the weekend Kim came to visit last summer, and perfected it for Rachel's visit a few weeks later? Would I remember that the first time you danced you did so by kicking your legs in the air sideways?

There's Radio Free Frances. Without it how would I recall the timbre and pitch of your voice, the way you say "gobbo gobbo" and "I sink so" and "Baby Eloise!"

Entire rooms full of stacked boxes lined with black velvet and filled with butterflies; but when I pin them, I mangle them; I tear holes in their wings. And it still isn't enough. It's never enough. The air is thick with butterflies and all I can do is try to capture the most beautiful, the sweetest, if it hovers long enough to let me get close. Sometimes they don't, and I hope I will remember them, but I never do. Like a dream, they fade no matter how determined I am to remember.

Why do I do this? A blog and photo albums and scrapbooks and video and a podcast--surely that's overkill? I think it's safe to say that most mothers don't go so far to record their children's lives. Is it because I remember so little of my own childhood that I am determined to give you what I don't have? Is it because I am terrified of what might be back there, of why I don't remember, that I need to record how happy and carefree your childhood is so I can be sure there are no monsters lurking in the dark for you? Or am I just obsessed by the thought that it is all so fleeting, it goes so fast, you are already by tomorrow a different person than you are today, and so every day I lose you and gain you all over again, lose and gain lose and gain, and I love the gain but grieve the loss and try to lessen it by grabbing as much as my hands will hold and keeping it the only way I can?

Posted by Andrea at 8:04 AM | Comments (10)

Got Your Bucket?

Erik went to get the groceries, and Frances began improvising to the tune of Frere Jacques:

Where is Daddy?
Where is Daddy?
At the store!
At the store!
Daddy Daddy Daddy
Daddy Daddy Daddy.
Daddy Dad.
Daddy Dad.

And if that isn't so nauseatingly cute that you need to go throw up now, Dear Readers, you need to work on your gag reflex.

You might think that I'm working overtime to hide the crap. That she can't possibly be that cute, that adorable, that perfect. You can continue to think this if you'd like, but you would be wrong. You might also think that I have hell coming when she turns 13. This is very likely. All the more reason to enjoy it while it lasts; later that same evening, to the same tune:

Mommy Mommy
Mommy Mommy
Where are you?
Where are you?
Mommy Mommy Mommy
Mommy Mommy Mommy
There you are.
There you are.

And what else can I do, really, but stand stock-still with a huge goofy grin on my face while my melted heart puddles on the floor around my feet?

No one else could possibly find this interesting. I've become that annoying woman who stops random strangers and forces them to smile while I show them each and every wallet photo of my child (speaking of which, APL, I carry a photo of her feet with me. It's true), only it's not the grocery line or the bus stop, it's the internet. Say, you! Hi! I know you came here to find pictures of someone with hypochondroplasia, or what to do when an ultrasound shows a short femur, or the price of the very rare beagle beanie baby you got ten years ago, but wouldn't you rather hear about how gob-smackingly amazingly fabulous Frances is? No, really. Well, tough luck, you're going to hear about it anyway.

So for instance, sometimes she says, "Mommy?"

Andrea: Frances?

Frances: Yes, Mommy?

Andrea: Yes, Frances?

Frances: *giggles*

What shocks me most of all is that motherhood just about killed me for the first nine months. I recall many a sunny and desperate afternoon spent sobbing quietly at the window, waiting for Erik to get home, thinking, "Oh god, I want to go back to work!" Irony is a cruel goddess who will wait until you are at your most relaxed and peaceful and then stab you in the back. For the first year, the blog was filled with stories of how absolutely impossible it all was, how I was cracking apart at the seams, how all of society had to be reorganized (preferably by Tuesday following) to make mothering even remotely doable; and I took a lot of flak for it, too. "Friends," the kind of "friends" you put in double-quotation marks and sneer involuntarily when you say their names, told me I had best shut my trap because I was terrifying the pregnant girls. Equal blog time was given to documenting Frances's sure and steady march to World Domination via the achievement of developmental milestones and to the minute and fleeting daily moments that really do make it all worthwhile, even when the little satanist is waking you up every 45 minutes for weeks at a time, but I was given to understand that dishonesty in this was by far the best policy and it was best to keep pregnant women wrapped in a cotton-candy coccoon of Hallmarkese observations on the transition to motherhood. I laughed at them, drew myself up to my full internet height and declared that I would never write anything but the truth. If the truth is that motherhood both kills you and elevates you, then that's what I'll say, and anyone who doesn't want to hear it is invited to subscribe to the Lifetime Network.

Imagine my great surprise when almost immediately following this exchange Frances morphed into Perfect Child, Child Who Sleeps All Night, Child Who Never Cries, Child Who Eats Everything, Child Who Charms Everyone. Imagine when my honest portrayal of motherhood began to veer off into the hallucinogenic state of sugar trees and candy houses simply because Frances refused to be anything but angelic. Imagine when, day after day, I cracked open the blog and could only write, "Wow, she's amazing, I love being her Mom!"

It happens to be true. It also happens to be saccharine and very, very boring (and yet people keep reading it).

Andrea: *tweaking Frances's nose* I love this little nose!

Frances: *poking her own cheek* And this chubby little cheek!

I'm being spoiled rotten by this kid. It can't last. If this were a movie, deep rumbling music would be swelling to a crescendo as I type. If this were an ancient Greek play, the chorus would be singing, "Beware! Beware!" If this were a book, the pace would be slowing in anticipation of the coming climax, detailed and minute descriptions of setting would show minor and symbollic flaws to foreshadow the events to come. And, like any one of the minor blond characters of horror movies, I'm traipsing off gaily into the basement. Whatever could that strange noise have been?

If you think Beanie Baby is too sweet, too sappy, too cloying ... you're right, but it's also honest. You have two options: you can run like hell and swear never to come back, or you can wait for the other shoe to drop. Any mother of a child will tell you it can't stay this way forever.

But I really, really wish it would.

Posted by Andrea at 11:23 AM | Comments (15)

I know I've mentioned this before

I'm a sap.

Exhibit A-22: Naptime on Monday.

We did the potty (success!).

We snuggled on the big bed, onto which wee Frances climbed all by herself--a staggering feat.

We went to the bedroom.

Frances: I don't want to have a nap, Mummy.

Andrea: I know, but you're tired, baby girl. You need a nap.

Frances: No! It's not nap time.

Andrea: Yes, it is, actually.

I placed her in her crib, put her Baby Bear in one arm, the Bunny in the other, and put her blanket over top. I got my book and sat down in the rocking chair.

Andrea: Lie down, sweetie, and close your eyes please.

She did. A second later one opened a crack to eye me between the slats of her crib. A second after that she was staring at me. Another second and she was grinning and staring, and hot on the heels she was sitting up and laughing.

Andrea: Are you my wriggly monkey girl?

Frances: No!

Andrea: You're not? Where's my wriggly monkey girl?

Frances: *thumps her chest*

Andrea: I thought so! Now lie down, little monkey. It's time for sleep.

She lay down. She rolled on her back. She thumped the slats with her feet. She began to talk to Baby Bear.

Andrea: Frances!

Whereupon she grinned at me, rolled over, and began to play drums on the crib bars.

Andrea: Frances! Close your eyes, baby.

For a fraction of a second almost too brief to be seen by the naked eye, the eyes were closed. Then they were open, and she was sitting up and grinning at me.

Look at the picture of her smiling face from the other day: now imagine that grin complicated by mischief and complete and certain knowledge of her own adorableness. It is infectious, I tell you, and irresistible. A Frances grinning like that is a Frances who knows she will win.

Andrea: What are you doing?

Frances: *stands up, grabs the crib bars, and begins to bounce up and down like a rubber ball* I'm jumping!

Andrea: *laughs helplessly*

Frances: I'm jumping, Mummy!

Andrea: Yes, so I see.

I went to her and put her back on her tummy. Back went Baby Bear, bunny and blanket.

Frances: I'm not sleepy, Mummy!

Andrea: Yes, you are.

Frances: No, I'm not. Can I stay out of the bed?

Andrea: It's nap time. You have to sleep now.

Frances: No, it's not!

I sat down in the rocking chair, and returned to my book. When I looked up a few seconds later, there was Frances, sitting up and grinning devilishly at me through the bars. I grinned back, and she began to laugh--a full-throated, deep-bellied toddler laugh. The laugh of a baby girl who knows she has everyone twisted around her little finger--and a mighty tight squeeze it is for us all, on such a small little bit of bone and flesh.

I laughed back. And what else was there to do? It had been forty-five minutes, and there sat my irrepressible little child, laughing beautifully in her crib. I picked her up.

"I'm waking up!" she said.

I laughed again. "I guess you are."

On my last day of vacation, it seemed worth it to get a few more hours of precious Frances time squeezed in.

~~~~~

Bonus: This morning, as I sat down to eat my cereal, Frances looked at me and said, "I really like your red shirt, Mummy!"

Posted by Andrea at 7:19 AM | Comments (3)

Thank You

Thank you for all of the comments on my last post. And a note to reassure you that I am not lost in a pit of despair--or at least, not about that. I'm trying very hard not to think about going back to work on Tuesday.

I am not too keen on spending my precious, fleeting, far-too-short vacation time on the computer, but while I sit here and listen to Frances sing herself to sleep over the monitor and print off some photos for a scrapping evening tomorrow, I want to say thank you. Thank you for not telling me I'm an immature judgemental ass who should really just get over herself.

I wonder if part of it is wondering whether or not they feel sorry for me, or for her. For Poor Frances, who has some undiagnosed genetic condition that makes her very very small and seems determined to keep her fontanelle open for life; for Poor Andrea, who sometimes has to deal with the people who think conformity is a positive life goal and that "broadening one's outlook" is some kind of hippie conspiracy meant to overthrow democracy. The kind of people who, when they ask how old Frances is and I tell them, say "Oh" and look at us with pity in their eyes. And I tell you what, that drives me crazy.

Frances is going to have to deal with plenty of shit in her life, no doubt, though so far it has made blessed few inroads and she remains the happiest person I know. But no one damned well better feel sorry for me. How could they?

So I have no idea why her six-month-size shorts are falling off of her, and neither do the finest medical minds of Canada. Look at that ponytail! Look at that back! Look how determined she was to be a Big Girl, and climb the stairs properly by herself, holding the handrails and jacking her little legs up as far as they could go to make the next step.

Look at how she crouches down to see the baby goose. It was all we could do to keep her from rushing them. And the ducks, the baby duck, the swans; the squirrels in our backyard, who are getting used to her enough that when she runs at them they simply stand very still and wait for a peanut, and the chipmunk, who runs away; the doves, who let her get within two feet before taking off for the fence, and the goldfinches and chickadees and woodpeckers and blue jays and cardinals and grackles who sensibly keep their distance but thank her very kindly for the food; and the frogs, another one of which we found in the backyard today and caught today. Frances interpreted my suggestion to give it a gentle pet by bonking it on the head, poor thing, and when we let it go she chased it until it finally found a chink under the fence by which to escape.

She adores animals, all animals, little icky crawly animals and big strange furry animals equally.

Her best friend, NB from next door, adores her; yesterday when he got home from daycare he almost ripped the shutters off of their back door to get outside to see her. When he sees her he cries, "It's Frances! It's Frances! It's Frances!" until they get to play together (and she feels the same way about him). Whenever his parents tell him it's time to go home, he throws a proper tantrum. The only thing that will get him to relent is if Frances comes along.

My little professional gardener who loves her watering can and who has yet to rip up a single one of her flowers.

My little beauty.

Who loves to go on "little trips" including for groceries or to get the mail. Whose pinky finger is just slightly longer than the first joint of my index finger. Who asks me, when she puts her puzzles together, "Do you think this goes there, Mummy?" and then answers herself: "Yeah, I think it does!" Who wraps her arms around my right arm to hug the mole and then lifts her feet off the ground so I am forced to carry her. Who cries a little when I comb her hair and asks with a quavering voice, "Is that a tangly, Mummy?" "I know, baby," I say, "I'm being as gentle as I can." And then she goes to comb Dora's hair and tells her, "I'm being as gentle as I can. Ooh, a tangly!"

Who, when we ask her how many zookies or raspberries she wants, says, "I want FIVE!" and holds up a hand of five tiny pudgy fingers. Who, when sometimes she doesn't want to eat and Erik keeps asking her what she wants and giving her different things all of which she refuses, and he gets frustrated and upset and Frances sees this and it breaks her little heart, so she says in a teary voice to him, "That makes you happy, Daddy," because she hates to make him sad. Who tells us how she's feeling: "I'm happy," or "I'm sad," or "I'm crying." Who doesn't like to go outside without wearing her hat and who reminds me that her ponytail goes through the hole. Who has anthropomorphized the sun and tells us whenever he is waking up or going to bed.

Now if they could develop an ultrasound machine that could see any one of those things in utero, that would be useful. But what we have is a medical technology that can only tell you about parts of the book's cover, and then asks you whether or not it's worth reading. I won the baby jackpot; anyone who can't see that truly has no eyes to see with.

Here is your thank you. No photos of her face, thanks to the Jackass Who Shall Never More be Named; and no photos of me, since they all inexplicably feature either my stomach flab being compressed between Frances's knee and the top of my shorts into an unflattering and unlikely roll or my underwear showing from the back, and that would hardly be a thanks, would it?

OK. One, just one, photo of her face.

I'll be spending my time between now and Tuesday looking at this, and don't expect to be able to post until then. Thanks again.

Posted by Andrea at 10:16 PM | Comments (35)

Persistence

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: What?

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: Noooo.....

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: Do you want to watch a bit of TV?

Frances: No. Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: How about if we read a book?

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: What do you want for supper?

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: Do you want some cheese? Or a minigo? How about toast?

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: How about some chocolate? Would you like some chocolate?

Frances: Do you want to play outside in the rain?

Andrea: Sweetie, it's wet outside.

Frances: Yeah. Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: (sigh)

Frances: Do you want to go play outside in the rain?

Andrea: OK. Go put your rainboots on.

Frances: Yeah!

And for the record, I have NO IDEA where she gets that from. Stubborn? Me?

Ahem.

That little anecdote was saved from last week, by the way: it's not raining right now. But she did display this trait again last night, when Erik was putting her to sleep: "OK sweetie, it's sleep time now. " "No, it's not!"

How is the training course, Andrea? you ask. Let me tell you: Tuesday we have ten hours of lectures with one fifteen-minute lunch break. How thrilled would you be? And poor Erik, he's off this week, trying to refinish our deck. He was really hoping I'd have a normal work schedule this week so I could do baby duty while he worked, and instead, he's solo Francesing in the evenings as well as working hard all day with the sander and the stains.

I do have real posts coming later this week--they're in the hopper, ready to go. Which is good because with ten hours of lectures and travel time, I'm not going to get much time for original composition, am I?

Posted by Andrea at 7:27 AM | Comments (9)

Little Miss Fun

So long, thoughtful essays, book reviews, stories and pleas to delurk won't cut it, but a semi-delirious post on my first publication makes you all pop out of the woodwork. Hmm. I'm filing that one away.

Seriously, thank you t