My father, fathering my 19 year old self :)

FATHERING For Whom The Alarm Bell Tolls:[ALL EDITIONS] Ed Lowe. Newsday. (Combined editions). Long Island, N.Y.: Apr 15, 1989. pg. 03

MY BRAIN long ago developed a father's alarm system. It dings, when triggered. It responds to stimuli that appear innocent and non-threatening but actually are foreboding and even terrifying. Certain Sunday morning telephone calls can set it off, for instance, or civil questions posed too sweetly.

"I have a collect call for anyone from Colleen, in Plattsburgh, New York. Will you pay for the call?"

. . . ding . . . "Yes, of course. Hi, Colleen."

"Hi, Dad! How are you . . . ?

. . . ding ding . . .

" . . . and how was your trip to Disney World?"

The mind races. Colleen is asking how I am. When did she last ask that? 1979. Also, this is Sunday morning. Sundays, Colleen rises at the crack of dusk. Also, her voice is sweet and melodious, as if she were rehearsing a television commercial for a breakfast cereal. This is another man's Colleen. How am I, her father? And how was Disney World? What could these questions mean? What is she leading up to? I keep hearing my friend Bill's warnings: Eddie, They're assassins. We are surrounded by assassins. They operate without anesthesia, these kids.

In an attempt to give her the benefit of the doubt, I talk to her over the dinging and the ruminating in my brain. I try not to sound suspicious, skeptical; not to sound fatherly. After all, she will be 20 years old this year. Maybe she has completely passed through the stage she entered when she became a teenager, when she developed a sarcasm gland. She was wonderful at her sister's wedding - happy, ebullient, involved. Perhaps I should reprogram my alarm system, at least until the boys hit their teens.

"Disney World was okay," I tell her. "I mean, you know me. I love to stand on line for forty-five minutes with fifty-thousand other people, sweating. I love to watch twelve-hundred dolls singing, `It's a Small World After All,' over and over and over and over, until I can escape to another long, hot line.

"But, the boys had a great time, and I survived. I made friends with the bus driver from the hotel. He called The Magic Kingdom, `Rat World,' so we got along with each other right away. I must tell you, now that I think of it, I had one sort of nice, nostalgic moment that involved you, directly."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We were sitting at one of the luncheon places, eating our deep-fried plastic, when I looked across the way and saw the exit ramp from the Swiss Family Robinson tree house . . . "

"Oooh!" Colleen squeaked a high-pitched, little-girlish whine of reminiscence. Twelve years ago (which suddenly felt like 12 days ago), I took the girls to Disney World. Puffy-faced with a homicidal sunburn we all had acquired the day before, our first ever in the Florida sun, Colleen fell forward while exiting the Swiss Family Robinson exhibit and belly-flopped on the pavement. We drew a small crowd as we wiped away tears from her burning cheeks and blood from her scraped knees, and hugged her and stroked her hair.

"Oh, I remember that!" she said. Then she abruptly changed the subject. "Dad, want to hear what I did?"

. . . ding ding . . .

"What do you mean, what you did? What did you do?"

"Well, Wednesday, Kate, Michelle and I decided to go to a Grateful Dead Concert . . . "

. . . ding ding ding

The mind resumes its racing. How many concerts is enough, especially Dead concerts, with thousands of 20-year-old Volkswagen vans and 40-year-old bearded guys in tie-dyed shirts?

" . . . in Greensboro, North Carolina."

DING DONG DING DONG

"So, we got in the car . . . "

"YOUR car?" She drives my late father's 1976 Chevy Nova. Faded-maroon, garnished with dents, it seems to be slouching toward automotive senility, sinking into the pavement. People applaud when she returns to the house from 7-Eleven.

" . . . and drove to North Carolina."

"Colleen! I don't believe this."

"We got there in the middle of the concert, so we were bummed; but we knew there was another concert the next night. So, we stayed overnight in a Quality Inn . . . "

"Well, at least . . . "

" . . . parking space. We slept in the car, behind the motel. The next morning, we made signs, like, `Need 3 Tickets!' We walked around town, holding them up."

Billy's right. She's trying to assassinate me.

"Finally, this guy sold us three tickets for forty dollars each, so we were dancing around all day, like, `Yay! We got tickets! We got tickets!' Then we went to the concert. We gave the guy our tickets, and he says, `These are counterfeits.' "

"Oh, Coll!"

"Yeah. We were so bummed, we got right in the car and drove all the way back. But it was fun. We got back last night. For the last two hours, we were cheering the car for making it."

"Colleen."

"Yeah?"

"You're broke, right?"

"Yeah. Well, not completely, but, yeah, close. I got a few more days' worth left.

"It's nice to know you're alive. I love you."

"Love you, too, Dad."

Brave Moments, and Time Itself.

No, seriously, where does the time go?  So cliche, and so true.

6 years old now.  And a few things on my mind I'd love to keep alive in memory in cyberspace as I'm sure I will soon forget, as I have so many things.  Swimming, Gold Shoes, and ah crap, there was something else that I seem to have forgotten already.

So Cassidy's been taking swimming lessons for over a year now, which was miraculous in itself as she was never ever keen on getting in a pool before that.  So across from her gymnastics a new pool opened up, and she adamantly said I am NOT taking swimming lessons.  I said we're just going to look at it.  This place had a gradated pool, like a shoreline.  We looked through the window at all the toys and props and things the teachers there use, the happy splashing children, and Cassidy looked at me and said, "Fine.  I'll do it."  I might have signed her up whether she liked it or not, but boy did this make it easier.  Having grown up on the water, I am adamant about swimming as a life skill; one you don't get to choose like gymnastics or dancing.  But behold, she LOVED it - just not getting her face in the water.  But at level one, you don't have to.  Now we're in level two.
She was getting used to it, a little, last spring, but the whole summer passed and all of soccer season before she got in this pool again.  The first week I watched her teacher dunk her under water, and the shock and horror when she rose back up, and soon after, the tears. My heart watching her through the glass window, oh!  I don't know why that teacher dunked her, and as a teacher I know that we make mistakes all the time so of course I hold no malice, but it was a struggle the next week to go back.  "I'm not going," she said.  And cried big, real, alligator tears.  I called my friend, a swim instructor, and asked for help.  Cassidy got on the phone with her and she gave the best advice: "you have to make scary bubbles.  Wear goggles; you want to see where you are under there, don't you?" etc. like this. (it might have helped that this is a mom she adores, the mom of her "boyfriend," which is a whole other blog for another day...)  It was enough to placate Cassidy, enough to get her in the car to give it another shot.  I spoke to her teacher, and the other kid didn't show up so Cassidy had a solo lesson.  I forgot about the goggles myself, but I watched Cassidy tell her teacher "I need goggles" and she ran off to get them.  And under she went, swimming with a kick board, dunk kick ... dunk kick... dunk kick...
And me!  Cassidy had cried those big tears hours before, and now there I was, pride from my feet to my crown swelling up and bursting out of my own eyes.  Oh my God.  As toddlers we spend so much time assisting, caring, guiding, helping, holding, soothing, etc.  Now in a phase that I'm sure will never end when we ask of and witness our children be brave on their own, having given them tools to handle themselves, and watching these moments unfold where we are helpless to assist, and witness to them breaking through a fear.  OH my heart... I shed some quiet tears knowing I could have fallen on to the floor bawling.  Hooray!  Hooray!  After that, I needed a nap.

And the golden shoes.  These golden sparkly shoes I bought at Marshalls on clearance for ten bucks, ridiculous, shiny, kind of hilarious shoes.  She loves them, of course - and another milestone - now she can tie her own shoes, as of some weeks ago - another one of those raised eyebrow smiling moments, a mothering joy and sorrow of growing independence, and growing independence.  But this one morning, my refrain of "hurry up, come on, we gotta go.  hurry up, let's go!" ... ugh... and the damn shoes weren't tied, and as it still requires a bit of concentration from her, I bent down, let's get this done dammit, we are late ... and there my fingers on these sparkly damn shoes, gold shining on my face and this illuminated moment that screamed STOP!!!!!!  JUST STOP FOR A MINUTE!!! STOP!!!
Do Not Miss this Beautiful Moment of Tying Sparkly Golden Shoes on your Almost Six Year Old.  Do Not Miss This.
I was so thrown back, so amused and sad and wistful and happy and proud and delighted and devastated all at once.  Time goes way too fast.  Tying sparkly shoes, such a pleasure!  Such a delight!  Happy shoes on a happy girl and here I am rushing it, quick, let's go, hurry up, now, god dammit, we're late, get your jacket, come on...  Stop.  Don't miss this.

That said, I can't remember the third thing on my mind, and gonna be late for school if I don't go wake up the girl Right Now...  sigh.  and soon I will probably be saying hurry up, come on, let's go... but I will try so hard not to.

Time, time, time...

What feels most sad about not keeping up this blog is that I don't have a record to read back myself, the deliciousness of these years, my child, her sweetness and grace.  What do I want to remember?  Her songs.  She sings All The Time.  Not just songs from Frozen, but ones she makes up on the spot, mostly having to do with love in her heart, or seeing beauty in something.  Ah, the purity of the young heart!  The other day she sang the refrain "Take me, Take me to the moonlight..." I don't know if it was something she heard, or something she made up.  In the evening she asked me, what was I singing today?  Having heard it half a million times, I recalled it for her.  Other times when she sings these lovely made up lyrics over and over, neither of us can remember what they were even about.  And the writer in me curses, once again, not writing things down.

However there is this moment:  the one where my husband and Cassidy just came in the door from a rainy walk in the wood with the dog.  Cassidy has long needed new rain boots so I took a quick side trip to amazon to check out boots.  Cassidy snuggled next to me and there, alongside the boots I'm looking at, are toys and things.  "I want that," she says.  
"No," I say.  .... "You never get me ANYTHING!"  And now this 4 and a half year old girl sobbing next to me.  "I don't even WANT rain boots."  "Fine," I say.  "Then I won't get them for you."  
Wailing sobs.  Next to me.  Right now.  
Oh, yes.  And then there is that.  Then there are these moments to remember.  And now outstretched, feet tempting to kick me.  "Cassidy, I'm gonna push you off this couch if you kick me."  "But I'm NOT kicking you!"  Kick.
Oh yeah.  Then there are these moments.

The other moments I want to remember are about our trip to New York this past week to visit family and have fun.  I took her to NYC.  A crapshoot, I knew - what if she has to pee?  What if she gets totally overwhelmed?  She was fine, of course, except for the shoes.  Sandals rubbing against her toes, hurting.  "Carry me!"  Oh, Jeez.  Lugging 38 pounds in my arms for blocks at a time, no fun.  Ducked into a Gap and bought her new shoes and socks.  But she was thrilled.  Those buildings.  "Look, mom!  Look at that one!" Pointing up, up, up.  New York City.  We went to Bryant Park and rode the carousel.  We walked back to the train and went home.  "I love New York City!  But can we go home now?"

And the beach.  Nothing like a Long Island beach.  Nothing like the soft sand at Robert Moses, the empty beach devoid of houses to block views or get in the way.  She finally likes the water.  She is finally unafraid of playing in the rolling surf.  We played and frolicked and laughed and laughed.  Heaven.  So much fun.

There was something about that solo time together this week - not that we don't have a ton of time spent together, but vacation time - without any real agenda - relaxed - in no hurry -- "Take me, take me to the moonlight..." 

All treasured time.  Even if I don't write it all down.  But I'm going to try to at least write down more.

Clever Girl

It it embarrassing how long it has been.  I think about writing here and have something to write about, and then I'm just swept up in life and something new happens so quickly I forget what I wanted to say.  

And so on.

But today Cassidy revealed to me this humor and intelligence in a new way that just kind of floored me.
She called from the kitchen table where she was eating these asian noodles:
Mommy! I'm on fire!
"You're on fire?" I say.
"Yeah, I'm on fire.  Somebody quick better come save me."
"I'll save you!"  I go over to her and start fanning with my hands.
"You better get some water," she says.
I wave and spit a raspberry, spraying faint spit spray.
"No!" she says.  "Water from the pipes!"
"Well, I sort of used water.  I sprayed water from my mouth."
"NO!" she says with a little huff.
A few beats go by.
"Mommy! Please! Get me a glass of water!  I'm thirsty!"

Couldn't just say in the beginning Mommy could you please get me a glass of water?

She is such a hoot.  And not quite as easy as in the past.  Something shifted at 4 which is more independent, more self amused, more wheels churning, less affection, less tolerance for affection not on her terms, and lots of big ideas. 
"Let's make our own Candyland on a big piece of paper."
"Let's decorate our whole house for Valemtimes day." (yes.  Val-em-times day.)
"Let's take down all the Christmas decorations." (preceding decorating for Valemtimes)

Sometimes she makes me a little sad, too - Just in a way that makes me unsure how to respond.  If we draw together (which she often wants to) and she sees that my drawings are "better" than hers, she gets discouraged.  Today I counted out 45 crayons (yes it's a big tub, magic markers in there too), and 4 crayons for her and said "this is how much practice I've had drawing.  This (the 4) is how much practice you've had drawing.

Her solution?  To trade drawings and add too mine, and I take hers and add to hers.
"Mommy Cassidy artwork."

What's true is that half of what comes out of her mouth is note worthy.  Either because it's hysterical or hysterically simple but so perceptive or because it's just so perceptive.  And now we've added clever.

Cassidy, when I looked it up, is meant to mean "clever girl" in it's Irish roots.
I think she's living up to her name.

Poofus

"Mommy, you have to let me know when Zuki is going to die."
"Honey I don't know when he's going to die.  Hopefully not for a long time."
"Mommy.  When he dies, he will go POOFUS."  (claps her hands)
"Poofus?  Really?  Tell me about Poofus.  I don't know what that means."
"It means that there will be a bright bright light, it will turn white, and then it will go POOFUS! and then it will disappear."
"Oh?  And that's how we'll know?"
"Yes."
"Alright.  Well I'll keep an eye out for that, Cassidy."

Where does this girl come from. xoxox

What day is it?  Month?  Year?  How do so many days and days go by in this fast forward blur without a stop?  Cassidy is instructing her daddy how to sit on the edge of the rug for group sing, and now he can "get his outdoor shoes on to go outside."  Oh, do I have a Montessori daughter.

Her joy.  Just watching her.  Her joy is just so big.  Her heart is just so big.  When I told her Gramma Phylly was coming for her birthday next weekend, she jumped up and down: "Gramma Phylly! I LOVE Gramma Phylly! And when I see her I am going to thank her for the table!" (she sent an early birthday present).  "And right now I am going to give Zuki a nice big hug and thank him for all of the love that he gives me!"  The cat.  Omg.

My exhaustion.  Exasperation.  That I want to sew a few birds for a craft fair and every day kid myself that I will carve the time out this evening.  Turned into next evening.  Turned into the next.  And write?  I'll get up early tomorrow. (snooze button)  Or maybe the next day.  (but it's so cold) Or maybe the next (but my bed is so damn cozy).  So I'll stay up late (yawn).  Maybe tomorrow I'll stay up late (maybe I'll just read in bed).  Maybe the next night (I haven't played words with friends in days).

She putters past me, "maybe you be the teacher and rub my back, is that okay daddy?" laying on the rug.  "I can be a big girl and you can be a teacher."

"Alright!" My husband says.  "I want everyone to go brush their teeth in the bathroom!"  Ha.  He knows how to play this game.

Lately I look at her face and marvel; it's changed again.  I listen to her babble; it's more sophisticated, albeit still very much childish.  What is happening?  How can all this time be passing without my notice?  WIthout grabbing some of it's pieces and recording them?  What were all those funny things she said yesterday?  Last week?  Last month, or was that over the summer?

And though I'm sure I will keep NOT writing all the things down I think I will remember and then berating myself for not writing down, anything, in months and wondering where all that time has gone, there are some good signs that I am getting things right in this parenting gig.  Cassidy expresses gratitude and appreciation in ways that swell my heart.  She gets my sense of humor and I get hers, and we laugh and laugh and I get that she gets it, and she gets that she gets it.  And she sings Bob Marley songs, not to mention her own songs, made up in the back seat of the car, about what she sees or thinks or what happened yesterday.  

I could go on and on.  I want to go on and on.  But Chris needs to fill the outdoor wood furnace to keep us warm, and I need to get her in bed.  And then I'll want to go to bed.  And we'll do it all over again tomorrow.

My daughter, the menace.

It's been so long since I've blogged on here, but I have to (re) start somewhere.  Too many times I've thought "it's been so long, what's the point..." but so many things go by that are write-worthy.

I started teaching in March, subbing for a teacher in a Montessori toddler community who had a medical emergency.  "Can Cassidy come, too?" was all I needed to know when the job was pitched to me.  We've been there together ever since.  Not the ideal situation, but great to get my foot in the door, and honestly, we were both getting bored being home.

The awesome thing about being a teacher in the class your child is in is that you get a whole different perspective on who your child is in social community situations.  The horrible thing about being a teacher in the class your child is in is that you get a whole different perspective on who your child is in social community situations.  I have witnessed my child paint her face purple, run out of the classroom and book ass down the hallway countless times, pull her slippers and socks off and refuse to put them back on, and scream "I WANT SNACK NOWWWWWW!!!!!"  This past week, the last of school, I happen to know how poorly she has been sleeping.  I happen to know that she's going through some growth spurt, as she complains about her knees and legs hurting.  I wanted to put a sign around her neck saying "please forgive me, I'm very tired."

I mostly have a sense of humor about all of it.  After so many years of teaching preschool, I am practiced in patience and acceptance.  And I have the utmost for children who are not my own.  But today, the third time Cassidy hauled ass through the door and down the hallway, I implored Drew, the lead teacher, to please go after her.  I could not play teacher anymore, I was straight up mom.  I wanted to leash her.

At pick up, parents always ask how the day was.  And what we say is that the days were good, or great, or that the children had "really high energy," which means most likely that we are really glad the day is over.  There are children that grate at us, screaming or running or spinning and creating a vortex for the other children to join in, and things get chaotic.  As it should be: for the most part, this is totally age appropriate behavior, and we are trained and practiced at riding these waves.  One of the children has fierce tantrums, which is no news to her parents, and I am not reactive when she melts down lying down on the floor in a fit.  We let her know we're there if/when she needs us, and let her go.  The other children step around her, totally accepting of it, no big deal.

Most of the time when Cassidy chucks things across the room or puts toys and materials in her mouth, I redirect her, know it's appropriate behavior for her age, and find it all amusing.  Other times I am astonished: this is my kid?  MY kid?  What the hell is she doing?

All of this, and at the same time, I am fiercely proud of my girl.  I am proud of her spirit, her testing, her pushing, her questing.  I suppose if she were just this good girl who followed the rules and pushed no limits, this would all be easier.  But in the process of this self construction, no matter how humbling in front of other parents when she runs away saying "I leaving you, Mommy!" when I tell her it's time to go home, she is who she is, she will be who she will be, and starting in the fall, she will be in her own classroom with her own teachers, and I will be in mine.