There have been a few incidents since then (few - ha ha) that keep me out of the Also Ran category. Some favorites from the last month and a half: Jordan asked one morning if she could wear a light blue leotard to school as a shirt. "Sure," I said, "it's a little tight though - if you don't mind an all-day wedgie, go ahead." The next day at school her teacher said she had a funny story to tell me. At recess the day before, the playground monitor looked over in shock and said to Ms. Eileen "Is that Jordan? What is she doing?" Jordan was no longer wearing her skirt, just the too-small powder-blue leotard while playing with a hula hoop. "Jordan, where are your clothes?" "What?" replied Jordan, clueless as to what she was talking about.
"What are you wearing?"
"What?" responded Jordan, as if to say "What could possibly be wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Jordan! That's not appropriate clothing for school!" said Ms Eileen. "Oh." she replied, as if confused by these ridiculous adults and their meaningless rules, and went to put on her skirt.
Part of me thinks this puts me back in the running for mom of the year - I have a 7 year old daughter who doesn't care if she's cool, doesn't care if she's doing what the other kids are doing. She's busy quite literally dancing to the beat of her own drummer, immersed in the world of her own imagination. (For the record, today is "crazy hair day" and she doesn't really want to get TOO crazy - just a couple of pigtails put into buns.) She dresses just like her mama did at her age, lost as I was in a world of my own invention.
On the less potentially optimistic side of losing mother of the year contest, a couple of nights ago I called the Poison Control Hotline for the first time (already had it in my phone, so I don't lose the round entirely) when I found Sawyer just before bed pouring an entire bottle of a Hyland's homeopathic remedy into his mouth. This is a little boy who could easily develop a sugar addiction and here he was, feeding the monster -the tablets are basically little sugar pills. “Oh, Hyland’s?”, the man at other end of line said, “We love those - he could have three whole bottles that stuff and be fine.” So Sawyer lost his stories, Jordan got freaked out by my telling him what cold happen if he took too much medicine a different kind, and I got freaked out when I saw him swallowing the whole bottle - had an absolutely horrible flash forward to imagining him as a teenager or adult liking pills way too much. I’ve been cavalier about leaving medicines within children’s reach because I’ve always told them how serious it is. It makes me wonder if I’m failing in some way or myriad ways with having less time for him with the new baby. How easy it is to find fault with oneself as a mother!
And Clavey, little Clavey, beating on my breast as I nursed him yesterday afternoon, wanting more milk that wasn't there. He clearly hates rice cereal. We'd been given leftover babyfood from friends and so he tried - and liked - bananas. So much for veggies first and only a week after rice cereal and so on and so forth. His big sister fed the rest of the bananas to him this morning while I made lunches and breakfast and I peeled the dried remnants off his face while nursing him an hour or two later. So I just spent $50 on Organic babyfood at Safeway. I'd like to cook, puree and freeze it from scratch like I did for Jordan and Sawyer, but I haven't yet unpacked from a trip we returned from five days ago, and so little jars it is, at least until I am back on the dry land of finished laundry, healthy children, and the many projects stashed in corners throughout the house.
And Clavey, little Clavey, beating on my breast as I nursed him yesterday afternoon, wanting more milk that wasn't there. He clearly hates rice cereal. We'd been given leftover babyfood from friends and so he tried - and liked - bananas. So much for veggies first and only a week after rice cereal and so on and so forth. His big sister fed the rest of the bananas to him this morning while I made lunches and breakfast and I peeled the dried remnants off his face while nursing him an hour or two later. So I just spent $50 on Organic babyfood at Safeway. I'd like to cook, puree and freeze it from scratch like I did for Jordan and Sawyer, but I haven't yet unpacked from a trip we returned from five days ago, and so little jars it is, at least until I am back on the dry land of finished laundry, healthy children, and the many projects stashed in corners throughout the house.This morning after Clavey woke up happy as a clam at 5, I heard Jordan and Sawyer fighting in her bed at 6:30. "YOU'RE PULLING MY HAIR!" I went in and Sawyer was crying, still half asleep - "I'm not pulling your hair, I'm squeezing orange juice." He'd made orange juice himself a week or so ago, theraputically twisting and squeezing the oranges into defeated little orange shells. He'd gone there again in his sleep, apparently. Five minutes later he was accusing his sister of smothering him with a pillow. So five minutes after that when, while folding laundry, I heard raised loud voices coming from my bedroom, I got my serious, deep, loud, no-nonsense, don't mess with me voice on and went preaching into the bedroom. I saw two sweet little faces looking up at me. "But Mama," said Jordan, "Sawyer was only saying 'tickle tickle tickle' to Clavey." I stopped and laughed and looked my children right in the eye. "You think I'm a little bit crazy right now, don't you?" I said to them. They half-laughed and smiled at me, and I thought to myself that these are the moments that will possibly bookend their childhood memories. I'd better choose carefully who I want to be in the chronicles of their past.
Over the five days we were in San Diego, we went to Sea World where Jordan fell in love with Shamu and the idea of being an orca trainer. She wanted nothing to do with the water rides, but if you'd told her she could jump in a tank with four killer whales, she wouldn't have hesitated.
She sobbed when a trainer told her she couldn't pet Shamu. And all weekend she played Shamu in the swimming pool with any adult willing to toss her in the air, push her through the water, help her do tricks. It tickled me and touched me to see my mom in goggles and swim cap attempting to swim through my daughter's legs underwater, laughing and giggling with her. My mother's got a good sense of humor about our childhood memories when my siblings and I get together and poke fun at her, and it gives me hope that I'm not earning them a permanent spot on a therapist's couch with my own parenting.
She sobbed when a trainer told her she couldn't pet Shamu. And all weekend she played Shamu in the swimming pool with any adult willing to toss her in the air, push her through the water, help her do tricks. It tickled me and touched me to see my mom in goggles and swim cap attempting to swim through my daughter's legs underwater, laughing and giggling with her. My mother's got a good sense of humor about our childhood memories when my siblings and I get together and poke fun at her, and it gives me hope that I'm not earning them a permanent spot on a therapist's couch with my own parenting. 
I'm thankful for great role models. And a great co-parent. So I'm not mother of the year, but I think my children will love me all the same.
