phatDonna

I know you all think I am a horrible fascist mom who never takes her kid to the pool that is mere steps from my front door. Some of you even lament your lack of a pool to take your spawn for relief from the heat. But I HATE taking Bridget to the pool. HATE. IT. For many reasons.

1. The amount of preparation that is involved in getting me and her ready for the pool is staggering. There is hair removal to be done (mine), sunscreen to be applied (both of us), pool toys and snacks and drinks to be gathered, and then squeezing into swim suits. This takes a good 30 to 45 minutes.

2. I have the world’s most persnickety vagina. It does not like a swimming pool that has been overly chlorinated. One day at the pool with Bridget can be a very bad thing indeed for me for days, or even weeks.

3. Being in the pool with a four year old who cannot swim is NOT FUN for the adult. It’s not relaxing or enjoyable to be on constant vigil and constantly reminding her of the rules for the pool. There is no lounging in a chair reading a book or floating around on an inflatable raft with a drink in my hand. It’s splash fights, playing Barbies in the pool, trying to cajole her into learning to swim without her floatie.

4. When it’s this hot, the pool water can often feel as warm as bath water. Disgusting.

5. For some reason, the pool does not wear Bridget out like you would expect. I have spent 2 hours in the pool with this child, hoping she’s be falling asleep in her dinner by the time we got home, only to end up with a Tasmanian devil bred with a tornado when we got home.

6. It kills the whole day. If we go in the morning, which we are about to do, we spend time in the water, then I fight to get her out which she bitches, moans and cries about. I drag her home, try to get us both dried, dressed and ready for any other errand or thing we have to do that day. An hour or so in the pool can easily eat up 3 hours of the day. And I’m the one who ends up wiped out and in need of a nap.

So yes, in theory the pool is a fun thing. In practice, for me at least, it’s a misery. I do it, because she loves it. But I won’t like it.

I just joined a single parents’ Meetup group. I’m simultaneously nauseous and excited about this.

Nauseous because I have this feeling that it’s probably one reasonably attractive single dad and a gaggle of desperate women trying to hook up with him while he is either endearingly oblivious to this, or using the group to add notches to his bedpost. I have a vague memory of a friend growing up whose parents were divorced. Her mom belonged to a single parents’ group of some sort, and I remember there being one smarmy man around the house after another. So now when I think of single parents’ groups I just think “pathetic desperate people trying to hook up with each other.” Which is not fair at all because the same could also be said for any online dating site.

I’m excited about it because I want to meet other single moms. I need to create a life for myself here in Austin, as I’ve mentioned before. And I love my friends that live here, but my life is just so different from theirs, and my weekend and free time is different from theirs. It would be good to have a friend in the same boat as I’m in, who is also kid-free when I am kid-free. I need something that doesn’t make my weekend time, the time when I’m without Bridget, stretch out depressingly before me.

Who knows how it will go?  The first event I’ll be attending is a meetup at a local pizza place with kids’ play area. It sounds nightmarish but I have to start somewhere.

I feel like I traded in my very last Cool Card ages ago so I can’t really do any more harm to my reputation by writing this post.

But I do want to preface this by saying that I am NOT a Taylor Swift fan. I don’t like the sound of her voice or the songs she sings. However, this video was sort of thrust upon me by a work situation, and even though I had the sound off, it caught my eye after about the billionth time I saw it (more specifically her dresses caught my eye), so one day I turned up the sound just to see. I’m putting it in this post, but I really don’t blame you if you don’t want to watch or listen.

The reason why I felt like sharing it is that I admire Taylor Swift for doing this song and making this video for it. We all hear a lot about bullying and mean girls these days, and there seems like precious little that can be done about it as parents. I mean, I preach to Bridget about being kind to others and the Golden Rule, but eventually I know parents’ and teachers’ voices turn into droning like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons.  But Taylor Swift is an icon for tween and teen girls, and for her to be calling out the bullies and mean girls I think goes a long way to getting the point across. I love even more that her video includes gay teens.

So Taylor, while I am not a fan, you have earned my respect for using your fame and influence to send a very positive message. If Bridget decides she likes you, I may cringe and roll my eyes, but I will appreciate you for being a good role model.

School ended for Bridget last Tuesday. She won’t begin going to her summer caregiver until next week. I’ve been trying my hardest to keep her occupied. We are technically still on Chicken Pox Watch, and I should be keeping her away from other kids because IF she gets it, she’ll be contagious about a day or so before the spots appear. I doubt she’ll get it, but if she does get it, I’ll feel terrible if I think about all the places I took her and all the people she could have possibly infected.

At the same time, I can’t quarantine her for three weeks just in case. That’s not fair to her, especially because I am fairly sure she’s not going to get it.

So I’ve been trying to keep her occupied. We got nails done, we went to the mall, we saw a movie. But by the time the movie got out at 1:30 on Saturday, I was out of ideas. So on the spur of the moment, we packed our bags and headed to Dallas. I knew my parents would entertain her and we’d both have someone else to talk to besides each other. I am not afraid to call in the Calvary.

I am a genius, I tell you.

Bridget cooked with Grandma, cleaned windows with Grandpa, and I got to take some naps AND go out Sunday night after Bridget was in bed. Bridget couldn’t be around other kids, but we found ways to entertain her and keep her busy and she was a happy kid. We went to the playground, we ran errands, we ate at In-N-Out Burger. And I had someone else to spell me and be responsible.

My brain needed that break.

Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in to your own life?

I mean, this is my life, I know it. But suddenly it doesn’t seem to fit me anymore. Two years ago, my life was comfortable. It fit. I was a wife and a mom and I did wife and mom things. I was a housewife. Now I’m a housewife who isn’t a wife. I’m a mom who doesn’t feel like the mom I used to be, or like any of the other moms around me. My career is in flux and I’m not sure what I’m going to be or do when I grow up.

I don’t feel like I fit in with my married friends as much anymore. They happily cast off the single life years ago, as I once did. And while they say that they live vicariously through me in my travel and things, I know they are happy to not be in my shoes. I only have a few single friends (none in town) and they don’t have kids so I don’t really fit in with them either. They haven’t yet had the experience of having a soul-sucking, life changing responsibility to a tiny human. They don’t understand that there are things that I simply cannot do as a mother because I have this other person that I owe everything to.

It just seems like my life is bipolar. I am either with Bridget and am with her fully, focusing on taking care of her and engaging with her. There is no help, there is no one to take over the mundane things at the end of the day. It’s all me all the time. And I spend my time wishing I could do something that’s all about me. When I don’t have Bridget, I am all alone. I have no responsibilities. If I go out and have fun, I’m thinking about her and hoping she’s ok and not missing me, and feeling slightly guilty for not being with her at that moment.

I guess the trick will be finding a situation where the two halves of my life can come together. I want Bridget to understand that I am a person apart from being her mother because I don’t want to set an example that being a mother means you stop being yourself. But I feel like that’s a lesson for later in her life. For now, I think all I can do is straddle these two worlds of mine, hopping back and forth from one to the other and trying to keep them apart. One day maybe they’ll start to meld a little bit more.

In the meantime, I guess I am the mom who thinks Greek yogurt tastes worse than semen and I’m the single girl who always has Hello Kitty bandaids and neosporin in her purse in case anyone gets a boo-boo.

Saturday night, driving back to my parents’ house from the family Mothers Day celebration, Bridget told me in a matter of fact way, “Me and my cousins are going to die one day.”

I can’t say that I was shocked by this statement. Lately she’s been expressing some curiosity about death, but so far hasn’t really asked about what it means or what happens after death. I have been letting her curiosity be the guide for what I say. I didn’t want to tell her too much before she was ready to hear it, so I waited.

To her statement, which was really a question, I just said, “Yes, that’s true, but not for a very long time.” She didn’t have any response to that, so I let it go. But when we got home and were getting her ready for bed, she asked me if I was going to die and if people are dead forever.

I vividly remember having this discussion with my parents when I was exactly her age. They handled it perfectly fine, the only way you really can handle it. They answered my questions, gave me the facts and tried not to scare me. We were mostly Catholic at the time, so I guess they probably threw in some stuff about heaven. I don’t remember that part but that may because my adult brain doesn’t believe that part.

But every kid is different and I was trying to think on my feet about what best to say to Bridget that wasn’t a lie or assurances of things that I don’t believe, but that wouldn’t scare the hell out of her.

I told her that yes, I would die one day just like everyone else but hopefully not for a very long time. And yes, when someone is dead, they are dead forever. I think that what she was getting at was about afterlife or heaven, but I didn’t want to raise that question with her if that wasn’t what she was thinking. Quite honestly, that’s the part of the discussion that scares me the most. I know the idea of heaven is very comforting for many people, but I don’t believe in it. I’m certainly not going to tell Bridget that something will happen if I don’t believe it to be true. Thankfully that didn’t seem to be on her mind.

She cried when I told her that both her daddy and I would die one day, but I was able to comfort her and get her into bed. When she was getting nestled in, I asked her if she had any other questions she wanted to ask me, but she didn’t. I told her she could always ask me any questions she has, no matter what. I kissed her and tip-toed out of the room.

And then I fell over. I have been dreading this talk and hoping I didn’t fuck it up. I guess we’ll know in about twenty years how I did.

Bridget’s exuberance and enthusiasm are two of the things I love most about her. When she decides she wants to hug or kiss you, you are going to get a hug or a kiss, dammit. It’s just so pure. I know that she feels it with her whole heart. And how can I not melt at this wee person who loves me so much? But lately, she has been terribly affectionate. All the time. Everywhere.

Tonight we were out to dinner (because I still don’t have air conditioning and it’s too hot to cook in my house) and the child was all up in my grill, wanting to sit on my lap and throwing herself into my arms and saying “I love you, Mommy!” All that is all well and good. But she also kept giving me wet kisses on my arm, and trying to grab my face and pull it down to kiss me. Sweet, no?

No.

I fully expected to hear people at nearby tables hollering “Get a room!” at us at any moment. Honestly, if we had been a couple on a date, it definitely would have made other people around us uncomfortable.

Another thing that makes me uneasy is that she keeps trying to kiss me on the lips. I’m not judging what other people do, but I only kiss my kid on the cheek, not the lips. I know she’s seeing kissing more and more in movies and TV shows, and she’s probably seeing The EX and GF kissing, which is all fine. But I don’t know how to adequately explain to a four year old the difference between family love and romantic love. I barely understand romantic love myself. I’d be hopeless at explaining it to her.

For a while though, I think it’s best if she and I don’t go out to restaurants together.  I’m sure the staff of Chili’s will appreciate that.

I strive daily to do my best not to royally fuck up my kid. I think that’s really the best we can do as parents, although we know that we will in some way fuck them up. I mean, hopefully it’s just small ways like not being able to have their food touch on a plate and not big ways like storing women’s heads in their refrigerators.

One of my biggest hangups (besides the navy blue trench coat and NO DAD, I may never get over it) is public bathrooms. I despise public bathrooms and will go to great lengths to avoid using them. I always have. The idea of a portable bathroom sends chills down my spine and may even cause vomit to rise in my throat sometimes.

When I was a kid, our family traveled a lot by car. Between moves and family vacations, we spent a lot of time on the road. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hate public bathrooms, especially truck stop bathrooms. Even at the tender age of four, I can remember going to the bathroom in our hotel room before we left for a day in the car, and not going again until we got where we were going that evening. If I could finagle it I would wait outside the bathroom with my dad and brother while my mom went in, but sometimes I was forced to go inside and wait with my mom while she went. I assure you that my princess heiney did not touch porcelain in any of those places. I also remember my plan backfiring on me once. I had to have been around four. We were traveling somewhere desert-y and I must have miscalculated how much liquid I could drink and still not have to pee. Four year olds are very bad at math. I had to go badly but we were in the desert and there was no place to stop. So my dad pulled over and I had to pee on the side of the road. He may have thought he was teaching me a lesson. And he was – peeing on the side of the highway in the desert is much nicer than peeing in a truck stop bathroom that reeks of cigarette smoke, Final Net hairspray, and air freshener. Lesson learned.

As an adult, I still avoid public bathrooms if I can. If I can’t, I have become adept at finding the ones that have the highest probability of cleanliness. If I’m concerned about where I’ll be able to put my princess heiney down to pee, then I will adjust my liquid intake accordingly. Thirty-seven year olds are far better at math than four year olds. Don’t even get me started on hand washing in these places. To me the logic seems sound. If a bathroom is terribly disgusting, then washing your hands in the germ infested sink is doing no good whatsoever. I would rather get out of there and have a Purell shower when I’m back on safe ground. But people look at you like a leper when you don’t wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, and I get it. You don’t know me and my phobia, so you don’t know that I will be sanitizing in a few minutes. I should make a jaunty cap or something that says “going to use hand sanitizer the minute I leave this petri dish.”

But as with most things in life, it all changes when you have kids. When Bridget was an infant and we were all out together, I could usually convince The EX to do the diaper changes in public bathrooms either by using guilt over how I changed most of her diapers all day every day, or with the promise of sexual favors later. Or I would just change her diaper in the backseat of the car or in the back of the Explorer. Now that Bridget is potty trained, it seems she is intent on taking me on the Public Bathroom Tour of America.

I’m really trying not to pass on my hangups about public bathrooms. I know it’s not healthy. But the first time she sat down on the floor in a public bathroom, I almost fainted. I’m not sure how to adequately explain how disgusting that is without turning her into a freak like me. I try everything I can to make her go to the bathroom at home, but like all kids, she says she doesn’t have to go. Then the minute we get somewhere, she starts grabbing her crotch and hopping up and down like her bladder is about to burst. And don’t ask me why, but it seems like every time we go to Chick-fil-A she has to go twice – once to pee and once to poop. I try to be nonchalant and cool about the whole thing, let’s get in and out quickly, touching as few surfaces as possible, wash hands thoroughly and don’t look Mommy in the eye because you’ll see she is two steps away from the nuthouse.

Honestly y’all, the fact that I am not crouched in a corner scrubbing imaginary bugs off my skin while mumbling incoherently to myself is a miracle.

When you become a parent, I think the tendency is to think of all the things your parents did that you thought were wrong and SWEAR that you will never do them. It’s like a pendulum swinging far one way, then far the other. But until you’ve been a parent for a while, you have no concept of why your parents did the things they did.

My favorite example of this is my hair. I have a lot of hair. Always have. I know it was the bane of my mother’s existence when it was her job to wash, brush and style it. And I am sure I complained a lot about how she went about it. So one day, she took me to get the Dorothy Hamill haircut, and I had boyishly short hair pretty much until I was twelve. I hated it. It was not a flattering look for me. It left me scarred. I can never have hair that short again. As much as I admire women who look gorgeous with short sleek hair styles, the thought of doing it myself gives me heart palpitations.

Fast forward about 30 years. Bridget has a lot of hair. And she complains a lot when I have to comb it or when I try to style it. I get it, Mom. I forgive you. I know now why you did it. But I can’t do it to her. If I got her a pixie cut my life would be so much happier. I just can’t.

On the flip side of that coin are the things that you do just like your parents that you are shocked to see in yourself.

One of my most vivid memories is of this awful London Fog navy blue trench coat that my parents bought me in sixth grade. Now, why they even MAKE navy blue trench coats for eleven year olds is beyond me. I fought against it. I threw a tantrum in the store. I swore I would never wear it. They bought it anyway.

I never wore it. Luckily we lived in Texas where you need a coat maybe three days a year.

I swore I’d never force clothes on Bridget just because I like them. And I didn’t really think I was doing that. She likes everything in her closet and generally is agreeable to whatever I chose for her to wear each day. But one morning she starting crying and asked why I never let her wear what she wanted to wear. That spun me around. I was stifling my baby’s creativity! So we made a deal that as long as what she wanted to wear was clean and weather appropriate, it was alright with me. I also take her shopping with me sometimes and let her pick some things out. Funny thing though, she and I still have similar tastes. I know that in a few years that won’t be the case and I’ll have to veto shirts that show too much skin and jeans that require a bikini wax to wear. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

What sorts of things did your parents do that have affected your parenting? Are you scarred in any way by a particular haircut?

And just a note…. this is not a dig at my parents, or my mom specifically. She knows of my emotional haircut baggage. We are in a place of healing now. She might still be slightly pissed off about the trench coat, though.

At what age do kids want to hear chapter books read aloud to them? I realize this is a random question.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things about school was having the teacher read chapter books to us. I loved hearing one chapter a day, sitting in a circle on the floor. I would often think about what we’d read that day and what was going to happen the next day. I remember hearing some of my favorite books that way.

I know every kid is different and there is no formula for it. No one can tell me that at age XYZ Bridget will be ready for it and enjoy it. I did a little research and found some moms recommend the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, specifically the first one – Little House in the Big Woods – as a good chapter book for kids her age. I bought it and she let me read her part of the first chapter today.

To my horror, there was talk of wolves eating little girls and killing deer and eating the meat. Luckily she wasn’t too interested and wanted to stop reading it.

Now, I realize that these are facts of life and nothing terrible in the grand scheme of things. But she’s four. First of all, she has not yet made the connection between “the chicken says bawk bawk” and the chicken on her plate, and the longer I can hold that off the better, because I’m sure she’ll go on a meat strike for a while when she learns that lesson. And secondly, she’s hitting that stage where she’s afraid of everything just to say she’s afraid and to stall bedtime. I don’t want to add wolves to the mix. I’m really a fan of keeping them innocent as long as possible because it goes downhill pretty quickly once they realize the world isn’t always a nice safe place.

Any recommendations out there for chapter books that are fairly innocent and won’t scare her? Or should I just put this idea on hold for a year or two?