Thanks A Lot Brady Bunch

There is an episode in season 2 of The Brady Bunch where Carol and Cindy have to have their tonsils removed.

Olivia has watched the episode three times in the past two days. She has become obsessed with tonsils.

Remember when Alyssa had her tonsils out? Yeah, Olivia doesn’t either. She’s asked to see the pictures we have of Alyssa before and after the surgery. She’s asked to see these pictures at least twice a day all this week.

Some of the questions she’s asked since her first viewing of The Brady Bunch episode last Sunday afternoon:

“What do tonsils do?” I don’t know.
“Why do we even have tonsils?” I don’t know.
“Where are you tonsils?” At the back of your throat.
“What do tonsils look like?” I don’t know.
“Can I see my tonsils?” Not really.
“Do I still have tonsils?” Yes.
“Do you still have your tonsils?” Yes.
“Does Daddy still have his tonsils?” Yes.
“Why did Lyssie have to get her tonsils out?” Because she kept getting sick with strep throat.
“What did the doctor do with Lyssie’s tonsils after he took them out?” Um, he threw them away?
“Will I have to have my tonsils taken out?” I hope not, you’ve never had tonsillitis or strep throat, so maybe not.
“Do you need your tonsils?” I guess not, since lots of people have theirs taken out.
“Why does Lyssie look like that in the picture of her after she had her tonsils out?” Because she’d just had surgery and her throat hurt and the doctor had given her medicine.

“Where was I when Lyssie had her tonsils out?” At school.
“Why wasn’t Lyssie at school that day?” Because she had to have her tonsils taken out.

She’s driving me crazy with all this talk about tonsils. I am glad she’s curious but…well, Olivia can obsess and that’s what she’s doing right now with the tonsil talk.

Still, I try to find my inner Carol Brady and answer each question, even if it’s being asked for the seven gazillionth time.

Though I could do to emulate Carol’s patience and kindness with her kids, I draw the line at telling my girls not to use the word ‘stinker’. Greg called Bobby a stinker at one point and Carol said gently, “Greg, you know I don’t like that word.”

Are you kidding me? Stinker? I muttered, “It’s not like he called Bobby a little shit.”

Sadly for me (hilariously for her) Alyssa heard me. She laughed so hard she almost fell off her chair and then, when she could breathe again, she said, “I love you and your bad attitude.”

Yeah. I’ve got to work on that, I’m thinking.

Olivia piped up with, “Did you say shed?”

Alyssa laughed again as I answered, “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Olivia gave it a little thought and then asked, “Why is that a bad word?”

I was ready for that one. “I don’t know,” I replied, “but if Carol thinks stinker is bad, she probably thinks calling your brother a shed is bad too.”

Dire Predictions

When I was pregnant with Olivia, after we’d found out she was a girl, a woman I worked with told me over and over again that my girls would hate each other.

This woman had raised one child, who was also raising one child. She had no personal experience with raising siblings and yet she told me with what seemed like glee that my daughters would grow up resenting the hell out of each other.

Her predictions have not come true at this point.

Sure, they have the usual sibling spats but I think that’s typical. My girls actually enjoy each other’s company (most of the time) and get along quite well.

Now that Alyssa is on the cusp of teenager-hood, I have a co-worker (what is it with co-workers?) who tells me quite often that I will have an angry teen on my hands in just a couple more years. She swears that I’m just around the corner from having yelling, screaming fights with my daughter.

Now, I’m not going to tempt fate and say that it absolutely will not happen but I will say that I never, not once, told my mom that I hated her. I never screamed at my mom, not even during the dreaded teenage years.

Sure, Alyssa is not me and I am not my mom but right now, this very second, Alyssa and I have an open, loving relationship. I plan to do everything I can to continue to nurture that relationship and I hope we can avoid the screaming fights that are brimming with hatred. I just don’t necessarily believe the dire predictions some people like to toss at me.

I know a twenty-eight year old woman who says she doesn’t want children.

More power to her, I say.

However, one of the other moms around here promised this young woman that she’ll change her mind. She predicts that the twenty-eight year old’s biological clock will start ticking anytime now and she’ll realize that she does, in fact, want children.

No. That is not necessarily true. Why do people feel the need to tell others what their future holds? Why?

I respect this young woman’s choices and applaud her for voicing them strongly. If she changes her mind? So be it. But if she doesn’t? That doesn’t make her less a woman for not wanting someone to occupy her uterus. There are lots of women out there who don’t want children.

Heck, I have an aunt who has more than one kid who confessed recently that she actually never wanted any kids. How about that? (She didn’t say this to her actual kids and I would never tell them that their mother said it either. Deny, deny, deny. I have lots of aunts who have more than one kid, so no one will ever know which aunt, maternal or paternal, said this. So there.)

So all these dire predictions to is make the listener (me, the twenty-eight year old) feel like we're being talked down to, like we don't have a clue. It's degrading, it's demeaning and it's irritating. Just saying.

Are You Mad at Me?

Each night during the week, I start trying to convince Olivia to go to sleep starting around 8:00. Some nights, she’ll be asleep by 8:03. Other nights, it takes a little (or a lot) longer.

Last night was one of those where it took longer than three minutes. Each time I gently reminded her that she should be trying to go to sleep, she’d smile sheepishly at me and asked, “Are you mad at me?”

I always smiled gently back and told her softly, “No, I’m not mad at you. No one is mad at you. I just know how tired you’ll be in the morning if you don’t get enough sleep tonight.”

This led to a conversation about how tired she’d been that very morning, when she’d moaned about how fast the weekends go and how sad she always is to greet Monday mornings. She then asked me to carry her from her bed to the bathroom where a space heater was running. She sat in front of it cooking her feet as I cajoled her into getting dressed. (For the record, she dressed herself. She does that all the time these days, thank goodness. It frees up a good seven minutes of my morning.)

I’m trying to be mindful of my mood and my actions each night at bedtime. I don’t want bedtime to be stressful and full of anger from me. I know how hard it can be to fall asleep even when you’re tired but having someone barking at you to GO TO SLEEP is less than restful and not very conducive to actually falling asleep. (Yes, I’ve been known to bark and I always feel awful about it once she’s actually fallen asleep.)

For the last month or so, Olivia has fallen asleep with gentle back scratches, neck nuzzles, kisses to the cheek and soft reminders that it’s sleepy time.

Yet she still asks me after each reminder if I’m mad at her. Have I scarred her from my past barking? Can I get to a point where I’ve been more gentle than I ever was grouchy? I certainly hope so. I’m definitely going to try.

If we ever get to a point where she no longer asks me if I’m mad at her, I’ll be sure and mark down that day as the day gentleness won and grouchiness was forgotten.

Outside Encouragement

I hate to admit it but my own inner self-esteem is sometimes not enough to get me through every single day.

I need outside encouragement. I need to hear voices other than my own inner voices telling me that I’m good enough, I’m strong enough, I’m smart enough and dog gone it, people like me.

I need to hear those around me (ahem, my husband) say that I’m doing a good job. Not a ‘good enough’ job, but an actual good job. I need to hear he thinks I’m doing my best and that it’s enough.

I need to know that those around me appreciate the effort I put in to caring for them, for our home, for myself. I need to know that it is appreciated that I go to work every day (m-f) and that I do as much as I am able on the weekends to maintain an orderly household.

I need someone (Tom) to acknowledge that I am a good mother, that I keep a nice home, that I make decent (not gourmet, my kids wouldn’t eat it anyway) food every. single. day.

This past weekend was a little tough on my feelings. But…go me…I actually voiced my issues, my feelings, my frustration with the lack of appreciation for what I do.

See, I try so hard to be positive and encouraging to my husband. I talk to him the way I wish he’d talk to me. When he has an idea, I listen, I tell him it sounds great or, if nothing else, I tell him to go for it, I’m sure it will be fine. I rarely give ‘advice’ for how his idea could be made better. I rarely give a critique of how whatever his idea is won’t work.

And yet…sometimes it feels like the advice and critiques are all I hear. It’s ever so frustrating.

I also thank Tom for all that he does. I don’t just thank him every so often, I try to thank him each and every time he does something because it’s what I’d like to hear. I know, I probably go overboard and so maybe the impact of my appreciation is lessened by saturation. But I wish so much that he’d give me even a little of the encouragement I give him.

By the end of the weekend everything was fine again. I was even able to tell him that my feelings were suddenly less sensitive than they’d been all weekend and the defcon level could be lowered substantially. I think I heard him heave a sigh of relief.

Magic

She falls down and still wants me to kiss her scraped knee to make it better.

She needs me to kiss her neck at night as she falls asleep, giggling as I breath her in, telling her that she smells delightful because she’s just had a bath.

She wakes in the night sometimes and still calls to me to come and fix her blankets and ‘retuck’ her in.

As far as she is concerned, I am magical. My kisses contain magical healing. My fingertips are magical back scratchers. My smile as she falls asleep spreads dream magic, sending only lovely, sweet dreams into her brain.

I really, truly believe there is something magical about love. Whether it’s mother love, father love, romantic love, the love a child feels for her mom and dad and Gram. Even the love shared by siblings is magical. I mean, when I was a kid, I could say anything I wanted about my brothers, but no one else better because my love for them was fierce. They were irritating creeps but they were my irritating creeps and everyone around better remember that.

Love is something that lives on after we die. We don’t stop loving people just because they’re gone. It transcends time and that is magic at its very best right there.

I’ve always wanted a magical power. Growing up, I wanted to be Samantha and Darrin’s other daughter, Tabitha and Adam’s younger sister, just so I could have magic.

Now? I have all the magic I ever dreamed of having. I see it reflected in the eyes of my children, I feel it in my husband’s embrace.

My magic is eternal and I wouldn’t trade it for any other magical powers. This magic is powerful, it’s beautiful. I’m so glad that I get to pass this magic on to the next generation.

Ending the Year with the ABCs

There are 24 days left of school. How do I know this? Well, because today the first grade class at A’s and O’s school is on letter B. They get to play with bubbles at recess.

Olivia brought home a calendar page on Monday with the last 26 days noted, letting parents know how each letter of the alphabet was being celebrated as we count down the last 26 days of school.

They started yesterday with the letter A. They did Art projects during class.

Olivia loves this stuff so much. She asked every single evening what letter is the next day and how it is being observed.

Tomorrow is Career day for letter C. The students are encouraged to dress as they imagine they will when they’re all grown up and working at a career.

Olivia decided very quickly that she has to dress fancy tomorrow because, duh, she’s going to be a fashion designer. She’s already got a sketchbook with her name in stickers on the front and Barbie stickers with all kinds of awesome fashions on some of the pages.

I love her ambition, her drive, how much confidence she has in her own ideas of what is pretty and what is functional. For the record, pretty always comes before functional but if she can find a way to make them both work she considers it a bonus.

The rest of the letters aren’t quite as exciting as C though Olivia is definitely looking forward to next Monday when D arrives and they get to eat Donut holes. And I will be quite fun because they’re going to eat Ice cream treats.

Of course, the most exciting day of all is Z, when they Zip up their backpacks and Zoom out of school. O’s very ready for that day to arrive. First grade has been great for her but she’s as ready for summer as the next first grader.

War of the Stars

I am neglecting my duties at a mother when it comes to Alyssa’s pop-culture education.

Confession: She’s never watched Star Wars.

Gasp!! I know! I’m so ashamed of myself. In my defense, I’m not that big a fan of Star Wars but honestly, I know that’s not a good reason for my TWELVE year old not to have seen any of the movies from the franchise. It’s a shame, actually.

So I’ll try to remedy it as soon as possible.

This came up recently when she informed me that there were only three people in her class who thought that Star Trek was better than Star Wars. She was included in the three because yes, she has seen plenty of Star Trek movies/television shows and even kind of, sort of appreciates their awesomeness.

See, I’m not so much neglectful as I am picky about what I show my children.

Oh, and Alyssa has also seen every X-Men movie ever made (because, duh, Hugh Jackman) but she’s not yet seen a Marvel movie. Again, I need to fix that gross oversight.

This past weekend I expanded Alyssa’s musical horizons by showing her Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Sure, we had great fun making fun of the sexist asses that were the male characters and the silly, shrill again, sexist portrayals of women but it was still so, so much fun to watch it with her. I love that movie so much and am so glad that she managed to get through the whole thing with minimal eye rolling.

I’m working on it all, is what I’m saying.