I Have a Friend Who........

The other night two things happened. Harper got a secret diary with a lock and wrote some personal things inside and she overheard Chris and I talking about our exes, not uncommon - old memories are ever present, but confusing as all hell to Harper, who has difficulty accepting that her parents are people, much less that they had lives before they were parents.

And then without missing a beat, Harper asks me if I had a boyfriend when I was her age. It was a seamless question, flowing naturally from conversation and understandable given our talk about previous loves. I said "Sure, one Nicky Kritikos, in second grade. Wanna see him on Facebook?"

And just like that, she got me talking about me and my second grade boyfriend. We looked at pictures; she seemed interested, intrigued, joining me jubilantly as we traipsed down memory lane, answering her innocent questions with funny reflections.

And then she asked, "Did you have a crush on him before he was your boyfriend?"

"I suppose so. I really can't remember." Then I blathered on about some other aspect of my seven-year-old romance, confident that she wouldn't have asked unless she was really interested.

And then she asked, "Did you talk to your mom about him?" Bat sense tingling, I finally emerged from my nostalgic revelry and looked at my daughter's face. Her head was slightly tilted, her mouth turned up at the corners and her eyes a little off in some way - not quite disingenuous, but not quite straight up. A quick breath in and I realized that I had just been taken in by my six-year-old. A crush. We've been talking about her the whole time. And she had me talking about myself for fully five minutes to see...... to see, I don't know what. Maybe, if she could trust me with it. To see if I had some meaningful experience that might help her with her current romantic dilemma.

I wasn't surprised at all by the news of a crush; it's that she had the presence of mind to approach the topic sideways - an almost, "I have a friend with a problem" approach. The girl is sophisticated and I obviously need to be more on my toes. I couldn't drag the name of her crush out of her and I stopped trying after a few names and a few laughs. I told her I'd let it go, that I would never look in her diary and she could always talk to me if she changed her mind. She's a tricky one, and one to watch, but I like the way she works.

A Couple of Gems for Wider Distribution

Things are always funnier when your own kid says them, but I thought these two scenes warranted wider distribution. First a bit of background. A while back, our friend and housemate Adam coined the term "adult words," a perfect way to describe swear words to the underage. What a perfect compromise, I thought - a stroke of genius. In one moment, I settled my inner conflict about profanity and the power we give arbitrary words with the social strictures of language in the public schools. So, I can still use colorful language at home, but if the principal calls with a report that Harper is swearing like a sailor at least I have a game plan, something I can tell the administration that makes me feel like a responsible parent.

Other "adult" concepts have followed - adult drinks, adult conversations, adult time, adult jokes (mostly because irony is so difficult to explain to a six-year-old.) The "adult" concept is so much a part of our lexicon that I hardly even think about it; we just make the correction and move on. It's really helpful. The first time Harp said, 'that's fuckin' funny" at the dinner table, I said, "right back at ya young one," enforced the "adult word" rule and continued eating my dinner. Harper is steeped in the "adult" concept, but Rose, well, you can see for yourself.

She was sitting across from me at lunch the other day talking/singing/humming to no one in particular when I heard her say:

"Fuck yeah"

My head jerked up but she was still looking down. And as if her own shocking language surprised herself, she continued:

"Oooooooh. That's bad. You shouldn't say that. That's an adult word, Rosie Margaret."

Done reprimanding herself, she ate a piece of apple and carried on.

Later that same day, I had a precipitous dip in my mood. There were tears, blah blah, same deal - same brain mystery. Rose was sitting next to me on the couch as I channel surfed between crying jags. She scooted nearer and nearer to me. She looked up at me and said,

"Are you sad, Mama?"
"Yeah, I'm a little sad today hon, but I'm okay."
"I could get you an ice pack or sumfing."(maybe brain numbing wouldn't be so bad)
"Oh, that so nice sweet girl," I answered, "but I'm okay."
"I could get you some medicine or sumfing."(maybe a little Xanax?)
"Oh, hon, I don't need any medicine. But thanks."
"I could get you an adult drink or sumfing."

The girl really picks up on way more than I give her credit for. I took the drink......... and a well deserved lesson on the developing intellect of my two-year-old.

My Heroes

Yesterday, I was shockingly tired. It took me the better part of the day and into the evening to realize that I was impatient and droopy because I'd accidentally eschewed caffeine in the morning. I only mention my lack of mental acuity because I went to bed at 8:30, read for awhile, then turned out the light. I was having trouble drifting off to meaningful slumber because my rock star of a two-year-old is still keeping her rock star hours - napping in the afternoon but then refusing sleep until after ten. She goes to bed at eight with her sister, but reads, turns on light, sings and generally occupies herself and bothers the rest of her family for two hours before she'll commit to sleep.

And as it turns out, lucky for us. I hear Chris in the bathroom around 9:30, brushing his teeth and in between slurps threatening Rose with desperate consequences if she leaves the room or turns on the light again. He brings down the hammer, demands acknowledgment of said consequences, namely losing Kitty, then everything is silent. All the while Harper sleeps on.

It was in this newly found peace that Chris comes to bed, gets his clothes together for the morning, and listens to me moan and groan as I'm now in my second hour of interrupted dozing. Then, he shuts the door and....the door handle comes off in his hand. "Shit,", I hear him say across the dark room. The door handle has been coming off a bit lately, so I'm not alarmed, hoping against hope that this event, like so many others in the evening, will be a short interruption followed by more sleep. Wrong. Chris can't reattach, and he can't open the door. The reality of the situation hits us; we are stuck in our second floor bedroom (wishing I'd bought that fire ladder now), our only tool a pair of tweezers, our only hope a boogery two-year-old who's just been told that if she leaves her bed, her room......her consequences would be dire. Nice.

So we yell out to her.


"Rosie? Rosie, can you come here? Rose? No really Rosie, you can get up now. Mom and Dad are in trouble. We need your help."

I could just see her sitting in her bed, in disbelief. "Maybe a trick," she muses, "Something to test my resolve? Ah, cunning parents, I shall not answer. They test me.....artfully. I was told that silence was my only path this evening, the path to sleep, to righteousness, to maintain rights to Kitty, the yin to my yang, the love of my life and the key to my security day and night. I shall hold to the path."

Five minutes of coaxing later, we convince her to come and try the door. The handle remains intact on their side, our only hope of escape before dismantling the door with our teeth or yelling from our window for a friendly neighbor to call 911. She tries the door again and again, to no avail. "It's weally, weally hard. I can't do it", she repeats again and again. So, Chris and I think again.

"Rose, can you please go wake up Sissy? We need you to go wake up your sister, okay?"

"Okay," she answers doubtfully. Waking up her sister is yet another verboden activity abandoned as her parents yell from the other side of a curiously closed door. So she ambles to their room or it sounds like ambling - I can't see her. A few beats of silence then, "Sissy, wake up now." Nothing. Chris and I are laughing, uncertainty tinging the appreciation of our charming young rescuer and the ridiculouslessness of our situation.

"Rosie, are you on the bed? Get up on the bed and tell her to wake up."

"Okay," doubtfully again. Another few beats of silence. "Sissy, please wake up now. She's still sleeping," she yells back to us.

"Keep trying Rose, keep trying to wake her up. Rosie, are you still trying?"

"I'm still trying. She's still sleeping."

I've never tried to wake Harper up in the middle of her night. I read a study once where they tested smoke alarms on kids and between the ages of five and fifteen, the kids don't even roll over. Their brains are so tired, so focused on recovering and rebuilding from a day's worth of learning, that they can't even hear a siren two feet from their ears. These thoughts are bouncing around in my brain as I listen to Rose's best efforts at waking her immovable sibling. We sit, restless, strategizing about what to do, how to move the sleeping mountain so that we might have a chance of opening the door with six-year-old strength - our last, best hope.

"Tickle her, Rosie."
"Jump on the bed, Rosie."
"Rose, jump on her."

Seriously, we tried everything. I thought about dumping water on her head, then dismissed the idea. If she were this tired, this out of it, Rosie might drown her before she woke up. Ten minutes later, after jumping, ticking, slapping, yelling in her face, the beauty finally woke up. We all yelled in relief, Rose especially. Harper came to the door, eyes half-mast, and opened it with little effort. I scooped her up and declared them both heroes of the night. We laughed, we rejoiced, we regaled Harper with all they things that Rose had done to her over the past ten minutes, none of which she believed. Then, within minutes, we were all fast asleep, even Rose, who, no doubt, will interpret this latest experience as just and proper evidence for keeping her late hours. And really who am I to say? We might be stuck in the bedroom still if our little firefighter were a better sleeper or more compliant. Chris and I have never had to call on the girls to help us before, not in any meaningful or necessary way, but it's nice to know that even at two and six, they have considerable gifts in a tight squeeze, even when it's late, we're tired and everything seems "weally, weally hard."

Genetically Predisposed to Worry

The last few days have been interesting. They've gone something like this:

Thursday, April 23: Harper calls me from school, doesn't leave a message. I try to reach school, unsuccessfully, so I make the trip whereupon I discover Harper has been kicked in the face by an erstwhile monkey bars pal. She's bleeding mildly, fat-lipped but has an ice pack in place. She's alright. Later that day, she loses one of her big front teeth, only a few days prematurely, helped no doubt by stopping some one's foot with her peach of a face.

Friday, April 24: Harper calls me from school, doesn't leave a message. I try to reach school, unsuccessfully, so I make the trip, whereupon I find Harp looking green, stomach ailing, with a slight fever. We go home.

Monday, April 27: Harp's teacher calls me. Harper has run full speed into the play structure. She has a bump; she's dizzy, she doesn't want to attend chorus after school. To school I go, Rosie in tow, and think it's probably just a little bump. Harp's wearing a hat. I talk to her teacher, lift her hat and discover that my girl looks more like a Klingon than the person I left earlier that morning.

Tuesday, April 28: I go to yoga - apparently I just shouldn't leave the house. I return to two messages, one from school, one from Chris informing me that Harp fell off the monkey bars, and is in the ER getting x-rays for a broken arm. Just a sprain, as it turns out.

WTF? By the time Chris and Harp returned home, I was near hysterics - as hysterical as I get. You probably wouldn't know it to look at me, but the brain is buzzing, the nerves all a tingle. I took one bite of the lunch that Chris had thoughtfully brought home for the three of us and my stomach lurched in protest. I was so worried, so clenchy waiting for them to come home - so I could make sure that my peach of a person was intact - that I'd created some science experiment in my belly. Days of getting calls, running to school, ice packs, concern, Klingon heads, which have now turned faintly into little black/grey eyes, trips to the ER, a sling, and enough ibuprofen to sedate a small farm animal, have made my insides all squirrely.

And then I face the truth again, which is this; I'm a worrier - a bad ass feisty, clenchy worrier, from a long, distinguished line of worriers. When I was a kid, my mom always jumped to conclusions about my health. Skin sensitivity = shingles, sore throat=strep throat, skin irritation = poison oak. My grandmother was convinced that if she wrung her hands together hard enough, she could prevent accidents; if she armed her daughter and grandchildren with enough information, imparted enough of her worry, absolutely nothing unexpected would happen to us. And so here I am - a descendant of caring, nut-nut, worriers.

I have no problem dwelling on the thousand and one things that can happen to my peeps, all the accidents waiting for them. Sometimes at night, my mind turns to thoughts of car accidents, falls, violent outcomes to everyday movement and transport. And then I flinch, remember my genetic and nurtured proclivity for the macabre and travel to my happy place. Most times, it works. Sometimes, not so much.

I'm not sure what forces conspired to test Harp's skeletal integrity this past week; I'm just glad she's okay, even if I'm ready to find some black clothes, some pals and a blow torch to dismantle the monkey bars in the dead of night. But then I think...maybe the monkey bars are really just a test, just preparation for the day she gets into the driver's seat of a car, cranks the tunes and drives off laughing with her friends. If the monkey bars can keep me off my lunch now, I'm probably looking at a support group, deep breathing and likely some Xanax for the teen days to come. We'll see.