Magically Delicious

You may not know this, but I am a magical being. I wasn't always this gifted, it happened seven years ago this month. As time has gone on, I have become more and more magical, but unfortunately this magic has peaked. In the years to come I will lose most of my powers - most, but not all.

First, there is the basic magic. These are things like sensing an ear infection three days before the fever and knowing if Natalia falls asleep in the car, she won't take a nap at home. This is what I call mommy clairvoyance. This is also how one knows her child is telling a fib. There is that subtle change in facial expression and eye movement that you cannot describe, but your gut tells you she really did use her safety scissors from the craft cubby to cut some of her own hair. This magic is steadfast and God given. It's a keeper.

The other kind of magic is child dependant. Yep, she gives it to me and will take it away, much to my disappointment. This magic is short lived, but oh so powerful. You may not be aware of this, but I am a healer. Not just because I am a nurse, but because I have magic kisses. These are more powerful than ibuprofen and do not even need direct contact with the boo-boo. I can kiss a left hand to help heal the paper cut on the right hand. A kiss to the forehead will help alleviate the pain of a skinned knee. This magic kiss can be combined with a Hello Kitty bandaid and watch out! There is some powerful healing taking place.

Now, I am no American Idol, but my songs will chase away nightmares, smooth over a tough day at school, and lull a restless mind into a peaceful slumber. This magical gift has been put into action even before Natalia's first cry. I am not kidding when I tell you I sing all the time. Seriously. So when I was pregnant with Natalia she was witness to a lot of Christina Aguilera, Beach Boys, and Garbage. When she was six months old and caught a bad case of RSV, I would sing "The Ant Song", which I learned in elementary school, so she wouldn't freak out during the nebulizer treatments. Babies are convinced they are being suffocated when a mask is placed over their face, so she protested quite loudly at first. This song in particular seemed to be the most magical of all for her. She also hated being in her car seat and would cry and cry. Atlanta traffic is horrendous, so you could imagine how peaceful it was to be stuck for at least an hour in gridlock with a screaming baby. "The Ant Song" was the lesser of two evils and worked every time. Even today my very independent and opinionated seven year old gets a song before bed to help her get to sleep. Her world stops spinning if we break that routine.

To Natalia I am an all knowing, all healing magical mommy. She was telling me tonight that my hugs make everything okay. She has a hard time, she says, when she is away from me and something magical-hug-worthy happens and I'm not around. It's a good thing those hugs are retroactive and can fix it when she gets off the school bus or back from Grandma's. If only it would stay this easy.

As she gets older that magic will fade. She will realize that I am human just like her, full of faults and that problems are more complicated than skinned knees and her not getting to be Princess Leia at recess. I know the hugging thing will still carry some "oomph" when it comes to a broken heart or a frustrating day. My mommy clairvoyance tells me that magic will remain intact regardless of her age or my senility.

In the mean time I am going to milk it for all it's worth, because I believe in that magic too. My magic kisses that help heal her wounds help soothe my anxious heart and let me know that I am needed. The hugs that cure her heartaches and ease her fretful mind do the same for mine when I am holding her. I can't begin to count how many times I have held and hugged her when my heart was aching because of a disagreement with Jeremy or a sad day at work. She usually doesn't remember me picking her up in the middle of the night to sit in the mommy chair, but that magic is indeed powerful and helps me go back to sleep. Yes, it totally is a cure for a bad nightmare. I'll tell you what - top that off with a Hello Kitty bandaid and you're set. Abracadabra, shazaam.

Extracurricular ADD

As much as Jeremy and I enjoyed watching Natalia kick butt (or not) in her karate uniform, we have decided to give that up for a while. When I say "we" I guess I really mean "she". Jeremy and I bailed on the karate months ago. She was dragging her feet and said she is too tired after being at school all day. I agree. She really is exhausted after a full day of school, plus homework, plus regaling us with Tales from the First Grade. It's not like Kenpo was an exercise in relaxation techniques. Besides, we can always revisit it later, or not. 

I started thinking about all the things Natalia has tried. In the beginning I thought that we would try stuff until she found her niche, then we could label her. I love to have things neatly categorized - and that includes my child. She doesn't see that necessity, just like she doesn't feel things need to match. That is the Jeremy genetic code coming out in her. I thought by now we would figure out whether she is a ballerina, an artist, a gymnast, a ninja, or an ice skating princess. Nope. Please check the box marked "none of the above". What I do I have? I have a sweet little girl who isn't afraid to try out new things, then move on to something new. We'll label her as "well rounded", since I love those labels.

I have to admit that secretly I am waiting for her to find her inner child prodigy. Maybe by trying out everything she will find the one thing she is passionate about and can totally excel at that. I know in my heart that she won't. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not disappointed. It's just funny to watch her figure things out instead of me figuring them out for her. You will never see me on the sidelines being a "pageant mom", dancing her routine in the audience and blasting her with lipgloss and hairspray. Well, maybe the lipgloss and hairspray, but not dancing in the audience. You get what I mean.

What she is great at is being excited about trying new things and speaking up when they are no longer fun. What is the point of extracurricular stuff if it isn't fun? We do have the rule that once started, she has to stick with it until the session is over. Part of that is a lesson in perseverance, the other part is that mommy and daddy just dished out a hundred dollars to watch you ice skate in a helmet. You owe us five weeks of pictures.


What baffles me is where does she get this from? Just kidding. I already know that answer. I wear a lot of hobby hats too: art, crafts, vacation planner, party planner, fund raiser, ER social activities organizer, pole dancer (it was a very PG rated class, not an occupation), kenpo goddess, runner. None of which I am very good at, but it's fun to try. I want Natalia to have a fun and exciting childhood, even if that means she has extracurricular ADD. I can honestly say that all I really care about is her happiness and enough picture memories to wipe out our computer's motherboard.

Someday

Natalia has this great book Someday by Alison McGhee. It is about a mother's dream for her daughter. I can't get through this book without tearing up, so Natalia hid it from me for a while. I found it in her playroom on her art easel facing the wall. She was pretty adamant about me giving it a rest for a while.  When I found it and put it back into bedtime reading circulation she pointedly told me "You don't have to cry this time, okay mommy" and then patted me on the head. What can I say - I'm a total sap. 

I think about my dreams for her all the time, and those dreams are constantly evolving. She loves to draw and has a pretty good grasp on proportion and color, so I dream of her being an artist. She loves to sing and dance, so I dream about her being the next Gwen Stephani. She tells me that someday she wants to be a mommy just like me and I dream about playing with my grandchildren. Of course in that dream I still look like I'm 30 and she is a grown responsible adult. I'm not in a hurry for those grandkids, I just don't want to get old - but that is a different kind of dream involving Botox and Restylane. 

Sometimes being a nurse and a mother makes the former a little harder. I bear witness to parents who lose the dream for their child. A 17 year old who is a paraplegic,  a 9 year old carried away by the funeral home personnel, a 10 month old who died in her sleep during an afternoon nap. It shakes my soul to watch the parents grieve over their lost dream. Those are the nights when I go home and hold my little dream tightly and thank God for borrowed time. 

Natalia will be turning seven next week. I can't wait to enjoy whatever comes next. Every year has been fun and it just keeps getting better. Natalia is old enough now to read Someday to me. It works out well because I love listening to her sweet voice and I can tear up without choking on the words. It's the girl going away to college that gets me every time. It reads "Someday you will look at this house and wonder how something that feels so big can look so small." That is something that you really can't adequately describe - the sheer volume of love that fills your heart when you have a child.  I will continue to have hopes and dreams for Natalia, all the while keeping them to myself so I can see which path she decides to follow. She will have plenty of opportunities to gently pat me on the head and tell me that I don't have to cry this time. Not that it will change anything because, after all, I'm a total sap.

She's only stubborn when she doesn't do it my way

Natalia has had her own way of doing things since, well, even before she was born. I was around 35 weeks and she was very comfortable with her head nestled under my liver. The doctor said "Oh, she'll turn around. There is still time." I knew better. My gut instinct told me she was going to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to do it. I was right. I spent two weeks practically standing on my very pregnant head trying to coax her into a less surgically friendly position. No dice. When we realized she wasn't moving, we scheduled the C-section. That was another joke. She came a week earlier than we had planned. She needs to do things in her own time. I say that, but I don't always get it.

Potty training was another issue of man vs. Natalia and me trying to nurture control over her nature. You can bring a toddler to the potty, but you can't make her go. I tried everything: Potty in the living room, talking potty (kinda creepy when the batteries were low), stickers, candy..... Forget it. After weeks of stressing and trying to keep up with the competitive mommies I decided to just put her back in diapers and give us both a hiatus. Eventually she came around - in her own time, but with the help of chewing gum rewards.

I will spare you every mommy story I have stored in my heart, but after six years I think I am finally able to pick up on a theme. This week Jeremy and I went to bat for Natalia against her first grade teacher. Nah, it wasn't that dramatic. Her teacher seems like a reasonable and caring person. I still stand by my previous blog, though. I think her heart is in the right place, but her delivery is all wrong. She had a few great ideas to help Natalia when she is feeling overwhelmed. The entire panel agrees that Natalia is really sensitive, and while I don't want her treated with freaky kid gloves, I do want her teacher to be aware. Six is a little young to be so frustrated. I explained to her teacher that Natalia may seem to struggle with some things a bit longer than the other kids, but to give her time. When she finally gets it, she's totally got it. She needs to be guided through her struggles, but champion them on her own.

Right now we have started teaching her to ride a two wheel bike. Jeremy was taught to ride a bike by having someone push him along and to peddle like mad. That makes for a very nostalgic scene on TV, but the reality of that method causes a lot of screaming for little control freaks. My dad tried that with me and I shooed him away. I learned to ride my wonder woman bike in the driveway by myself while singing songs from the movie Grease 2. No, that is not an appropriate children's movie. Natalia has tried to learn both ways and prefers to learn on her own, sans the singing. We hold her a bit and guide her around the corners, but she will get it eventually when she is ready. 

Isn't that the true role of being a parent? We can push our children, stand on our heads, bribe them into action, but that is more us than them. I find that when I am trying to push Natalia to do something it usually has more to do with my insecurities and fears than her accomplishments. The beautiful art of being a parent is to lightly hold on to them, guide them through the tough stuff, and wait for them to champion their struggles in their own time.