A Conversation With My Four Year Old

"I'm a big boy."

"You're a big girl."

"No! Today I want to be a boy. I can be a girl again tomorrow. Is that okay, Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetheart. That's perfectly okay."

Sometimes There is No Compelling Reason Why

Alternate Title: Why I am a Terrible Mother

Arabis: Mommy, want cookies for breakfast!

Me: No, sweetie. Cookies are not for breakfast. Would you like an egg and toast (her favorite)?

Arabis: No, thank you. Want cookies!

Me: No cookies for breakfast. Maybe we can have a cookie for dessert. How about a bowl of cereal and some strawberries?

Arabis: No! Want cookies and a glass of milk. PLEEEEEEASE?

Me: Sorry, ducks. No cookies for breakfast.

Arabis: Why?

And you know what? Damned if I couldn't think of one reason why. So we had cookies and milk for breakfast (for those wondering, they were Trader Joe's Shortbread cookies with fruit filing and chocolate filling. At least there were no crappy preservatives).

They were really good, too!

Ramblings on Motherhood Written by a Brain of Little Sleep

I am spent. Utterly exhausted. While talking with Surrey after teaching our last class yesterday, I realized that in this one weekend I have spoken and interacted with more people than I have the entire year. It is a little overwhelming, but my brain is starved for the intellectual stimulation.

I love being my daughter's mother, but there are so many identity issues around becoming one. The transition into motherhood causes one to explore and question identity. Especially if, like me, you come to it unexpectedly and rather late in life.

I have done so many things with my life, worn so many monikers, swirled them about me like Salome's veils and shed them when they were no longer apt or when I could no longer support their weight. Artist, writer, actor, dancer, fight choreographer, educator, athlete, director...and now mother. In some ways, each built on the other, skill enhancing skill, art strengthening art. And because I've had such a full life already, in a simpler world it would seem the transition to motherhood would build on all the others.

If you buy that, I've also got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

These last three years have been a struggle and internal chaos in the presence of the most immense love and perfection I have ever known. The conflict is intense. Arabis is my joy. I had almost given up on ever having a child. It certainly was no longer in my mind after my divorce. And the moment I felt her growing inside me, I felt the fiercest and strongest emotions I will ever know. But she grew in the midst of so much turmoil, my own brain having long been known as my own worst enemy.

When I held my daughter for the first time, whispered her secret name in her ear and spoke to her softly in Armenian, being a mother was enough. There was nothing else.

It is who I am: Arabis' mother, but it is not ALL that I am. All that came before, all that I have done, all the people I have loved that make me who I am contribute to it. I am mother and so much more.

But when all your time is spent with a small child, the rest can fade to the background and seem like another world. There is a mourning for the past as well as a joy in the present and I wonder that more women don't speak of this for fear of seeming unloving or ungrateful of just purely unnatural.

I remind myself daily that she is only small once and that this time is so precious and so fleeting. Watching her and learning the world anew through her is a joy like nothing I have ever experienced. But I feel my life on hold, while I give her as much of me as I can, *while* I can, to help her walk strong and confident in the world.

I am finding myself anew while she is discovering who she is. Perhaps it is a parallel process. The thing I am learning not to do, trying not do, and it is the hardest for me, is mourn the past, mourn who I was. Pregnancy wrecked havoc on my body and I have still not recovered. I still carry much of the baby weight, exacerbating my old dance injuries. I will never be the athlete I was before.

A chrysalis phase? Metamorphosis. As long as I don't end up a cockroach at the end of the journey, I think I'm doing okay.

The State of the Brain

Yesterday I was making lunch for Monkey Boi (my not-a-step-son who is here for the summer) and Arabis. Grilled cheese sandwiches with fruit was the order of the day. I made Arabis' first so it had time to cool a bit, carefully trimmed the crusts and cut it into four pieces. No problem.

Next comes the sandwich for Monkey Boi, which I grilled to a lovely tan color and set proudly on the table, retreating back into the kitchen area to make my own.

From the table I hear his tentative voice, "Um...do you know there is no cheese in this sandwich?"

That's right, folks. I forgot to put the cheese in his grilled cheese sandwich.

He was very good-natured about it and ate the toasted bread while I made him a new sandwich, and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

I think I need a vacation. Calgon couldn't even begin to take me far enough away!

Alert the Media (Now WIth Unplanned Musings on Motherhood)

I'm showered. I'm dressed. I'm actually feeling like I can impersonate a human being today. Which is a damned good thing because if I don't get Arabis out of the house and into a park to run around chaos is going come raining down about my ears (not that it hasn't already, but I've learned the hard way not to say "it can't get any worse").

I haven't left the house since Saturday.

Kelly and Galen were supposed to come over and hang out yesterday and I could've actually used the company. But such is the life with kids. If anyone is sick, all bets are off. So I struggled to stay awake and keep Arabis mildly entertained. Her new favorite thing is jumping. She'll pull all the cushions off the tapestry sofa (we have two) and jump like a mad thing, all the while proclaiming her activity. "Jump, jump jump!"

She's very into tools right now. Screwdrivers, hammers. my five foot level: nothing is safe. She's running around right now with a two foot piece of white PVC pipe. It has been alternately a spyglass, a straw, a trumpet and a cane. I'm noticing her indulging in more pretend play now, too. She was playing with her Duplo blocks with Daddy on Sunday and they built a little ladder with them. She took one of her little Duplo men and made him climb the blocks, calling him Pingu. She's also taken to calling one of her little bears Ojo, a character from Bear in the Big Blue House.

Bubbles are also high on the list of can't-live-without. As are balls of any shape and size.

The language is there, but slow. She understands perfectly, but just seems to choose her own words carefully. Sometimes she'll chatter on for ages and we have no idea what she is saying. I think she's speaking Tibetan. My mother points out that I never did that and I once again point out to my mother that Arabis is not me.

I've noticed some interactions between my mother and daughter recently that have gotten me thinking about my own reactions to things and how I approach the world. Arabis has been very vocal about her desire to not wear pants. This will extend to diapers as well (we're actually using pull-ups now, since Mojo brought them home once and she refuses to go back).

One Monday night I was attempting to get Arabis in her pajamas post bath and my mother was standing nearby "helping." Arabis was upset for some reason and didn't want to put on her pull-up. My mother began challenging her and antagonizing her in an effort to get her to cooperate, "I bet you can't do it yourself, can you?" I got really upset and asked my mother to just go sit down and let me deal with it. So Arabis and I sang the Pajama Song and all progressed smoothly.

But it got me thinking. My ex-husband used to say that the only way he could get me to do anything was to piss me off. If I would get angry enough I would do it just to show him. It's true, actually and I always wondered where it came from, only to have it illustrated blatantly to me. It was my mother, challenging me to do things as a toddler and a baby, the same way she was challenging my daughter.

I got very angry with her. This revelation came in a split second, watching that interaction and her own with me throughout my life, it all came flooding over me. My mother is not a mean woman. On the contrary, she is a very supportive and loving person.

It got me thinking about how our actions when our children are small have repercussions that echo through time. How we can never know what little thing we do can shape someone later in life. It's overwhelming to think about, really. Because it's inevitable. We can only try to be the best people we can be, to model our behaviour and make our interactions as true and compassionate as possible.