Mother of the Year

Tonight I made Bagel Bites for my Bear for dinner.  You’ve seen these things, haven’t you?  They’re essentially tiny pizza bagels.  They’re sold and stored frozen; you can cook them in the oven, toaster or microwave.  They’re chock full of nutrients (not), so an ideal dinner for a growing boy (again, not).

Prior to being cooked, the cheese on top of the bagel bites looks like solid little white squares.  As you can see from the photo below, many of the little square cheese bits on the Bagel Bites don’t actually melt flat but remain in various states of square-dom post-heating.

Mmm... such organic, healthy goodness. 

Now that you have the low-down on Bagel Bites, I can proceed with the telling of tonight’s tale.  We were sitting at the dinner table – Bear eating his Bagel Bites, Ballerina and my husband and I eating pasta – when Bear’s little hand suddenly hovered in front of my face. His 6-year-old fingers held what looked like a tiny mass of two or three somewhat unmelted cheese bits.

“Mom,” he said, “is this a tooth? Did I just lose a tooth?”

“Um…,” I stalled, trying to sort out the right response. “Have you had a loose tooth this week?”

“No,” stated Bear.

Full of confidence, I replied, with conviction, “Then no, it’s not a tooth. No worries. Just eat it.”

Bear looked at me with the slightest hint of doubt, but he dutifully put the little blob back in his mouth and crunched down.  He looked at me as he ground down this little bite and swallowed it.  Then dinner continued as usual, and all was forgotten.  Until…

At bedtime, I went to Bear’s room to have our usual little pre-sleep chat.  He was on the ground playing with a few Lego Star Wars figures, so I laid down on the ground near him and propped up my head in my hands, getting comfy for our good night ritual. Something I said to Bear made him smile, and that’s when I noticed this:

See the gap just to the left of Bear’s front tooth?  Yeah, um, that’s what I saw. As it happens, that gap is brand new. Fresh. Wasn’t there earlier today, if you get what I’m saying. And if you don’t, let me spell it out for you.

1. Tonight, I fed my child a really poor excuse of a dinner.
2. During this poor excuse of a dinner, I made my child eat the tiny tooth he lost during said poor excuse of a dinner.

Fortunately, Bear finds this immensely funny. He also realized, after he finished laughing at me, that the opposite tiny tooth is loose, which excites him to no end. Of course, Bear was relieved to hear that the Tooth Fairy magically is aware that he lost a tooth - even though we have no actual tooth to show for it - and will be bringing him some nice pocket change.

And the best part is that all of this gloriousness happened on Mother’s Day. 

Being Everything.

A few weeks ago, my little Ballerina’s preschool teacher asked that we parents bring in baby photos of our kids. We were curious why, of course, but we are typical preschool parents; we don’t question random requests of this nature, we just comply.

As it turns out, the baby pictures were used for a sort of look-backward-look-forward project. The teacher taped the baby photos up on the wall next to the kids’ statements of what they want to do or be when they grow up.  Here’s Ballerina’s photo and statement:

I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING!

 I wish I could tell you that this came as a surprise. Nope. I just nodded. So did one of her teachers.

Here is a list of the various things Ballerina has stated, or otherwise indicated during her brief-thus-far but very noticeable life, that she wants to do or be: 

• Olympic swimmer (I have explained to her that it would be helpful to learn how to swim without floaties first, something we’ve been trying to get her to do for years)

• Olympic diver (Her practice involves jumping off the couch in various ways or standing on the floor, spinning and falling down)
• Singer
• Chef

• Teacher
• Farmer

• Storyteller
• Archeologist

• Dancer (Although given the choice between dance class and karate class, she chose karate class)
• Artist
• Jedi knight

• Pole dancer (My response, to my husband: “Honey! We won’t have to pay for college!”)
• Counselor
• Soccer Goalie

• Daycare provider/babysitter
• Lawyer
• Karate champ

• Cheerleader (She is convinced that yelling “U-S-A! U-S-A!” at the television is helping our Olympic athletes win.)
• Comedienne

Interestingly, even though she gravitates toward younger children like blonde dog hair to a dark suit – to the point where other daycare moms constantly tell me how sweetly Ballerina cares for their small kids, holding their hands, reading to them, generally being overbearing – the one thing that Ballerina does not want to be… is a Mom.

This surprises me. A lot. But it's the truth. Ballerina often asks me if she will be required to bear children someday. When I tell her that she can choose to have children or not to have children, it’s entirely up to her, she unerringly says, “Mommy, I don’t want to have my own children. I love kids a lot, but I don’t want to be a Mom. Is that okay?”  Of course, I tell her that it is just fine.

And you know what? It is just fine.  Sure, if this is the path she takes when she grows up, part of me will ache that I won’t get to see the amazing little people she would create and nurture. She has such a way with children already, and such a clear love for them.  But I also know that if she doesn’t want children of her own, then she shouldn’t have them to make someone else happy, even if that someone is her long-suffering Mama. She needs to live the life she envisions. 

It’s her life, after all, and she wants “to do everything.” And I couldn’t be more proud. She has this giant life in front of her. It’s still the beginning of the beginning for my Ballerina. She isn’t trying to find some niche to fill yet, some place to fit in. My bright, perceptive girl already has a sense of her true self, and I hope she clings to it fiercely. She so clearly recognizes the enormity of the world and all of its potential, and she wants to grab hold of it and make it her own. She wants to experience… everything.

That’s my girl.