A bigger girl

Dear Sophie,

You have been helping me with food preparation and cooking more and more in recent months, and it's something you absolutely adore.  (I do, too, although admittedly a glass of wine really helps me worry less about messes and spills.)  I most often let you help with adding ingredients, stirring mixes, and decorating baked goods.  You've asked on a few occasions to be able to use the knife, and I always tell you that I will let you use it to cut when you are a bigger girl.

Over the weekend, we went to the 4th birthday party of my friend Kelly's son, Ryan.  You dearly love that family and were thrilled to be able to visit them.  Everyone exclaimed repeatedly about how big you'd gotten since you last visited--and it's true.  Your father freaks out on a regular basis now:  "She's a different girl all together," he marveled just last night.  "She's taller.  She talks so much more.  She's funny and smart."

This is not news to me, but I love watching the process.

On Sunday morning, you and I sat at the dining room table.  I prepared a pot roast for the crock pot while you peeled and sniffed cloves of garlic and stole bits of onion from my cutting board to snack on.  Then we turned our attention to prepping chunks of fresh fruit for the freezer ahead of the mock "ice cream" we were going to make in the food processor later in the evening.  When I handed you your kid-sized butter knife and told you that you could help me slice the bananas, you were over the moon.

"Sophia getting so much bigger!"  You reminded me.  Yes, baby.  So much bigger.  It is both amazing and heartbreaking all at once.

I helped you practice holding the banana still with your left hand while slicing with your right.  You were so earnest in your efforts, and you beamed with pride when I praised the job you had done after we cut up four ripe bananas.  The rest of the evening your periodically reminded me:  "Sophia did good job cutting bananas with knife."

 

My whole life story on the back of his big brown eyes

This evening you dried my tears.

It has been a hard week, and I collapsed on the couch with fatigue and frustration. I couldn't help it. At first the tears welled up in my eyes in big hot pools, and then once they started to fall I couldn't control them and began to cry in earnest. 

You have been constipated and had asked for a diaper so you could squat under the end table and PUSH while you played with your toys. When you realized I was crying you popped up and came running over.

Patting my arm you said soothingly, "It's okay, mama. You don't need to cry, mama." You searched my face with concern written all over yours. "Sophia dry up the tears of mama," you suggested. I smiled.

"You want to dry my tears? Want me to get you a tissue?" I reached for the box on the table.

You clutched the tissue in your little hand and clumsily but earnestly blotted my cheeks and eyes.  It was the most simple, loving gesture. I hugged and kissed you.  "Thank you, baby," I whispered into the hair at your temple. "You're my best."

Peepee in the potty

I have been so nervous for so long about potty training you.

I was so scared you'd feel pressured or something and end up with a weird complex about pooping.

Right around your 2nd birthday I got you a potty and a potty seat.  You loved your potty, but you would correct me when I referred to it that way.  "Chair," you would clarify, as you sat down on it fully clothed to play or watch cartoons.  I didn't stress about it, though, figuring that as long as you were interacting with it and getting accustomed to it that it was a good thing.

Sometimes you would agree to sit on it without a diaper for me, but you were visibly uncomfortable.  "Off," you would demand at first, and then in later months, "Sophia get up?"

You loved the little underpants I got you, but preferred to adorn your head and arms with them.  When I persuaded you to try them on without your diaper, you paused thoughtfully, frowned, and demanded, "Off."

Your interest in the whole affair ebbed and flowed.  Two evenings ago (11/19/14, to be exact!) I was helping you put on moisturizer and pajamas after you bath.  We sat on my bed and suddenly you looked at me and said, "Poop in the bed."  I asked you if you wanted to poop in the potty and--to my surprise--you said you did.  So we promptly got out the potty seat and you sat for about 30 seconds and all of a sudden you were peeing.

I was so excited, I almost lost my balance where I was perching on the edge of the bathtub.  I tried to keep my glee in check so that I didn't scare you midstream and ruin everything forever. I explained how to use the toilet paper and let you flush the toilet.  (You loved that part.)  Then I allowed myself to hug you and cry joyfully, "Sophie!  You peed in the potty!"  You grinned.  I called down the stairs to your father:  "Sophie peed in the potty!"

After you were dressed I made a big deal of giving you the My Little Pony charm necklace I had been saving for this very occasion since July. We called your mamaw and shared the news with her.  Your exact words to her over the phone were:  "Sophia necklace peed in da potty!"

This morning your teacher emailed to tell me you peed in the potty at school, too.

I didn't expect you to be 2 years and 8 months old before we made so much progress, but I will take it and I will not complain.  I'm not in a hurry for you to get any bigger.  Once you're potty-trained, you can just stay this age for quite awhile.

Baby Not Nice

You have a little infant doll that goes with your Loving Family dollhouse that you have designated "Baby Not Nice." While all the other dolls are contentedly eating around the dinner table or preparing for a camping trip with a herd of My Little Ponies, Baby Not Nice jumps on top of their heads, kicks food off their plates, and pushes them out of the camper. I'll ask, "Sophie, what are you doing?" and you explain, "Baby not nice!" I think the baby is your id.

My Room 101 fear

A friend once told me a story about how her father would prepare she and her younger sister for someone with a weapon to attack them unexpectedly.  While sitting in a restaurant waiting for their order to arrive, he might say to them, "A man with a gun busts in through the front door of this restaurant.  What do you do?  Go!" She had an odd childhood, but she became adept at quickly spotting the closest exits and locating objects in her vicinity that could be used as makeshift weapons.

There's a great deal of evidence that mentally rehearsing the details of the way you want something to happen greatly increases the likelihood of the desired outcome.  And I find myself doing this.

Every parent I've ever talked to knows the fear.  THAT fear.  You can take away anything and everyone else, lord, but don't take my baby.  I can't be in a world in which she is not.  I thought I was the only one whose thoughts and worries about it bordered on psychotic at times, but another friend recently admitted she was terrified to drive her daughter anywhere in the car because ..."what if I crash the car and hurt her?  I worry so much that it makes me physically ill sometimes."

One of the things I fear the most is kidnapping.  I am terrified of it in every single nook and cranny of the world--even in my own house.  Someone could take you right out of your bedroom!  We can be at the playground and you run off and play on the other side of a mammoth wooden play structure with 100 differ places to climb and hide.  We can be at the library and you walk around to the other side of the bookshelf that I am on. 

My first thought:  I can't see her.

My second thought:  It's okay.  She's just over there.  Safe.

My third thought:  Some pervert could be just on the other side of a bookshelf waiting for a chance.  He might have been hanging around for hours.  But if he succeeds just once it's worth it to him.

My fourth thought:  This is the children's section of the Morgantown Public Library fer chrissakes.  She's probably okay to wander around it for at least a couple of minutes.

I might position myself strategically between the two exits of the fenced-in playground and feel assured for a moment while you're playing out of sight.  But just a heartbeat too long and I have to find you.  I physically have to.  I am incapable of letting down my guard.  The moment I do, the worst will happen.  I just know it.

Maybe I am overly protective; I honestly can't tell.  What I do know is this:  An old man tried to lure me into the trunk of his car once at Teter Lake while my stepdad was fishing.  I hid inside a pine tree and watched him until he finally gave up and left.  Even then I knew what men did to little girls; this was not my first rodeo.

That was around 1984.  Things in 2014 are exponentially more fucked up.  So I cope with my anxiety by mentally rehearsing.  Kidnapping is what I practice for the most.

I remind myself of what my priorities should be across any potential setting:  get license plate number; note physical description of suspect(s)--god forbid there's more than one; have current picture of Sophie immediately ready to show to anyone who will look at it; remember exactly what she's wearing--what kind of Band-Aids is she wearing today?  Was that scrape on her left knee or right? Sometimes I mentally freeze the scenario in my mind and study all the people in my mental image's vicinity.  What did they witness? 

Once police action is under way, Who should I call first?  Her father, of course.  I remember that I can never remember his cell phone number.  I can recall the phone numbers of my 1st and 2nd grade boyfriends, but I cannot remember my partner's (the father of my child) phone number.  Then call my mom and dad.  Does my mom have my dad's phone number?  I have to be sure she does.  That way I only have to make one call.  Then they will let everyone else know.  I have to practice it all in my head to increase my confidence of actually being able to react quickly and rationally if the real situation were to come true.  There aren't very many days when I don't think about it at least a little.

Yesterday evening in my hometown--40 miles away and in a town with less crime than my current one--two young men were spotted in multiple places trying to lure little girls to their car.  I practice how I will teach you to protect yourself.  Maybe it would be a good idea to test you--get a friend who is unknown to you try to pick you up.  Maybe around age 6 or 7?  I can't tell if that's totally messed up or not. I don't want you to be fearful and timid in the world; just savvy and alert.  If the ability to spot a sticker of any kind from a mile away is any indication, you don't miss much. 

Worrying about protecting you has become an outlet for my previously free-floating hypervigilance.  I always think that when you are a little older I will worry less.  But I know that's not true.  I may worry about a different variety of things, but the worries themselves will only wear ruts deeper into my psyche.  It is a constant effort to keep them in check.

The first of many

Your teacher Amanda informed me recently that you have a boyfriend, and I was startled.

The conversation came about when I asked her, "Who is Emmett?" because every day when I pick you up and strap you in your car seat, you chatter through a list of goodbyes to your favorite people.  Recently added was, "Bye bye, Emmett!"

She told me the two of you like to stand in the middle of the room and hug each other and to play dress up together and both wear dresses.  He is also apparently an enthusiastic hokey-pokier like you are, and caused you a minor injury when he fell on you during a particularly interactive version the two of you came up with.  I had to admit, he sounded like your kind of man.

Soon after my conversation with Miss Amanda, I dropped you off at daycare and found the reception you got to be so sweet.  Your best friend, Madison, immediately joined your side.  She had on pink cowgirl boots and was carrying an oversized Minnie Mouse shopping bag.  Emmett spotted you and ran up to hug you.  Then the three of you trotted over to the corner of the room with all the dress up costume trunks.  I guess Madison and Emmett are, like, your homies.  You're the three little class theater geeks together.  I'm pretty sure I didn't have a posse at that age.

Things seemed nice for a few days--I even got to meet Emmett's dad and hear how much Emmett talked about YOU--but of late there has been trouble in paradise.  You and Emmett may have broken up.

Two mornings ago you ran up to hug him when you arrived at daycare, and his reception was lukewarm.  By the end of the day when I picked you up, he had his arm around another girl.  He gazed at us solemnly as we prepared to leave.  I found myself surprisingly defensive of you.  Of you in your first relationship with another toddler.  I want to tell him to stay home with his mama, cause you're too good for him and you'll find another hokey pokey partner.



  Sophie and her boyfriend Emmett may have broken up. Yesterday she ran to hug him good morning like normal, and his reception was lukewarm. By yesterday evening when I picked her up, he had his arm around another girl and gazed at us solemnly as we prepared to leave. This morning when I saw him I felt grumpy: She's too good for you anyway, punk!

My expressive girl

Yesterday evening you were mad at me because I wouldn't let you play in "turtle box."  (Your name for your green turtle sandbox.)  Dinner was almost ready and you were in a ballet outfit with a tutu.

As it turns out, two year-olds don't like detailed explanations for why they can't have something they really want.