For as much as I want to stick pins in my eyes at another toy, game, movie, person, place or thing involving princesses and dress up (I believe you would call my condition “overload”), I couldn’t resist these two charmers the other day.
And yes, that is a Batman cape Morgan is rocking. A crime fighting princess? I can get with that.
So, Morgan lost her first tooth last week. As luck would have it, the little tooth next door is planning to make its exit any day now. At first, the second wiggler didn’t look like it had any wishes to vacate the premises as it was holding firmly to the gums. A few days later, however, things looked decidedly different. I wouldn’t say it was hanging by a thread, but I kept seeing it swirl away down the bathroom sink after a vigorus brushing.
Morgan has been doing tree climbing camp this week with Riverside Outfitters. Over the last few days, she’s been outside, climbing, identifying trees, zip lining and tomorrow, they’re going kayaking in the James River. How cool, right? As a precaution, I packed a little Ziploc baggie with her name on it in case the aforementioned tooth decides, “Hey, this particular copse of deciduous trees is an ideal spot for me take my leave,” (insert groan here). Thankfully, when I picked her up today, she still had her tooth.
This afternoon, Morgan was feeling particularly adventurous and was more than willing to let me try my hand at plucking out the tooth. I am SO excited that she is losing teeth. I made a special trip to the bank and got some Sacajawea dollars to leave instead of just some ol’ dog-eared G.W.’s. I think this is another way in which she is growing up, something so obvious and visual. I mean, seeing her learn to read, learn to swim, posing questions like, “What are sanitary napkins and why shouldn’t I flush them down the toilet” when we are in a public bathroom — I mean, those are fleeting instances. The loss of teeth and the resulting gap, the absence of something from infancy making way for something of her adulthood; it is just so poignant.
Another mother and I were talking the other day about the whole Tooth Fairy racket and so on. This mother went on to say how she was afraid her daughter, whose tooth was dangling by a thread, would swallow the tooth in her sleep. She didn’t want to scare her little girl by saying as much and so she suggested that they work together to extract the tooth before the girl went to sleep. Basically, she reached in, gave it a yank and *poink!* (or some other sound effect), out it came. The major take away for me from that story, though, was how the mother said, repeatedly, “I had to earn her trust.”
I think we take for granted that our kids trust us. Of course they do,” we think, “We’re their parents!” But again, I think about how the loss of teeth, the growing up that comes with it, also reminds us that our kids are growing up more than just physically, right before our eyes. We’re asking them to trust us with their minds, bodies, spirits. The total package is just as precious as when it was first delivered into our waiting arms as it is now. I think we owe it to our kids to ask them to trust us, not just assume that they blindly will and do.
So, tonight at dinner, just as I’ve done at every meal, I asked Morgan about her tooth. “Tooth-watch” we’ve been calling it. “Still there,” she tells me, giving it a jiggle. “You just have to be patient, Mommy.” Talk about the student becoming the teacher. And since I’m not impatient and more giddy about the Tooth Fairy coming, giddy still to see my Morga-lou grow up right in front of my eyes, I offer to tie a piece of string to the tooth and the other end to a doorknob and see where that gets us. But first, I preface the whole thing with, “If you trust me. . .”
Suffice it to say, after several valiant attempts, the tooth is still firmly in her mouth. Not for lack of trying. Morgan dutifully allowed me to tie, re-tie, tie again, and give it another tie until I couldn’t take it anymore.
But patience is a virtue and trust is more easily lost than gained, so we tossed away the thread and had some ice cream sandwiches. I was secretly hoping she’d bite down hard and that tooth would come flying out. Or maybe, while she was brushing her teeth before bed, I’d hear a surprised shriek and the pounding of footsteps on the stairs, “It’s out! It’s out!” Alas, they’re just up there screeching and running around naked like extras from “Lord of the Flies“.
These Sacajawea dollars are burning a hole in my pocket!
I wonder how Morgan would feel about corn-on-the-cob for breakfast.
When we broke the news to the girls that we were leaving Norfolk for Richmond, Morgan was particularly vocal in her reluctance to leave.
She listed all of the reasons she didn’t want to leave Norfolk, why Richmond wouldn’t be any fun, and all possible scenarios that would render her post-kindergarten summer the worst on record. Not easily swayed by the drama she puts forth, seeing as she does so on a regular basis, Craig and I heaped reason after reason why a move would in fact be a good thing.
She wasn’t buying it.
So Craig resorted the one, true trick tool every parent calls upon at one point or another: bribery.
And it worked.
We told the girls that with a move to a new house comes a new room for them to decorate. Ever the skeptic, Morgan asked, “Decorate however we want?”
Within reason, we assured her, but certainly, think of the possibilities. Craig enumerated all the ways they could make their new room their own. He mentioned hanging up the Norfolk Mermaid poster we had framed, putting up canopy beds. Then he pulled out the big gun: a mermaid mural on the wall.
Whoa.
And of course, Morgan heard that and well, it was done deal. For days thereafter, “When are we going to Richmond and when are we getting the mural painted on the wall?” became her constant call.
As we boxed up the Norfolk house day after day, as the movers came and carted stuff onto the truck, she kept reminding Coever, “. . and when we get to Richmond, we’re going to get a mural of mermaids on the wall! I’m so excited!” She’d clench her hands together up under her chin and bounce on her toes in anticipation.
When we rolled up to the new digs, you can imagine what she said. When she and Coever raced up the stairs to their room, you can imagine what she said, immediately followed by, “Well, where is it?”
Thankfully, Craig had been in touch with several artists, trying to obtain the best one for the project. We decided that when the girls spent a week with his parents this summer, we’d get it done while they were gone and it would be ready to surprise them when they came home.
Which is exactly what we did.
One good thing about moving to a place that you used to live is that you can readily call upon a plan B when things don’t go as planned.
Case in point? We went to YMCA on Tuesday morning, where I promised (stupid, thy name is Hilary) the girls that I’d take them swimming after I worked out. We had had a late start that morning and didn’t leave the house until after 10am. Once we got the Y, got our membership cards, got checked into ChildWatch and the like, it was quarter ’til before I hopped on the treadmill. I put in a solid 40 minutes before wringing out my tee-shirt and collecting the girls.
Off to the pool we were headed, the girls skipping down the hallway holding hands. We pull up to the membership desk so I can ask where the family locker room is located and the kindly raisin wrinkled lady says, “Oh, the pool is closed from 11:30 to 12:30 for adult swim.”
I cast my eyes to the clock above her head. 11:27.
Dang it.
The girls go from glee to grimace in about 2 seconds. How was I know that the pool was going to be closed right then? You would have thought I had planned this on purpose. Morgan lit into me with a vitriol usually reserved for avenging a wrongfully dishonored spouse or sibling. That’s what I get for making promises. And no, I wasn’t going to hang around the Y for an hour until it opened up again. I’ve got other things to do.
Dejected and disgusted, the girls harrumphed their way to the car, bitterly complaining about yet another blow of injustice they’d suffered. What to do? What to do? We had a blow up pool at home, but the backyard had year to be cleared of the previous owner’s doggie deposits. Plus, I don’t yet know where the hose is and I think our sprinkler was left at the last house. What to do? What to do?
Of course! Pop jets at Stony Point!
When we lived in Richmond before, Stony Point Fashion Park had a little atrium that had popping water jets. Morgan was too little at the time to really appreciate it, but now, she and Coever both could run, jump, splish and splash. And Mom could read her magazine. Oooh, and Chipotle is right across the way? Yay! Everybody wins!
I recently gave the girls a copy of Shel Silverstein’s “A Light in the Attic“, which was one of my favorite collection of poems as a kid. In second grade, we memorized poem after poem to recite in front of the class. To this day, I see the title of a poem, like “Bear in There” or “Fancy Dive“, and instantly, I’m spitting out stanzas like I’m back in Mrs. Mahoney’s class.
This morning, while I was straightening up, Morgan was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with the book in her lap. In between flipping the pages, she was ticking off a list of things that she wanted to see, places that she wanted to go, and things that she wanted me to buy for her. Currently, tops on the list is a trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop. I told her and Coever that I would take them there for their respective birthdays, hoping that would be the end of it. But of course, that is never the end of that.
“But Mom, I really, really, really, really want to go build my own bear,” Morgan implored. She folded her hands together, bringing them up under her chin and doing her best Puss in Boots eyeball routine. You know, this one. . .
I again reminded her, “For your birthday,” and then told her to go back to reading the book. “Why don’t you read me some poems that we can write about later ?” I suggested. We’ve got a summer reading journal going, but that’s another post for another day. I turned back to the bed where I was putting on some fresh sheets. “How about,” I continued, “you pick out a few poems that you like.”
“Mmmkay,” she said. Flip, flip, flip went the pages. I couldn’t tell if she was looking for a particular poem that she’d read before or if she was just looking at illustrations that caught her eye. Flip, flip, flip. “Got one!” she said and began to read.
