Rivendell

Today I took Eliza to Rivendell for a group playdate that is part of the admissions process. I can't believe I've been a mom for nearly 6 years in NYC and found this to be my first personal exposure to the crazy preschool admissions process. With Max, we applied to preschool after they'd already filled their class, but because they were moving to a larger space they had room. He went for his playdate the day we called and it was just a few teachers and me and Max in the classroom looking at snails and getting out the montessori mats. Very relaxing and even kind of fun.

Today, while we were waiting with the other kids and their moms, there was a mom who was combing her child's hair and telling him, "I just know you are going to be great." I got so nervous being in the same room with her that I felt it projecting onto Eliza. We were clinging to each other, as I tried to get her to eat ham since all she'd had at school that morning were donut holes and cupcakes because it was Brett's birthday this week, and she was celebrating. She ended up with so much ham in her mouth that she needed to spit it out and I was fumbling for a tissue in the bathroom keeping one door open so we wouldn't miss the elevator that was coming for the rest of the group. How many years until Eliza is puking in the bathroom before high stakes audition-type situations on her own? Note to self: sign her up for ballet...

Once we got into the room, the other children started to play with the snails, the trains, the phones. Eliza discovers the anatomically correct dolls and begins lovingly fingering a white baby's penis. Linda, the education director looked at her doing this. "Her first anatomically correct dolls." I said. And then because I was like, Hey, if they don't like that she's penis obsessed, she shouldn't go here, I said, "Eliza, who do you know who has a penis?" and Eliza said, "Max!" And I said, "What do you have?" and she said, "A vagina!"

Other than that the playdate was relaxed and mellow though you could sense the mom tension in the room, and as I found when Max went to Rivendell, it's one thing to spend that much money on preschool, but something else to be surrounded by other people who are also doing it.

Also weird to think that Eliza was such a little baby when he started and now she's as old as he was then.

Oh, yeah, I have a daughter

Cleaning: No one in our house is particularly psyched about it, but I've felt alone for a long time as the person who enjoys having it being clean - Rick and Max have just never seemed to care.

Rick sometimes seems to take it farther: For him sometimes, cleaning is an annoying inconvenience to be avoided (OK, he's vaccuuming the kids' room as I write...). My cleaning is often annoying to him - he hates not being able to walk on a wet floor, he considers anything beyond the basic measures as excessive. The closest he gets to gratitude is when I clean for guests before he gets home from work and we then don't have to do it together the night before they arrive.

Max is worse. He screams and yells when something has been put away. He hates the sound of the vaccuum. He spent many years pulling the mop out of my hands.

But today when Max and Eliza were down playing in the basement and Rick was grilling I vaccuumed and mopped the floors. Eliza came up first, by herself and was just thilled. "It smells nice!" she said. And I said, "Yes, I cleaned." She took a deep breath. "Thank you for cleaning Mommy!"

I feel so much less alone.

Do Dancers Talk?

Got an email from Eliza's teacher Brett today that they will be learning a few dance steps from Andre's mom Stephanie who is a dancer. Eliza thought about that for a minute, and asked, "Do dancers talk?" She was thinking about the Nutcracker, because her followup question was, "Does Clara talk?"

But I kind of knew what she meant. Sort of. I was rushing to get her ready to go and so I was like, "Sure, baby girl, they talk. Just not while they're dancing. Get them backstage...."

Fortunately I did have enough pistons firing in my brain to tell Stephanie about Eliza's question when we saw her, and Stephanie gave a much, much better answer. "Dancers talk with their bodies."

And I was like, of course, duh. And then I was thinking about how many different things dancers are able to say, and how like different languages allow us to express different kinds of thoughts, dance is important because it communicates deep, felt, physical things.

How do you explain this to a two year old?

I tried: "Dancers can say, 'I feel sad.'" Then I said, "How do you think you can say 'hi' without talking?" I showed her waving. And then I said, "How do you say I love you without speaking," and I pulled her to me and gave her the kind of kiss Eliza especially loves, lingering, soft, on her cheek which is somehow relaxed and open to it in a special way that she has.

She was kind of melting into my arms at this point, and Stephanie said, "Do you have a place you write these kinds of questions down?" And I was like: Oh, God.

So here it is. This may be all I remember from this past year with Eliza. She's a girl with deep interesting thoughts, but also full of kisses, and loving to be touched and loved.

You forget how the brain is just different

Last night, we watched the fireworks on the roof. Max joined us for the first time (he's tried a couple years running, but has been too sleepy or too scared, or just oblivious, and so it didn't count). He was scared to be up on the roof, but got over his fear of the ladder once he was sitting in my lap on a beach chair eating Rick's homemade mint-chip ice cream.

He kept trying to talk about what exactly fireworks were - were they real? Like Santa Claus? Were they fire? What made them? What made the noise? We were joined for a bit in the beach chair line by Sophie Klimasmith, a ten year old visiting upstairs, who was happy to serve as resident expert to answer Max's questions.

Max: Are fireworks real?
Sohpie: Yes.
Max: Are dinosaurs real?
Sophie: They were real.
Max: But a long time ago, right?
Sophie: Yes.
Max: If the tooth fairy comes to my house I'm going to reach out with both hands and grab her and keep her from flying away.
Me: But what if you want her to bring more money when you lose your next tooth.
Max: I'm going to pull her wings off so she can't fly.
Sophie: But then she won't like you.
Max: Her legs will be too skinny to walk.

Slightly psycho? Or just figuring it all out?

Perry Mason, where are you?

Max has been really pushing the limits in the last week, protesting going to school in the morning, getting dressed, doing things he's asked to, answering direct questions, and shouting and threatening and shouting 4-year-old obscenities at us. Not out of the spectrum for his age and personality, but vexing.

Today, it was the first warm day of spring. Aartie was sick and so Eliza and I went to a playground this morning, and after a very healthy 2 hour nap, I woke her up to get Max and we all headed for the playgound. I ran into Betsy in the hall and she and Ruby said they'd come with us; when we arrived Jason, Zelie and Kestrel were there too. All good, right?

About five minutes into play, someone is screaming. I was scared it was Eliza and so I ran over. It was Zelie, and Max and some other boys were running away from where she was on the arched ladder leading to the equipment. I asked Max what happened and he told me he wasn't involved, though I could hear through Zelie's tears that "Max did it."

After Jason calmed her down, they reported that Zelie was hanging from the ladder and Max peeled her fingers off the ladder. I asked Max again if he wanted to tell me the story, and he again told me he wasn't there, he didn't do it, and that he only knew something was wrong when he heard Zelie crying.

I kind of had to assume that he was lying. But he never admitted it. We left the playground––I told him we would stay if he told me the truth and he held strong.

So, is this time to crack down, and punish him for 1) lying, adn 2) doing something really bad? Or do I let it go, rather than risk punishing him for something he didn't do?

Eliza, post bath, 2-20-08

Eliza: I need a bandaid.
Me: Do you have a booboo?
Eliza: Nooo.

A minute later:
Eliza: Need bandaid?
Me: Where's your booboo?
Eliza: It's hiding.

Train Trip

Max took a train this morning to my mother's. He left at 7:15 with Miriam, Sophie, Rick and my mom, carrying two Richard Scary books, three pullups, blank paper, seven magic markers and Blue Blanket in his "Max" school backpack. His last words before falling asleep and his first words on waking were that he had changed his mind about wanting to go on the trip, but Rick said by the time he and Sophie left them all on the train at Penn Station, he was good to go, armed with a chocolate croissant.

Max is fascinated by trains but not in the way that many little boys are. He was terrified last summer when, waiting for Rick's train in Westerly RI, an Acela passed through the station. He literally jumped into my arms, and wailed until we were in the car. He didn't even want to wait for Rick's slower train to come, and talked about the scary train for weeks. But he also in the fall, concocted an elaborate secret fantasy with Miriam, where they planned how they would take the train to Grandmother and Dziadzi's house by themselves. It was the first of many planning conversations that have got Max and Miriam through the tough companionship that's being forced on them this year sharing many pick ups and drop offs at school, and it broke down eventually into arguments about the plans, but lasted for days before deteriorating.

I wonder about this intersection between fear and desire. Because when we saw that scary train, we were staying at the thunderstorm beach house, the name coming from a two and a half year old memory of a thunderstorm that Max dug out of a four year old brain. The thunder claps he remembered were remarkable. Back when we were cowering in bed that night in a one floor slant roof extention to a rickety three season house, where the walls were made primarily of glass, Max was on the verge of a new life––new house, new friends and cousins sharing under the same roof. Plus, later that year, a sister. And all that came with it––time outs, rules, a schedule that was not his.

At the train station, when the Acela ran by, his fear response was way more developed and nuanced than it had been during the thunderstorm, but also elemental and simple, the way all of ours are. Planning his train trip with Miriam, he was combatting his fear of a new school. This morning, his instinct was to cancel his adventure. And yet he went.

I know that this is how it should be, and yet I find myself left with a really intense fear response myself. Something abstract, because I know he's fine and I want him to go and Eliza and I have big plans for the time he's away (aside from the 8 hours of babysitting I've signed her up for each day), but still, if I'd had my druthers I would have held onto him this morning, instead of giving him a brisk kiss and pointing him toward the door.