The ImPerfect Mom

Technorati Tags: summer

Dear Skyler,

I am so so proud of you.

After almost a year of trying (since to say Mommy had been seriously potty-training you would’ve been a blatant lie and embarrassing - who the hell takes a year?), you’ve finally grasped the gist of going to the potty to wee and not just to do a Number 2 and/or admire your half-naked self in the mirror and/or to turn the bathroom into a swimming pool.

For a few days now, you’ve walked around diaperless, and even partied in only your undies all of yesterday at Aunty Farrah’s barbeque. Bravo, my little trooper!

And what’s even more impressive is that you braved a totally unchartered toilet and survived your first unfamiliar, alien flush all by yourself!!! Without going bonkers!!

I’d choked with tearful pride because the noise of gushing water followed by the traumatic gurgling of preschooler-waste mixed with water draining into the Deep Blue Vortex of No-Return has undoubtedly been your biggest hurdle in our year’s journey of trying to ditch the pull-up, your preferred mode of plumbing the last 1.5 years.

But that is history! Gone! Forgotten! And hopefully never to be recycled!

Although, if I may ask one small favour of you. Tiny really.

You deserve a medal for having come so far in such a short time but please, if you don’t mind, refrain from going up to complete strangers and telling them you have no diapers on, and as if that isn’t clear enough, up-ending, skirt-a-flouncing, to drive the point home?

Thank you so much, baby.

Again, so very proud. 

Love you lots,
Mommy 

Technorati Tags: potty training, parenting

On the drive home after a looooong day in the city today:

Me (pensively): Skyler said “chocolate” today.

Lokes (dazed): Huh?

Me: She said “chocolate” when I gave her chocolate. Usually she says “shlocklate”, remember?

Lokes: Oh…

Me: And the other day she said “watermelon.”

Lokes nods, smiling a little sadly.

Me: Right? She used to say “waterlemon”.

Lokes: Yea…

Me: Sigh…

(Pregnant pause)

Lokes: No, we’re not having another kid so you can hear “shlocklate” again.

Technorati Tags: parenting

Two pages out of Raeven’s kindergarten memory book:

“I want 100 toys.”
“I want 100 boys.”
“I want 100 Barbies.”
“I don’t want 100 moms or crazy dads.”

“Raeven is worried
(picture of something resembling a green sand-person in the middle of swampy muddy crayon scribbles underneath).”
“Sometimes, I get worried when Mommy scolds me.”

I’m not sure what concerns me more; the damage I’ve irreparably done with my (occasional) screaming or the fact that she wants 100 boys.

There she is, my six-year old going on sixteen. Congratulations, baby doll!

Technorati Tags: parenting

I’ve been so busy with my school work and photography that I almost forgot tomorrow is Rae’s graduation from kindergarten to first grade.

I remember my kindy graduation:

Have not graduated from anything since then.

I swear the cute outfit jinxed it.

A few of my friends from way back when have asked me since I posted the two photos of myself in my recent posts, “Wow. Why the change?”

No, they’re not being rude. They know me, these guys. They know I’ve never been a vain person, because I believe that there’s only so much time and resources one has, and as such, image has never been one of my priorities. I prefer to go after other more, shall we say, meaningful pursuits, like how to enrich my mind or my writing, to be a better parent.

Don’t be mistaken. I like looking at beautiful people. Who doesn’t? I totally grasp the concept that appearances matter and the slightly narcissistic but totally primal desire to be admired, but I’ve been one of those fortunate ones who’ve always been able to slip through the cracks of this societal pressure, managing to get by without needing to constantly watch what I eat, spend a lot of money on product or fashion. An example of my good luck is that I married a man who was 150lbs overweight (”was” as in not anymore - no, I’m not divorced, he’s just lost over 130lbs so far). He fell in love with me even when I was a good 50lbs overweight.

So, I figured I could continue to get by.

And then I had a six-year old.

Living in a country where extremes like obesity and bulimia can co-exist so comfortably within a square mile of fast-food chains, yoga studios and everything in between telling you one moment to love the shape you’re in and the next that those 10lbs can come right off if you just drink some Oolong, is a little like being Alice. You don’t know the next moment if you should get bigger or smaller, or stay the same size. If it’s confusing for a grown-up, what more a child?

A month ago, Raeven told me she didn’t want to eat because she didn’t want to be as big as me. I know, brutal but cute at the same time. I told her that it was okay to eat, as long as we eat the right foods and exercise to keep us healthy.

“Do you exercise?” she’d asked.

“Of course,” I’d managed, without even blinking. The next day, I started walking three to four miles each day and went on the South Beach diet.

That was four weeks - and 6lbs - ago.

What I’m saying is that I am losing weight and trying to look good to set an example for my kids, because like it or not, we’re the sun and the moon to them. Like it or not, at this young age, they look to us for guidance and we’re the be all and end all of all standards in their world. If Daddy swears and hits, then it’s okay for me to swear and hit. If Mommy is fat and lazy, that’s good enough for me.

Those who’ve followed my weight-loss journeys (emphasis on the plural) have known that staying motivated is my biggest challenge. I’ve always told Lokes I fail because I just don’t care enough about how I look and put no stock into what total strangers think of me when they see me lumbering by, particularly when my health is still tip-top (I go for annuals and my doc reluctantly tells me it’s a miracle). So preaching to me that I have to be healthy for kids so I can get old enough to see them get married and give me grandkids, doesn’t really hack it either.

But what my children think of me, in the midst of all the noise about health and a healthy body image? Now that matters. It really does, because what they think of me shapes - pun intended - who they are.

That’s more power than I’m willing to screw with.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, parenting, self image

“Mommy? Why do bad people go to hell?”

I was struggling to make sense of my Chinese homework when she popped this big one.

I spun around, half-shocked, half-amused. Raeven looked at me, poised over her Legos, apparently not just playing with her toys anymore, but also contemplating religious concepts and perhaps even viable solutions for the fuel crisis and who the 5th cylon is.

“What?!” I asked, trying to keep the shriek in my voice under control.

“Why do bad people go to hell?” Rae repeated.

“Who told you that?” I questioned the question.

“Daddy.”

Now that’s even more bizarre. My atheist husband talking about sin and hell? Where’s the hidden camera?

“What? When?!” The shriek bubbled precariously.

“When we were watching All Dogs Go To Heaven? I asked him what heaven was. And then he said bad people go to hell,” she resumed assembling her blocks.

So much for screening before buying. How the heck did I not see that coming?

Stalling her with questions about the movie, I’d racked my brains frantically for a good five minutes before coming up with this answer: Maybe Daddy was just talking about the movie?

“No, he wasn’t,” was her curt reply, eyeing me suspiciously, the way cops eye you when you’re going at 15mph in a 25mph zone.

In the end, I fell back on science. I talked about the tea roses that had rotted and fallen off the branches outside our house, how they’d turned brown and become part of the ground. I recalled, not very fondly, a book we’d gotten from the library (which I’d ALSO not screened very well) about a pet dog passing on and getting buried in the backyard. And I’d saved the best for the last - dinosaurs, one of Rae’s three great loves thanks to her best friend Hayden’s influence, next to computers and Barbies.

“What happens after dinosaurs die?” I asked her. “Even T-Rexes (which are considered “bad” in her book because they eat other dinosaurs). Do they go to hell?”

“Nahhh,” she’d answered as though I was an idiot. “They become dinosaur bones!”

Of course, I had to attach a closing argument to all of this.

“You’ll find different people believe in different things. What’s important is all of you believe in the Golden Rule,” I’d summarised triumphantly, feeling a little proud of my quick thinking while reminding myself to clock my hubby one on the head the moment we reached Orlando.

It is a good thing Lokes left this morning. He would’ve had hell to pay.

Note to self: Do not leave smart children unattended with idiotic husband.

What the hell was I thinking, agreeing to do this? That’s the problem with not thinking. Do not ever not think. Husbands do it all the time and we give them hell for it and now look at where it’s landed me. Not thinking is just baaaad.

We’re going to Disneyworld in a few days. It’ll take me all day to reach Orlando from Seattle with two kiddos, a flight with zero in-flight entertainment, a one-hour transit in Minneapolis, a laptop that claims a four-hour batt life only if you run, like, Notepad; one PSP to share between the three of us (thankfully the batt life trumps the laptop, now that’s a REAL gaming machine) and I just spent $50 on all sorts of “creative” implements that won’t get us kicked off the plane (hopefully).

Thank God we live in the age of Internet. I am totally a Cheat Sheet kind of gal and after Googling “flying with kids”, I am now the authority. I am ready. I am SO thinking:

Thinking that perhaps they should make families with children-only flights so I won’t have to battle all those dirty looks when Skyler decides to start a front-seat kicking contest.

Technorati Tags: flying with kids