1m2aSandbox

My neighborhood playgroup arranged to meet
at a Barnes and Noble for story hour yesterday; apparently the guy
is supposed to be really good and we thought it’d be
something different to do as a group. What with spring colds going
around and bad weather brewing, everyone bowed out and Maddie, Cora
and I were the last ones standing. Since Maddie loves books so much
though (and I’ll confess, it’s been a LONG time since
I’ve had the luxury of browsing a bookstore other than
Amazon) we decided to head over on our own. Maddie was disappointed
her new friends weren’t coming, but excited about story time.


Let me tell you something: my friends are lucky they stayed home.
Because the stories aren’t the only things that came out
during this story hour.

Following in a long and illustrious line
of family members before her, Cora is showing every inclination of
heading towards the footlights.


I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, Maddie’s favorite
thing in the world to do is put on a ballet skirt, some classical
music, and dance around the room. And when she’s not dancing
she’s coaxing music out of all the baby toys and asking me to
teach her the lyrics to the tunes. How many times can one girl sing
“Oh, Susannah”?? (Answer: current record is
twenty-seven.)

Context is everything – ask any
politician. The most radical liberal on the slate can sound like an
uber-right-wing republican if his words are lifted out of context.
But context goes beyond simply words: lift your average supermodel
out of her frame- the lights, the clothes, the carefully chosen set
– and you’ll often end up with a bizarrely dressed,
awkward, hungry-looking girl. And when you take that girl out of
the world of high fashion, out of her setting, out of her comfort
zone, and set her someplace strange and unflattering –
someplace different – chances are she’ll go from wonder
woman to wallflower, simply from a fading of self-confidence. We
need context to know how to refer to ourselves, how to think about
ourselves. As a friend of mine in the ballet world once said,
“I have to step on the scale every morning, and what it tells
me determines whether or not it’s a good day or a bad
day.” Without that frame, she didn’t know how to think
about herself.


I’m blathering on about this because I’ve lost my
setting. I find I’ve been plucked from one scene and dropped
in another, and though the costume and actions are the same, I feel
like a totally different character.

I’m not one of those mommies prone
to sitting around with other post-partum women and moaning about
baby weight; I’ve got enough stress as it is, and
there’s nearly always an element of competitiveness about
those conversations, either of the “I’m losing faster
than you” or “I’m more miserable than you”
genre.


At the same time, I know it’s something that’s
important to talk about, since celebrities paint a picture (thank
you, Heidi Klum) of instantaneous weight loss and firming, and if
we mommies don’t talk about it together we’ll all sit
there thinking we’re the only mom who is having a hard time
finding her old thighs again.

What child is THIS?


Yes, right after I blogged about my terror of an oldest child,
Madeleine delivered a day so sweet, so obedient and kind, that I
found myself wondering if she’d sneaked into the study and
read my blog, vowing then and there to turn over a new leaf and
make Mommy happy.

Our discipline structure revolves around
the idea of choices and consequences; we’ve taught Maddie
that she has almost limitless choices in front of her, but each
choice has consequences she has to live with. Choose wisely, and
she finds great freedom, for obedience often brings greater joy and
freedom than rebellion (who has the looser curfew – the
sister who’s always home on time, or the sister who’s
always sneaking out?); choose poorly, and the consequence is often
the loss of something dear to her. We’re hoping this helps
her understand how her actions directly affect her happiness level,
to be blunt.

I was unboxing some videos recently (yep,
still unpacking) and came to our family home movies. A specific,
silly memory sprang to mind and I sat down with the DVD player to
try and find it – a fun, private exchange between me and
Maddie. With the DVDs neatly labeled (OCD is a sickness, I know,
but it’s so darn useful) I was able to quickly find the
timeframe I was looking for, and I began to scan through the
appropriate disc, watching other clips in fast-motion.


I haven’t really stopped to look at home videos for a long
time – since before Cora was born, and Brian and I went back
to the newborn tapes to remind ourselves what we were in for. And
as I watched a short stretch of life speed by, I was astonished at
how much of Maddie’s daily life we’d captured on video
tape. I’d forgotten how, as a fourteen-month-old, she’d
stagger up to you with a book in her hand, turn it over to you, and
sit down in your lap uninvited, the request (demand) clear for a
snuggle and story; or how she used to wander around with a scarf
over her head, pretending to be invisible; and I smiled as I caught
a glimpse of the baby she used to be.


After finding the vignette I sought, I put the disc back with the
others and continued organizing our home movies. And I was startled
to see how much longer of a time-stretch each video covered: where
one hour used to encompass perhaps two months, recently they were
covering a good four or six months. Bring on the guilt.