So after the Saints’ execution of the Texans today, we went out and bought Sun a Cinderella costume. But NOW she’s bent on her daddy and me dressing up too. And, sadly, much of what is available for adult women is on the “naughty” side. You know, naughty nurse, naughty witch, naughty Alice in wonderland, etc. It’s actually pathetic that plain ole scary witch outfits are so outnumbered by the naughty ones.

Then I saw this and thought BINGO:

I shall go as the Cheshire cat. Brilliant, think I, of its minimalist qualities. Slap some cat makeup on my face and voilà!

As we are driving home from the costume store, Sun starts in on me. “Mom, you can’t go as the Teshire cat. It’s NOT a tostume.” To that argument, I pointed out that in the book, sometimes the cat himself was nothing more than a smile. I’d draw that smile on my face and have it PLUS ears and a tail. Score: Mom 1, Sun 0.

Sun, undeterred, argued on: “But Mom. You CAN’T go as the Teshire cat. I am not going as Alice. [Sun 1, Mom 1.] And if you want to go as a cat, then you need to go as Lucifer, the mean cat of Cinderella’s stepmom.”

Well, now, damn. That has the one thing I cannot out-argue: LOGIC. Which brings the final score to Sun 2, Mom 1.

I simply can wear black ears and tail and snarl at people all night AND be in step with Sun’s costume. So even though Sun out-argued me this time, I get to dress as a scary (not naughty) black cat.

And if you look closely, you’ll see that I’m grinning like the Cheshire cat.

I have hesitated to write in the moment of any particular upset because the upsets are not mine; they are Sun’s. Sure, they impact me, bear on me, effect and influence me. But I do not have the starring role in these dramas. And I know Mommy Bloggers the world over will snub me once and for all for stating that the details of my daughter’s ups and downs, as seen through my eyes, are not, in my humble opinion, blog-worthy fodder. Fertility treatment to get pregnant for Sun? Laser treatment for Sun’s birthmark? My woes with nursing? I don’t see these topics bothering Sun were she to read about them in ten or twenty years time.

But the particulars of why she struggled in her first days of class? And how that drove me off the cliff of sanity for a stint? I just don’t find that fair to her down the line. And although I have used this blog as a personal diary of sorts, it was of MY thoughts, fears, experiences.

I get that as a mother, I have my own thoughts, fears and experiences that relate to parenting. But it is a fine line between MY experiences as a parent and my daughter’s experience at, well, life. And me blogging about my parental observations of my child’s life experiences has been something altogether unappealing to me.

Maybe it’s the lawyer’s sense of client-confidentiality that’s kicked in. But as Sun grows and becomes more SUN and less MY DAUGHTER to the world at large, I find it increasingly more difficult to write blog posts, humorous or serious, about matters relating to her. And since my life currently is comprised of work and Sun with very little drinking-in-the-New-Orleans-lifestyle, I’ve found that I have less and less to blog about these days.

I’m not pulling the plug on my little corner of the internet. But I did feel it worthwhile to share WHY there’s less content on this blog for the time being. And although nothing would tickle me more than for this post to actually cause a dust-up among Mommy Bloggers, I know it won’t; they stopped reading me years ago.

Next month is Sun’s fourth birthday. We’ve all settled on her wanting a swing-set for her birthday. So today I asked if she wanted to join me to look at some — let her weigh in on which one she liked best. After a failed stop at Toys R Us, we regrouped and headed to Lowe’s.

Looking back, I am really not sure what had Sun so ready to explode. Sure, the trip to the toy store didn’t go the way she’d hoped, but it wasn’t epic. The tears had dried and she was happy as we hopped out of the car. It may be that she was still hoping to score a toy. As we entered Lowe’s, she said, “They don’t sell swings,” as she pulled me towards a Spongebob plant book.

I steered her away from the bookrack and to the outside plant area. She fought me the whole way, screaming she needed a basket. I insisted she didn’t since we were just LOOKING and I’d carry her if she didn’t want to walk. Which I did — carry her. As we went down the proper outdoor-furniture aisle, her eye spied the beloved car-basket. And she HAD TO BE IN IT. Problem was, a guy was using it. And the screaming began. She wrestled to get out of my arms and I fought to hold on tighter. And all the while her yelling escalated. And so did my resolve. I marched her right out of the store and to the car.

And this is where it got ugly. Out of earshot from other folks.

Sun: I don’t WANT to leave!
Me: Well, too bad. You weren’t listening and were screaming at me.
Sun: Don’t leave! I don’t want to leave! DON’T!
Me: Good. The fact that you don’t WANT to leave makes this better. Maybe next time you will listen and we won’t have to leave.

This escalated more along these lines–with her expressing simply that she didn’t want to leave and me telling her all that she did wrong, in not so kind, patient words.

And then that moment arrived. That moment that I KNEW I had my opponent crushed if I but squeezed. And, oh, I wanted to squeeze. I am happy to report that, today, I did not squeeze.

But here’s my dilemma. It’s in my DNA to argue to that crushing point. And I am TEACHING Sun to argue just as ruthlessly, no differently than my protege taught me — not intentionally but by experiencing the receiving end of it. And sometimes “crushing” isn’t the point, is it? There are many arguments I know I can win, I can crush it, but I will still lose. Sometimes they are worth the crush; sometimes as a parent, as an adversary, making the point, winning the argument, is all there is: no playing in traffic or with fire; no screaming in restaurants because all-of-a-sudden-you-don’t-like-toast; no hitting me because you don’t get your way. But there are other times when arguing MISSES the point entirely.

Why didn’t I just take the moment to look at the stupid Spongebob book? I know the answer is that had I looked, Sun then would have wanted me to buy it. And my message to her today was that not every time we step into a store is an opportunity for her to become an allegory of WANT. We don’t always get what we want; we don’t always get something we didn’t-know-we-wanted-’til-we-walked-in-the-store-but-now-that-we-are-here-I-must-have-it; sometimes we leave with nothing. And such a not-getting is NOT an excuse for a temper-tantrum.

So, what I really ask myself isn’t why didn’t I stop to have a four-year-old try to convince me why she needed me to buy her junk, but rather, why did I let this escalate to the moment where I had to stop myself from figuratively crushing her? I can all but see her on the couch telling her future therapist, “My mother was a violently angry person. And she saved the worst for those she loved best.” And she’d kinda be right. Because not every time will I be able to stop myself from the crush, especially as Sun, and her own mad arguing skilz, mature.

This is my toughest struggle as a mother: I must struggle with the urge to argue ’til I crush Sun. Crush Sun and our relationship. And I must struggle to keep Sun from learning from the best, as I did, how to argue so ruthlessly.

Driving over, I started to get that sick pit-in-the-stomach feeling over whether this was really, REALLY, REALLY the best school we can offer Sun.  It isn’t the most expensive; the most exclusive; or other such things to make it the MOST BEST.

We’ve been talking to Sun about how this will be her new school soon.  We’ve done this in an attempt to ease the transition this will be.  We’ve taken her to events here to let her see the school often so that it won’t be new and unknown when the time comes to switch.

All that doubt I had about this not being the perfect school bubbled up as we sat in the gym with terrible acoustics listening to the school’s band play off tune.  So when Sun announced she needed to potty, I was happy to escape all that evaporating air.

As we walked down the hallway of the pre-4 and kindergarten classes, with the oh-so-familiar art of snowflakes made out of palm impressions and snowmen made of cotton balls, Sun asked, “Mom, is this my new school?”  “It will be,” I responded.  Sun looked back at that hallway, pleased, and asked, “Where are all my new friends?”

Her question stopped me in my tracks.  I got down on my knees, looked Sun into her most trusting, open-minded eyes, and hugged her.  “They’ll be here when you start, honey,” I managed to squeak out as I held back tears.

Because, like parents, schools are not perfect.  The idea of a perfect school is a myth that serves only to foil parents’ efforts by making them feel they aren’t doing the best they can for their children unless they find the scholastic atmosphere of top academics, racial composition, character-building, friend-making, much-homework-but-not-too-much, feed-to-a-perfect-high-school-and-in-turn-college.

School is but one component that will contribute to my child being an amazing, successful, well adjusted adult.  And all of the few schools we’d whittled it down to will serve her well.  And if this school turns out not to be a perfect fit, we have the freedom to move her later.

I don’t recall ever having the confidence, lack of fear of the unknown that Sun has about starting this new school.  She sees this new experience as one filled with new friends and joy.  And if Sun gets some of those other elements that my husband and I found so important in selecting this school, well, then our homework will have paid off.

*     *     *

Potty training makes no sense.  How does a child learn how to listen to her body as to WHEN she needs to potty based on being placed on the potty every, say, 10 minutes?  Just because she in fact does sit on the potty when the moment strikes and she thus does pee in the potty, how does that translate itself in her head that the moments leading up to that are what she has to learn to feel next time?

For Sun, it’s not much different than other children.  She makes progress, then regresses.  But it’s two steps forward and one back.  She should be fully out of diapers soon.

I hope this is the best story I’ll have to relay to her when she’s older:

Sun was practicing with no diaper–just a skirt.  She came out of her playroom and explained that she “had spilled.”  We cleaned her up and replaced her skirt, socks and shoes.  She returned to her playroom.  “Poopies. Gross!” She exclaimed.  “What?” I asked, having checked where she had stood after her “spill.”  “The cat pooped!” she explained.  And there it was–three feet from where I thought she’d spilled.  A poopie. But clearly not from the cat.

Three years old and blaming smelly accidents on the innocent, old cat without as much as batting an eyelash.

Sun spent the last two nights at my sister’s house, and I’ve had the luxury of darkness. And quiet. A quiet that is different from the quiet that comes from a soundly sleeping child. This quiet was of the knowledge that your child was soundly sleeping and that someone else with whom you have complete confidence is charged with the duty of listening for that break in sound sleeping. I didn’t have to keep my ears cued, my arms ready to welcome a Sun awoken by a bad dream (maybe of an evil witch in her fairy tales?), my eyes adjusted to having a light in them all night.

I lay in quiet thinking, “This used to be the quiet I heard every night.” And although at first blush it may sound the same as the quiet of a soundly sleeping child, any parent can tell you (while holding back a chuckle) that it is NOWHERE near the same.

I miss my Sun. And am delighted to be seeing her in a couple of hours. But, oh, how I miss my nights of darkness and quiet.

When I fell in love with Captain Sarcastic over a decade ago and hitched my wagon to his star, the only regret I had was the knowledge that if this was IT, I’d never fall in love again. Sure, you re-connect and re-fall in love, but it isn’t the same as finding someone new and falling in love with their humanness for the first time.

No one ever told me that the romantic notion we have about falling in love is every bit applicable to the love you feel for your child. I smell Sun’s hair or milky breath, I hear her say “Nite, nite, Mommy,” I feel her holding my fingers and plucking my fingernails, and every aspect of her humanness, and my discovery of it, has my earth shaking beneath me. I want to squeeze her and never let go. And when her thin little arms snake around my neck and return my hug, I melt. There is nothing less in the skipping of my heartbeat now than when I first fell in love with my husband.

And THAT is the truest gift of motherhood.

Every time I even think about that last sentence, the air surrounding me evaporates.  I am not ready.  I fear she isn’t ready.  Ok, I think she’ll do fine. Me? Not so much.

I’ve been living these past couple of days wrapping my head around returning to work five days a week; of losing my two weekdays not in the office; of not being with my daughter two full weekdays every week.  Alas.

Since Sun will be going to school five days a week and all of three years old, we feel strongly that she not attend after-care and turn her days into 10-hour ones.  And since her class will start at 8am, 3pm seems a long enough day.  With no after-care as the goal, CS and I plan to rotate picking her up from school, leaving our jobs early on alternating days to get her and do what work we can from home once we get her.  I expect I’ll be picking her up three days a week.

I am currently in the office about 24 hours a week.  Give or take.  This new regime will have me arriving earlier, but every day, and leaving early three times a week.  I expect it’ll get me in the office about 30 hours a week.

Going from 24 to 30 hours in the office, I know, seems like nothing.  And I KNOW many moms work 40 hour weeks away from home and I should be grateful. And I AM.  I AM.  But I still will miss those two golden days I have now that are mine spent at home.  I do laundry, play with Sun, garden, cook, clean, work, nap with Sun; I do whatever Sun and I are up to, and that’s usually just puzzles and dolls and tv and housework.

I fear going into the office every weekday will stifle the decadent golden time I’ve had these two-plus years spent in my garden, in my kitchen, with my young daughter, with time to burn.  I fear it will be a struggle to get into the office an hour or more earlier each day (I HATE mornings) and to get out of the office around 3pm (my afternoons are so productive!).  Can I shift things around and really make the hours mean that more time in the office will equate to more hours being billed?

I have voluntarily worked a reduced load since Sun was born, and it has worked on all levels (well, that reduced income wasn’t wonderful, but, oh, so worth it).  I know I am not good with change, even with change that is good. But I’d expected this three-day a week routine to continue with Sun until kindergarten, and then maybe even beyond for me.  And this sudden about-face has shaken me up.

Our choices, though far more than many families, are not unlimited, and this isn’t the ideal choice for me.  But really?  I KNOW it’s the right choice:  For Sun, our family, my career, and me.  But oh is it gonna be a hard adjustment!

So today when my period turned angry and stopped me in my tracks, I assumed it was what I’m told about ALL my new ailments: It’s yet another sign of aging.

Then the flow got really heavy.  No worries, just a desire for good meds.  Then clots appeared.  Doubt crept in. Could I have been…?  Am I now…?

My mother-in-law is staying with us, and we canceled our afternoon plans so I could wear sweat pants and suffer at home.  She also got me to call my doctor.  He asked if I was sure I wasn’t pregnant.  And then the math hit me.  I mean, it was possible, albeit improbable.  So he asked that I take a pregnancy test and if positive go to his office tomorrow to be sure “nothing’s left behind.”

I called CS at work and explained things and asked him to bring me home a pregnancy test.  And that damn thing showed “Pregnant” faster than I had time to even come close to bracing for such a result.  Stunned, I walked out of the bathroom.  My mother-in-law was walking past the door.  I tossed the stick to her.  She read it and said, “NO WAY.”  Then she brought it to CS, who was running Sun’s bath.

I then went into the bathroom where CS was (and Sun wasn’t yet).  We stared at each other.  Stunned.  Then we talked a bit.  And I realized that CS was under the mistaken impression that I was carrying a viable pregnancy.  I clarified there was NO WAY I wasn’t losing it — hadn’t already lost it.

Then I went to the den and sat down.

Stunned.

Dazed.

Relieved.

I know I’ve posted about our decision to have no more children.  To do no more fertility treatment.  We were coasting along on a “if it happens” mentality.  But when you KNOW it won’t, can’t, happen, you accept it.  And although we felt that we DID have the ability to have another child, and it WAS our decision not to, there was a nagging hint of doubt.  What if we could easily get pregnant?   Have we just decided we don’t want another because of the stress/cost/etc. of fertility treatment?  Were we just “deciding” what was already a foregone conclusion without intervention?

And before I took that pregnancy test I thought, it doesn’t matter what it reads.  Either way, I am NOT having a baby now.  It won’t MEAN anything.  We have no attachment, no expectation.

And then I saw the one word. “Pregnant.”  And my hand shook a bit.  And my nerves shook a lot.

And I sat on the sofa.  Marveling at my own girly parts.  Our fertility doctor had said that if we’d wanted another baby, we’d maybe not even have to do fertility again because my hormonal dysfunction could sort of “re-set” itself after a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

And then I realized that for the past 3 or so years that I thought, no matter what that fertility doctor may have said to me, that I’ve ALWAYS been infertile and could NOT have another child without intervention, that I’d been wrong.  That yet again I’d underestimated myself, my body, and assumed the worst.  That I was just temporarily infertile!  That we really DO have a choice to have another child.  That our decision NOT to have another child is real.  And that decision is mutual.  And right for us.  So instead of tears, there was a small smile.

Tonight, I was liberated.

I CAN, DID, get pregnant without a doctor in the room!  And we really, truly, choose for me not to get pregnant, for us not to have a baby, again.  That nagging doubt?  It too flowed out of me today.  Once and for all.

After walking Sun to her classroom, I left the building to return to my car. The personnel at the front door let me out and locked the door behind me. Just as she does for every person coming or going into and out of the school.

As I am approaching the corner, I see a man standing on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. I need to pass him. He’s alone, and his neck is bent such that he cannot hold his head up fully erect. And he’s looking down the street back towards the school.

My Mommy Radar went up. But so did my You-Are-Making-Something-Out-of-Nothing Radar. I sized him up and kept walking. I got in my car and debated. Do I DO something? Why is he standing on the corner? Alone, with NO CHILD? Looking back at the school?

“Dammit,” I thought. I decided to at least call the school to let them know of him. They reassured me the doors stayed locked and they’d keep an eye out for him. I didn’t feel better having called. Actually, I felt worse. What was I assuming? Based on what facts?

As I turned my car around to leave and approached that corner, I gave the scene another hard look. May as well be able to describe this guy, eh? And then I noticed he was standing next to a pole. A pole with a sign on it. A pole with a bus stop sign on it.

This innocent man was waiting for a bus, watching the street in the direction the bus would come.

I was mortified.

I don’t need to be told I did the right thing and that it’s better to be safe than sorry. I get that on some basic level, I was being a Mama Bear.

But seriously, folks, what kind of world do we now live in where a mother ASSUMES the worst about a neatly dressed man, alone, waiting for a bus, who happens to have some minor physical ailment? Would I have been less judgmental if his head did not droop? If he’d have made eye contact with me and smiled?

Did I mention this is at 9am on a bright Wednesday morning, and the school was totally following its safety protocol?

I am not happy with myself, with my behavior, with my quick-to-negative judgment. What happened to being neighborly and taking the first step to give someone the benefit of the doubt? Why didn’t I smile and say “good morning” to him? Why didn’t I look for a legitimate reason for him to be standing on a corner?

I think a lot has to do with what American news is about these days. We are told that there are 800,000 missing children reported each year. Well, damn! No wonder I am on the hyper-alert, right?

But according to a Slate article, this number is misleading:

It’s true that 797,500 people under 18 were reported missing in a one-year period, according to a 2002 study. But of those cases, 203,900 were family abductions, 58,200 were nonfamily abductions, and only 115 were “stereotypical kidnappings,” defined in one study as “a nonfamily abduction perpetrated by a slight acquaintance or stranger in which a child is detained overnight, transported at least 50 miles, held for ransom or abducted with the intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.” Even these categories can be misleading: Overstaying a visit with a noncustodial parent, for example, could qualify as a family abduction. Some individuals get entered into the database multiple times after disappearing on different occasions, resulting in potentially misleading numbers.

So, 115 per year of the type of abduction that is a parent’s worst nightmare? That’s too many, to be sure. But is it reason enough to cast a judgmental eye on a guy at a bus stop?

For me, after having giving this MUCH thought, it is not. No more than it is to fear your home will be broken into because a lone black man is walking down your street on a random weekday afternoon.

Our fellow man deserves better than that.  I owe more than I gave.  And it’s time I admitted it and began to do better to judge less.  Being a mother is NOT an excuse to such behavior.

Are you with me?