Keepsakes

A while back, my daughter blindsided me with one of the most profound questions I have ever been asked.

With all of the innocence of a six-year old, she sincerely asked me in her typical wide-eyed fashion:

                   "What are you going to leave me when you die?”

Huh? Crickets chirped as I tried to wrap my brain around the question.

Think, MOMA, Think...

What kind of question is that!?

Why in the world would she even be thinking about that?

Before I could even think of answering her question, I needed to find out where this question was coming from. Why was my six year old daughter concerned with what I was going to leave her when I die?

Upon digging deeper, my daughter explained that a conversation with a friend had sparked her interest months ago. On a recent trip, we had visited a friend who had lost her mother in death. My daughter was fiddling with all trinkets she could possibly get her hands on while exploring her house. My friend stopped her when she reached one trinket in particular, a beautiful glass bowl, and explained to her that that one was very special to her because it was from her mother. She gave it to her before she died. Ever since, my daughter has been fascinated with the idea of inheriting something special from me before I die.

Yikes! Talk about pressure. I did not see that one coming, and I have not thought that far ahead yet.

Not that I am not a planner. I LOVE planning.

I plan lots of things…dinner…parties…vacations. But…death? Hmm…No, not for me. I really would rather plan something else. Thinking about what to leave my daughter before I die means coming to terms with my own mortality. I mean, I know "unforeseen occurrences" can befall us all at any time, but I'm not ready. We are just not designed with death in mind.

Coming back to my daughter’s question, I did what any skilled public speaker would do to deflect a question and bide some time—I answered her question with a question...

"What if I never die at all?"

Ahah! Chew on that! Although not entirely satisfied with my question, my daughter did not pursue the topic any further.

But the question lingered. It haunted me.

I felt all the pressure of a Jeopardy contestant during final jeopardy-the hushed audience hanging on my answer in anxious anticipation. The Jeopardy theme song endlessly replayed in the back of my mind as I mulled over the question.

Well, after many hours, days, months of pondering and sleepless nights, I realized that there are so many things I want to bestow upon my daughter as an inheritance, although none of them are, in fact, “things” so much as they are intangible, precious truths and ideas I hold dear to my heart.

I decided to take my daughter to the library to share one of those things with her. I admit I was a lot more excited to go there than she was. Compared to the glamour of Barnes and Nobles, the drab exterior of the public library did not impress her at all. Unbeknown to her, that trip to the library was more than just a mere day trip. Oh, this was so much more than just a trip to the library. I was sharing a legacy with her.

As I entered that public library, I was firmly convinced of what one of those "things" would be that I would give to her before I die—a passion for learning, an unreserved openness to life, a never-ending hunger for more.

I want her to walk into a library or a bookstore and find the smell of books irresistibly tantalizing. I want her to look upon the endless shelves of books with the same lust a foodie would have for a gourmet buffet. I want her to never lose her God-given curiosity and maintain an insatiable desire to learn everything about everything.

We ended up spending over an hour at the library, reading various stories as well as sharing our own stories. By the way, if you have never read “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus", it’s a must read, I don’t care how old you are—it’s hilarious.

I hope someday she fondly remembers how we giggled deliriously while we shared that book together.

As we exited the library hand-in-hand, I told my daughter that when I was little, I walked those very same steps with my father, and that the library was special to me because he used to take me there. I was reminded of him by a whale sculpture that sits just outside of the library.

I remember my father asking me if I knew what kind of whale it was. Of course, I did not know the answer, but he wanted me to think about it a little before he gave me the answer. It's strange how that memory just popped into my head out of nowhere. I was so surprised to re-discover that little shared moment with him that, at the time, meant absolutely nothing to me, but now, has so much meaning it brings tears to my eyes. I didn't know it then, but my father was sharing his gift with me, and now I have the privilege of passing that legacy along to my daughter. It's not a pretty glass bowl to remember me by, but I hope she treasures it forever.

Use Only As Directed

I experienced such a rude awakening this morning. My son woke me up in the usual fashion by rattling his baby gate like a trapped convict and begging me to open the door. As I stumbled up the stairs in a Benadryl stupor (I'm getting over a sinus infection), I heard him say something fear-inspiring: "I got lotion mommy," he proudly declared.

Instantly, I was awake. My feet hastened up the stairs as the adrenalin rushed through my body. It was worst than I could have imagined. The "lotion" that my son had generously lathered onto his face and hair was in fact, diaper rash cream, one of the hardest substances on earth to remove, as by design, it is supposed to be difficult to remove. There were goopy globs of Desitin everywhere.

On the door. On the floor.
In a book. In a nook.

Oh, Dr Seuss could have had a field day with this one. Only I think it would be more of a horror story than a children's book.

I realized that he must have used his new play table and chair set to reach up to the bin where I keep the Desitin hidden away to prevent something like this from happening. My eyes finally focused onto the completely empty tube of Desitin, and then wandered back to my son, who was so thoroughly covered in the sticky white substance that even his eyelashes were white. All I could think of was Casper the friendly ghost.

I immediately plucked Casper out of his room and swiftly ran into the shower. I had to jump in with him to hold him under the shower head. No matter how hard I rubbed and scrubbed, the Desitin was not budging. I poured handful after handful of expensive Burt's Bees baby wash into his hair and rinsed and repeated in vain. The only thing I seemed to accomplish with every scrub was to convince my son that I was trying to drown him.

I scrubbed. He screamed.

I scrubbed harder. He screamed louder.

I could not remove all of the cream from his hair, but at least I managed to get it off his face and eyes. I surrendered and dressed him, and retreated to the kitchen to get breakfast.

As I sat helplessly in my chair, my son tried to eat his cheese and crackers through choked-up sobs. He finally completely broke down from the traumatic shower experience and wailed ,"I need a 'ug!"

I need a hug too, I thought to myself. I opened up my arms and he climbed into my lap, and we just embraced quietly. I gently caressed and kissed his face, which distinctly smelled like a clean baby's bottom. I tried to run my fingers through his hair, but I kept getting caught in the matted clumps of diaper rash cream.

In that moment, we both silently resolved to put the whole "baby-butt-cream-drowning-in-the-shower-fiasco" behind us and move on with our day. In was in that very  moment that my clueless husband woke up and entered the kitchen to observe the quiet embrace...diaper cream-scented Casper the friendly ghost snuggled under a wet raccoon-my sopping wet hair dripping down my back, last night's mascara in streaky half moons under my eyes.

"Wow,  it sure is a quiet morning," he remarked in ignorant bliss.  Then he proceeded to ask me what I put in Casper's hair.

After seconds of steely silence and death-glares, I snapped...

"It's baby butt cream...AND I DID NOT PUT IT IN HIS HAIR!!! I tried to wash it out, but..."

I didn't even bother finishing the sentence. Just one look at the plastered white locks of hair on Casper's head and it was obvious that I could not wash it out.

"Do you think we should shave his head?" my husband asks in a matter-of-fact fashion.

Although I think the situation may have merited such extreme action, I didn't think my son could handle any further drama.

I still have not finished my coffee, so I'll decide how to handle the situation later.  In the meantime, diaper- cream scented Casper is going about his day as if nothing is wrong, and I am quite tempted to do the same.

Got Floss?

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, and I'm sooo nervous, but not for the usual reasons people are afraid of the dentist. Not for legitimate reasons like being scared of a painful root canal or extraction.

No, my reasons are far more neurotic than that.


I'm scared...that I'll be found out...exposed as a fraud. Gulp!

You see, I haven't kept up with flossing, and I haven't worn my retainer like I'm supposed to every night, and I know that they will know, and I dread that terribly awkward moment when I'll be sitting in the chair and the hygienist will ask me if I've flossed (as if she didn't already know) and I mumble something unintelligible because I can't lie but I don't want to answer the question. Just the thought of it is already making me squirm in discomfort.

Besides the embarrassment of having your hygiene habits scrutinized, it can be a little intimidating to deflect questions while you are sitting in a chair elevated high off the ground with a flood light in your face and sharp objects being pointed at you. They want you to believe the chair is elevated so that it is easier to look into your mouth, but I believe the real reason is to make it harder for people to slide out of the chair and run away.

Frankly, it can feel like an interrogation.

On top of that, my daughter is coming with me. What will she think of me when she finds out I've been living a lie? Respect is a very delicate thing-hard to win, but easy to lose. She may never look at me the same way again. Six is a very, very impressionable age.

What if she never gets over the disappointment? What if this scars her for life?

I can picture it now...She's talking to her therapist about where our relationship went wrong, and this is the moment she will refer to as the defining moment where I shattered her faith in me.

How will I recover from this fall from grace?

Oh, things are not looking good. It's worse than I thought. Now I'm even more nervous.

I should probably be flossing right now, but I'm eating a chocolate bar instead to soothe my nerves. Come to think of it, I couldn't floss right now even if I wanted to. I'm out of floss, and to tell the truth, I don't remember when I ran out...did I ever have any to begin with?

I'm probably the only woman in the world right now who would rather have a pap smear. I do have soap and a washcloth, so I'm all set in that department.

I hope my dentist is not reading this. Just in case he is...

Note to self: stock up on floss.

Shades of Dirty

My two-year old son is finally talking and I am amazed at all of the new things that come out of his mouth, but I am not sure that even he understands everything that he is saying.

I was resting in bed the other day when he wandered into my bedroom to find me and jumped onto the bed with a cup full of cheerios. One fell onto the covers, and he immediately condemned it as ungodly filth that should not be touched, no, not even looked at:

"EEEWWW!"

"YUCKYYYYY!"

"DIRTY...Dat's a dirty cheerio, Mommy, DIRTY CHEERIO!"

My sense of pride over his ability to make good judgements about what to put in his mouth faded as instantly as it came. Just as quickly as he declared his disgust for the fallen cheerio, he snatched it up...and ate it. I was rather confused by the dramatic upheaval, and realized that he and I are just not on the same page as to what "dirty" actually means.

A Dream Deferred

                               Photo: Flikr/HOGNE

I never realized how unusual my children’s collection was until I had to dig something out of my trunk for a friend. As I dug through the mass of forgotten items I meant to put away long ago, she stared, puzzled, at the contents of my trunk.

“What, what is it?” I asked, as I could no longer ignore the look of curiosity on her face.

“Well…why do you have rocks in your trunk?”

“Oh...that...” I said awkwardly acknowledging the fact that not everyone has such a bizarre collection.

I guess it would make sense to have a random collection of rocks in my trunk if I was a geologist, but the real reason is that my children are huge rock fans. They like to collect them and decorate them with glittery nail polishes and colorful markers to commemorate, well, pretty much anything—a trip to the park, a stroll around the neighborhood, a hike through the woods, a walk through a parking lot. Like I said, anything.

A few outstanding ones will live the dream of being transformed from humble earth to glorified childhood memorabilia. But sadly, most never make it beyond the confines of the trunk to fulfill their rock dreams. So there they lay…waiting patiently in hopes that they too will have their glory day in the hot sun. I slammed the trunk door tightly shut and realized that today was not that day. Then, as I walked away from the vehicle and reflected on that thought, I felt a tinge of a sadness, not just for the lonely collection of rocks, but for myself, as I realized they are not the only ones with dreams deferred.

To all the dreamers with their dreams deferred…a glimmer of hope…

The Last Sanctuary

Every motherwoman needs her sanctuary; a place where she can escape the chaos and be alone with her thoughts. For me, that place is the shower. I find that by burying my head under the roaring shower head really drowns out all the background noise. The other day, my sanctuary was violated. While I was showering, two small children violently whipped the shower curtain open from both ends of the shower, instantly releasing all of the soothing warm air.

"Oh, no," I groaned to myself. "They found me."

"What are you doing, Mommy?"

"What are you doing!" I retorted, desperate to continue my shower. "You know you are not supposed to interrupt Mommy during her shower."

"Can we come in?"

"NO!" I shouted like a small child who's just been asked to relinquish their favorite toy. "This is Mommy's quiet time and.."

There was no point in finishing the sentence. Before I could even finish objecting, two naked little bodies jumped into the shower. How come it takes them forever to get dressed but only a blink of the eye for them to get undressed? My private retreat had now become a family waterpalooza adventure. My son played with the water settings while my daughter hogged the shower head. I imagined myself busting through the shower curtain like a football player and running out of the bathroom screaming in a melodramatic display of defiance, but the fact that I may draw unwanted attention from the neighbors quickly stopped me.

As I contemplated my exit strategy, my daughter entertained herself by playing hacky sack with "the girls". Words failed me. I gave her THE LOOK, which could only be interpreted as "on what planet is that acceptable?" She grinned shamelessly from ear to ear.

"Don't worry," she reassured me.

"When I get my own, I'll stop."

What?! I don't know which prospect I found more disturbing- the fact that I may be subjected to this cruel and unusual torture for years to come, or that some day she'll have her own?

Sigh. I stepped out of the shower, cold, wet, and defeated. "Great, there is no towel!" As I stumbled out of the bathroom in search of a dry towel,  I contemplated how much it would cost to get a bodyguard to stand outside my bathroom while I shower. If there are any bouncers who would like a small gig on the side, please contact me.

Lost and found

I did what every parent hopes they never do. I forgot my daughter. I got a phone call at work from my husband asking me why no one had picked my daughter up from school, and I realized that I had never made any arrangements for her to be picked up. My client overheard the conversation and burst into laughter. Who forgets their own kids? Well, I am pretty sure this will disqualify me from winning the parent-of-the-year award. Thankfully, my mother was able to pick her up for me, and my daughter didn't harbor any resentment for it.