I just signed Annabella up for a short 3 week soccer clinic. If it goes well, she will join a local U8 soccer team and play a season from the end of April through the end of June. There are two evenings a week, one for practice, one for a game.
You may be witnessing the birth of a soccer mom. Now, will I have to trade in my (RECALLED!?!?!!!) Matrix for a minivan?
I was just changing Redding before he goes down for a nap.
He informs me, as I open his diaper, "There's a lot of poops."
"Yes," I tell him, "yes there are."
Redding loves this line of conversation. "Poop comes out my penis."
As I have told him many times, "No, poop comes out the back here, by your buns." Because I am that person, OK? I just don't need to get into anatomy lessons with a two year old. Not really. No. Not so much.
"From my angus?" Redding prompts me.
"Yes. You are correct." Pronunciation? Not corrected. Where he got this information? A mystery almost as silly as hearing my little boy tell me that his poop comes out his angus.
So, we're sitting there, having some lunch today. The whole gang of us.
Annabella slammed most of her lunch, then asked for another hot dog. Once she got it, the whole tone of lunch changed.
She grasped it firmly by one end. She then extended her arm out over the table. "Guess what this means?"
To which I clasped my hand over my mouth, not wanting to hazard a guess.
"It means yes. And this," she exclaimed, turning it downward, "means no."
Generally Andrew and I murmured something to the affirmative, but avoided each other's eyes. Once I did make eye contact with Andrew, I couldn't help but stifle a giggle.
Giggling in the 6 year old vernacular means "please do that again and again, ad nauseum." That had to be avoided at all costs.
Once I looked back at Annabella I found myself saying, without even having to think first, "Please stop rubbing that on your face."
To which, she quickly held it out toward me and pronounced, "It doesn't even hurt!"
Me: Annabella, how was your day today?
Bel: Great. Sheldon [If you need someone to do your taxes, Sheldon's your guy.] gave me a starburst.
Me: At lunch?
Bel: No, I did eat all my red peppers at lunch though.
Me: You got red bell peppers in your school PB&J lunch?
Bel: Yes. And the starburst was red, too.
Me: OK, so you ate that after you had lunch?
Bel: No, he gave it to me on the playground and no one even noticed. Isn't that great?
(My daughter is sneaking candy on the playground, better yet she's doing sneaky things on the playground, with a BOY. Alarm, alarm, danger Will Robinson.)
Me: That's really interesting.
Bel: And I game my neighbor Dion [also a boy] a quarter.
Me: Why did you do that, did he ask?
Bel: No, I just though he'd like that.
(Awesome, so she's being sneaky with one boy and slipping another one money for no reason. FANTASTIC!)
I swore I'd never be that parent that needed to force their child into silence when they were crying. Bullying, cajoling, forcing, somehow, that child to stop their fit, silence their sobs, and cease the waterworks.
Certainly, I'd never intimidate them through gritted teeth, telling them, "Stop your crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"
Yet there are moments. Little pieces of time when the whole infinite universe shrinks down to that one tiny voice in the dark. And the noise coming out of them? Well it just makes my head crawl and my teeth clench, and every nerve in my body shrieks, "MAKE THAT CHILD STOP MAKING THAT NOISE!!!"
That's when mommy needs a time out. I look away, take a breath, go to another room, say calmly, "That's enough. Pull yourself together, or..." whatever fun thing we had planned will no longer be happening.
Yep. Means be damned, I'm that mom.
Crap.
