Sozlet stories

Sozobe,

Just reading this thread , I think I have fallen in love with your daughter and your relationship with her.

The two of you sound like all you do is revolve around each other every day. How wonderful! She sounds like an absolute delight!
Kepp the stories coming! This is now my favorite post to read with my morning coffee.
Shewolf-ette is napping now. I cant wait to see what she will be like at your daughter's age. Maybe then i will start my own pup stories. ;-)

shewolf, looks like you already have started with the stories! You asked in another thread how I have recorded stuff, and really, the main way is here! I started interacting with many of the people now on A2K on another forum when my daughter was a tiny baby. (I actually made my first cautious forays on that forum when I was still pregnant.) So I've been writing about her from the beginning, though at first it was a lot more "HELP ME WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOO???" sorts of posts. ;-)

Then I wrote about her a lot on nimh's "What Made You Smile Today" threads, and started this one since that seemed to be ALL I was writing about there. I kept a pregnancy journal just fine, like an actual paper one, but writing things down since the kid was born seems much harder -- something about writing it down as part of an interaction, getting feedback on it, is more effective in getting me to write. I have copied and pasted (and changed names back to real names) lots of these and gathered them to give to grandparents, who appreciate it. And I read old entries, and it's GONE, man. I remember as soon as I re-read it, but it's gone until that moment. Which spurs me to write more, since I don't WANT it gone.

Anyway!

Whack story for Craven.

I was talking to him and explaining that I really needed to go because I was at that moment being scaled like a cliff, followed by earnest attempts to pull over my chair, followed by my feet being energetically and repeatedly whacked with a book.

Craven identifies with the impulse to whack me vigrously with a book, I guess.

nimh, yeah, I've been going with the flow since orangutans lived in the big tree in our backyard -- that was around 18 months old. It was just so interesting to see what was going on in that little baby brain, and I wanted to know more. Every once in a while I'll interrupt a conversation and say, for example, "You know it's not really a good idea to build a bonfire in the yard, right?", and she'll roll her eyes and say, "Yes, I KNOW!" and we'll get back to the story.

She could SO be a fashion designer queen bee type, yep. We have a box full of silk scarves as well as another box full of dress-up clothes, and she regularly decks herself out. Recent outfit was highish-heeled pink feathery dress-up mules, silk flower dress-up skirt, tutu under it, several scarves draped hither and yon and tied fetchingly, more scarves on her head, a big straw hat over those, and a pink parasol.

She also has been steadily pestering me for makeup/ nail polish for the last 2 years or so, and I finally just got her the nail polish of her choice -- pink, of course, and glittery -- so little pink toenails, too.

And now before I forget the forehead/ hospital story...

My husband usually spends some one-on-one time with the sozlet before bed, to give me a break and just to hang out with her. Not often, but occasionally, I'll finish what I'm doing and go find them and she'll be crying for one reason or another (cranky time of day) -- she hurt herself, or is frustrated, or whatever. So the other day I went and checked on them and she had tears just streaming down her face and I said, "What happened?", expecting to get a tale of a bumped knee or something, and E.G. said, "Well, it's complicated..."

First, you need to know that she loves to play hospital. She'll often come up to me and say, with an incredibly sad expression, "My dolly hurt herself... she needs to go to the hospital." (And yes, she says "dolly", dunno where that came from. I think we read her too many old-fashioned books.) Anyway, so then we go to the hospital, which is her bedroom, and put the dolly in the bed, and minister to the dolly (she makes complicated and vaguely sinister medical instruments out of legos and such), and give the dolly medicine, and make the dolly feel better.

So when sozlet and E.G. were hanging out she stubbed her toe, and it wasn't bad at all (not crying), but they decided to play hospital and she went to her bed and lay down and my husband stroked her forehead and spoke soothing words about how he was sorry she was so hurt and she would be OK and he'd take care of her and the waterworks started. She just looked up at him and her lip trembled and kaboom. Not like sobbing, just enormous amounts of water spilling out of huge sad eyes.

So that's when I walked in, or shortly thereafter. She explained that she was just so happy that her Papa loved her so much. We thought she probably had some pent-up emotions about the whole move, had talked about it a lot that day.

She generally tries to be tough, tries not to cry, but when she does cry she always describes it afterwards with hefty doses of drama. "And then the tears just came right up out of my eyes and went drip... drip... drip..."

When my daughters fell over when they were little I'd say 'oh dear' cheerfully,(if it was minor) brush them down and send them to carry on playing (didn't want them to be cry babies/drama queens over really minor tumbles)

- aged 18 months/2yrs youngest daughter would be playing ...

splat!

pick herself up .... all in one piece? ... 'oh dear' she'd say to herself and carry on playing.

Yea for sozlet! Whack whack whack! That gal is so cool she's almost a dude.

Great stories!

When is the move? Soon?

Soon!!

I'm SO bad at remembering these, every day there are two or three and then poof, gone.

Miscellaneous:

Buckling her into her carseat, I yawned, commented on how tired I was, and asked her if she was tired. She said, with considerable vim and vigor, "NOPE! I'm just full of ENERGY!" For some reason it was really funny the way she said it. Kind of like a kid in a cereal commercial circa 1978 or so.

***

When I open the blinds on one side of the house, I have to step out on a ledge about 6 inches deep, over the basement stairs. Lately, whenever I do that, I feel little hands on my heels -- sozlet is worried that I'll fall and comes running to hold me up.

***

This kid has an uncanny ability to get people to GIVE her stuff. I've written about that before, last night it was a whole giant bag of pastries and goodies from the restaurant we ate at. We happened to be the last people there (they closed at 7), and they also sell lots of pastries, and the waitress (who had had a conversation with the sozlet earlier) just came over and asked if we wanted this bag full of stuff. Choc muffins, poppyseed muffins, scones, croissants, bagels -- I think at least 15 things. Not even day-old, baked that day -- if we'd happened to want to buy a chocolate muffin for $2.50 or whatever half an hour earlier, it would've been the one in the bag.

Report from E.G.:

They went to the library this evening, and sozlet said she'd really liked a particular book. E.G. told her that maybe she could get a good suggestion about other, similar books if she told that to the librarian. So she walked up to the librarian, and (no coaching), said, "Hi, can you help me find a book that is related to 'If You Give a Moose a Muffin,' please?"

OK, that was less impressive than in E.G.'s telling, but "related" all on her own was pretty cool I thought.

I can visualize her presence. Very cool, soz and e.g. Well, cool and warm, both.

She's brilliant! If you won't say it, I will.

OK, so I read the first three paragraphs of this story - and decided to come here to praise you, Soz.

I mean, damn - you gotta respect this woman for being brutally honest - but damn. What have people come to? Yet its so recognizable - you see women act like that with their children all the time, especially in the more yuppie neighbourhoods. Doesnt make it any less off-putting tho <nods>.

Mind you, reading further down through the actual tips for "mindful parenting", they're pretty good. They make sense - hell, they could help anyone, children or no children. (Well, the cooking a week in advance and eating the same food every Monday, Tuesday etc is way too much for me - yegh. But I mean, overall.) All you need to do is just replace "child" by "partner" and a bunch of attention points pops up for us non-parents too.

Still - <rereads third paragraph> - lord ... Goddamit. Poor children. Soz, you deserve a medal. <nods>

So, of course, I read this as I was fooling around on the computer by myself while sozlet was playing across the street at a friend's house. I pretty much immediately dashed over, only to be faced with her saying "NO! Mama, I want to keep playing!!" and only when I reassured her that she could, did she deign to allow me to give her a couple of hugs and kisses. And now I'm back. (It's been frenetic lately, and it's awfully nice to have some goofing-around time.)

I dunno, I hope I haven't given the impression of perfection here, 'cause I ain't. I mean, even the foot-whapping story above; I was just putzing around on the computer and saying "Just a minute" to her for much more than one minute. I've certainly lost my patience plenty of times (not "swiping", but not all sweetness and light either.)

Interesting article. I strongly agree with a lot of it, such as getting up before the kid(s). That's something I do, and it's huge. If I don't have that time to myself, if she wakes up at the same time as I do, ugh. The whole day gets wacko.

Yeah, sure, but - I mean - OK, there's stuff like, not stopping "folding the shirts when he tells you about school" or not "looking her in the eye instead of reading your e-mail when she says hello". We're just people. Its good to be reminded not to do such stuff, but it still happens all the time. Its just this bit was just too much for me:


I mean, she's right - there's loads of parents who do alla that all the time. (Well, growing up in a bit of a hippie household I find it hard to wrap my mind around the backpack-decluttering episode.) But the overall image - you can just see 'em. And its, I dunno, just all wrong. I know, thats whats she's saying actually. But it still makes me sad. I mean, this day and age. I dunno.

(Anyone see Lost in Translation? Remember that scene where the girl calls up her mum? And mum's just going through her busybee-good American mum routine, speeding through all the things you're supposed to say on the phone - and not ever even noticing? <sighs>)

Yeah, it's sad.

I don't know how to apportion blame. I think that some of these women are just bad mothers. I think a lot of them are overworked, and without the sort of support system (at work or at home) that allows them to decompress before dealing with their kids. I'm lucky in that I have the option to stay home, and in that I haven't (yet) gone batty from not working -- I had to do a lot of volunteering to get through the most perilous this-close-to-going-batty time, though.

Anyway, thanks for the praise. :-)

And yeah, I think she's pretty smart, too, thanks mac. :-D. And since I'm just gonna go ahead and leave any shreds of humility in the dust, both the interpreter and the pediatrician said at her appt. this morning that they think she's a genius, too. For example:

We arrived, we exchanged pleasantries with the terp (who was already there), and then sozlet proceeded to say that she thought it was "very interesting" how the chairs were set up. There were three sets of three chairs -- the first set was blue orange blue, the second set was orange blue orange, and the third set was blue blue orange. She thought that third set should be blue orange blue. The terp goggled at me and said "HOW old is she??"

This sucks.

Sozlet said goodbye to her best friend today. He moved last Friday, about 40 minutes away. Before that he lived right across the street. They played together at least twice a week, often (especially now that it's warm much more than that.) We'd see them, they'd see us, the kids would run to each other and play.

So I've talked to her about this a lot, set the stage... we took a bunch of pictures when we got together last at their house, made a little book of pictures of Jack and other neighborhood friends. She's been looking at that a lot.

We spent the day with them today, at their new house, and the kids had a blast -- it's out in the boonies, a giant field behind the house, lots of space to run around. A FARM two houses down, with horses and goats and everything. It's a newish subdivision, has a fancy playground -- Jack really wanted to show sozlet, but his younger brother was napping, so I put 'em in the car and took them to the playground (not far, several blocks, but far for them to walk), while Jack's dad stayed home with the baby (although the "baby" is almost two... sigh.) That kind of day, relaxed, everyone comfortable and at home together even in these new surroundings.

Then it was time to say goodbye. I explained to sozlet that this was it. She waved me off, "I know, I know." The goodbyes were protracted, oh you wanted some boxes didn't you, loading them in, kids playing -- just so huggy and sweet and it was just breaking my heart, but sozlet was fine so I was trying to keep it together.

We piled in the car, last waves, and drove off.

Sozlet fell asleep in the car on the way home. We arrived, she woke up, she looked at me, and started sobbing. Just sobbing and sobbing. Didn't stop for about half an hour. I kept asking her why, and she said things like, "the wind is too blowy!!!" or "my elbow itches...!!" -- all in a very tragic tone, through sobs. I asked her if she was sad about Jack, and she waved me off, but she couldn't identify why she WAS crying.

So she just cried and cried and cried, and I held her and patted her back and waited for it to subside.

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

been there, horribly sad

Ok, you got me. I'm crying too!

I hope that sozlet is excited enough about the big move to get distracted. Though I'm sure that the sadness will linger for a long while.

She's doing just fine today... the packers are here (not the Green Bay version -- that'd be nice) and she's interested, talking to them, generally perky.

Be careful what you say... I about soiled myself there... and briefly wondered just how much pull you had!
(Glad she snapped back )