Ups and Downs

Today is a day of highs and lows. Yesterday I said goodbye to a good friend at his memorial service, three years ago today my step-dad, who was every bit a father to me, passed away, and today is the birthday of my absolutely wonderful mother-in-law. Oh, and I’m sick, which just amplifies the whole mixed-feeling thing.

I’m not someone who shies away from hard times or lets sad things overshadow happy ones, so I’m content to have a day of celebrating the birth of one of my favorite people and acknowledging the passing of two of my other favorite people. Sure, I’m feeling a little muddled, with phone calls on my to-do list, one to my mom, to see how she’s faring on this sad day, and one to my mom-in-law, to see how she’s celebrating her happy day.

Yesterday at Ben’s service, I saw a lot of old friends, some people I haven’t seen for ten years, a couple I haven’t seen for twenty, and one little girl that I watched come into the world eleven years ago, held when she was mere minutes old, and who is now 11 and taller than me. Time passes quickly, and it can be hard to keep up with all of the people you know and love and once were so close to but have since drifted away from.

If nothing else, this day of ups and downs serves as a good reminder to tell all of your loved ones that you love them on a regular basis, to let go of all the little stuff that gets in the way of appreciating the people around you, and to give yourself permission to be happy, wistful, and even sad, all at once.

Compassion

I’ve been wondering what the fives will bring, now that String Bean has been five for a few weeks. Last night I discovered one new aspect of String Bean’s ever-developing personality: compassion.

Yesterday a very dear friend of mine passed away. Ben was 43 years old, a kid at heart, and had been my friend for 23 years. We worked together when I was in high school, dated for a while, and were close friends from the moment we met all those years ago. His death was sudden and without warning, and left everyone who knew him in a state of shock. My sister called me with the news, during the girls’ naps, and at first it didn’t hit me. Because it simply couldn’t be true. But as the night wore on, and friends called and sent messages, and a memorial of sorts sprung up on his Facebook page, it sunk in that he’s really gone. It was a long hard night, full of tears. The girls were in bed, hubby had been gone for almost two weeks, one continent and one ocean away and not due home for several days. I spent most of my evening crying alone on the couch, finally free to do so.

String Bean kept calling me into her room, for this and that: she was too hot, too cold, had to pee, needed a sip of water. They were all the tell-tale stalling tactics of a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed, and I get that, but last night I just wasn’t up to playing her little stay-up-late games. So, I told her that a good friend of mine had died, and that I was very sad, and needed some “grown up time” to deal with it, and asked if she could be a big girl and lie quietly in bed until she fell asleep. She wrapped her long skinny arms around me and stroked my hair while I cried. She asked me a lot of questions about him: where he died (walking from his car to the doctor’s office), what happened (he collapsed, and died, and we don’t know why yet), and if the doctor can make him better, or if he’s gone forever. She was very matter-of-fact about it all, hugging me while I cried, and said “I know, he was your friend, and you miss him.”

She wanted to talk a little bit about all the times he’s been to our house, for her birthday and Peanut’s and every other party we ever threw, and discuss the shirts he always wore (aloha shirts were his favorite), and just remember him for a few minutes together. Then she settled back in bed and promised to sleep, and I went downstairs to continue my grieving. The funny thing is, it really helped, talking to her. Remembering him with her was exactly what I needed in that moment, to break through all of the sadness and just be grateful for having had him in my life. I’m equally grateful for having her in my life, and for the compassionate little girl she’s become.

Kindergarten

It’s official, String Bean is registered for kindergarten next fall. The registration date snuck up on me. It seems a bit early, almost seven months before she’ll start school, to be filling out all of those forms and waiting in line to have them approved, but I got it done. Which doesn’t mean that I’m actually ready. Preschool is one thing. She is with 2-5 year olds, and while there is a lot of learning going on at her preschool, there’s also a lot of play and there are teachers happy to give the little tots hugs whenever they need one. In elementary school, she’ll be the youngest in a school of K-5th graders, not the oldest like she is now in preschool. I’m sure she’ll do fine once she gets used to the routine and starts making friends, but it still seems like too much, too soon for me. I’m not quite ready for my baby to be such a big girl.

As for String Bean herself, she knows she’s going to kindergarten in the fall, will have a new teacher in a new school with new friends all around, and even though she’s prone to being oversensitive and nervous about new things, she’s totally fine with it. She’s told me she needs a princess lunch box, and then she’ll be ready to go. I know, I know. It’s called growing up. I’m not sure why 5 seems so much more grown-up than 4 did, but it does feel different. The final traces of chubby toddler cheeks are gone, she knows how to do everything herself now, and even though she’s a super clingy kid, she really doesn’t need me the same way she used to. All of which I’ve been waiting patiently for over the past five years. But now that it’s here, can we just slow it down a little?

How Come?

The threes are the age of “why?” We’ve been through this once, with String Bean, who has wanted to know everything about everything since she started talking at 9 months old. By 11 months one of her favorite things to say was “Where did it go?” Even when she was the one who hid the object just to give her a reason to ask her favorite question. So, we’ve been dealing with endless questions for a while now. Peanut has just hit the “why?” phase full-force, but because she’s a girl who knows her own mind and doesn’t like to do anything the conventional way, her question is always “how come?”

If I tell her it’s time for bed, she immediately asks “how come?” and asks that to every portion of whatever answer I give her (“Because you need sleep.” “How come?” “Because you’ll be tired without it.” “How come?”). With String Bean, to stop the flow of the endless “whys,” I would start asking either “why do you think?” or “why not?” in response, which would actually get her thinking up her own answers on occasion. I’m not sure how to do this with “how come?” “How come not?” just isn’t right. I hate to use the “because” response, for all of its emptiness and annoyance, and also because it just leads to more questions.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate an inquisitive mind. It’s just that, once in a while, I wish she’d be satisfied with only one or two answers instead of ten.

It’s a Girl Thing

During hubby’s last long trip, two weeks in Asia, the girls and I headed up to my mother’s house for a break from all of our 24/7 togetherness that was getting to be too much for all of us. My sister also went up with her 9-month-old daughter. On the drive up, String Bean asked if her uncle would be there, and when I told her no, she said, “Oh, so it’s a girl thing.” I chuckled about that for the rest of the drive. One thing about super-effeminate String Bean, she appreciates girl things.

We’ve had three of these girls’ weekends at Mom’s house now, with Mom, her two girls, and three “grandgirls” as she calls them, and I have to say, I like the girl thing. Trips up to Mom’s house are a great way to get some extra help when hubby’s out of town for a couple of weeks, but when my sister and her daughter come, too, it’s more like a weekend-long party of girlness. We’re not sitting around painting toenails and doing each other’s hair: my sister is as makeup clueless and hair-product challenged as I am, but there are some feel-good movies watched and a lot of chocolate is consumed.

String Bean is a pretty good babysitter-in-training. She follows her cousin around, diverting her from danger, calling out updates to us every few minutes: “She’s near the stairs! She’s heading for the plant! She has a poopy diaper!” So that we can visit a bit and yet still keep a decent eye on the baby, who is now crawling and pulling up and getting into a whole new kind of trouble, especially at Mom’s un-baby-proofed house. String Bean understands which size objects are baby safe and which ones aren’t, and is pretty good at trading her little cousin small objects for larger ones. Peanut’s great at being silly and getting her cousin giggling. One of my favorite things about these girl weekends is watching the three girls playing and laughing together.

My other favorite thing is just hanging out with my sister, catching up and reminiscing and laughing about nothing at all. With three kids between us, we don’t get much quiet time to talk when we get together for an afternoon here and there, but over the course of a full weekend, we get lots of opportunities to talk and laugh. And this is in large part due, of course, to my mother’s tireless efforts in caring for her grandgirls. They are fed, dressed, bathed, fights are broken up, activities are planned, endless questions are answered, and instead of the constant “No, I want Mommy to do it!” that I always hear at home, I get to hear the beloved “No, I want Grandma to do it!” which is currently one of my favorite phrases in the English language.

Memory Girl and Spotter Girl

String Bean has become my memory lately. She finishes my sentences for me, recalls my shopping lists for me, and when I wander into a room only to find I can’t remember why I went there, she’s right behind me to say “You were going to feed the dog,” putting me back on track. She’s very proud of this skill and likes to call herself my “memory girl.” I think it’s fitting that she’s my memory now, since I had an excellent memory right up until the moment I gave birth to her, and it’s been slipping ever since.

The other day in the car she was reminding me what a great memory she has by remembering something for me (I honestly can’t recall what, I’ll have to ask her later), when Peanut tried pitching in and helping, by providing a list of nonsense words that just confused us all. String Bean pointed out that Peanut isn’t much help in the remembering department, but that she’s great at spotting things, like bugs no one else would see or planes so far away they’re practically invisible. This is a nice balance to her sister, because while String Bean can remember crazy things like what color shoes you were wearing when she met you two years ago, she can’t find her own shoes even when they’re sitting right next to her.

“I’m your memory girl, and she’s your spotter girl,” String Bean proudly proclaimed, and for the rest of the day, that’s what they were. They took turns showing off their impressive skills, with String Bean remembering things I hadn’t even forgotten yet (“don’t forget to feed us lunch!”) and Peanut spotting things that didn’t even exist (a bug that turned out to be a piece of lint, which she refused to believe no matter how many times I showed it to her). It devolved into a silly exercise of patience on my part, with having to acknowledge all of that remembering and spotting, even when I didn’t need it.

It’s remarkable how few things get truly lost in our chaotic house of too many things. Either String Bean vividly remembers watching someone kick it under the couch three months ago, or Peanut, at a glance, can spot it in the shadows between the couch and the wall. Overall, they’re handy things to have around: a memory girl and a spotter girl.

Fire-Girls

A few days ago, moments after passing a fire truck on the way home from preschool, the girls announced to me that when they grow up, they are going to be fire-girls. As in, firemen, but girls. And that they’ll work together, on the same fire truck, because they’re going to be best friends forever. I told them they could just call themselves fire-fighters, rather than fire-girls, but they didn’t like that name. Something about the “fighting” aspect of it, the same word I use for the behavior which they are regularly scolded/given time outs for doing at home. So, fire-girls it is.

String Bean then gave me a lengthy explanation about how girls can do/be anything that boys can do/be, which made me pretty proud. Hubby and I try to instill this in them whenever possible, pointing out when we have a female piloting the plane we’re on, or when we saw women hang-gliding in San Diego, or that my doctor and her dentist are women.

I sometimes wonder what it is they’ll choose to do for a living when they’re grown up and realize that being a princess isn’t a paying career. An astrologer I saw before having kids predicted that I’d have two children, one boy and one girl, and one would be an architect and the other would be an actress. He was kind of right, except for the boy part. I could easily see String Bean as an actress, as she basically is one now, putting on mini-performances all day long, from puppet shows to Broadway-style song and dance numbers, and her flair for the dramatic is no joke. At three years old, it’s hard to see Peanut as anything other than a three-year-old bundle of energy and big smiles. Although I recently saw that same astrologer, and this time he told me my girls would be an actress and something to do with horses (he guessed breeding or showing them). The funny thing is, Peanut is obsessed with horses, and he, of course, didn’t know that. My grandmother and aunt were both prized Arabian horse breeders, so I guess it’s in her blood.

For now, they are fire-girls. Ready to ride on a big red truck, wearing big hats, and saving the world from the horrifying sounds that smoke detectors make. String Bean has a serious fear of smoke alarms ever since the one in her room went off (no fire, just a dusty space heater)—to the point where she has trouble sleeping in a room where she can see one. She seems aware that fire-girls would make these devices silent, which seems very important to her. Even at four years old, it’s good to have a life’s mission that would make the world a better, quieter place.