Reasons my kid is awesome #547 and #892

#547: Today we were walking across campus and Emily said "Mom, do you remember that time we were walking down here and Ben jumped out of the bushes and scared me? I think he was playing psychic!"

#892: Emily is in the bath tub, picking her teeth vie her reflection in that circular metal knob thing (what are those for anyway?).

Em: Mom, where do babies come from?
Me: They come out of their mommy's vagina.
Em: But where before that?
Me: They live in their mommy's uterus until they have grown enough to come out.
Em: But how do they get there?
Me: They get there when a man and a woman have sex.
Em: What's sex?
Me: *deep breathe* Sexual intercourse is where a man sticks his penis in a womans vagina. Sometimes, it results in the woman becoming pregnant.
Em: *blank astonished look and long silence* *glance at her own vagina* *confused look back at me* I bet he forgot.
Me: What?
Em: The man, I bet he forgot about putting his penis in her 'gina!

Then she calmly returned to picking her teeth.

Sappy mom, awesome daughter

Six years ago I was hugely pregnant and about to rip the head off of the next person that took one look at my large belly and asked "are you STILL pregnant?" or ask how I was feeling, and when I replied "fine" they would take one look at me and say "really?" or my favorite, the stranger with their hands on my belly asking "are you SURE there isn't two or three in there?". I think it is safe to say that I was slightly done with a stomach so big that I couldn't reach my feet. (Very literally could not reach my feet.) I was tired of feeling the urge to pee every time I laid down, yet when actually try, produced very little. And I was SICK of not being able to sleep. The being hungry constantly, yet only being able to eat a few bites before my actual stomach organ was too full because there was mounds of baby compressing it, that was getting old. But all that being said (and I am sure I could say more, if I thought about it long enough), I LOVED being pregnant. Talk about the fascination of being a walking science experiment. I loved that I had such a wonderful connection with Emily before we even knew her as Emily. I loved being able to feel her in there, tapping at insides or curling her toes around my rib cage, letting me know she was there. When I went into labor, I went shopping. I was pretty low on the crazy scale until that very moment when I went grocery shopping all by myself, having contractions every 10 minutes, and purchased $300 of food. Woo nesting! It was all I had left to do. I had scrubbed and cleaned and reorganized clothes and everything else I could think of. I was so ready for this baby. It seemed like an eternity within those months of pregnancy.

And then, fast forwarding through the parts where I was screaming so loud I thought I was listening to someone else scream (it really is an interesting birth story), there was my perfect, wailing ball of baby. The first three weeks were so very long. I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. I thought it was crazy talk when I would hear mothers say "I was up for five days straight after she was born" but nope, so true. I couldn't sleep, all I could do was stare. At how beautiful she was, and how perfect her little fingers and toes and ears were. How deliciously baby-like she smelled, how cuddly she was. I was so amazed that she came out of my body. I mean, I GREW a baby, and she came out of ME! Seriously, I have known where babies come from for as long as I can remember, but how often does the miracle of that truly sink in, other than right after you have accomplished the feat yourself?

And here we are six years later. We have survived the adjustment of separation, the first set of stitches, the first fights with friends, the first heartaches. We have relished in the wonders of nature, and REALLY gotten down with the puddles and ponds and mud. We have had dance parties and spa nights, we have sung and cooked and created together. We have fought with each other and cried together, and then comforted each other. There have been countless hugs and kisses and love notes and sweet words. And it is all still so incredibly magical. Not a day goes by where I think "what am I doing here? this isn't me or my life!" What other relationship can I say that about? Not one.

Six years of awesome. My little girl will be six in one week, and I can't believe how fast it has all been. It's a freakin' ride, yo!

And I am going to revel in all of it now so that when she is a teenager and hates me, I can ship her off to her Auntie Nessa's.

Angsty parenting crises...almost.

I had one of those moments today. You know, one of those 'strapped for cash mother of a female growing up in this materialistic superficial society' moments that I have known was coming but also dreading it. I just thought that I had a few years before it got here.

Emily and I were in the car driving home from school. It was sunny, the birds were out and singing, spring was showing budding signs of it's glorious return, and then she said it. "Mom, I want to wear fashionable clothes". *Insert sound of record scratching here*

Me: *cough* *think quietly before opening my mouth* "Well...honey...what are fashionable clothes?"

Em: "You know, like, skirts and cute shirts, and tights!"

Me: "You have all those kinds of clothes don't you?" *thinking to myself 'ohmygawdpleasesayyes'

Em: "Yeah, you just don't lay them out for me."

I can't tell you how relieved I was at this revelation here at the end. No, this isn't the beginning of the battle with my child about how me and my broke ass are the reason she isn't popular and has no friends, it's just that I don't pick out the right clothes from her closet.

Me: "Well, I would love it if you got up in time to pick out your own clothes in the morning!"

Em: "But you don't wake me up!"

Me: "HAH! I spent about 45 minutes trying to wake you up this morning..." (My child is famously NOT a morning person. At family camp this year, after a night of karaoke, when I tried to rouse her for breakfast, she literally threw her pillow at me. I am lucky she has lousy aim.)

So you get the point. Crisis adverted, for now, and hopefully for at least two more years.

autumn is something I love

I love autumn. This season is my favorite. It is still warm enough to be at the tail end of a growing season so there is fresh produce. The leaves are turning making the street look like they are lined with fire, you can almost hear the sigh of the earth drinking in the rain we have all been waiting all summer for, and it is warm, but not too warm. Mornings and evenings call for tea or hot chocolate drunk to the sound of rain falling, daytime consists of puddle jumping and exploring the new wet world (when school isn't swallowing our faces whole). Something about the darkness that is growing ever closer brings out the homemaker in me even more so than she is usually present. I begin baking my bread with a renewed vigor, I have elaborate comfort food meal plans (half of which may even make it to my table), and this year, I will add cheesemaking to that winter to-do list.

I have always loved this time of year, but having my daughter with me makes it all the more enjoyable. "Momma, look at the leaves, they are beautiful! I see red, and orange, and green, and purple, and they sound like rain when they all fall like that!" Yesterday we spent the day out at our favorite arboretum where we dutifully monitored the lily pond from frog eggs, to tadpoles, to full blown frogs. While our usual hike was out of the question due to trail restoration, we went for a walk along the river. My kid notices an impressive amount of detail about nature. That the tiny fish that were there in July are gone, the water level has risen, the crickets sound different. It is like rediscovering the world all over again. I love it. Emily's favorite game when we are outside is to play "I Spy". This started out as a time-passer on the bus to and from school, but it has evolved into a game to see who can notice the most unique and minute details about the world around us. The texture of bark or leaves, the scent of pine needles. The proud mom in me bursts when I watch the inventiveness and intelligence she throws into this game, often times stumping me and leading me to discover things that I would have never noticed.

And, on a different note, my mom is moving out in three days.

Emily tells a story: Enza and the three bears Kwaja

Once upon a time there was this flower. And this flower was poisoned and someone picked it and it was she was dead! And, well, her mother came and she saw her dead and didn't feel like, felt like she didn't need a kid anymore. And she cried and cried and cried. Until Goldilocks came, and the three bears came with her and decided to have a picnic with the little girl aaaand, there was this big fox who chosen Goldilocks to eat her up. First she started from the head, *crunch* then he started from her stomach, and then legs. And from all these weeks she was alive and tricked her mom and knowed the way home and she scared her mom by tipping her over! And then, her mother was so excited that she was alive and soon they go to get a lollipop, and some ice cream. And soon they were sick. And then they soon they go to a giants house and scare the dad up and it was a mom. And too bad they scared up the little bear and papa bear. Suddenly they got angry and said "Hey child, you better go home or I am gonna cut off your head!" And then they really really needed some water and they were dead.

And soon they woke up in their bed and they were like "HEY! What happened?"

And the end!

Written by Emily Hatfield.
And send this to Prema please. And please. And thank you. And now I am done.

It's raining outside. The smell of it mixed with the whimsical mood I am suddenly in makes me want to dance in it. Or at the very least, go for a run. I settle for tea on the back porch instead. As the neighbor kids run for cover and bitterly complain about this weather taking away one of their last days of summer, I chuckle. It's one of the many difference between kid-Amber, and adult-Amber I guess, the practicality of rain at this dry time of year makes sense.

The smell makes me nostalgic for the August days in the town I was born, it reminds me of my grandmothers porch, the way my cousins and I loitered out there constantly one summer, placing bets on which family members would cross the line between loud and obscene at the next family dinner, or sneaking off to puddle jump when Grandma wasn't looking.

It's amazing really, to look back and notice how gradually, yet also so suddenly, life went from puddle-jumping to job proposals, from playing house to keeping one of my own. When I was a kid, it felt summer used to stretch on endlessly. Days would creep by so slowly it felt like you lived an entire lifetime in a week. Now, I am worrying about making it to my daughters swim lessons on time, buying her school supplies for kindergarten, and compiling what resembles a menu for the week so my grocery shopping has some method to it, while maintaining laundry, playdates, and doing homework, all in one day, leaving me feeling exhausted at the end of the day.

Even this summer, despite my best efforts to leave it as structureless as possible has been too full of plans and obligations. Will Em be able to look back and have memories of building the adventure around herself like my cousins and I did as we pretended the lilac bushes were our pirate hideout? Will she remember the freedom of exploring the world around her like I recall?

"Mom, let's jsut go outside and build some fairy homes, that's all I wanna do."

With any luck, and a spirit like hers, I am betting she will.

Emily teaches me how to make fruit punch

Tell me how to make fruit punch...

"get a big bowl..aaaaand put juice in it and mix it. Put. And. You have to wait for a minute to let the stuff inside it, it supposed to be cold, but you can do whatever you want. And then you start stirring it up. Then you put ice in it, then you put in the freezer, or the 'fridgerator. Aaaaand. And, thats about it. And then you drink it! It's ssUPER yummy!"

Emily tells a story: Make Believe

There was a dark forest and only two bears. The momma one and the poppa one. They didn't have any babies so thats why they went in the forest and lived in the forest. Goldilocks went into the forest and heard "RAWR! Who's in our forest?" She came closer and it came louder "WHO"S IN OUR FOREST???" Until she fell down and she woke up and she wasn't in Kansas anymore. She was in a forest. She got out of bed. And then ate some cereal because she was getting starving! AND she also took a drink of water and she read a book, she made a book, AND she drawed a picture. And then she walking and heard "Eerrrrr" She saw this store and she went inside and the two bears were having a baby and his name was little baby and then they walked to get her out of the forest and back into Kansas and then she ate food and make food, made drinks, and from all that stuff she made she even made pudding. She laid on the couch. She heard a "knock knock" and she got up and opened it, invited all her friends, all her friends came in the same pile, brought presents and ate cake. She made a cake. Then she opened all her presents and then the last present she had to get was MAKE-UP!

"And that's the end of MY story. Wrotten by Emily H."

Emily tells a story: Goldilocks and the 3 bears. Again.

"I'm thinking.......Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

"You already told this one!"

"No! It's a different one."

The three bears ate oatmeal. And Papa said "let's go for a walk" Baby bear said "I love going for walks!" He runned up ahead and the mom and dad catched up to him. And they...Goldilocks came and she saw oatmeal and she cracked in the door and said "hellloooo?" and no one was home. SO she sneaked in and she said "this oatmeal is toooo hot!" and she tried the other one and she said "this one's toooo cold" and she tried the other one and she said "this ones juuuust right!" and she went off to watch tv. She tried the first one and said "this ones tooo hard", she tried the second one and she said "this ones toooo soft" and she tried the third one and said "this ones juuuust right!" And she tried the second-(did I already say that? Oh! Ok...) And she was getting tired so she went up and did some, and watched tv. She said this bed tooo hard, and she tried the second one and she said this ones tooooo soft, and she tried the last one and it was juuuust right. She turned on the tv and heard the bears crack open the door, they came and she was still, the poppa said "someones been sleeping in my bed", and the momma said "someones been sitting in my bed" and the baby one said "someones been laying in my bed and she's still there!" And then the three bears, they went close to Goldilocks, she woke up and she screamed! Her legs carried her allll the way home! And yelled "I'll never come back to this house. And the bears locked a big chain on the door so no one could come in.

"And thats the end of my story, and it's wrote by Emily Rabbit!"

Emily tells a story: Goldilocks and the 3 bears.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Goldilocks, and the three bears. The three bears went on a walk and to let their oatmeal cool off. And then, an then when she Goldilocks came, she said "this soup is too hot!" and she tried the other one and it was too cold, and she tried the other one, and when she got to the perfect one she ate it all up! Then she went to the room to watch TV. She watched TV and she got tired and she went in the beds and she said "this beds too HARD" and she tried the other bed "This beds tooooo soft" and the other one was just right. And she saw the three bears coming home and said, the poppa one said "Someones been eating my oatmeal" and the momma said "Someones been eatin my oatmeal" and the baby said "Someones been eatin my oatmeal and she ate it allllll up." And Goldilocks heard talking and she tried, she jumped out of the window, and runned home, and she said "I'll never come back to this house ever again!"

The bears saw her running out of the window and yelled "Wait! We're nice bears!" So she came back, and they all had a dance party with marshmallows and graham crackers and chocolate, they had s'mores, and lemonade, and pudding. Chocolate pudding!

And that is the end.


*as told verbatim by the divine Miss Emily Rabbit.