In praise of late bloomers

I love late bloomers, all varieties. My grandpa took up painting just a couple of years ago and sends us watercolor treasures, scenes from Italy and France and Utah. I linger over articles about authors late to the publishing world, taking small shards of hope from their against-all-odds optimism.

My kids didn't get teeth until they were 9 months old and that was perfectly fine with me. Sam's now almost nine years (next month) and he's only lost a couple of teeth, the two almost invisible ones in the bottom center. {Poor boy, he's going to be in 4th grade with the gappy front tooth smile, up to 5 years later than some of his friends.} And Maddy still cherishes her doll Emily with the fidelity of a mother, long after dolls have lost their cool for most of her friends. Everything in its time, I think to myself, privately happy to extend the moments of childhood and allow them their own timetables.

With that in mind, please do not be shocked when I tell you something.

Sam just mastered riding a bike.

Are you still reading this? Are you not shocked with the depths of neglect this boy has had to suffer at the hands of his parents? Truthfully, we've tried. For the past several summers we've taken him out. But, used to the ease that some things have come to him, he didn't like it, dug in his heels and refused. You know that saying about horses and water and drinking? Try young boys and bicycles and riding. Then, we had waited too long and Sam didn't want to be seen learning how to ride a bike, he wanted to do it without the pain of trial, mistakes, and potential embarrassment.

Hmmm. I recognized this trait. And it worried me. I recognized it from my own life, from times when I stayed in the boat rather than learn how to water ski in front of people, countless other times when fear of other's opinions trumped fun and experience and trial and error and joy, for crying out loud.

But I also recognized it from my own reading. In my research work* I have been drawn to interesting findings by Carol Dweck on the developmental importance of failure and persistence in the face of barriers. She's found that, more important than believing that you're smart is believing you're hard working or able to work to become better. She's also looked at the effects of different kinds of praise (from parents and teachers), discovering that praise about traits (being smart, beautiful, naturally athletic) means less (and is in fact at times counter-productive) than praise about effort. In short, the difference is whether you think that your abilities are inborn or developed because it influences your philosophy about whether effort is worth it.

This lack of bike-riding was a splinter in Sam's view of himself. He stayed home from the scout bike rodeo and avoided playing with bike-happy friends. For a while, Sam seemed to think people either could bike or they couldn't and there wasn't much point in trying. But this week, with the aid of a positive and patient dad and much negotiation, he agreed to work at it for ten tries. And then, mid-week, he started rolling his bike out to the front of the house on the sly, doggedly working solo on that tricky starting moment where you lift both feet to the pedals and push. Today he's zipping around the neighborhood, all glee and I-did-it-ness.

Yeah, I love those inspiring, audacious, late-bloomers--octogenarian novice painters, middle-age debut authors, and especially nine-year-old bike riders.

*just if you're curious: my proposed work is focusing on early interaction patterns between infants/toddlers and parents that influence these self views and subsequent motivations/curiosity/persistence/resilience.

In the hot seat

I don't want to brag but...I'm popular. Every time we go somewhere with seating--restaurant, movie, church--my kids fight over who sits next to me. It's flattering, really, and (to be frank) I do nothing to discourage it. At least someone likes me! I've thought about doing a rotation schedule but that seems so narcissistic (and time consuming) that I have rejected it. So, instead, when we arrive somewhere we all do this stand-and-shuffle tango trying to align ourselves in the right order for peace and tranquility. And justice. And harmony.

Lucky for us we have a member of the fairness police squad in our family. Maddy knows who has sat where under which circumstances since time began. There's a little corner of her brain that keeps track of all things justice related (maybe a classic middle kid thing to do?). Last week we went someplace and, to Maddy's mind, we sat in the wrong places.

"It was my turn to sit next to you, not Sam's," she noted (for the record, your honor) as we left.
"Well, next time you can."
"But Sam didn't even talk to you. I would have been a much better use of your time."

Some day they won't care anymore. Some day they will argue about who has to sit next to me. But for now, I'll take it as a great vote of support from my very own constituents.

Kool-aid mom manifesto

Remember the commercial for Kool-Aid where there's a group of neighborhood kids playing outside and they ask for a drink (thirsty, sugar-starved kids that they are)? The mom turns and yells, "Hey, Kool-aid!" and the big pitcher comes crashing through the fence. Fade to the next shot, with the mom bringing little dixie cups of sugar joy to all the kids in their clubhouse.

(I'm starting to realize that I might be adding a little of the "Honeycomb Hideout" commercial, too, because in my mind I start hearing "honeycomb's big, yeahyeahyeah. " But no matter...) I aspire to being a Kool-Aid mom, I really do. I possess a couple of quirks that make this difficult. One, I tend to consider my house my house...a little peaceful oasis from the world. And I like to have a say ("control" is such a loaded word) over my time. If I want to run an errand, I want to load the kids in the car and go, not eject the neighborhood from my house and yard first. I'm just quirky like that.

But today I had three 13-year-olds in our front room, laughing and throwing hackysacks at each other, talking, and hanging out. It's not that this is the first time it's happened, it's just that for some reason today I had an epiphany. So I am resolving to say yes more often, aspiring to the rank of Kool-Aid mom. Here's the Kool-Aid mom manifesto as I see it:

- I will find reasons to say yes to more of the "can I...?" requests that come my way.
- I will go out of my way to host my kids' friends here.
- I will stay out of the room (but nearby) to avoid the dreaded "mom trying too hard to be one of us" syndrome.
- I will maintain a good supply of fuel (by fuel I mean junk food and snacks) for those who grace our presence.
- I will give the benefit of the doubt more often.
- I will smile more and hesitate less.
- I will remember that most kids need more adults in their lives believing in them and listening to them.
- I will take a deep breath when the noise/mess/enthusiasm swells to epic levels and later, ask for help to fix/clean/tidy what's become undone.
- I will enjoy these delicious, fleeting years.

So I have two questions: who are your favorite Kool-Aid moms? what advice or additions to the manifesto would you suggest?

Of dolls and mayhem

M still loves dolls. I love that about her. She still changes their clothes, fusses over them, gives them stimulating conversation and activities (see pictures). To tell you the truth, I was not a doll person after the My Baby Chrissy doll I had at age 5. I just didn't get the point, would have rather read or imagined a different reality. I could appreciate the fun of dressing them but the idea dulled when it came to playing with them. (This is all a little ironic, since I am the granddaughter of a doll museum proprietor. Kind of like being the tone-deaf granddaughter of Kiri Te Kanawa.)

I think that's why I especially love M's doll affection. It's purely, delightfully her thing, not one bit influenced by my or her sister's preferences. Her doll Emily has logged as many travel miles as M has...we have pictures of Emily peering out of the window onto Niagara Falls, propped up on a pillow in the hotel in NYC (poor Emily has a delicate constitution and quite often needs to stay back at the hotel, napping. Quite often I wish I could join her.) and traipsing through airports peering from M's backpack.

Once several years ago she accidentally left her at a park playground. We were on our way home and I heard a sharp intake of air and M's squeal, "Oh, no! Emily! I forgot her!" We had only been gone about 5 minutes so I did a U-turn, pulled up at the curb, and the two girls tumbled out to go fetch Emily. What happened next deeply affected M. And us all. L returned first, tears streaming down her face. "Emily's hurt!" was all I could get from her. As I got out of the car, M came around the fence, sobbing, with sticks in her arms. But not sticks. As she got closer, I could see they were two arms, two legs, all independent from the head and sweet little dress M had put on Emily for her outing to the park.

It took me weeks before I could think about this incident without tears. Yes, it was just a doll. Not a living thing, not irreparable or even irreplaceable. But M's knowledge of the world expanded that day to know that there are people out there that would pull the arms and legs off of a doll. Just because. All the way home, 6-year-old M breathed in that post-cry, hiccuped rhythm. "Why would anybody do this? Do they not like me? Or Emily? " While she wanted to hold her, it was just too upsetting "I can't look at her...she's not herself." We tried to reason that it could have been a dog but there weren't any teeth marks, just clean tears of her limbs. Eventually, we got her fixed (actually AG dolls did a whole new body but M doesn't know this) and Emily has continued her almost mascot status in the family. And my mother bear tendencies have softened so that I don't need to find out who did it or to demand apology and contrition. In one corner of my heart, though, I hope the kid who did it grows up to have a daughter who arranges her dolls in little scenes, who nurtures and washes and feeds them with the dedicated devotion of a first-time mama, and he (or she) remembers. And realizes.

The matriarchs

I am blessed with fabulous women in my ancestry. Wise, witty, generous, spunky, smart, sometimes fiery, always authentic--I've got a rich supply of role models on the branches of my family tree, including aunts, grandmas, great-grandmas, mom, sister. They are my mental pantheon of matriarchs. I crave their wisdom and advice, in person or through scouring their journals. To pay tribute, I'd like to share some of their insights. It might even turn into a weekly feature...we'll see.

This is from my great grandma Brockbank, fondly known as Grandma B, mother to nine daughters:

"Relax and enjoy your children. 99% of them turn out all right anyway. Just let your memory go back to all the obnoxious little boys and girls you used to know and think of them now. They're not delinquents. They're married now and going to work each morning, coming home at night to work in the yard, play with their children, go out with friends...they are the salt of the earth and yours will be among them, so love them and stop worrying. Especially ease up on the oldest one. My, we expect a lot of the first one. We set out to show the world what we can do, and it is a wonder they survive at all with our constant, erratic, unreasonable supervision. It is a good thing that children are resilient and so loyal. They forgive us and love us anyway."

See? Wise!