Today I went to the dentist. It was nice.

Not that I enjoy going to the dentist, mind you. Although sometimes I can get freaked out when I know the probe-under-the-gums thing is happening and I dread it for days, most of the time it’s just a cleaning and I can relax and treat it like a massage. I even almost nod off sometimes. Today was one of those days.

But also, now that we have a good routine and BDH handles the school run when I need to go to an appointment, it’s a little time to myself. And, more and more, BDH and I both are finding that we are starting to reclaim some of our “me time”.

Although we miss the babyhood years and do not regret them for a moment, the fact that Stinkerbelle is growing older and more independent does have some benefits. The routine of school has certainly lent itself to me getting to see the dentist regularly, as well as providing a regularly scheduled time for me to do some work.

Also, now that That Girl is growing more independent, having to take time in the evening to go to the doctor or for BDH to go to soccer or for me to go for a hair appointment is not the challenge it used to be, when Stinkerbelle was more needy and more reliant on us, or as she grew and would cry with separation anxiety when one of us left. Now, we are able to explain what we are doing and why we are leaving, and the tears only happen when she is tired or hungry (or, sometimes, has missed time with BDH during a busy week).

The next step is for BDH and I to have a date night. It has been three and a half years since we have had a night out alone together. (I always laugh to myself when I meet new parents who are complaining about not getting out for SO LONG OMG IT’S BEEN THREE MONTHS. Please. Try three YEARS.) Part of that is because we have no support system here, family or friends, to step in and babysit. Part of it has been because, with her issues and delays, we were unsure that the regular old neighbourhood teen babysitter would be a good fit for Stinkerbelle’s challenges, or that she would be able to understand fully what was going on. So family or friends would have been a better fit to babysit, if we had had them.

A large part of it is because we are homebodies, readily entertained here at home with computers and hobbies and videos and INTERNETS FOREVER.

But part of it is, we waited for so long to have this child in our lives, we just enjoy doing things WITH her. We go as a family to restaurants or out to places or events or to visit friends. We didn’t do a lot of things then that we can’t enjoy now as a family.

Except going out to a movie. We miss going to movies. We were big movie people, way back when. And it has been almost four years since we’ve been to the theatre, so we’re kind of looking forward to doing that again.

Way back when, before Stinkerbelle was a glimmer in anyone’s eye, before we were waiting to adopt, before all hopes of infertility treatment had failed, I made a promise: that if ever we were blessed to have a child,  just one child, I would not complain. About anything. I would be grateful for the good providence that brought that child to us, and enjoy every moment, and let the tough stuff just roll off. I would take whatever came and remember that it is all good fortune, because so many people I know will never be able to experience ANY of it, the joys and the challenges, of parenthood. And for a long time, we believed we would be those people. So I would not complain about anything.

I think I have done pretty well, all things considered. But if I am totally honest, we have had precious little to complain about. We were totally ready to bring a child into our lives, and went in with our eyes completely open and prepared, some would say over-prepared, for whatever that child would bring us. And looking back, we were so unbelievably lucky to be united with such a wonderfully laid-back, funny, easygoing child. We didn’t have a lot of the challenges that a lot of adoptive parents do. We were incredibly fortunate, and blessed beyond our wildest dreams.

So, three and a half years passed pretty enjoyably, really. Not complaining has been mostly a non-issue.

And now it occurs to us, three and a half years later, that maybe it might be time to go out on a date again.

Stinkerbelle is independent enough now that, after she gets comfortable with a babysitter, she probably won’t notice much that we’re out for a few hours, and sociable enough that she will be chuffed to just have somebody NEW to play with. So… maybe dinner AND a movie. And we have a night out planned with Janna and Andrew in March that will be a real big time out for us.

But even once we get set on a sitter and her comfortable with us, I don’t think it will change things all that much, homebodies that we are. It’ll give us a little more flexibility, and we can take more opportunities to go out and do stuff that we didn’t before, like movies and Christmas parties and such. Maybe we’ll get out and JOIN groups and PLAN stuff and DO things, As People Do.

Or not. We’ll probably still have most of our fun at home with each other. (And some knitting. And THE INTERNETS.)

We’re enjoying this time that will pass so quickly with our daughter, so we’re still not prepared to miss TOO much of that. And we’d miss her, that kid we waited so long for, and the fun she brings to our life together.

But the siren song of the cinema IS calling to us. With a giant bag of popcorn. With REAL BUTTER OMG YES. And not having to do The Potty Tour of every bathroom within a mile’s radius of where we’re sitting. That might be nice.

BDH is taking a week’s vacation this week. He’s been sick, like we all have, for six weeks now, and it’s been a good five or six months since his last vacation. So he opted to take a week off and just rest and hang out.

One of the nice things is that, during this time, he gets the opportunity to get back in touch with what his daughter does in the course of a day. Being at work all day, five days a week most weeks, he gets what she does, on an intellectual level. Of course. But he doesn’t really get to experience what she does, or see the little things that I get to see but don’t mention, and perhaps take for granted.

Take swimming class, for example. Today was the first time in two years of swimming lessons that BDH has had the chance to see That Girl in swim class. He had not even been in the recreation centre before today. He just didn’t have the opportunity. But he got to sit and watch his girl paddle about — well, dunk underwater, mostly, because that is all she seems to want to do — and he really got a kick out of it.

I forget, sometimes, that these things are new and fun for him, because I see them all the time. And I forget that the little things that I take for granted may be the things that give him the greatest joy in a day with Stinkerbelle.

He has done the school run this week, and gotten to be the recipient of the joyous run-and-hug at the door that finishes each school day for Stinkerbelle. Tomorrow he’s going to get up with her and get her fed and ready for school, so I can have a sleep-in day. He’s going to sit in with me at a meeting with her developmental coordinator tomorrow. He is having breakfast with his best girl every day. And lunch. And playtime. We may even get out for a walk in the woods one day, if the weather cooperates.

I forget all the little things that make my day full and rewarding, that he gets to experience new on these days off. I think that, although he’d also love to be able to sleep in and play is online game and relax all day, he is enjoying his week as a stay-at-home dad.

It’s no week in Barbados, and no mistake. But he wouldn’t get as many kisses and hugs and moments of joy in a week in Barbados, either.

Okay, so. Guess who’s sick again?

NOT ME. But, BDH has bronchitis. AND post-bronchitis, which means when he was sick at Xmas? THAT was bronchitis. And then he got better. And now he has post-bronchitis. But since getting better, while suffering with post-bronchitis, he’s managed to get bronchitis AGAIN.  So, both bronchitis AND post-bronchitis. AT THE SAME TIME.

NICE. That takes a special gift, that does.

And, this afternoon, guess who started coughing?

NOT ME. But Stinkerbelle’s nap was punctuated with coughs, and she’s been coughing ever more steadily since then. TWO DAYS BACK in school, and ALREADY she’s come home sick. Or picked up Daddy’s bronchitis. Whatever.

EXCELLENT. I expect the next few nights are going to be GREAT FUN.

So, who’s next in line, do you think? The one who’s gotten sick every other week since September? The one who’s got asthma and is already prone to these sorts of things? The one who’s just gotten over the whole viral nastiness at Christmas?

SICKNESS GODS, I HATE YOU.

Hopefully I shall dodge this bullet, and avoid getting whatever it is these two have.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA BWAH HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAA.

No, I am not laughing AT you, sickness gods. I am laughing NEAR you. Would I laugh at you? After all, we’ve become SO CLOSE this year.

You bastards.

There’s a lot about three-and-a-half that will drive you crazy. The endless drama. The saucy talk. The being-contrary-because-I-can. The endless WHYs and the random HOWs. And there are days when I think THREE = NOT MY FAVOURITE.

But then, to remind you of how cool this age can be, you have days like today.

My child, with her speech delays and oral motor issues, can be a challenge even without all the three-and-a-half stuff going on. Even being her most pleasant, sweetest, funniest self, spending an hour and a half on a meal can drive you mental. Telling her not to do something and having her immediately go right ahead and do it because she had NO IDEA WHAT YOU SAID can make even the most patient parent lose it.

But today, that stuff was not in the house. She was almost, ALMOST, like what I know children of her age to be. And it was lovely.

With her extremely limited food options and incapacity to cope with new foods, when she a) says she wants to try to eat something, and 2) says she likes it and wants more, you learn to go with it. So, today we did.

For New Years, we bought some assorted sweets from the grocery store bakery. We had leftovers the next day that we put out on a tray, and as a matter of habit, as I do with anything new, I asked Stinkerbelle if she would like to try a cookie. It was a macaroon, dipped in a little chocolate.

I thought no way, there’s no way she’s going to want to try it, and certainly if she does there’s no way she’s going to be able to cope with the stickiness and the chewiness and the texture of strands of coconut.

She tried it. She liked it.

SHE ATE THREE.

So I was all DUDE YOU LIKE THESE? WE WILL HAVE THEM ALL. THE. TIME.

So I got out a cookbook and found a recipe for macaroons. And I said to her today, we will make some of those cookies. My kid loves the mixer, and loves to participate in baking. So I thought we’d run to the grocery store, get what we needed for the week and for the macaroons, and then we’d do a little baking together.

It was the only time I have ever seen my child be impatient at the store (other than when she’s sick). She LOVES the grocery store and talking to everyone and being out and about. But not today. Today she was all about going home and making cookies. All through the store she politely complained that it was time to go home. And she told anyone she encountered that we had to go home and use the mixer.

So we did.

We came home, and got everything ready. (The recipe for macaroons is so simple, it doesn’t need a mixer — it can be done easily with a spoon and a bowl. So I had to promise we’d make something else after naptime.) And I cannot tell you the pleasure I took from the simple act of making these cookies. Standing there in my kitchen with That Girl on a chair beside the counter, letting her pour ingredients in and stir things. Squatting down together in front of the oven to watch as cookies bake. Having the give and take of a conversation in which she understands what is going on, and can identify things and sounds and tastes.

And the best part of all, having her sit at the table and eat something we baked. Actually ENJOY it. No complaining, no resisting, no flailing, no crying. Just eating and enjoying.

It was lovely.

Sure, she flung (flinged? flang?) coconut all over the counter with her spoon. And sure, she knocked a glass of orange juice everywhere in her excitement. But those are things you expect when cooking and eating with a three year old.

It’s when you make things time and time and time again, and offer them to her, and have her reject them out of hand, that it begins to get a bit wearing. It’s when you find yourself making three separate meals sometimes so that everyone in the house is happy that it’s a challenge. It’s when you have a very limited number of options of what she will eat and you worry about how to get more nutrition into her diet that it gets challenging. It’s when you realize that she has never eaten a fresh uncooked vegetable, or never eaten an apple, or most other fresh fruit, and that it’s been days since you can remember if she has eaten vegetables in her meals that you begin to feel like a failure. And you wonder if she will ever, ever be like other kids, or if it will always be a struggle.

So the simple act of making something together and happily eating what we made can seem huge. Monumental. It makes for a really good day.

And the bonus? Finding one more way my kid is like me — liking coconut — one more thing we share, is so much fun. As an adoptive parent, you get used to the idea that your kid is not like you, biologically, so you can’t say “we have the same eyes/nose/toes/whatever”. So you find ways in which you ARE alike and celebrate the hell out of them.

There are going to be a lot of macaroons in our future. That’s good. The future is looking bright. And sticky. And chewy.

You all know how I love a schedule, right? It’s true. Almost as much as I love lists. I LOVE SCHEDULES. Structure. Plans. Everything in order.

So imagine how topsy-turvy things got yesterday, when at 8:30 am my schedule suddenly got thrown out the window.

I was scheduled to be a chaperone at Stinkerbelle’s class trip to a local museum on Monday morning. And the week previous, we got our volunteer assignments from the teachers at That Girl’s school. Now, one of the things you agree to when your child enrolls there is a certain amount of volunteering. Fundraisers, making playdoh, scrapbooking… that kind of thing. And I am a stay-at-home mom for the most part. So I don’t mind.

Only I did all the enrollment paperwork, including all the volunteering paperwork, in the summertime and then? Promptly forgot what I had volunteered to do.

So when the volunteering lists came to us last week, imagine my surprise to be reminded that I had said I’d be the class historian.

Basically, what this entails is taking a lot of pictures of the class during the year, for the scrapbooks or year-end slideshows or what have you. Which is all fine, except the school year was one-third over by the time I was reminded of this assignment, and so I had missed A LOT.

So I was in a bit of a tizz, and thought I’d better get cracking. I mean snapping.

So I took the camera along to the museum on Monday, and merrily snapped away. And at the end of the session, one of the teachers came and asked if I had managed to get shots of every child. It seems they are making Christmas ornaments and wanted to have all the kids’ pictures to put on them. And, since Monday’s outing had the class divided into two groups, and I spent the majority of time with Stinkerbelle’s group, I hadn’t taken many at all of the other children. Plus one of the kids’ grandmas, who was there taking pictures of her pweshus widdle gwandbaby, had a habit of backing up and bending over in front of me so that her expansive ass was in my shot all the time.

So I suggested going into the classroom on Wednesday to make sure I got good shots of all the kids.

Enter yesterday morning’s early phone call. That Girl’s teacher was calling to say something had come up, and could I reschedule for next Monday? And as I am pretty flexible, I agreed.

Which meant: I HAD UNSCHEDULED TIME ON MY HANDS ON WEDNESDAY MORNING.

So I scrambled to PLAN.  And I decided that after I dropped Stinkerbelle off at school, it would be a good time to go out to Canadian Tire and give Santa Claus an assist. (P.S. Grammy? You and Grandad are all set.)

My day had been turned a little on its head. But what I didn’t realize was that, like the way making a small change in one’s own life can have a ripple effect into the lives of so many others… People around me were going to get weird.

To start with, as I was heading down my street driving Stinkerbelle to school, a contractor’s truck loaded with ladders and other paraphernalia came barrelling backwards out of a driveway, causing much screeching of brakes, not to mention cussing on my part. Apparently either the guy couldn’t see out the back of his truck or didn’t bother to look.

And then, not 50 yards away on the same street, ANOTHER vehicle came plowing backwards out of another driveway. Again with the screeching brakes and the foul language.

I got Stinkerbelle dropped off and headed out to Canadian Tire, DOING 50 BILLION SHOULDER CHECKS AS I GO. Because DOODZ. Drivers be crazy.

I got to Canadian Tire and went in, and started looking around for my items. And as I was browsing, I heard a song.

Now, you know how when someone gets the words to a song — a very well-known song — slightly wrong, and they insist on singing it that way over and over again, it makes you a little mental? Well, I was walking in the aisles of Canadian Tire, and I heard someone singing the Elmo song. “La la la LA, la la la LA, ELMO’S WORLD…” It’s not a complex song.

And around the corner came a couple and their toddler son. And one of the moms was singing the song to her son. Only she had one of the words wrong. But dude. There are only FOUR WORDS TO THE ENTIRE SONG. If you count “la” as a word.

Now, the other mom was shushing her — whether she was embarrassed because her spouse had the words wrong, or because she was a very bad singer, or it’s a bad song, or what, I don’t know — but Singing Mom just kept on singing. Incorrectly. Over and over and over and over again.

And I felt as though I had been plonked into some weird parallel universe. Because a) if you have a child under the age of 4, you know this song well enough to know all the words, and 2) if you have a child under the age of 4, you know this song is crazy-making at the best of times.

This was not the best of times.

So I escaped to the extreme far kitty-corner of the store among the shovels and ice scrapers.

Once I picked up all I could carry and paid, I took it all out to the car. Beside me was a mini-van, with another shopper, an older lady, loading some purchases.  She got in her car, and started to back out.

And I watched as this woman and her mini-van and an older woman in a regular car directly opposite her backed out at the exact same time, neither of them looking as they did so, and RIGHT INTO EACH OTHER.

Crunch.

Bumpers were dented and scratched and I believe the car’s bumper even had a hole in it. I am not sure, because I continued to watch dumbstruck as these two older women got our of their vehicles, surveyed the damage, and rather than exchange driver’s license information for future reference, HUGGED EACH OTHER. And then got in their cars and drove away.

Now, if you have lots of money for car repairs and/or don’t want the hassles of insurance, or maybe if you know the person you’ve just collided with, I can see how maybe this might happen. But my impression is that these two older ladies, strangers it seemed to me, likely drove home, la de da, made a nice cup of tea, watched some Oprah maybe, and then their husbands came home and were all OMG WTELF HAPPENED TO THE FRACKING CAR.

Because you just KNOW that the fact that a hole in the bumper might be a problem did NOT occur to either of these dippy women.

I got in my car — PULLING OUT FORWARDS NOT BACKING UP OH NO I DID NOT — and went home to hide until it was time to go get Stinkerbelle from school. You can bet your sweet bippy when I got there, I parked as far away from anyone else as humanly possible.

And made a resolution not to have any unscheduled time any more until WELL after Christmas. Maybe New Year’s, just to be safe.

Stinkerbelle took a sick day from school today.

She’s not REALLY sick. In fact, she’s on the mend from a cold we’ve both had for a week or so. But she’s got this lingering cough, as do I, and we’re both a bit hoarse. This cough had her up quite a bit last night — and, by extension, so were we — so I decided that this morning it was probably best for her to stay home and have a quiet, restful day.

It’s weird being in the position to make these decisions. I remember as a kid just DREAMING of having a day at home from school. Stinkerbelle is not of the same mind. She LOVESLOVESLOVES school so she was kind of sad not to be going today. But I think she’s quite tired, too, so I think it was the right call.

But it IS strange, being the one to make the call. Between always hoping as a kid to be kept home from school, and then growing up and going to work and never feeling comfortable taking a day off (except for mental health days, because I worked in Hell) because there would be twice as much work when I returned, days off were a sweet thing.

And here I am, at 7:30 in the morning, hemming and hawing about what to do… my, how perspective changes things.

So we decided to take the day and get That Girl some rest. Last night we were out late at the mall, where I had an optometrist’s appointment — can I just say, I was looking forward to a new sexy pair of glasses, but there’s nothing like being told by a doctor young enough to be your son that you are potentially heading for glaucoma to make you feel REALLY OLD — so not only was Stinkerbelle to bed later than normal, but she was up coughing and fussing a number of times, so we’re both a little run down.

We’re parked in front of the big TV in the new-style family room, with the Christmas tree and a little picnic and watching Doctor Who (only the not-so-scary episodes). We’re eating veggie chips and squabbling over who (intentionally) knocked over whose block towers. Stinkerbelle is brushing and “styling” my hair and shouting advice at the characters on screen (“Don’t fall down, Donna!” and “Run very fast, Doctor!”) and crawling under the Christmas tree to snuggle with Duncan. I’m even knitting a little bit.

So all in all, it’s a really good sick day. (For me, anyway.  Stinkerbelle’s probably a little bored. I’ll put on some Shaun the Sheep later. That’ll be fun.)

My daughter, until about two weeks ago, had never eaten a chocolate chip cookie.

Surprised? Yeah, I was too. But as things have gone, with her oral motor issues and delays and such, it was only until this year when she really got interested in eating homemade cookies. Store-bought cookies like arrowroots were fine, because they’re pretty… consistent. But homemade cookies are full of mixed textures and flavours and shapes and she was all OH HELL NO until just recently.

Then Corn Parking introduced her to the wonders of gingerbread.

She’d had some little gingerbread cookies that I had made at Christmastime before. But they were tiny and she would kind of gum them until they dissolved. But the Corn Parking cookie? OM NOM NOM. Gingerbread has lots of flavour, which stimulates the taste buds and appeals to the eating-challenged, but also it’s one texture. So it was tasty AND easy.

She loved them.

A few weeks ago, we were at Corn Parking, and they had no fresh-baked gingerbread. Their baking was cleaned out. So we had to settle for one of the few remaining bags of chocolate chip cookies. They were pretty good, but kind of bland. And the chips were big and lumpy.

She was underwhelmed, and only ate a little bit.

But today? Today, for whatever reason — maybe they were talking about it in school — but today, she was all about LET’S BAKE COOKIES. As soon as she got up from her nap, she asked MOMMY WE MAKE COOKIES AND USE THE MIXER?

And I, never one to pass on the opportunity to bake, agreed. I wasn’t sure what we had in the pantry, but I figured we would find something to make. So I looked and found some chocolate chips, and a packet of Skor chips that I had forgotten about. Jackpot.

Stinkerbelle was RIGHT THERE, right in the thick of things, pouring things into the mixing bowl, turning on the mixer, and happily sampling every ingredient and taste she could find. She mixed and spooned and helped however she could.

Yes, there were some mis-measurements and some spills. And, yes, possibly there was more cookie dough sampled than probably there should have been. But she LOVED it. And for someone who loves to bake, it is one of my favourite things about having a child to be able to share this with her. It gives me great joy.

So we made a couple dozen slightly lumpy, slightly doughy cookies. But as she sat at the table, chocolate smeared all over her hands and face, grinning from ear to ear, I watched as my kid discovered one of the great joys of life — homemade chocolate chip cookies and a big glass of cold milk.

It’s moments like this that make everything — all the sleepless nights and stressful times and frustrations and fears — worthwhile. This is what I imagined when I dreamed about being a mom.

I love these times with my daughter. And I love chocolate chip cookies. Win/win.

.

When I said a week or two ago that I’m a night owl, I didn’t expect my kid would have read it and taken it as fact. But apparently, she has. Because last night, I was up with her a couple of times.

So, perhaps I should rephrase, and say “Night Owl =/= WAKING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AFTER I HAVE GONE TO SLEEP ALREADY OMG ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME”.

It’s not her fault. She and I have both come down with a cold, and so one of the times I was up last night was after listening to her coughing for about 15 minutes on the monitor. The child clearly wasn’t comfortable and wasn’t sleeping, so you do what you gotta do, man. Get up, clear your head, muster the wherewithal to a) decide what medicine to give her, 2) read the incredibly tiny print on the label with tired, cold-med blurry eyes to know how much medicine to give her, and c) give her the medication without missing her mouth and schmearing all over child, jammies, blankets, and self.

But you have to do it, so you just DO.

(However, I would be remiss if I did not give Lucy and Duncan an assist on this one. Lucy, because “The Lucy Alarm” was going off because OMG THERE IS NO WATER IN MY BOWL WHOOP WHOOP WHOOOP!!!111!1!eleventy!11!”, so in order to shut The Loudest Cat In All Of Time And Space up, I had to first stagger downstairs and somehow not blind myself going from darkness to OH HOLY HELL KITCHEN LIGHT OF DOOM, and fill her water bowl. And Duncan, because he tried to sneak into That Girl’s room not once, but TWICE, and had to be chased out. They are SO helpful.)

The other wake up call we had in the wee hours is one we’ve been getting intermittently over the last few months, and that is the whole Nightmare Rescue Mission thing. Around this age, kids begin to have nightmares. Developmentally, this is a normal thing. And we tell ourselves this, frequently, once the shock of being awakened from a dead slumber by a frantically crying child wears off, and you stagger out of bed without breaking joint nor limb by becoming entangled in the bed linens during your dismount, and manage to go and attend to a sleeping yet crying child, and wake her from her bad dream, and comfort her, and get her settled back into bed, and then you find yourself LYING AWAKE FOR DOG KNOWS HOW LONG FROM THE ADRENALINE RUSH. It’s a mantra you chant, as your heart rate returns to normal, over and over –  “THIS IS NORMAL, RIGHT? NOTHING IS WRONG, RIGHT?” — until you calm down enough to sleep again.

But the way I figure it, if she takes me at my word in such a fashion that I am a night owl, then surely she can forgive me for not being a morning person today, as I stumble around on limited and interrupted sleep, cranky and miserable, with a head full of concrete and numbed by cold medication. And she can forgive me for dozing off on the sofa while watching Wallace & Gromit movies, and graciously let me doze awhile, instead of shouting WAKE UP!! at the top of her lungs and laughing uproariously. And, possibly, forgive me for surrendering to the easy out of take out AGAIN this week.

Sure she can.

Today was Stinkerbelle’s very first trip to the dentist.

We’ve been talking about it for weeks now. For someone like me, whose dental experiences as a child were fairly terrible, it was important that I make going to the dentist as positive as possible for Stinkerbelle. So we’ve been building it up and making it sound like a fun outing.

And to her credit, it was as much fun as one could expect. There was a big bathroom to go potty beforehand, and toys in the reception room, and a TV in the waiting area too.

The whole dentist thing was a lark for That Girl, it seemed. Until we actually went IN to the exam room.

There are a lot of things in a dentist’s office that are a little intimidating to a three year old. Stinkerbelle was stopped in her tracks by the chair. It’s kind of big and scary, to be fair. But she got in and gamely took a little ride. That is, until they tilted it back and then it was OKAY I ALL DONE NOW.

We let her sit up.

She let the hygenist, Ashley, count her teeth. She tried to follow the open-close-open-close commands, but for someone who is speech delayed, it was hard for her. But she let Ashley use the little mirror to look around, and examine her bite.

She loved the polisher, and the toothpaste. But my kid likes toothpaste.

But UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES could Ashley turn on the big overhead exam light. That thing came on, and Stinkerbelle was once again NOOOO OKAY I ALL DONE NOW BYE.

But for someone her age, she did really really well. We waited for the dentist to come in and do his exam. I was looking forward to that, because with That Girl’s oral-motor issues, I really wanted his opinion to see what was what.

Our dentist is nice enough. He’s a pleasant sort, but English is not his first language. So when he came in and began looking around, I began to tell him about her problems with speech, and chewing, and swallowing…

And it was like I was speaking Swahili. I don’t think he was following what I was asking him about. Or, maybe he was and he was just ignoring and/or disregarding it. Either way, I got nowhere, no confirmation or observations about what role, if any, her bite or palate or shape of her mouth have in her current problems.

So that was great.

Still, it was positive and Stinkerbelle had a good enough experience that she would go back. Plus, she got a free toothbrush and a toy at the end, so, you know, SCORE. A little swag never hurt anyone’s chances of agreeing to come back.

On the way home, we stopped in to visit Daddy at his office. Which meant we spent 5 minutes on a pee break and 10 minutes being quiet so Stinkerbelle and Daddy could have a two minute visit. Strategically, this was not my best-laid plan. First off, BDH is just incredibly busy all the effing time, so he certainly doesn’t have tons of time to visit. Secondly, having a three-year-old is like having a very tiny drunk around all the time: no sense of decorum, loud, and everything is a matter of great comedy or great drama. Which leads us to…

Third, that Stinkerbelle would bawl when the time came to say goodbye to Daddy and she realized we had to go without him. My kid is full-throated in her expression of emotion, and sorrow is expressed with great wailing and sobbing.

But I told her that if she calmed down and stopped crying, she could push the elevator buttons. And then I got her loaded in the car and off we went.

We were running late, and still had groceries to buy and a mission to find a white t-shirt for her school Christmas pageant. So I thought it best, since we were passing by anyway, to stop off at Corn Parking and buy some cookies. For BRIBE purposes.

She was already starting to melt down from hunger and tired by the time we got her into Corn Parking, and was (by Stinkerbelle’s standards, anyway) a little obnoxious. So I managed to keep her from touching everything long enough to buy a couple of groceries and a pack of cookies, and we were back in the car on the way to the grocery store.

I kept a cookie in reserve for the grocery store, just in case. But by then, her belly was full enough of cookie goodness that she was in good spirits, and told ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE SHE ENCOUNTERED about her morning’s adventures. The dentist, the crying, the cookie… she told everyone.

But we made it though without incident, although the t-shirt shopping is going to have to wait for another day. And now, we are home, and I have plonked her down to have a picnic in front of Curious George, which I said she could watch so long as she ate all her lunch.

Yeah, another bribe. Seems on busy days like this, you can’t get through without a few choice bribes. But at least her teeth are clean.

Weep with me, dearest Interwebs peeps. For my daughter is starting to give up naptime.

::sobs quietly to herself::

My Stinkerbelle, who used to LOVELOVELOVE naptime, is now beginning to decide that she does not want to nap. Not all the time — on days when she swims or has school, she’s usually tired enough that a nap is still welcome — but on days like today, when we’ve only gone grocery shopping and she’s inside all day, she has started to vehemently insist that she is not tired and she does not need a nap.

I knew it would happen, eventually. And she IS three and a half, which is about the average age when kids begin to give it up for good. So I knew it was coming.

And yet? Still not ready.

I have a schedule! I have things to get done in the course of a day, like actual paying work! The disruption that no nap will cause! It does not bear thinking about.

And yet, I must.

So, we’ve embarked on a few trial runs of “quiet time”. Lots of parents have a version of quiet time. For us, it means that she can lie down with her pillow and blanket and favourite loveys, and watch a movie. And she stays quiet and still, BUT NOT OMG NAPPING as she will insist, and I can be relatively free to get a few things done.

Here’s the problem we have: Because she’s got some receptive language delays, it’s hard to ensure she “gets” what the rules are. And judging from the shrieking and talking and faffing, it’s pretty obvious on some levels that she kind of doesn’t. And I also can’t do anything that she might think OMG I DO IT TOOOOO? because then she will be up and ready to participate and nobody gets anything done.

So, we’ve got to approach things from a different angle.

Fortunately, my work is by and large tied to the computer, so theoretically I can sit in the same room with a laptop and do some work. So that might work well. But it screws up my regular routine of doing any calls for appointments or work that I did when she was napping and I could focus. I may be able to do some cooking or cleaning in the kitchen, if quiet time is in the playroom. Exercising during naptime is now a thing of the past, as is gardening and yardwork and baking. So is any of your more exciting-to-kids housework tasks, like vacuuming or sweeping or laundry.

And when all else fails, I could just sit and knit… but while enjoyable, it’s hardly productive.

So, it’s time to adapt. I know, parenting a growing and developing child is basically about ongoing change, right? But as a household, we do well with routines, so that adaptation period is always a bit trying, until we get a new normal established.

And I have to be honest: I am going to miss naptime. It was two, sometimes three, hours of uninterrupted “me” time. I could have a guaranteed block of time in which to work. I could get things done. I could listen to podcasts, or exercise, or get some housework done… or sometimes all of the above. I could do some things for ME.

Not anymore. Well, not consistently, anyway.

I know, it’s just a matter of time until she gains more independence, and then she will be able to do things on her own and unsupervised, while I do mine. And then, before we know it, she’ll be off to school and I’ll miss having her around all the time, and the constant interruptions in my day.

But not for awhile. Now our days are in a bit of flux.

Truth be told, there IS a trade-off. Not napping in the day will mean a consistent bedtime at night time, which means she won’t be in bed talking and faffing for two hours because she isn’t ready to sleep yet. And that also means we will have consistently free evenings.

And yeah, if I am honest, it’s hard because it’s just one more step that my girl is taking, away from being our little baby girl. and becoming that big girl who is independent and no longer needs me.

WHAT? I KNOW. DON’T REMIND ME.

So we will work to find a new routine. And while she seamlessly, happily moves through all these developmental phases, she’ll just have to learn to be patient with her mother who is cranky because she didn’t get a naptime.

I am getting a little tired of Other People’s Kids. Specifically, other people’s kids who have not been taught to behave like civilized human beings. Or even vaguely nice ones.

During the past two weeks, I have watched as my daughter has had a number of run-ins with badly behaved, aggressive, and generally just mean children, and I am starting to get tired of it. I’m getting tired of her standing there while other kids are allowed to be mean to her, or manhandle her. I am getting tired of having to police my kid’s social interactions because apparently, by taking her out into the world of school and classes and such, I’m throwing her to the wolves.

I’m talking about the bratty Ryla who, on That Girl’s first day of school, when they both went to play in the kitchen area, grabbed my daughter and told her in a bratty, mean fashion that she could not play there, and pulled and manhandled her out of the play area.

I’m talking about the satanic child Emma or Emily or whatever in dance class who, when she laid eyes on Stinkerbelle within moments of walking into her very first dance class, said out loud for all to hear, “I don’t want to sit beside THAT girl.” Or the other little brat who took great pains to avoid even having to TOUCH my daughter in class that day.

I’m talking about the little monster (Aidan or Liam or one of those ubiquitous boy names) that we passed on our walk today, who, after we exchanged hellos and pleasantries with his family, felt compelled to run after That Girl and try to push her down. His horrified mother was right on it, chastising him, which is at least a step in the right direction. But when she said to me “Oh no, and he got mud on her too… This is so unlike him, usually…” I confess I didn’t believe a word of it. And then, after this encounter, her older child proceeded to pursue us at a too-close-for-comfort distance for awhile as we walked. I wasn’t taking any more chances with Stinkerbelle, and so we ducked into the woods to escape the lunatic family.

I’m tired. I’m tired of teaching my child manners, to behave herself in social situations, to be a good girl. I’m tired of stepping in to protect her from the misbehaving, uncontrolled monsters she is interacting with on a daily basis. I’m tired of seeing her badly treated, because although she is too young to understand it now, soon she will not be. And she will be hurt, and not just physically, by some of these kids.

I feel that rather than teaching her to be polite and well behaved, I should be teaching her to defend herself, and fight back.

When did things change? When did it become okay to let your kids run wild, and not intervene when they misbehave, and not teach them right and wrong?

I am not asking for perfection, here. Kids are going to be kids. But why is it my language-delayed child can understand the basics of polite interaction with other people, and many of the brats we encounter can’t? Or is it just that they have been allowed to disregard the rules for so long they just don’t?

I don’t have the answers. But I am getting tired of holding back, holding my tongue, and “letting them work it out”. I’m going to speak up soon, and I don’t care what parent’s sensibilities are offended because they can’t teach their special snowflake child to behave in a less feral manner around my kid.

I don’t know how to fix it. I only know I’m tired of my open, loving, happy kid running to meet new kids, with nothing more on her mind than to have fun and make new friends, and being mistreated time after time. She doesn’t deserve this.

Thirty is a number. A real number. With real value.

When someone says there is “a thirty percent chance” of something, think carefully. If there’s “a thirty percent chance” of winning the lottery, you’d be tempted to play, wouldn’t you? I know I would.

On the other hand, we tend to discount thirty percent sometimes. Like on the weather report, if there’s “a thirty percent chance” of rain or snow, most people go “Meh. Not going to happen.” And usually, they’re right.

Well, I am here to tell you, thirty? Is not to be taken lightly.

When someone tells you there’s going to be a thirty percent chance of rain? That’s almost a FIFTY percent chance of rain. It MIGHT rain. And thirty percent chance of rain? Is no indication of HOW MUCH it will rain, or how hard.

As I learned this morning, having set out for the grocery store, Stinkerbelle in stroller, only to have it begin to rain.

It started to rain when we were — and I think this is key — about thirty percent done our trip. So we walked in thirty percent chance of rain for seventy percent of our trip.

And I’m one hundred percent wet.

I know this is probably going to cost me the Perfect Mom of the Year award, but… My kid spends time with the TVSitter.

I know. It’s not good.

If I am perfectly honest, I’d say my kid watches too much TV. I’d love it if she were out running around all day. I’d be so happy if she was making things out of PlayDoh, or colouring, or reading. I’d love it if she were doing crafts.

But I’m not that mom. It’s just not who I am. I can’t micromanage and direct her activities that much, and honestly, at three, she has the attention span of a soap dish. And I have things I have to get done in the course of a day. It’s just the way it goes. I have to chop onions, or unload the dishwasher, or sweep. I have to throw stuff in the laundry.

And sometimes? I just want a little time to connect to the outside adult world via the Internet. Truth be told, I spend a lot of time alone with a three year old. Some days, on soccer days, the only meaningful adult conversation I get is with the checkout people at the supermarket, or via the interwebs and email. So sue me.

I’m finding it’s just an easy out, sometimes, when I have something to do that requires my time and concentration, to plonk my kid in front of a DVD for awhile. She’s three, and she’s at that stage where she wants somebody to play with and interact with and whatnot. But I find that sometimes, I just can’t be that person.

The Wiggles can. She sings along, and dances, and does whatever moves they do. Same thing with Sesame Street. And a couple other educational TV videos. She’s learning and moving and dancing and counting. And it’s not like she watches commercials or daytime TV or endless Dora crap or anything — we have a limited number of things for her to watch, thanks to DVD, Netflix and no cable.

(Okay. I’ll confess she watches Top Gear with us. WHAT SHUDDUP YOU DON’T KNOW OUR LOVE OF THE HAMSTER AND CAPTAIN SLOW. Okay, and Mythbusters too. WHAT? IT’S KIND OF SCIENCE-ISH.)

And, because of her oral-motor issues, our OT recommended watching something during mealtime, to distract her from the textures and fear of what is in her mouth. A piece of toast used to take an hour and a half. This morning? 40 minutes. That is progress. So until we get over the issues, we do what it takes.

But we DO get out. Our schedules are fairly busy, with swimming lessons and gym classes and our regular errands and going to the sitter. And, in a couple of weeks, school is in the mix. And we go for walks, and go for play dates, and go to the park, and swim, and play in the yard…

And yet? It’s the TV time she has that gives me the endless Mommy Guilt. I cannot help but think I am Harming My Child by letting her watch TV. It’s what the books say. It’s what the interwebs tell you. Good Moms are ENGAGED and CRAFTY and ORGANIC and GREEN and GRANOLA. And I am so not.

Oh well. That Girl is healthy, and happy, and thriving. And as she gets older, she’ll get busier and more independent. And it’ll be less of an issue. I hope.

Besides, I was raised by a TVSitter. I was a latchkey kid who grew up during the golden age of TV comedy, and saw world events unfold on the nightly news. And look at me!  I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of useless trivia, a love of good quality television, and can recite most of the first 4 seasons of M*A*S*H dialogue by heart.  I owe much of my love of music to The New Music.  I learned about atoms from Venus Flytrap. I’m only just SLIGHTLY deranged.

She’ll be fine.

And WHY, you are asking yourself, would I reference one of the worst songs in recorded history in my post title? I dunno. I felt like it. Plus, now that I’ve mentioned it, some of you have the earworm. You’re welcome.

But, D00DZ. It is just one of those weeks. Earthquakes on the East Coast. Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria!

(Okay, so… maybe not so much the human sacrifice. But definitely the other stuff.)

ANYWAY…

The world, it is changing and things are happening all over. You can’t stop it. And, as evidence of this, I give you Exhibit A: Yours truly.

Hello! *waves*

(Note: Not to scale. Also, my head’s not really little and squished.)

Ahem.

So. Today, while there was APPARENTLY AN EARTHQUAKE… I didn’t notice. NOT A THING. Rien. Nada. Bupkus.

And just WHAT, you might ask, what was I doing?

Cruising the Toys Backwards R Us website (the clearance section, OBVS) FOR… wait for it… A BACKPACK FOR MY DAUGHTER.

WHO IS STARTING SCHOOL NEXT MONTH.

I know. Shocking. I should have gotten you to sit down first.

And alright, it’s PRESCHOOL, but STILL. SCHOOL.

My tiny little newborn-sized baby has suddenly all grown up and is GOING TO SCHOOL.

When did all this happen? What was I DOING???

Yesterday, we walked the kilometre or so to her school and paid her fees. And the whole way, we talked about school, and how she would go and meet new friends, and who her teachers were, and about being at school without Mom, by herself, and all that. And she was all YEP WHATEVER MOM.

Possibly she had me on Ignore. Likely, she didn’t understand any of it. Or didn’t much care.

But I did. And I have to say, it’s kind of bittersweet.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I want everyone to hear this now: I AM TOTALLY EXCITED AND JAZZED ABOUT MY KID GOING TO SCHOOL ARE YOU KIDDING ME? TWO HOURS IN THE MORNING TO MYSELF OMG I COULD GO TO THE DOCTOR OR GET NEW GLASSES OR MAYBE EVEN DO SOME ACTUAL PAYING WORK.

So, that’s not the problem. I am so thrilled seeing her grow and learn and seeing the awesome, way cool person she is becoming.

But part of me is sad to say goodbye to the baby times. Because, let’s face it, we hit the jackpot, baby-wise. The kid has been a dream come true in so many, many ways.

But now she is older. And we have to say goodbye to some of those things.

And unlike so many other families, having another baby is most probably not going to happen. By birth or adoption, it does not look to be in the cards, for a number or reasons. So we kind of have to make peace with that, too. (In that respect, it’s a good thing we have a kid with personality to spare to always show us we’re not missing too much.)

So… that’s hard. Up to now, it’s been theoretical. It WILL happen… sometime. But this summer, of potty training, and Big Girl Beds, and now getting ready for School… Now, it’s all happening.

Time is passing. And you begin to realize, it really IS fleeting.

I started to become aware of it in the spring, while we were beginning to plan for her support workers for preschool, and finishing up paperwork, and facing the stuff to come. So I decided to try to enjoy our summer together. There was not a lot planned, so we did stuff. We went for walks. We talked and danced and played. We spent time in the pool.

I tried to enjoy her company. I tried to cherish moments. I tried to capture things she said, and remember things she did. I tried to lock the feelings at those moments away in my heart.

Because I knew once they were gone, they were gone.

And it was nice. I really did enjoy a long, slow summer with my girl. It was nice.

Alas, time still passes. That Girl is still growing and changing. The world is still happening.

But unlike the earthquake today… I felt it.

I’ve seen a number of articles and blogs posted by parents of girls, in which they (usually moms, but some dads) say that so many people comment on how pretty their daughters are, and how they wish they wouldn’t.

Some parents say they think it is shallow or superficial — or even creepy — to comment on their daughter’s looks. Some say strangers come up to them and say “Oh, she’s so beautiful!” and that they would rather they comment on how smart the girl is, or her personality. I’ve also read posts where parents complain that they think that people are overcompensating about some sort of fear of the race of the child, so by commenting on a child’s beauty they are trying to show they are not racist.

And then today, a friend brought her daughter over for a play date, and we were discussing this same topic. She commented on how beautiful Stinkerbelle is, and then felt a little embarassed and apologized. She said she read a study somewhere that stated that parents of girls overwhelmingly comment on another little girl’s looks before anything else, and that she was really trying not to. She mentioned that the study talked about the superficiality, maybe, or that it shows an underlying competitiveness, commenting on another girl’s looks to get justification of your own child’s looks, or some such thing.

There seems to be a lot of apprehension out there about the concept of beauty, and talking about it.

So my friend and I got to talking about it. And I thought, when did it become wrong to tell a little girl she is pretty?

I don’t get it. I mean, I understand that parents have their reasons, and a lot of them are really quite sound in their situations. Fair enough. And I would respect that.

But here’s the thing: what is wrong with a little girl growing up believing she is pretty? What is wrong with loving how she looks?

I thought to myself, all little kids love to look at themselves in the mirror. Vanity is not an issue — they’re too little for that. But they are all beautiful. So why not let them believe it? My thinking is this: It’s going to end soon enough.

As women, we have all been there. We all hit an age, nearing puberty, or even earlier, when we begin to feel ugly. We compare ourselves to others, and we don’t measure up. We are judged mercilessly by our peers. So what is wrong with teaching a little girl, right from the beginning, that she is beautiful?

I’m not saying I would advocate saying a child is beautiful, above all else, and that’s the end of it. Of course, you want to fill your child with confidence on so many levels. But at some point, fairly early on it seems, we leave off commenting on looks. We take great pains to emphasize what our kids are good at, or the successes they have in school, or what they can do well. But we shy away from saying “You are beautiful”. Who says one cannot be pretty, and still be smart? Or athletic? Or good at math? Or play the violin? Why do these things have to be an either/or?

Maybe it’s a flaw with our definition of “beauty”. Why does beauty have to stop at the skin? Why can it not encompass both what is on the inside and what is on the outside?

Why NOT have a little girl grow up believing that she is pretty, and growing in self-confidence, for as long as she can?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes. I want my daughter to love how she looks. I want her to be confident as she is growing up that she can be anything she wants, as any parent would. I want her to believe in her abilities, and be happy with who she is, and to know beyond all that how much she is loved.

But I ALSO want her to look in a mirror and, regardless of shape, size, colour or conventional standards, really LOVE what she sees.

I lack positive self-image. I am loathe to get my photo taken. I am painfully self-conscious of my weight. I can tell you every flaw on my person.

I don’t want that for my child.

Dawn French once said that she owed her success to her self-confidence. And that a lot of that came from her father. Every day, her father would tell her how beautiful she was, and how brilliant, and how loved. And she just grew up believing it was so. Now, Dawn is a big woman — not the conventional standard of beauty — but she is undeniably beautiful. She is funny and brilliant and successful and loved. AND beautiful. What an amazing package.

My daughter right now is one such amazing package. I never want that to end. I love to see her look at herself and comment on her pretty hair or her pretty dress. I hope she can take to heart as she grows the comments about her beautiful almond eyes and her sweet dimple and her winning smile. I want her to be able to hold onto that self-love, and package it up with a passion for whatever she becomes passionate about, and a confidence in her abilities in whatever she becomes good at, and a joy in doing what she really loves.

I want her to be confident in the beautiful, amazing package that we see. And to see it for herself, too.

So I will continue to tell her, every day, how beautiful she is. And I will agree with whoever tells me she is beautiful, too.

So, you may have noticed that I took a bit of a break. I’ve been here, just not posting much except our weekend photos.

I’ve had a bit of a hard time, having a good old-fashioned existential crisis, like every parent has every now and again. I’ve been stressing about stuff, and feeling isolated, and struggling. I’ve had a couple of challenging, tiring, hard weeks.

And I generally don’t feel it’s something to write about on The Internets necessarily. Not everything needs to be put out there for public consumption. I try not to be that Drama Llama Mama.

But the reality for everyone is that the challenging times happen. And you just put your head down, and you work through it. You cry, and you bitch and moan, and you work through it as best you can. And you don’t take yourself too seriously. And eventually, like every other down time in life, you come out the other side.

You try to learn some lessons.

I learned that my kid does indeed have significant language delays. I admitted that I need to recognize that it’s not my fault. And I learned that since it’s not my fault I shouldn’t take the therapy and the discussion and the exercises personally when they happen. And that this stuff doesn’t show what she CAN do and what She DOES know and What she DOES understand, and I have to bear that in mind. And I decided that she’s happy and healthy and talks and sings all the livelong day and that this was the most important thing, and that she will catch up eventually.

I learned that my kid’s oral-motor issues will take time and patience. I recognized that I have to dig deep and continue to find that reserve of patience, and that capacity to think creatively at mealtime. And I can’t show my frustration to this beautiful child who wants nothing more in the world than to please me, because it is NOT HER FAULT. I learned that it’s a challenge that we’re just going to have to continue to roll with. And I still have to learn how to advocate better for more effective help for her.

I learned that conventional milestones can bite me. And that anyone who questions why we do what we do when we do it, just because it doesn’t fit with their arbitrary milestones or expectations of conventional behaviour or whatever, can just fucking bite me too.

I learned that feeling isolated and alone passes. I recognized that I have to share the burden with my husband. I admitted that I have to find some ways to make friends and get out of the house and make myself happy.

And I reconfirmed what I’ve always known — that by comparison to what I know other people are dealing with, or what challenges I observe other parents facing, or the myriad other things that could cause stress and difficulty in my life… this stuff is minor. Easy peasy.

Perspective. It is important to get some.

And now, at the other end, I realize the good things that happen during the hard times.

My kid is doing great at using the potty, with only a few accidents here and there.

Her language production is growing by leaps and bounds and I think her comprehension is way beyond what we believed it to be. But what’s important is making sure we understand each other and are patient with each other when trying to communicate.

She’s really, really trying to eat what is put in front of her, even if it’s just to venture a taste. And she’s working really hard to chew and swallow as best she can what she feels she can eat, which is huge. And I have tried to just go with it and blend up the challenging stuff and not letting it feel like failure.

She loves her big girl bed and goes to sleep without fuss. Waiting until she was better able to comprehend the change and the new rules was absolutely the right idea.

The bottom line is, no matter what the challenges, our daughter is the greatest thing to ever happen to us. She is and healthy and happy and bright and funny and beautiful. We fall madly in love with her over and over again, a hundred times a day. She makes us better people, and she has filled our lives and our home and our hearts with love.

Just have to keep it all in perspective, is all. I’m not saying it’s always easy, but it sure does make life happier and easier to roll with if we can.