Being Mama

This morning when I was going to get ready for work Sophia asked if we could do something together. I asked what she had in mind. "maybe, Mama, you could draw me another ballerina and I could paint her?" I love drawing for the girls and their friends. I've gotten proficient enough that if we all knew what it was I was supposed to draw we can all see the resemblance on the paper. But the girls make me feel like I'm a full blown artist. They are wowed by my ballerinas and horses and unicorns. I can also crank out a pretty serious sidewalk chalk dinosaur. The girls frequently bemoan their own drawings wondering why am I "so good" and they aren't. But, I love everything they draw. Everything. I love Sophia's people and I love Ava's three dimensional shapes. Our attic is packed with boxes of art, projects, hand prints, scratches of pencil on the notepad from the hotel, first signatures, and foot tracings. And it is gathering more all the time. I keep every sheet that comes home from school. Why? Because when they have a hard day somewhere down the line, I'm going to show them the attic and I'm going to tell them I read every word because in some way it had to do with them, I took in every detail of every piece of art because it came from inside their minds, I kept every finger print because someday I won't know if those are their fingers or mine but I can come back to these boxes and put my hand to their tiny hand and almost remember what that felt like. I keep everything because my girls are my world and they need to know they are important to someone. Regardless of age or size or title (I know Phia won't always want to be a horse). I want to show them these boxes and make them understand that I may have seemed to miss moments when I was sick and couldn't be there for first times on the beach or first times at a picnic. But in my soul, I was there and for every other moment I was there in person. They are important. Ava is fiercely independent, but when she asked me to eat lunch with her at school a week ago I knew it really meant a lot to her. I, of course, was just barely into what would be a week of relentless kidney pain. I took my meds and slept through almost three days. I cried at night because those days I wasn't a mom. I didn't play games or draw. I couldn't stay awake for one episode of anything. I told Ava, no. I couldn't join her for lunch because of my back. She said "ok. It's just that ever since I told you all that I wasn't afraid to eat hot lunch anymore, you all stopped coming". I hugged her, the bell rang, she went into the school stopping once to blow kisses to me. Before I'd made it home, I called my mom who immediately agreed I needed to go. Ava is seven years old and already, like I said, fiercely independent. How much longer will she ask me to eat lunch with her? So, I surprised her. I stood in the hall waiting for her class. When she saw me, it took a minute for her to react. She could not figure out why I'd come. I showed her my lunch and she smiled huge, her cheeks turned bright red, and she said "mama! You came!" The way she said it sounded like I'd been gone for years and had just now come home. She held my hand tightly as we walked. We sat side by side, but it didn't take her long to be under my arm and as much on my lap as she could get. I helped her get ready for recess and then we said goodbye. And that was all it took for her to be the happiest girl around. So, this morning when Sophia asked if we could do something, I hesitated at first and the realized that no one I work with is going to judge me for choosing time with my child over showering and dressing up. She asked if I would draw and then said, "no. How about this. How about if I hold the pencil in my little hand and you put your big hand over my little hand and we draw together?" So, we did. Best ballerina yet. And that one goes in the box that on my bad days reminds me I'm important to someone. It's a pretty great collection. I hope you have one too.

Observations Part 1

My girls have recently discovered their love for music. The kind of love that makes you belt out a tune like no one can hear you, dance in front of the mirror and LOVE what you see, or scramble for a piece of paper to PLAY-furiously write lyrics (as you understand them) then STOP-SKIP BACK-REPEAT AS NECESSARY. I love that the girls love music. When I was pregnant with Ava, she would start kicking up a storm in utero whenever I played Jeff Buckley (anything) or Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon). Of course, I got the same reaction from eating bananas while I was pregnant with her and that resulted in her vomiting up and adamantly refusing bananas as a toddler. So, draw your own conclusion there. But, in Madison she was happiest running around naked to Bob Marley, or Tim Penn, or any local peacenik making music. Again, draw your own conclusion. She was decidedly NOT part of the minority in any of that behavior. In our house though, you are far more likely to find music as opposed to the TV. In Madison, we had a family dance party every single solitary night after dinner. With everything we've gotten involved in since moving back to Bismarck, though, dance parties have been hard to come by. On the weekends still it is a near constant onslaught of music. Old and new. I've gotten a bit off track. The girls have found their own voice in music. By way of Kidzbop. Here's the thing, it is a form of music, sure. But what you don't know about Kidzbop, "Music for kids by kids", is that their selection process for finding these kids who "sing" is relatively simple. Or, perhaps, nonexistent. They are not good. Someone dressed these children up like rock stars and said "You are amazing! Sing it as loud as you can and dance at the same time! You're a STAR!". Well, my girls have been bit by the Kidzbop bug. We bought the girls their very own noise-cancelling earphones a while back for flights. They have been miraculous investments until now. Now what happens is my girls plug the earphones into their Leappads and rock out to the PURCHASED Kidzbop. It seemed like such a great idea. As Jeff said, "there is musical talent flowing on both sides of the family, we cannot stifle that". This man is so patient. I, however, was changing the sheets on the girls' bunk beds (a process which under the best conditions is painful and frustrating) while I was first indoctrinated into this new musical world of theirs. The girls have large mirrored closet doors in their room. So, here they are, noise-cancelling earphones on, 5 wardrobe changes past, and they are singing their perfect little hearts out. Just belting it out. And dancing. Sophia yells "I don't even know what Spanish they're talking about!" Ava answers with "We should start a band!" Sophia looks like Ava just proposed sacrificing all the snugglies to honor some questionable Greek god. They have no idea what the other one is saying, but neither one knows this. Ava's soothes Sophia's worried glance by saying "Don't worry! I'll be in charge of singing! You just dance!" Ava decides at this point she needs to begin writing her own lyrics. As she's taking her earphones off, Sophia repeats in her most loving this moment screaming voice "I don't even know what Spanish they're talking about!". Ava now sees she's started a band with someone who may not be the asset she'd assumed and says in a regular human conversational level voice "That's kind of the point. They aren't singing in Spanish." Cue Sophia "I don't know!! But I love it!"

So, this is what we hear now when the girls have down time. The screaming of Kidzbop. But, my girls are good girls, kind and sensitive and smart as a whip. So, it makes me smile because I know someday when they're older and finally telling their aging parents live concert stories from college in hopes to entertain, but not kill, we will break this one out. And remind them that "its not about the bunny, bunny, bunny. Its not about the bunny, bunny, bunny. We juss hmnanana ba ba..."