Doodle

Caroline was up bright and early this morning at 6:15. It’s all her daddy’s fault, really. Not that he woke her up, but it is his gene pool that has given her this propensity for early rising. At least he takes some responsibility for it and he was the one to go get her out of bed. She came and got in our bed and immediately started demanding that I get up.

I refused.

6:15 is just too early. It’s a decent hour if you’re a farmer and there are cows to be milked and crops to be tended, but we live in the city and our milk is in the fridge. It’ll keep until 7:30.

Anyway, she went to play in her playroom and entertain herself until I finally stumbled out of bed a little after 7 a.m. We ate breakfast, we played Hungry, Hungry Hippos, we played Candyland, we looked for caterpillars on the back porch, we fingerpainted and painted with paintbrushes, then glitter glued sheet after sheet of construction paper, and finally we calculated the national deficit and figured out a solution to the social security crisis. It was a full day and I was exhausted.

I looked at the clock to check the time.

It was 10:15 a.m.

I was out of activities and it was barely 10 in the morning. I knew we should have spent more time crunching those numbers on the federal deficit.

Fortunately, the Disney Channel was airing The Tigger Movie which gave her something to do until lunchtime so that I could concentrate on filing my fingernails and growing out my bangs.

And then we had rest time.

Or technically, I had rest time while Caroline came out of her room every 5 minutes to ask if rest time was over. Her energy knows no limit. If I could harness it, I could solve the global warming crisis or whatever other crisis requires alternate sources of energy.

After she finally wore me down and I conceded that rest time could be over, she went in her playroom and put on what I like to call her “Copacabana outfit”. Because although her name isn’t Lola, she is definitely a show girl, albeit a show girl without “yellow ribbons in her hair and a dress cut down to there”.

Now y’all might think she put on that outfit so she could do the merengue or the cha-cha or to just look pretty, but you would be wrong. She picked that particular outfit so we could go dig for worms in the backyard. Because if you’re going to be digging for creatures that can regenerate themselves after being cut in half, you want to look your best. At least that’s what I read in Emily Post.

Along the side of our house in the backyard, is what should be a flowerbed, but since we have two dogs who hold no regard for flora or fauna, it is instead just a bed of dirt. P recently added some sand to the dirt and sprinkled the whole thing with cornmeal because, apparently, this creates the equivalent of heaven for earthworms, and he and Caroline decided a person really can’t get enough of the earthworm, which is not an opinion I share. Nevertheless, digging for worms has become a new favorite activity at our house.

For Caroline, not for me.

My new favorite activity is figuring out how to keep my hair out of my eyes.

We head out to the backyard, and she stands over me like a well dressed prison warden, while I get the shovel and dig in the dirt. She stands over me and keeps asking, “Have you found any yet? HAVE YOU FOUND ANY?”

Four years ago when I saw that ultrasound and found out I was having a girl, I dreamed of the day we would brush Barbie’s hair together while we talked about what color we should paint our toenails. I dreamed of shopping together for beautiful shoes. I dreamed of frilly dresses and big bows.

And naturally, I dreamed of digging up worms in the backyard like I’m on a chain gang while she barks orders at me to dig faster because those worms aren’t going to dig themselves.

The other night I was trying to get Caroline to go to bed. After repeated attempts at getting her to be quiet and go to sleep, I finally raised my voice in frustration and said “Lay down and GO TO SLEEP!”

She pulled the covers over her head, peeked out at me and said in a quiet, dramatic whisper, “I’ve made a lot of changes for you, Shrek. Think about that.”

Nothing like having your three year old quote Princess Fiona from Shrek 2. I’m not sure if she thought the words were applicable to the situation or if she was trying to tell me that I was acting like an ogre.

Caroline and I were driving down the road the other day and out of the blue she said, “Mama, will you go to the store and buy me a baby sister?”

Well, where do I begin with that line of questioning? Something tells me she isn’t necessarily interested in the part of the answer that involves explaining that little sisters don’t typically come from the store.

And when the time comes that she is interested in that part, I will sit down with her and tell her all about the stork that brings babies, because that’s what good mamas do. I won’t have my girl growing up ignorant about the birds and the bees. No ma’am.

So, I went with the time honored tradition of avoiding answering a question by asking a question of my own.

“Sweetie, do you want a baby sister?”

“Yes, so when she’s bad I can give her spankings.”

And that response completely eased any guilt I was feeling about her not having a sibling.

This morning, Caroline needed me to open something for her and I had to get out my scissors. She looked at me and said, “Oh Mama! I can’t wait to be big like you and use those sharp, sharp scissors!”

And I said, “Are you really going to get big? Can’t you just stay little?”

She said, “No, no I can NOT. But don’t worry, I’ll always be your baby.”

Which caused me to pick her up and squeeze her tight as my heart exploded into a million pieces.

When I was pregnant with Caroline and went in for my 20 week sonogram, P and I absolutely knew we wanted to know the sex of our baby. I had already conducted the very scientific Drano crystals test, which told me I was having a girl, but for some reason P wanted more conclusive evidence before he let me order the pink fabric and paint for the nursery.

He just doesn’t have the aptitude for science that I do.

Sure enough, the sonogram revealed that we were having a girl and truth be told, I was more than a little relieved because first of all, I know girls because well, I am a girl, and secondly, because Gulley and I had gone out and bought a darling, pink fur trimmed jacket for the baby based on the results of the Drano test.

And, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start planning Caroline’s future in ballet lessons while she was still in utero.

It’s not that I’m some crazy, obsessed stage mother, it’s just that there is really not much cuter on this earth than little girls in tutus and precious, tiny pink ballet slippers. If y’all think I’m wrong, then just go window shop at the Deck the Walls in your local mall and look at how many different prints are available that feature tiny ballerinas.

Art doesn’t lie.

I couldn’t wait for the day that my daughter could follow in my dancing footsteps and begin lessons of her own. And some of y’all may be thinking “Wow, I didn’t know Big Mama was a dancer!” and actually, I’m not, unless you count a year of lessons when I was three and another year or two when I was 9 or 10. By following in my footsteps, I just meant that there are some cute childhood photos of me in a dance costume. I like to think I’m a pretty good package, but rhythm isn’t so much a part of it.

Well, unless I’ve had a few margaritas and then, I’ve got some moves. Oh yes ma’am.

Finally, last summer I signed Caroline up for ballet lesson 2 days a week for 4 weeks. She really loved it and although she spent the majority of the time just admiring herself in the huge, floorlength mirrors, she did it with impeccable grace and style. I took it as a sign that we were ready for a long term commitment to dance lessons and in the fall, signed her up for the whole year.

What was I thinking? I should have gone to Walmart, paid $9.99 for a full length mirror, put it in her room and she could have stared at herself all day long for free.

And to further prove that I was hypnotized by how adorable she looked in her little pink leotard with those precious, pink ballet slippers, I signed her up for a class that meets Monday afternoons at 4:00, because it makes complete sense to schedule an activity that requires me to force her into Danskin tights during a time of day where she would whine about having to live in a chocolate castle and eat M&M’s and brownies all day long.

We have spent a grueling eight months persevering through dance class. Every Monday she says “Mama, I don’t want to go to dance” and I couldn’t agree more.

Why do we go?

Well, I’ll tell y’all the truth. It’s all about the recital. This is a crafty little dance studio and they schedule the recital for the very end of the year, but they make you pay for your costume and your recital fee at the very beginning of the year, because they have been doing this long enough to know that if they wait until the end of the year to collect that money, no one would do it. So they reel you in while you’re still giddy from buying the tiniest, cutest little tap shoes you’ve ever seen.

A RECITAL! HOW EXCITING! Of course we’ll pay! There’s no way we wouldn’t be a part of the recital!

I cannot tell y’all how tempted I have been to cut my losses and just get the costume, take it home and call it the most expensive game of dress up ever in the history of the world.

This past Monday, Caroline finally revolted to what I’m afraid may be the point of no return. We arrived at dance lessons, I wedged her feet in her almost too small tap shoes (because I refuse to buy a brand new pair of tap shoes for what is, most certainly, the end of her dancing career), took her to the bathroom for the 4th time because nothing makes her need to pee like being encased in tights and a leotard, and then walked her to her classroom where she refused to go in.

SHE REFUSED.

It was a dance mutiny. A ballerina rebellion. A tapdancing coup.

And what’s more, two other little girls from her class noticed that she had staged a walk out and decided to join her in the lobby so they could join arms in solidarity and say ENOUGH. NO MORE DANCING.

I was in a pickle. I mean, honestly, I couldn’t care less about any of it at this point, but it seems like it’s the principle of teaching her that we follow through on commitments and we’ve committed to be in the recital. It’s the same reason I always eat a whole bag of Sour Patch Kids at one sitting. I’ve committed.

I finally convinced her that she needed to go dance and with a flounce of her tutu and a flip of her ponytail, she headed into the studio. With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder those Drano crystals were so sure she was a girl.

May God have mercy on me.

I woke up this morning with my head throbbing and a sore throat. Darn you, oak pollen, darn you to heck.

And since the pressure in my head is preventing me from coming up with much of anything that requires any effort, I’ll tell y’all about the discussion Caroline and I had on the way home from school yesterday.

A few weeks ago, we went shoe shopping and she fell in love with a pair of hot pink flip flops. The only problem was she didn’t like the way the strap goes in between her toes because it was a “little bit hurty”. But she begged to get them anyway because they were so “beautiful” and since they were only $6.00, I agreed.

She has spent the last few weeks wearing her flip flops around the house, trying to get used to the way they feel between her toes. It makes a mama proud to see that her girl is grasping one of the basic fashion concepts, which is that sometimes lovely footwear is painful, but it’s worth the sacrifice.

Yesterday, she begged to wear her flip flops to school and I told her she wasn’t allowed to wear flip flops to school because then she couldn’t run and jump and play. She told me, “Actually, I’m not going to run or jump today.”

I still told her no, but agreed to let her put her flip flops in her school bag and she could wear them after school. She thought that was a great idea.

So, we’re driving home from school yesterday and she tells me, “Miss J. took my flip flops away today.”

And I asked, “Why, did she do that?”

“Because she told me to be quiet during naptime and I didn’t listen. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s right, you should have been quiet when Miss J. told you to be”

“No, I should have hidden my flip flops so that Miss J. couldn’t take them from me.”