For the past five years, 10 months and 16 days of my life, excepting that scant handful of mornings in which I have woken up somewhere far from my children, I have had no need of an alarm clock. At least one kid is up and running most days by 7 am. And on the few occasions that someone has slept til 7:30, or even 7:45, I have savored the freakish quiet. If a child in my house is able to get the rest he or she needs, it is something to celebrate, not interrupt. I mean, come on. Never wake a sleeping baby!
But Frances is no longer a baby, and she was sound asleep this morning at 8 o'clock. (It's no wonder, since her parents allowed her to stay up way too late and eat way too many cookies the night before). Tuesday is a school day, after all, and so I found myself sitting on the edge of her bed, looking down at her still, pale countenance - lips parted, hair fanned out on the pillow. I shook her gently. She woke with a start, grabbing my hand at her shoulder, looking at me with wide, scared eyes.
It's just me. It's Mama, just Mama, I whispered.
She closed her eyes and reached out to me for a hug, murmuring, I love you Mama.
Oh! It's not often that she is able to express that kind of easy affection. I leaned down to hug her and told her that it was time to get ready for school. She told me I was mistaken, and that she needed to go back to sleep. Later, at the table, balancing her spoon on a finger and looking down blankly into her oatmeal, she suggested I call the school and tell them she had died and would not be coming in today. Then she could go back to bed, you see.
Her reluctance to go to school continued. She refused to get dressed, so I cornered her and slipped her pajama top off with a sudden jerk. Frances yelped and held her hand over her mouth, then carefully spit out the tiniest baby tooth imaginable. When Gabriel saw the strange bloody tooth he suggested the best thing to do would be to put it in the trash. As if. Right now it's under Frances's pillow, waiting for the tooth fairy to come. Her second baby tooth!
She's a big girl alright, wishing she could crawl back into bed and spitting out baby teeth in between getting dressed and finishing her homework. All of this I can pretty much embrace with humor and acceptance, but the moment we had later when I dropped her off at school made me want to scoop her up in my arms and run back to the safety of little girl play dough and story books at home.
When we arrived at school, she put a hand on the car door, and hesitated. Her other hand flew up and felt the back of her head. I could hear the tears moving up into her voice.
Mama. Mama! You didn't put my hair in a ponytail! I need a ponytail everyday, I've told you that so many times! You have to put one in right now!
Ah. In 30 seconds she will be officially Late to School, plus the ponytail obsession bugs me because it forecloses on other adorable hairdo possibilities that her newly-long golden brown locks suggest to me in whispers all the time, and I don't have a rubber band on me anyway. Why does she need a ponytail everyday? Is it really worth crying over?
Nobody likes me when I don't have a ponytail.
What?
Everybody at school hates me if I don't wear a ponytail!
I pull into a space and get out of the car. I look her in the eye and tell her that that isn't true (how do I know?) and that she needs to go to school now before it gets any later. (How did ponytails and being liked get tethered together in her five year old mind?) She is standing now at the chain link fence, refusing to budge, repeating those awful words, but more stark and terrible now: Everybody at school hates me.
I felt like crying, and like shaking her, and like taking her home and calling the school to tell them that Frances had died and would not be coming in today. If only growing up was simply about the joy of acquiring new capabilities: reaching the light switch, buttoning your own shirt, learning to swim. If only we could somehow skip the part that hurts - or at the very least swoop down to lift our children up when we see a painful episode approach! We recognize the pain of childhood because we've been there before - yet we can't do a thing to protect our children from feeling it too. How frustrating. All we can offer is our presence, and the kind of love that shines regardless of hairdo.
Frances, I don't know exactly how the details of your inner and outer realities have combined to make you feel so bad about school. But I do know this: everybody at home loves you. Always.
4 comments:
Oh, poor Frances! Sorry her day started so roughly. My 7 year old is our early bird and I dread the days I have to wake him because it means tears. When he wakes up on his own, he is fine. I think a lot of the kids have end-of-school-itis right now.
I totally remember feeling that way! So irrational, but so utterly real and out of my control. The fact that we can't stop growing up is so scary. I knew it was hard to grow up when I was little, but I never thought about how it was also hard for adults. They keep growing too. You write about the kids, but you also show me how to deal with my fear of impending parental doom... thanks, sister. I love you.
And as your mama, I love you too. Oh the pain of being a child. Oh the pain of being a parent. All are a wee bit helpless. How I wish that wasn't the case. I guess no matter what school Frances goes to she will always have days like that. And you will get to suffer along with her. Oh joy. But still, what a lovely few seconds you had sitting on her bed. Hang on to that because that is the truth of the matter.
Not so long ago, Julian and I had a conversation about school that was VERY much like this. Except I think I asked if he wanted yogurt in his lunchbox and he said something like "the kids at school only like me when you pack me a sandwich." ughhhhhh. I felt awful. I imagined jumping into my teacher role and showing up in that cafeteria to set things straight. I wanted to tell off some mean first graders. I wanted to cry.
I felt so badly for my sensitive boy who felt judged by his lunch choices....or any choices.
Your mom is right though, it is the conversations on the bed, and the extra loving and comforting, and the knowing our houses are all about LOVE that will make the difference. Atleast that is my prayer. xo
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