how plans to write a love letter saved the day

This morning I woke up and determined it was time to try something new with Frances. We have been in an awfully snippy rhythm with each other. She baits, and I fall for it hook, line and sinker. I wind up hounding her about her manners or finishing her carrots or whatever - whatever offense is in front of me and seems most glaring (but is in fact pretty minor). She, predictably, finds my nit-picking equally awful and sufficient reason to say something mean to me or take her brother's toy. And the cycle continues! How to interrupt this madness?

I determined to blog a love letter to Frances tonight. Instead of feeling bad about myself and worrying about her limitations, I thought it would help to remember why she is so dear to me. No baby stories or vaseline-on-the-lens nostalgia allowed. This letter had to be an accounting in the here and now, a 'let me count the ways' type of deal. This would be a love letter. Hearts and cupids! I thought it was worth subjecting all of you to some real gooey gushy stuff, if it meant getting my relationship with the girl back on track.

So, on the way to school I'm thinking about this, and we're listening to Sufjan Stevens. It's been awhile, and Frances is asking me to turn it up, she can't quite remember hearing it before. Driving down Generals Highway, I glance at the children in the rear view mirror, both of them are staring off somewhere, very quiet. We arrive at school a few minutes early. I put the car in park and turn around. Frances, do you like this music? A grave, serious little face looks back at me and utters the word: yes.
Pause.
Mama, can we come up to the front seat and listen to more music with you? So that's what we do. Frances unbuckles herself and climbs into the driver's seat. I fetch Gabriel and we sit in the passenger seat. We three are very quiet, listening. I watch Frances, watch her face and her big eyes. I watch her body listening to the music, and eventually she looks at me and snuggles her face into my shoulder. Sigh. Time to go in to school.

After dropping her off, it occurs to me that the thing that can make me most annoyed (read: most worried) about Frances - the fact that she sometimes reacts to others' pain or disappointment inappropriately - this thing is maybe a defense against how very deeply she can feel. I can be so impatient when Frances doesn't seem to get that someone else is sad, or hurt, or scared - at least, when she doesn't respond in a caring way. But maybe the fact is that some part of her gets it all too well, and it's scary, and beyond her ability to understand cognitively, and leaves her exposed. And being four is maybe exposure enough.

Just watching her listen to the music this morning, absorbing the mood and language...I knew she was okay, doing her best to manage enormous emotions, and feeling just as lost as I was in our icky, mutually antagonistic mode. I decided to meet her where she was, and stop being disappointed in her after setting up situations that leave her coming up short. Perhaps I could even help her. What a thought!

So, what did that mean? Gabriel and I were at the craft store later, picking up some stickers and little things to send for a cousin's birthday. Some part of my brain began to anticipate Frances catching sight of these treasures and whining about how I NEVER get her ANY STICKERS not even one time not ever why CAN'T she have these stickers why aren't they for HER??? And then I felt my heart closing up, making judgments about how irrational the child is who gets stickers all the time and cannot even allow someone else a sheet of stickers on their birthday... and so I decided to handle the situation differently: I bought a sheet of stickers for her and a sheet for Gabriel. Blue butterflies for Frances and horses for the galloping boy. Stickers for everyone!

Gabriel was clutching his stickers in an iron grip when we arrived at school. Again, I felt the inward eye-rolling groan, bracing myself for the why-does-Gabriel-get-stickers-I-never-get-stickers-I-am-SO-ENVIOUS-Mama! torrent as soon as we met Frances outside school. But no! Wait! Another little self-intervention: I will not do that, I will not be annoyed at her before even setting eyes on her. I carried her stickers in, quite visible in my hand, ready to be offered before any injustice was registered.
It worked.
A happy greeting. A happy drive home. A happy, industrious spell making Courtney's birthday card.



A plan to have a party for one of Frances' invisible acquaintances that she chats with in the bathroom, Dister Lister*. An ascent up to her bedroom without any complaints (woah) for Quiet Time, where 45 minutes was peacefully spent reading books. A happy reunion after quiet time, and some silly party prep which involved selecting music, making snacks, and getting out the dress up clothes. Gabriel wore a gold skirt around his neck and we called him the King. Dister Lister came really late, after the dancing, but joined us for some stories on the couch. Frances sat on his head by accident.

I swear to you it was a beautiful day. I didn't even have to write that love letter. I realized how destructive I was being: waiting for her to whine, to tantrum, to screw up, and feeling the anger start to creep in before anything even happened! And in the past couple of weeks, something always did actually happen, but this had a lot to do with my fight-anticipating and even fight-picking.
I am not proud.

Today really was about meeting Frances where she is. Accepting it. Accommodating it, even. So she feels grumpy when other kids get stuff. So what? Today, I got her some stuff too so she wouldn't have to feel that. I'm not advocating stickers and ice cream whenever things look unpleasant. I remember reading in a Penelope Leach book that your kid is not spoiled if you truly enjoy giving her the things you do - if you don't feel manipulated or desperate about it. I gave a lot to Frances today. Not just the stickers. That set the tone, sure. But we spent a lot of time together, and I invited her to bring her imaginary world into our family world, which delighted her to no end.

I didn't feel pushed around today, not once. I felt my heart open to her. I felt the ice melt. She felt it too.
Oh, gratitude! For small shifts and loosenings, and for a dear precious girl so full of passion, big thoughts and big feelings. I love her. I love her like crazy.




*
M: How did you first meet Dister Lister?
F: Um. I was just like in a parking lot and I saw a mother, but not her boy, but then I heard a boy saying I'm Dister Lister!! and that's how I first met him.
M: What's he like?
F: He's invisible! Remember? You just see a mouth, and no face, and no shirt, and no body. Just a mouth.
M: Does he eat?
F: Yes.
M: What does he like?
F: Pasta. Green beans. That's all he likes.
M: Where does he live?
F: I'll check in this book (checks book she made this morning entitled The Myth of the Super, about a star that goes into a rainbow tunnel). Massachusetts.
Why don't you ask me another question about Dister Lister?
M: How old is he?
F: 6.
M: What's his school like?
F: Very fun. He has a desk.
M: What's his house like?
F: Red walls. A green roof. Ask me another question.
M: What are his favorite things to do?
F: Do homework. Ah...dress up. Those are his favorite things but he likes to do everything.
M: Will he like the party today?
F: uh huh, I think so.
M: Does he have any friends?
F: Yes. Like pretend friends. I don't remember their names.
M: Does he have any pets?
F: A dog. Placzki. Wanna ask me another question?
M: Nah. I want you to ask me a question instead.
F: Like what?
M: Like, anything you want to know.
F: No thanks.

children and animals

On Tuesday morning, I left the house to take a jog with Gabriel. We had just started out when a fox darted in front of us, running from one neighbor's yard, across the street, and into the woods behind another neighbor's house. We were flabbergasted. A fox! An enormous, red, black-tipped tailed fox! It ran with such impressive intensity - as if it were zipping through space on an invisible track - because its torso, face and tail were almost motionless, on the same horizontal plane, while its legs moved so fast they were a blur.

The day before, Gabriel and I were at a playground, killing some time before we had to pick up Frances from school. There were some other mothers and children there (it was unseasonably warm) and Gabriel was going down the slide again and again. My post was at the top of the slide, to help him sit down. Just at the moment when every blond head was bowed over a small person, to tie a shoe or offer a snack or to chastise, a deer bounded across the grassy field separating the parking lot from the playground. It came from the direction of the busy street we were but a few yards from, and ran straight into a stand of trees and then stood there, motionless, staring at us. It is strange, given how close this large wild animal was, but we were the only ones to see it. Everyone else was distracted, and Gabriel and I happened to be standing high up at the top of the slide, just the perfect viewing spot, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I whispered: a deer. A DEER!! shouted Gabriel. Then: GALLOP, GALLOP! (It had been running pretty fast). Then: BIG. Bi-i-i-i-g. Big Deer.

The two wild animal sitings have become linked for both of us. Sometimes, apropos of nothing, Gabriel will stop what he's doing and look at me in his unblinking serious soul window kind of way. With great intention he utters the words: a fox. Yes, Gabriel, we saw a fox. A deer! Big! Yes, we saw a deer too. A fox!!! And on and on, for a little while, we relive the events and feel little spine shivers all over again.

Even before this week, I've been thinking a lot about the intensity of feeling with which children seem to regard animals. From their earliest days we sing about farm animals, and read them books about talking animals; often first loves are dogs and cats. Perhaps we condition all this - perhaps we all have this intense feeling towards animals but it seems most manageable and appropriate in small children so we foist it onto them - but I think it is something deeper. I have this intuitive sense that children and animals are supposed to live together. Work together. What does that mean? I'm not sure. I have not, by any means, been fantasizing about getting a dog. No thank you. I have, however, been dreaming of chickens and goats in the backyard.

At the risk of getting all fuzzy and "spiritual" on you, I think small children feel a connection with animals that is fundamental and real; something for grown ups to respect and honor. And having a puppy in the house that acts like one extra kid doesn't seem to get to the nature of the thing. A goat that has a role in the family, a job to do (eat scraps, keep the grass short, whatever it is that goats do) - a kid could feel that such a goat was a partner in family life and work. A goat that lives outside, thus preserving its animal-ness. Not an animal that wears a sweater and has a flannel bed, but an animal that communicates the natural world to us, that is a bridge of sorts, that we care for and respect - this is what I'm longing for, for myself and for my kids.

Sometimes we run around the yard with leftover lengths of clothesline wrapped across the kids' chests and yell Gallop!! (hence Gabriel's response to the running deer) and Neigh!! and take turns being the horse and rider. Except after a few minutes, no one really knows who is what; we're just a wild jumble of kid and (pretend) animal, running and making noise. I love that. We're trying to touch something, something beyond the world of other people and the spaces they live in.

We've been to two zoos in the last couple of months (more than I'd been to in years). The children were fascinated. In Providence, we were able to hang out in the 'giraffe house' and watch a giraffe family munch hay but a few feet away. Just us and the giraffes (the zoo was remarkably empty that day). We were wide-eyed, awed, mesmerized - utterly caught by their gaze. In DC, Frances and Gabriel would have clung to a stone wall, staring at a gorilla mama and baby all day long, had we not eventually dislodged them. In this case, I too felt the possibility of forgetting time, watching these extraordinary human-like animals do human-like things...but I was struck violently by the suspicion that I was participating in an act of voyeurism that was completely wrong. That mama gorilla looked right into my eyes and I felt her accusing me. I am a mother too. So how could I stare like this? It seemed to me she deserved privacy and space to roam. I left conflicted about what a zoo is, and what it should be - the awe and wonder my children felt before the animals seem positive things, to be nurtured - but is encountering them in captivity the way to do it?

I've also - no surprise - been feeling drawn back towards vegetarianism. At the very least, I have resolved (again) to not participate in factory-farmed animal consumption. And I guess I feel like part of respecting the bond my children (all children?) feel with wild and domestic animals would be to keep industrial meat out of their orbits as well. They don't really eat meat anyway, but I've never suggested they shouldn't, and it has never bothered me if we're at other people's homes and meat is on offer - basically, I haven't enforced any rules. In fact, I've often thought that graciousness and flexibility with other people should trump preferences about diet. But now I'm not so sure.

All kinds of people surround their children with animals by way of pets, petting farms, zoos, animal-print clothes, animal books, music, etc. For many families, there doesn't seem to be any connection - or rather disconnection - between feeding children animals and simultaneously encouraging an intense (if arm's length) relationship with animals. But shouldn't there be? Maybe for much of our history, pre-industrial agriculture and pre-factory farming, the small scale proximity of humans and animals made for a more continuous and holistic world for children to enter in, to play and work in. I imagine that for most children growing up in Anne Arundel county 100 years ago, life presented many occasions - both mundane and spiritual - to be face to face with a horse, a deer, a fox, a rabbit. Maybe, then, eating some of those animals would not seem so very strange.

Thanks for hanging with all these disparate musings. For now, we're on the lookout for that fox.

a shopping list

special magic green sauce for everyone!

Some of you, I know, have children who eat actual food. They even enjoy it! The first time I met Henry he was munching on defrosted-in-Mommy's-purse frozen spinach with gusto. Katie and Elie once complimented me on my vegetable-heavy lentil soup, and with such disarming sincerity I could barely remember to say thank you.

Even my own little Gabriel slurped down a bit of curried sweet potato soup this evening. I still can't believe it when he happily eats my cooking. Frances is, and has almost always been, very into purity. White foods make her happiest. Plain, Mama! Will you make some plain for me? Pleeeeeeeze!

So the following recipes may not really be something you're looking for, but since we have found them so helpful, I thought I'd share them with you. I don't think this stuff officially falls into the sneaky-vegetable style cooking that Jerry Seinfeld's wife and others have advocated - or maybe it does - all I know is it makes this mama feel a tiny bit better about the mostly cheese and pasta diet my eldest adheres to. Disclaimer: I am a sloppy fast-and-loose sort of cook, so you may have to play around with the quantities to get it just right.


Special Magic Green Sauce

1/2 - 3/4 c cottage cheese
glug of olive oil
1/3 - 1/2 c frozen spinach
1/3 - 1/2 c grated parmesan (or pecorino, also good)
tiny splash of milk, if you want a runnier sauce
tiny pinch of salt

Blend it all up! I let everything sit for a couple of minutes so the spinach begins to thaw, then use our immersion blender. Pour it over just-cooked pasta. You can also do this without the spinach - it's creamier, and a perfectly good substitute for macaroni and cheese. I found I was able to resist the Annie's after we started making this sauce, in part because Frances actually likes it better, and if I buy an exciting shape of pasta she's especially happy.

**Addendum! Milena made this with fresh (raw) spinach leaves and also added garlic; Nathaniel had two helpings. Success!

Rice-Carrot Pancakes

1 c cooked brown rice
1/2 - 3/4 c grated carrots
about 1/2 a small onion, diced tiny
an egg
2 - 3 tbsp flour (I used chick pea flour)
pinch of salt
oil to fry

This is a new one. A nice way to use up extra rice - just mix everything together, add enough flour to make it stick together, heat up some oil and fry little patties of the stuff. The carrots become golden, the rice browns a little. We ate them latke-style, with applesauce. Yum.

Latest Quesadilla Filling: I mixed leftover roasted (mashed up) squash with canned refried black beans, added a bit of cheddar cheese, and both children gobbled them happily. I was sort of shocked that Frances went for it. I was inspired by the memory of those delicious sweet potato-black bean burritos out of the Moosewood cookbook. Remember??

And speaking of leftover squash...this one is for Marjorie and Diane:
Pumpkin Muffins
(my apologies to some anonymous baker -- I know I got this online but wrote it on a scrap of paper long ago and tweaked a bit since)
2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 - 1/2 c ground flaxseed
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 c brown sugar*
3 tbsp molasses
1/4 c oil
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c buttermilk**

Mix everything up until the sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining ingredients - except for buttermilk - together in a large bowl. Then alternate pouring in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the wet ingredients, whisking as you go. Depending on how watery your squash is, you may need to add more flour or flaxseed or, come to think of it, wheat germ at the end to get a consistency that seems right to you. I also think grated apples would be a lovely addition to these. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.
*I've also used 1/2 c honey instead and they were great.
**I often do the sour milk trick when buttermilk is too much of a pain to get: a dribble of vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill the rest of the way with milk. Let is sit for a few minutes.