Update on "I See a Queen"

Some of you might remember my consternation over a painting called "I See a Queen."

After being crushed that I couldn't have the original painting that I fell in love with, I decided to ask my brother's friend Avi, a very talented artist, if she would paint a reasonable facsimile of "I See a Queen." She quickly agreed.

But in the meantime, I happened to check Frank Morrison's site again and noticed, quite accidentally, that they were selling "I See a Queen!"

I quickly halted Avi in her tracks and ordered the painting -- for only $200. I couldn't believe my luck!

But when I got to the very end of the ordering, after hitting submit on all the credit card info. etc., the summary page of what I just ordered looked off to me. The thumbnail wasn't "I See a Queen," but "I See a Queen in Me." The picture was similar -- but not the same.

This is "I See a Queen in Me."

This is a close-up of the girl in the original painting, "I See a Queen." See the difference?

Compared to the one I loved, the mood in this new painting was jauntier, even slightly cartoonish. The girl had less of a sassy attitude and more of a jolly one. I'm all for jolly, but the original little girl reminded me of Clair because of the sassiness. You know my baby is a firecracker! Also, the part in the little girl's hair was one of those zig-zag ones -- and I don't know why, but I have a thing about zig-zag parts. Don't ask. Like I said, I don't know why.

Mostly, I just didn't like it as much. And, frankly, it wasn't what I thought I was ordering! 

So I called the studio and explained my dilemma. The helpful representative told me that there was no way I could have purchased "I See a Queen," because they were never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever selling that again. It was made for some (apparently special) person, and that person only. But the painting was so popular, she said, Frank Morrison had decided to do a similar painting, based on the original. Thus, "I See a Queen in Me."

That was fine. But I told her what I'd seen online. I didn't click on that little girl with the cheery green dress and the happy arms. I clicked on the girl with the attitude-arms and the thoughtful green dress. I know what I saw!

The rep went on the Internet and checked. Sure enough, the website was mistakenly showing the old painting, "I See a Queen" when it should have been showing the jauntier, jollier, new version. She was quite apologetic. Blamed it on the tech guys.

But she was very nice, and I was very nice, and together we came to a compromise.

She asked me to note what it was that I liked about the original. She said she'd take it to Frank and tell him what happened, and see if there was anything he could do to "improve" my purchase. I accepted that as a fine idea, and typed an email with my thoughts. She called a few days later and said Frank had my email and was holed away working on my painting.

"When you get this," she said, "make sure you get it insured. Because now yours is basically a one-of-a-kind. No one else's will be like this one."

I waited with great excitement, thinking Frank Morrison was going to imbue that painting with attitude and mood. I imagined akimbo arms and dusky colors.

This weekend, we got the painting in the mail. It is still very much "I See a Queen in Me." Our girl is still jolly. Her arms are not akimbo, like the Clair-like ones in "I See a Queen." The mood still has a bit too much jaunt for my tastes.

But! He did tone down the cartoonish-ness a bit. The tones are slightly less bright. The dreaded zig-zag part has been replaced by a nice, neat straight one. And Frank Morrison drew my baby girl's name -- inconspicuously -- in the white throw rug on the floor. That really touched me!

So instead of the cheaper version I originally purchased (of which the studio was selling 50), I now have the first of only 10 "remarques" of "I See a Queen in Me." (I had to look that word up. I know nothing about art.) And my remarque will be unlike any of the others!

Who knows if this painting will really be worth anything to anyone in 100 years, when Clair's great-granddaughter goes to have it appraised.

But it means so much to me right now.

Thank you, Frank Morrison. You've earned yourself a fan in me.

Accidental poets

My sister and I were talking the other day, as she was headed to a library book sale. She mentioned a book of short stories she'd seen and was thinking of buying.

I asked her if the stories were written by J. California Cooper. I'd once read a short story by J. C.C. that moved me so much, I photocopied it and mailed it (that's how long ago it was; no email) to almost every woman I knew.

I remember the act of doing that, but I couldn't for the life of me, remember the name of the story.

Oh well. We went on about our conversation.

Later in the night, my sister sends me a series of texts, 10 altogether. They turned out to be titles of J. California Cooper stories -- she was wondering if any of these were the title I was looking for. But because she sent them as stand-alone texts, with no context, and no explanation, I didn't pick up on that.  Instead, in the 10 lines of texts, I somehow read a poem. And a darn good one. It's about an "independent woman" who felt like she "didn't need no man" -- and found out, too late, that she did. 

Femme Fatale

Femme fatale
Do it yourself rainbows?
Living without a life
The way it is?
Living and learning
Sure is a shame
The bank of life
Yellow house road
Somebody for everybody?
A will and a way.

Do you see it?

My sister and I are so good, we accidentally made a poem! :-)

(I never did remember the name of that short story.)

(Also, I realized after I wrote this, that this particular post will probably only mean something  to my sister and me. I'll try to be more mainstream with the next post.)

Concert memories

Lester gave up his spot to go see the Legends of Summer concert with Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake so my sister could go with me.

So last night, she and I trekked through horrendous traffic, climbed to the top of M&T Bank Stadium (where the Ravens play) and danced, sang, rapped, clapped and screamed along with a sold-out crowd. It was a hugely diverse crowd -- black, white, Asian and all of the above -- and very eclectic -- from teenagers to soccer Moms, hip-hop heads and college co-eds, lots of couples, but also lots of groups of homeboys and giggling girls.

It was a lot of fun -- but I am dragggggggin' today. I didn't get back to my car until 1 a.m., and I didn't get to bed until 1:30.

Cary and Dean were up at 6:30 -- par for the course for them lately -- and my whole body hurts from all the walking Tahira and I did. (Yes, I am that out of shape.)

But the whole experience reminded me of my younger days, going to concerts with my friends or my Dad, boyfriends or wanna-be-boyfriends.

Best concert memories:

• Michael Jackson - Thriller concert! 1987. I was 13 and I spontaneously burst into tears when he came out on stage, just like they show during documentaries. I also wore one silver glove to the concert.
• Prince!!! in Philadelphia with my Dad. Seriously, like, BEST. CONCERT. EVER!  I cannot say strongly enough what an amazing concert that was. As a bonus, Morris Day and the Time opened up for Prince, and Patti LaBelle was in the audience and Prince brought her up on stage to sing a duet with him!
• NEW EDITION - every single time I see them! Helllooooo! Candy Girl for life!
• Maxwell with Lester on the eve of an anniversary trip, just before we discovered we were pregnant with Cary and Dean. We went for tapas before we went to the concert and something I ate made me strangely queasy. I was pregnant - just a little bit -- and didn't know it. And that was the first and only queasiness I had the whole pregnancy.
• Sade, with my mom and sisters. She put on such a good show and her voice is sooo lovely. She made me want to be elegant. (That didn't work out.)
• Outdoor festival concerts with Frankie Beverly and Maze, or Erykah Badu, or the ultimate legend, Chuck Brown!

There are probably lots more I'm forgetting, but those are some of the best ones.

Concerts are a lot of fun, even if I am too old to be packed into a stadium with a gazillion screaming people, walking along busy streets trying for an hour to hail a cab, and getting home in the wee hours on a worknight.

Wait. I take that back. I'm not too old.

The last song JT and JZ performed was called "Forever Young." I hadn't heard the song before, but it seemed to be a bit of an anthem for the kids in the audience. By the end of the song, even I was singing along.

Forever young, I wanna be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever and ever

Forever young I wanna be forever young

My achy muscles and tired bones might be saying something to the contrary right now, but I like the sound of that.

Getting little pieces of myself back, 3 years later

Having children is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

But it also is the hardest. There are many, many reasons why -- some of which I discuss (ad nauseam, some of you probably say) on this blog.

One hard thing that I realized just recently, though, is just how thoroughly having children disrupts one's routines and habits, making room for the wants and needs of the little people you've created. This is not a complaint; it's just the way it is.

But just in the last few months or so, glory be, I see little pieces of the old me coming back.

For example, after I had twin boys, I somehow lost the ability to make my bed every morning. I'd make it sometimes, but not everyday. And this was a cause of stress for me. I like having a made bed. I like the way it makes even a cluttered room seem more orderly, and I feel like I sleep better getting into a bed that's been made, as opposed to one that sat all day, bedclothes in a heap, pillows flattened, sheets getting cold.

Then, before I could get back my bed-making groove, I got pregnant with Clair. So add in being pregnant, tired, wrangling toddlers, working, stressed, etc. etc., and the bed became collateral damage yet again. (I can't tell you how much it annoyed me -- and also how it somehow made me less tidy about the rest of the room too, which just compounded my annoyance and stress.)

But as of late, I have been getting up and making the bed first thing, just like I used to do before I had kids. I don't recall making a conscious decision to get back into it. I just got up one day, made the bed, and I've been making it ever since. Just like that.

My old DNA, buried under my new Mommy DNA -- and my new normal life of busy-ness and kids and schedule-juggling -- fought its way to the surface. It was a hard-fought, 3 year-long battle, but the Tanika who makes her bed every morning emerged victorious! And guess what? My bedroom is just a smidge tidier now too! Hooray!

Another casualty of having kids that has come back? Flossing!

Seriously, people. I cannot even tell you how far down on the list of priorities flossing dropped after having kids. It was like my brain could not make space for even those two small minutes -- in the morning or at night. Or ever, frankly.

But, as with my bed-making mojo, sometime recently I started flossing again every day! I don't know what prompted me to pick up the flosser -- but boy am I glad I did. I feel so much better about myself! Cheeeeeese!

I am getting this down in print for two reasons:

1) To give myself hope that more of myself will emerge over time. I love the new Mommy me. But after having kids, you do mourn a bit for your old life, or at least certain pieces of it. People who say they don't mourn are lying -- or droids. So it's nice to see these small slivers of the old me coming back so naturally, without a major declaration or a whole lot of effort. I guess this is just how long it takes to get back to the old normal.

2) To let other Moms and women-who-will-one-day-be-Moms know that this happened to me. In case anyone else is mourning pieces of her old self, know that it gets better.Whether it's big things like your career ambition or sex drive or body image (still working on that one, folks!) or little things like flossing or finding one ounce of yourself to even try to care about that pile of mail that keeps growing and growing in that basket over there. (You know the one I'm talking about.)

You can come back! You will come back! Maybe not all of the old you --and certainly not all of your old life -- but give yourself some time, ladies. And cut yourself some slack.

 *Now, if only the old Tanika who took her birth control pills RELIGIOUSLY, like clockwork, every single day would come back. That woman, if you're listening, way down deep under all the new junk I've acquired? Come out, come out wherever you are! Or I'll have to replace you with IUD Tanika. And I hear that chick is no joke.

Kids are loud

Newsflash to people who don't have children yet.

Kids are LOUD.  They do everything loud. They stomp up stairs. They know of only one way to shut a door and that is to slam it. They don't "give" anything to anyone - they toss or outright throw -- making an "UNH!" sound while doing so. They loudly slurp their food and beverages, they bang their utensils, they scoot their chairs back with grating, scraping noises.

And contrary to popular belief, there is NO SUCH THING as an inside voice. None!

Their lives are a fight-scene in a comic book personified: Bam! Boom! POW!

Yes, all children are loud, but my three children are the loudest of all children alive.

They scream everything. They are constantly shouting over each other. They sing all songs like boorish, drunken pirates, or Vikings, or some such.

I have a headache every day. A happy headache -- because they are usually quite gleeful when they're loud -- but still. I need to buy stock in Tylenol.

The other day, my ears ringing from the cacophony in our house, I asked Cary to please sing a quieter song.

"But, but, but..." he said (loudly), "I only have LOUD songs."

Somehow, I know this is absolutely the truth.

Advice to Clair from Clair (and George Saunders)

Remember that post I wrote about Clair being nice?

I got a lot of wonderful responses to it, but someone lovely posted a link to this speech by George Saunders, and just so that I'll have it to refer back to later, when the kids are old enough to sit long enough to pay attention to this kind of thing (25? 40?), I'm copying it here.
I'll make sure we read this together then.

P.S. The person who posted this was an intern at my job a few summers ago. I had the pleasure of sitting next to her and I came to admire and respect her. She is a recent graduate of Claremont McKenna College and I occasionally see her posts on Instagram or Facebook, where she looks like she is having the time of her life. And I am so glad! She's a beautiful, smart girl, who has the world in the palm of her hands. Her name, incidentally, is Clair (no e!) and I hope my own Clair will be just like her!

 The New York Times / George Saunders

Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

And I intend to respect that tradition.

Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.
So: What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?”  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked?  And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?  Not so much.  Do I regret the occasional humiliation?  Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl?  No.  I don’t even regret that.
But here’s something I do regret:
In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class.  In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.”  ELLEN was small, shy.  She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.  When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.
So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” – that sort of thing).  I could see this hurt her.  I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear.  After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth.  At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.”  And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”
Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.
And then – they moved.  That was it.  No tragedy, no big final hazing.
One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.
End of story.
Now, why do I regret that?  Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it?  Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her.  I never said an unkind word to her.  In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.
But still.  It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. 
Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly.  Reservedly.  Mildly.
Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope:  Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?
Those who were kindest to you, I bet.
It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.
Now, the million-dollar question:  What’s our problem?  Why aren’t we kinder?
Here’s what I think:
Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).
Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.
So, the second million-dollar question:  How might we DO this?  How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?
Well, yes, good question.
Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.
So let me just say this.  There are ways.  You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.  Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend;  establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition – recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.
Because kindness, it turns out, is hard – it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include…well, everything.
One thing in our favor:  some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age.  It might be a simple matter of attrition:  as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really.  We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality.  We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be.  We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now).  Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving.  I think this is true.  The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”
And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.  YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.   If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment.  You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.  That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today.  One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.
Congratulations, by the way.
When young, we’re anxious – understandably – to find out if we’ve got what it takes.  Can we succeed?  Can we build a viable life for ourselves?  But you – in particular you, of this generation – may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition.  You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can….
And this is actually O.K.  If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously – as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers.  We have to do that, to be our best selves.
Still, accomplishment is unreliable.  “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.
So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up.  Speed it along.  Start right now.  There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness.  But there’s also a cure.  So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.
Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Theresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.
And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been.  I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.

Congratulations, Class of 2013.

I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.

Weekend museums, hikes and chai tea

This weekend Lester took Clair to the Science Center and I took the boys to the Walters Art Museum for some art-making and museum-exploring.

The activity was called "A Horse of Course," and was really fun. There were scissors, markers, "model magic" and pretend hay involved. How could it not be?

"Drop-in Art Activities: A Horse of Course - Saddle up as we explore equestrian artwork throughout the month of August. Drop-in, make, and take a fantastic piece of art home." 

The theme was horses. The boys made horses out of clay and stables. I helped Cary with his, but he drew the eye and the nose himself. And he did the legs and ear.

Dean insisted on making his all by himself,  without help, as you can see.  (I did casually mention that horses have 4 legs and not 6, so he took two away.) The instructor lovingly called his creation "Horse-o-saurus."

The boys did so great at the museum -- even on our hour-long walk throughout the building, looking at all kinds of things that are not really for 3-year-olds. But they loved it, and didn't want to leave.

But food was calling all of us. So we stopped at Kumari, my favorite Indian/Nepalese spot for lunch buffet. It was a rainy day, so chai tea was in order. I even let the boys sip some. Afterward, Dean said, "Mommy, I don't want my water. I want adult tea."

I love that my kids eat Indian! What they didn't eat, I happily finished!

While we were gone, Lester -- who wasn't feeling so well -- stayed home and rested with Clair, who took an epic 3-and-a-half-hour nap.

But the next day, the boys had a playdate with Hugo! So Lester took her to the Science Center, on a Daddy-daughter date. Lester said she had a ball! And the three musketeers and I went on a "hike" along the Herring Run.

Dean, Cary, Hugo and I explored exposed roots, mud puddles, the rushing stream and hidden caves.

It was a great weekend -- the temperature was ridiculously perfect -- and I am starting to get sad that the summer is almost over.

Clean your plate! Or not?

OK, I swear Lester and I do more than just read NYT parenting articles and discuss them.

(Mostly, we say "Holy &#$!" a lot while watching Damages. And wait for the last season of Breaking Bad to come on. And eat too many snacks - though we're trying to do better about that. But I digress.)

But anyway, this particular blog post about why parents should nix the "Clean Your Plate Club" really got me to thinking.

I agree with this writer's sentiment wholeheartedly. I really, really do. But I admit I have a problem. I don't want to be the "eat one bite more"-Mom, but I am and I don't know how to stop it.

Hello, My name is Tanika Davis and I force my children to eat Swiss chard.

Here are a couple reasons why:

1. I use myself as a barometer, which is wrong I know. I HATE the feeling of being hungry overnight. It has nothing to do with my upbringing - we had plenty of food, believe me. It's just one of those things about my physical make-up. It can wake me up out of a deep sleep if I haven't eaten enough at dinner. So I worry that if the kids don't eat enough, they'll be hungry overnight. I don't worry so much about them waking up - they're great sleepers. I just worry that they'll have that *feeling* - and as a Mom, you never want your children to feel uncomfortable. You certainly don't want them feeling HUNGER. Lord, that's the worst.

2. Especially where Dean is concerned, I know that he doesn't stop eating because he's no longer hungry. He stops eating, then he says he wants yogurt, or fruit or a gummy vitamin. Sometimes, he hasn't even touched the food on his dinner plate, but gets down from the table, and then says, "I'm still hungry!" because he wants yogurt or fruit. I know that yogurt and fruit are healthy snacks, but I feel like the 3-year-old doesn't get to decide what's for dinner.  I feel like he should understand that dinner is dinner, and when he's finished dinner - or at least had some of it - he can have what he really wants.

The alternative is we either 1) Let him decide what he is or isn't going to eat for dinner, which we all know will mean Cary will want to pick and choose what he wants, too, and so we'll descend into a free-for-all, you-pick-whatever-you-want-and-Mommy-will-serve it buffet going on or 2) Tell him he doesn't have to eat dinner, but he can't have yogurt or fruit either, which means he will have eaten nothing between the hours of 6 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.

See reason No. 1 for why this kills me!

3. I'm not there for so much of the day. At breakfast they eat oatmeal. At snack, they eat a lot of fruit and cheese and yogurt and crackers (unless they're in summer camp, where they get chocolate pudding for snack. ugh!) When I'm there with them at dinner, I want to witness them eating ONE DARN VEGETABLE.  JUST ONE! IS THAT SO WRONG?!

How do you all handle this issue? Seriously, I'd really love to hear.

"Be a nice girl"

Lester asked me the other day if I'd read this column in Motherlode about a woman expressing all the reasons she does NOT want her daughter to be nice:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/i-do-not-want-my-daughter-to-be-nice/?_r=0

Here's a few paragraphs from the post, in case you don't have time to read the whole thing:

My 10-year-old daughter, Birdy, is not nice, not exactly. She is deeply kind, profoundly compassionate and, probably, the most ethical person I know — but she will not smile at you unless either she is genuinely glad to see you or you’re telling her a joke that has something scatological for a punch line.
This makes her different from me. Sure, I spent the first half of the ’90s wearing a thrifted suede jacket that I had accessorized with a neon-green sticker across the back, expressing a somewhat negative attitude regarding the patriarchy (let’s just say it’s unprintable here). But even then, I smiled at everyone. Because I wanted everyone to like me. Everyone!
I am a radical, card-carrying feminist, and still I put out smiles indiscriminately, hoping to please not only friends and family but also my son’s orthodontist, the barista who rolls his eyes while I fumble apologetically through my wallet, and the ex-boyfriend who cheated on me. 

This article reminded Lester of our own little not-so-nice one, although she has years to go to get to the point where the author's girl is: "'Gender stereotypes, among other injustices, infuriate her,'" the author says of her tween. "'This is so stupid!'" she sighs at Target, about the pink rows of dolls and the blue rows of Lego. "'Why don’t they just put a penis or a vagina on every toy so you can be completely sure you’re getting the right one?'"

For instance, this description here reminds me of my daughter: "But when strangers talk to her, she is like, "'Whatever.'" She looks away, scowling. She does not smile or encourage."

Umm, hello Clair.

And this one, too. Oh boy, this one:  "Even as a 2-year-old, she had the determined wrath and gait of a murderous zombie gnome — and my husband and I grimaced at each other, afraid, over her small and darkly glowering head."

A murderous, screaming, swatting, swiping, angry, stubborn, unbudging, "do-not-touch-me-stranger!" zombie gnome. That's my adorable, gap-toothed, haloed little cherub, absolutely. (Love you, Clair!)

But just as Clair has a long way to go before she is strolling the toy store aisles, raging against stereotyping in a feminist fury, I admit to having a long way to go before I can say "I don't want my daughter to be nice."

I totally get this writer's point. She wants her daughter not to be a doormat, or a syrupy, smiley, apologetic wallflower. She wants her daughter to reserve her "niceness" for those who earn it, and to forever hold on to her easy ability to just say "No," no matter if it's a grabby boy making an unwanted request or a societal ill that she just won't stand for.

I love that, and want that for Clair too. I love that she can't say 50 words, but she is not. to. be. intimidated.

But darnit. I'm sorry. (See, there I go apologizing!) I want her to be nice, too.

There's no reason you can't be nice for niceness' sake -- and still be a girl who knows what she will and will not stand for. Nice is good. Too many people think they're nice and really aren't. And too many people try so hard not to be nice, for fear they'll get run over. I don't want Clair to fear being nice.

I once had a co-worker tell me that she didn't "give" anyone respect. Everyone she met had to earn it.

I feel like that's the wrong way to go about life. I think you should treat everyone you meet with respect, graciously dole it out even, unless that person gives you a good reason not to. And even then, I think you should still show (most people) outward respect, even if you don't feel it in your heart.

I feel the same way about niceness. People don't have to "earn" me being nice to them. I'm just nice (or at least I really try to be). And if I get to the point where a person no longer deserves my niceness, well that's a different story. I know when to fold 'em, walk away, run -- or stay and fight.  Ask people at the Baltimore Sun union if I ever rolled over in the face of injustice.

I want my fierce baby girl to be a nice girl too -- in fact, I want all my children to be nice, kind, charitable and considerate of others.

And if they ever have to put someone or something in its place some day, I hope they'll do it with gusto. I also hope they do it with a smile.

Have a nice day y'all. :-)

Straddling the "big boy" line

The boys are at that age where they insist they are big boys -- about everything.

They want to do just about everything themselves, even when they really can't do it themselves. But of course we have to let them try.

Sometimes, they amaze us with their ability to do/think/accomplish things. Other times, we're reminded that they are still tiny little boys who were just babies a half a second ago.

And still other times, they expertly straddle the "big boy" line.

Last night, for example, I woke up from a dead sleep because Dean was in his bed, crying. He sounded so much like a baby, at first I thought it was Clair. I stumbled into his room, and asked what was wrong.

"I have to go peeeee-peeee," he wailed.

I escorted him into the bathroom, turned on the light, hoisted him up onto the toilet and stood back to wait. He looked up at me, disapprovingly, face swollen from sleep.

"Mommy," he said. "I need privacy."

So I waited patiently outside the bathroom door for him to finish peeing. It was 3:45 a.m.

When he was done, I walked him back into his room, and was greeted by a groggy Cary, saying he now had to go pee-pee, too.

I walked him in to the bathroom, hoisted him up, waited for him to finish, helped him pull up his pajamas, walked him back into the bedroom and attempted to tuck him in.

"No Mommy!" he said, way too loudly for 3:45 in the morning. "I don't need help!"

He pulled the comforter up around him and curled up on his pillow.

As I walked back to my room, all I could think was, "If you are such big boys, who need privacy but don't need my help, then WHY AM I AWAKE AT 3:45 IN THE MORNING HELPING YOU TO PEE???"

(Note: I also need to point out that this exact scene played out earlier in the night - around 10 p.m. - except Lester was the one who got shooed out of the bathroom by Dean for privacy's sake. And he had to physically carry Cary, like a baby, into the bathroom to allow him to pee. Ugh! These 3-year-olds! Babies/big boys? Who can tell?)

More sweetness

Yesterday, I came in from work a little late. The kids were already at the dinner table, eating.

Cary says to me, mouth full of pasta, "Mommy! I was worried about you!"

:-)


Later on, as I'm clearing the table, Dean walks over to me and asks, "Mommy, umm, did you have a good day?"

:-)


Love, love, love my sweet boys.

Words and sayings of Clair Davis

As this blog serves as my baby book, as much as it is my journal, photo album and record of Davis history, I thought I should get down Clair's vocabulary.

• Haaa - Hi
• Bah-bah or bye-bye  - Good-bye or good night
• TaychOO - Thank you
• Down - she says this one very clearly, and with gusto.
• Hup - Up
• Dee - Dean
• Dee - Cary
• Muh-muh or Muh-mee - Mama
• Da-da - Daddy
• Dop - Stop
• Doppt - Stop it
• Uh-oh!
• Guck - Stuck (this is a frequent one, as she is always getting herself stuck somewhere)
• Hot
• Code - cold
• Tit - Sit
• Teet - Feet
• Tep - Step
• Teeee - any letter of the alphabet she sees
• Tooo, Teee - attempting to "count" as she goes up the teps
• Boon - Balloon
• Bah - Ball
• Moos - Nose
• ...shhh - fish 
• Heyh - Hair
• Hmm - Here (handing someone something)
• poo-poo
• Coop -  scoop
• Kiiiiiick - kick
• Pop
• Pickbuu - Peek-a-boo!
• Heh - "Hey" as in the background "Hey!" in "Hey Bo Diddly"
• Kay - OK
• Buh-buu - Bubble

Most of the time, she speaks in an adorable gibberish that makes no sense to anyone but her. But her vocabulary is growing  enough now that we can  - most times - figure out what she wants or needs.

She also barks like a (small, yappy) dog, mooos like a cow, quacks like a duck, cheeps like a bird, oinks like a pig, baas like a sheep and growls like a dozen or so other indistinguishable animals.

In addition, as has been noted here before, she kicks, swats, yells, screams, shrieks, screeches, hits and is a veritable crazy woman. She teases her brothers mercilessly. She has a very defined proprietary sense (everything is hers). She laughs louder than she cries. She never, ever, ever backs down.

She is the most spunky, spirited, fight-for-what-she-wants child I have ever known.

I love her!

Edited: Tonight, she said her very first sentence! In the bathtub, Dean kept pouring water on her head. At first, she liked it, but she grew increasingly annoyed. Finally, she said. "Dop. Dop, Deee!"

Aww, my baby's first sentence!!

The rest of this T-shirt says "crazy child." OK, not really. But it should.

The sweetness of 3-year-olds

Once a month, Miss Teresa comes to our house to help me do a thorough cleaning. She has been coming to our house since a week or so before Cary and Dean were born, when I hired her to do the nesting I wanted to do but couldn't with my big, pregnant-with-twins belly. I thought then she'd be a one-time hire. As you can see, she's been with us for three years now.

Last month, for the first time ever, Miss Teresa had to cancel her scheduled cleaning. Her daughter texted me and told me that her grandfather, Miss Teresa's father, had died.

Miss Teresa came to our house yesterday. It was the first I'd seen her since he died. The sadness was palpable in the room. Her angular frame was slumped as she went quietly about her work. Her eyes looked tired.

As she finished up, we hugged and I told her -- as best I could, since she speaks limited English and I speak absolutely no Polish -- that I was so sorry about her Dad and that I would be praying for her. Miss Teresa, old enough to be my own mother, collapsed into me like a child would, and cried.

Her father was only 78, she said. Too young to die. It had been 9 years since she'd seen her "Daddy." And she wasn't able to afford a plane ticket on such short notice, so she missed his funeral. She was so sad.

Of course, I started crying too. We stood there in my living room, trying to understand one another's words, but succeeding more fully in understanding loss, regret and a father's love.

Cary and Dean were around - of course. They were mesmerized by this uncommon show of adult emotion.

Finally, after some time, Dean spoke up.

"Miss Teresa is sad?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him. "Miss Teresa's father died. She won't get to see him anymore and so she is sad."

"Miss Teresa's father died? Like Don Gato?" Dean said, referring to one of their favorite songs at the moment.

"Yes," I said. "Like Don Gato."

He sat and thought for awhile. He looked at Miss Teresa and smiled.

Then he tapped me on the leg and whispered.

"Our Daddy can come to her house," he said.

Miss Teresa coudn't understand him well enough to get that he was offering up to her his most precious gift - his own father.

But I did.

And I hugged my boy and loved him just a tiny bit more.

The Davis boys play it fair and make Mommy's heart swell

Scene 1
The kitchen, before dinner. Dean spies the apricots - immediately decides he is STARVING.

Dean: Mommy, can I have an apricot? I'm hungry.

Me: I'm fixing dinner now, so maybe we can have one after dinner.

Dean: OK, Cary can have one and I can have one.

Me: Sounds good. But what about Clair? Can Clair have one?

Dean: (Quiet...thinking) Mommy, Clairzee can't have one because there's only two.

Me: Hmmm. You're right. There are only two apricots. Hmmm. What are we going to do? There are three children (I count each child slowly) and only two apricots. Clair will be sad if she doesn't have one.

Dean: Mommy, I think you're going to have to split it.

Cary: Yeah, Mommy, you have to split them, and give me one and Dean one and Clair one.

Me: OK, I'll do that. I'll cut them in half, and give one to each of you. One for Dean, one for Clair, and one for Cary.

Cary: That's a GREAT idea, Mommy!

MOMMY'S HEART SWELLS TO SIZE OF SOCCER BALL.

Scene 2
After dinner, cutting the apricots and dividing them up.

Me: Well, look. There's one half left.What do you think we should do?

Dean: Mommy, you can have that one.

Me: Ohhh, thanks sweetie. But I have an idea. Since you are such big boys, I'll cut this one piece in half again and give a piece to you and a piece to Cary. That way you both have TWO pieces of apricot.

Dean: YAYYY!!! (Claps!)

Cary: We get two because we're big boys?

Me: Yes, I gave you two because you're big boys, and also because I love you.

Cary: Awwwww. Thanks, Mommy.

Me: HEART SWELLS TO THE SIZE OF A BASKETBALL.

(P.S. Being the crazy woman that I am, I also cannot help but take note of the fact that there were some subliminal math messages going on in this fairness conversation. My plot to turn my kids into software engineers/CFOs/venture capitalists is underway! Bwahahahaaa! Ah-hahahahaaa!)

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Cary now has bionic hearing!

OK, not really, but as of yesterday he does have tubes in his ears and the spaces behind his ear drums are finally fluid-free! Yay!

The surgery went exceptionally well. The procedure itself took like 10 minutes. It started at 7:30 a.m., and after recovering (with a Popsicle, the Disney channel and doting nurses fussing over him) Cary, Lester and I were home by 9:30.

The docs and nurses all told us that children usually wake up from the procedure screaming bloody murder, disoriented and grumpy.

Here's how Cary woke up.

He was quiet and curious and a little bored by the whole thing, actually. Then they turned on the cartoons, gave him a Popsicle, and he was in Heaven.

He kept asking, "But where's Dean's Popsicle?"

We go back in 3 weeks for a hearing test, but I can already tell that he hears things better. Yesterday, on the porch, a police helicopter hovered over our neighborhood (a regular occurrence, I'm afraid) and Cary said, "That helicopter is too loud!" Then, this morning, I turned the shower on and he said, "It's too loud!"

So we think the tubes have done the trick! If all's well, the doctor said they'll be in for a year. Not sure what happens after that, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Anywho, I'm glad we got this procedure done and over with. One fewer thing on the worry list to worry about. And also, please God let this mean no more AUGMENTIN. (Ugh! That stuff is the worst!)

In other news, my Mom came out to spend the night with us on Sunday so she could be with Clair and Dean while we were at the hospital with Cary.

She must've done this puzzle a thousand times. Bless her!

The boys adore her! They asked her to sleep in their beds with them,  repeatedly asked her not to leave, even asked her to "live here with us," and only wanted to be wherever she was in the house. Cary almost peed on himself once because he didn't want to go to the bathroom because, "Nana will leave in a second!" Only after we assured him that she was spending the night would he go.

And even Clair was happy to be with Nana! She allowed her to hold her and kiss her. She let Nana braid her hair! Instead of being clingy and whiny and afraid, she was her sweet, silly, jabbering self.

I was so happy for my Mom to see Clair this way. I wish she was able to come visit us more often, so she could get to know the real Clair a little more.

My baby girl is getting to be less baby and more girl. (Sadness!)

Cary and Clair both love Dean the best. Look how cute they are!

 Anyway, I'm back at work today -- so time to FOCUS!!

End of vacation blues

I've got the end of vacation blues. I'm back at home, in the searing heat of the city; there's laundry to do and grocery shopping and email to return. I'll have to start cooking tomorrow for the week, and there is not even the slightest hint of saltwater in the air. Saddest of all, Kohr Bros. does not have a frozen custard stand on every corner here. I don't know when I'll get another chocolate/vanilla swirl of love and goodness on a cone.

Maybe next year?

To help lift my sagging spirits, here are a few more photos of us on the beach. It really was an amazingly good time.

Beach bros. and their handsome Daddy. Cary was none too pleased about having to take more photos.

Clair LOVED this sand pit; we couldn't keep her out of it. There's still sand in her hair. There will probably be sand in her hair until Christmas. 

Ahoy, matie! Doesn't he have the cutest little impish grin?

Cary is so silly. This is what he did when I said, "Really smile."

My handsome, sweet Deanie. I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart to see how he cared for Clair while we were on our trip. At one point, on an amusement park ride, Dean reached behind himself and held on to the hem of Clair's dress the entire ride, because he said he thought she was going to be scared. Awwww. Such a sweetie.

Me and Cary, taking a stroll along the beach.  As we were walking, Cary said, "Let's keep going until we get to the end." Awww.

See allllll the sand in Clair's hair? That was not even half of it. 

Hello, favorite photo of the entire vacation. (No filter!)
We've discovered that our favorite time to go to the beach is between 5-ish and 8. We're not middle of the day beach people (too hot), and we can't get our acts together to get to the beach at 8 a.m.  So evening beach-going it is. It is so pretty at that time, and the water is calm, and the sand is cool. It's perfect.

And here we are., the senior Davises. No photos of the bottom half of me in a bathing suit are allowed until I get back into the realm of respectability.  Maybe next year?

P.S. Cary and Dean never did get in the water. Maybe next year?

So far, this trip is beachy

We are having a great time at the beach, eating seafood (us) and junk food (the kids and us), and sand (Clair).

 I am trying to be unplugged as much as possible while I'm here, but I'm determined to stay in the groove of blogging, lest I lose my mojo.

So, just to keep the home fires burning, I'm posting a few pics. A real re-cap will come post vacation.

Clair is the only one of my children who will even get close to the water.  She isn't quite diving in, but she wil sit with me and let the waves lap around her toes and legs.

I love Bethany because it is so clean and so quiet and perfect for families. At 9 a.m., we virtually had the beach to ourselves.

People keep asking us, "Are they triplets?" Seriously, people.  Why do you hate me?

We've been lounging a lot, napping, playing with floor puzzles, eating frozen custard (YUM!) and walking through town, even well past the kids' bedtimes. Lester and I have been watching back-to-back episodes of "Damages" on Netflix when the kids finally do CRASH (and I do mean crash) for the night, and we have to will ourselves to stop watching.

Later on today, we're going for a family bike ride, and later on this week we have plans to go to a water park, and to the kiddie fun park at Rehoboth Beach (where I intend to eat more frozen custard.)

Lots of fun. Lots of food. Lots of sun. Lots of relaxing.

So far, so good, vacation. So far, so good.

What happens when you decide to focus at work...

What happens when you decide to focus on actually doing your work at work?

Blogging suffers. (Also, Facebooking suffers, but I can do that at home when I'm supposed to be paying attention to my children.)

Anyway, I have had a lot of stuff on my plate at work, especially since I was off two days last week for the Fourth, and we're off all of next week for our family trip to the beach. (More on that later.)

So I have not had time to blog and I honestly feel guilty about that, because I want to make sure I'm getting down the things I think, feel and observe about my children's lives when I think, fell and observe them. I know too well that time makes memories misty and water-colored (thanks Barbra!) and I don't trust myself to get it right after too much time has passed.

But I gotta work. And I realized I was getting way too distracted by blogging and Facebooking and other important things -- list-making, etc. So I had to make a change. I intend to make this a real change, not just a temporary one, so until I find a way to work blogging in more regularly while still being more focused on work, I'm afraid this blog will be updated much less.

Meanwhile, we had a GREAT time over the 4-day weekend. We went to a friend-of-a-friend's pool twice, went to my Mom's house, rode the water taxi to Fort McHenry (hello, synapse checklist!), saw fireworks (Cary liked, Dean did not, Clair said "Pop!" each time they went off), enjoyed a strawberry pancake breakfast as a family, and just had a darn good time of togetherness and love and fun.

Can't wait for more of that during our WEEK (yikes!) at the beach! (More on that later.)

Before I get to the pictures from our fun holiday of togetherness, I have to inject here that Cary has an ear infection, of course, now that we are on our way to the beach. The good news is, this should not affect his surgery in any way. So yay! Hopefully, by 9 a.m. on the 22nd, Cary Glenn Davis will be able to hear normally. I'll keep you updated on that.

Also, I started getting sick on Sunday night (thanks to Stacey, who had been hacking behind me at work for a week) so on Monday I went and bought all the echinacea/zinc/vitamin C crap I could find and started pumping myself with it. (I am usually a skeptic about that kind of stuff, but I was willing to try anything to avoid being sick on vacation.) I would like to report that I am at 98-percent today -- just three days later. HOORAY!

I will definitely have to try that regimen again before I will be a true believer, but I can say that I WILL try it again. That's a good sign.

Now...photos!!

How cute are they all patriotic and whatnot?

Call me a cornball, but I love "themed" kids.

Here we are on the WATER TAXI! Technically, since the boys are still 3, this counts toward their synapse checklist. I've decided to extend it through their third year. Aren't I clever?

We took the boat to Fort McHenry, where we heard a cannon shot (scared the daylights out of the boys), and met these soldiers. It was 10,000 degrees on July 4. Their uniforms are wool. God help them.

The day after the 4th, we went and spent the day at Nana and Granddad's, where the boys splashed in a pool in the yard with their cousins for hours and had the best time. Clair still refuses to go to anyone but me and cries hysterically when people try to hold her, play with her or even speak to her. Sigh.

 I attempted to make an American Flag cake. It tasted better than it looks. Cary said, "American flag cake? That is so silly!"

And on Sunday morning, Lester made pancakes, with fresh strawberries on top. YUMMM. P.S. Clair can now feed herself with a spoon.

This is a scene from the EPIC pool party Stacey invited us to two days after the 4th. There's a brass band IN THE POOL. There was also delicious BBQ and cocktails. We visited this pool on the 4th, as well, without the band or the extra people, and it was still fun. Heated salt-water pool in my next life? Yes, please!

This girl did NOT want to get out of the water. She is totally my water baby.

See? Look how much fun we're having!

Meanwhile, these two scaredy-cats would only stay on this raft, which they called a "boat" and allow women (and Lester) to float them around while they hollered out commands. Typical.

We'll see how these kiddos do when we get to the beach. I predict Clair will love, until she gets knocked down by a wave, and the boys will do just slightly better than they did last year, when they refused to even get in the water.

About the beach: We leave on Saturday and I have done NOTHING to prepare. Not one thing. No packing. No shopping. No obsessive list-making. No weather-checking. Nothing.

See what happens when you're focused on work? Everything else takes a backseat.

One of these days, I'll get this work-life balance thing right. Until then, see ya when I see ya! I got work to do!

Xoxoxox.

Sometimes reading is helpful!

Those of you who have read this blog for any period of time know that far too often I read myself into a tizzy or a funk or a murky abyss of worry. No matter how horrible I feel after reading about all the bad things that can happen to children in life, I can't stop reading! In fact, I usually just seek out more worrisome stuff to read. It's like scratching an itch until it hurts, and then continuing to scratch. Am I the only one who does that?

Anyway, this is an affliction of my own doing, and I'm working on it (sorta).

But sometimes reading makes me feel better about things and not worse! (I love it when that happens!)

Like as I am skimming through my Ames developmental book "Your 3-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy" and come across this page:

SEE? Kids have "strong points and weak ones." And the better parents are at recognizing both, "the more effectively [we] can manage to see that much of the time [they are] successful." It's important that parents recognize the weaknesses in a kid "without giving him the feeling that he is not a good and valuable person, as you know he is."

Isn't that what I JUST said? Holy confirmation, Batman. I should be a writer of developmental books for kids!

I also loved it, and needed to hear it, when Auntie Louise (that's what I call her) said this:

She totally wrote that JUST for me. I needed someone to take that unreasonable pressure off of me -- and off of the kids, too. Thanks, Auntie Louise!

One other thing I loved about this book is that she repeatedly says throughout, "Your 3-year-old is not your enemy." She says it so many times, it makes me know that lots of parents feel that their 3-year-old has completely turned against them and all things good and holy. (LOL!) But really, she assures us, this is not the case.

Your 3-year-old is not your enemy, folks. Your 3-year-old is THREE.

(I have been reminding myself of this truth multiple times daily.)

Finding flaws in your children

When Lester and I were pre-parents, we did a lot of ad hoc interviewing of friends who had kids who seemed normal. We had a lot of questions. Most people had no answers. LOL.

Of the many questions we had, one thing we really wondered was how it was that some parents seemed to be so clueless about their kids' less-than-flattering personality or character traits. How could the mother of the town serial killer insist that her little boy would never hurt a fly? How do parents of bullies not know that their kids are bullies? How do parents say, "Oh she just got in with the wrong crowd," when everyone else in the world knows that your kid IS the wrong crowd?

Do you lose the ability to be a good judge of character when you become a parent? Is love for a child that blinding?

One thing we heard from friends about that is that it is OK to love your kids without idolizing them; it is OK to accept them for who they are without idealizing them. In other words, in order to be the best parent to a child, you must understand exactly who that child is, good and bad, for better or for worse.

And it is with that spirit that I write this post. 

Newsflash: My children have flaws. They are not perfect. They are human beings with good parts and bad parts. I think the good outweighs the bad by a huge, overwhelming quantity.  But...the fact is, these little people have some things about them that need some work.

Let's start with Clair.
She's still pretty new, but I can already see that this girl is SAUCY. She is constantly swatting at us, yelling at us and back-talking in her little gibberish. When you tell her to do something she doesn't want to do, she grunts "UNH!" or does a rude little raspberry thing that drives me bonkers. She is passionate about EVERYTHING, and not always in a good way. She is assertive with other children in a way that borders on aggressive. She is no delicate flower, that one, and can be ...I'll say it...a little bratty. I love her to pieces and she's smart as a whip, but right now she is in need of discipline. With the boys, we waited until about 18 months before we started doing super-quick time-outs, just to arrest undesirable behavior. Clair might not get to 18 months before we start that with her. Seriously.

The good news: All these not-so-nice traits (passion, energy, spunkiness, questioning authority) can be channeled for good, with time and patience and focused parenting. Which is why it is good that we are aware of this in her.

Next up, Dean.
My second-born has a deceptive streak. At the tender age of 3, he has already learned the art of sneakiness and has a talent for finding and exploiting the loopholes in what we think to be clearly-stated rules.
Just this week he told me that "Daddy said we can play in the Pack 'n Play," when I know he did not. And also that "It's OK to play in the Pack 'n Play because Daddy's not here." He also tells me "MiMi forgot to give us our vitamins today," when I can see in the Daily Log that vitamins were doled out with lunch. And he takes extra vitamins or candy, pops them in his mouth, and says, mouth full, "I only have two, see?" (showing the two he has in his hand...)
He blames Cary for all manner of offenses that he, himself, committed. He dramatically feigns tears, or "my tummy hurts" when trying to distract us from chastising him. His little brain is constantly churning: How do I get out of this? How do I get what I want? What adorable little pouty face do I have to make to turn the tide in my favor?
He is a TRIP.

The good news: We can see of course, that this kind of behavior is a form of cleverness, an attempt at outsmarting the powers-that-be. This kind of thing, if channeled correctly, could be useful to him in later years. As his parents, we can help Dean use his powers for good and not evil.
Which is why it is good that we are aware of this in him.

Last but not least, Cary.
This is the one that bothers me the most.
Clair is a baby - she's a soft piece of clay with lots of time for molding. And Dean's flaws, I think, are related to age, mostly. And honestly I think that some of his con-artist-like shenanigans really do signal just how bright he is (too damn bright, if you ask me).
But Cary's issues are more worrisome, because they seem more character-related.
My bookworm, very sweet and Elmo-voiced firstborn can be ... (sigh)... mean.
Not toddler "Mine! Mine!" mean. Not "I'm tired and I'm having a temper-tantrum" mean.
Just plain mean.
He exhibits these tendencies mostly with other children. He yells and speaks harshly. He says things like,  "Go in the house!" or "If you come over here I'm going to smack you." He told a little boy playing near them at the library this weekend, "You have to GO HOME!"
When the kids next door ask for a hug, he yells, "NO!" or says things far worse, such as "No, you're stinky!" I can now count at least three times when he has drawn either the tears or the ire of a child we just met, because of his sharp words and tone. In one case, at a playground, Cary ended up in a chokehold and Lester had to go rescue him. (Kinda serves him right, sad to say it.)
Cary also can be pretty brutal with Clair, which also hurts my feelings. He doesn't seem to have the same kind of tenderness with her that Dean does -- that innate realization that she is 1) a baby and 2) his baby sister. Seventy-five percent of the time, he is indifferent to her. But the other 25-percent, he snatches from her, teases her, refuses her just about anything she wants. He often blocks her from playing with them. He yells at her and causes her to lash out. (Clair, to be sure, gives as good as she gets. She can fend for herself, for the most part. But what kind of thing is that to say about siblings? Father God, I sure wish they'd play more harmoniously.)

I try to address this behavior every single time I see it. I even try, during moments when he is being quite pleasant, to hug him and say, Hey Cary, Mommy loves it when you're being such a kind brother or good friend ... or whatever. I've put him in time-out for really major infractions (throwing a friend's toy in the street, for example). And I've told him under no uncertain terms that if he can't be kind to his friends that he won't be allowed to play with them. I've modeled for him what "being nice" sounds like: "Hi. My name is Cary. Would you like to play?" "May I throw the Frisbee next?" Etc.
But so far...my boy is still kinda mean.

Needless to say, I don't like that at ALL. I can deal with a lot of behavior issues in kids, and I know that everybody has bad days and lash-out moments. But at the end of the day it is very important to me that my children are kind, gracious and loving people.

I know we exhibit goodness in our house -- we go overboard to show love and kindness and generosity not just to them but to other people. But still... I can't help but wonder if there's something we're doing wrong. Is it because I yell sometimes? (Yes, judgy-folks, I do yell sometimes.) Is it because we kept them at home and sheltered so long? Should we have separated the two boys in school so that Cary is forced to be friendly with other kids, and not just solely play with Dean (which is what he does)?

The good news: He is very protective of and good to Dean, his favorite person. And he is very affectionate with me and with his lovey and to little creepy-crawly things and with Nana and Granddad. So it just seems to me that he likes who he likes and has to be taught that he still has to outwardly show kindness, even when he doesn't feel like it.
I do believe we can get a handle on this (hopefully) with time, attention, love and focus.
Which is why -- again -- it's good that we're aware of it.

Anyway, I'd like to think that taking note of our children's less-than-admirable qualities will help us parent them as they grow and develop. So instead of worrying about these issues, or pathologizing them (as my friend Shreya, the child psychologist would say), we will simply address them.

We will address them with the recognition that my children are wonderful, amazing, awesome human beings who we are already so, so proud of. And we will address them always, always with 100-percent unconditional love. No matter what.

(P.S. I hope that Cary, Dean and Clair will go back through this blog and see where I have praised, gushed and oozed nothing but pure joy and pride about them 98 percent of the time.)