Tag Archives: children

Already Proud of My Kid’s Choices

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Most little girls are obsessed with the conventionally beautiful, super-feminine, fairly one-dimensional Elsa character in Frozen, and few prefer Anna– the tougher, funnier, more dynamic and quirky character with the much stronger personality.

So I think it really says something special about Nora that she always chooses to play with her Anna doll. She obviously identifies more with Anna and chooses her because she sees the value in her strong personality, and not because I refused to buy her any of the Elsa merchandise she desperately wanted and cried for, shoved the Anna doll in her face and yelled MOM IS ONLY BUYING YOU THIS ONE AND YOU WILL PLAY WITH IT AND YOU WILL LOVE THE AWKWARD GIRL MORE THAN THAT PRETTY VAPID ONE SO HELP ME GOD DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!

Anyway I’m really proud of her.

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ARE we safer at Cha’s Cha’s House?

Family, parenthood, , , , , , ,

We’re quarantining here at my parents’ house, having decided it was best to escape the dangers and claustrophobia of Corona-ridden NYC. We’ve finally gotten Nora to the point where she can toddle around here and not kill herself on the huge iron-rimmed coffee table, multiple stairs, and stacked shelves of glass.

Then my mom gave her a huge box of miscellaneous toys to play with. Nora was super excited when she dug through the legos and found these:

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“Mama I eat it? Yes?”

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My Spies Are Everywhere

Kids, parenthood, , , , , , ,

When I take Nora to the kiddie gym, she insists on using the water fountain and is somewhat obsessed with it. Early on I had to implement a rule that she can have one sip before class and one sip after class (#thisismylifenow imgres-2). She’s been shockingly very compliant until today, when suddenly she whined, flailed, and resisted all my attempts to remove her from the fountain…

Me: “Nora, no. We take ONE sip. You know the rule.”
Random Nanny (sitting by fountain, without looking up from her newspaper): “I think maybe she is confused about the rule.”
Me: “It’s been the rule for months, I’ve been very consistent. I don’t know why she’d suddenly be confused.”
Random Nanny: “Because yesterday she was at the fountain for a VERY long time, until her whole outfit was soaked with water.”
Me: “Wait, what?”
Random Nanny: “SOAKED I tell you. Water EVERYwhere.”
Me: “No no, you’re mistaken– I wasn’t even here yesterday!”
Random Nanny: “Yes but Nora was. With your husband.”

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I’m Used to Talking About ME in Here

Kids, Mental Health, , , , , ,

Therapist: “How’s Nora doing?”

Me: “She’s good! She’s a very busy lady, running around everywhere, excited about everything. But also very headstrong. Like today at the kid gym she just lost it. She ended up accidentally kicking a little girl in the face because she was throwing so much of a fit, just totally losing her shit, screaming and crying.”

Therapist: “Is she ok?”

Me: “Yeah, yeah. She’s fine. She was over it in 10 seconds. She was just upset that she had to wait her turn to go on the swing. She really doesn’t get that concept of turn taking, and she just gets herself really worked up. But she’s totally fine, it’s all normal toddler stuff. Thank you for asking, though.”

Therapist: “I meant the kid she kicked in the face.”

Me: “Huh?”

Therapist: “The little girl Nora kicked in the face– is she ok?”

Oh.

I don’t know….

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Beautiful Aura

City Living, parenthood, Relationships, , , , , , ,

Me: “How sweet is this? I was on the bus with Nora, just like snuggling with her and she was pointing to things and talking, and this old lady was sitting next to us watching the whole time. Then when she got up to get off the bus she turned to me and said, ‘I just want you to know, your baby has a really beautiful aura.'”

Eric: “Aw, that’s a really sweet thing to say! She does have a beautiful aura. What a nice woman to tell you that.”

Me: “I know! And when I thanked her she goes ‘You know, she gets that aura from you.'”

Eric: “Oh. So she was crazy.”

Me: img_1179-1

Eric: “You took our baby on the public bus and sat down next to a crazy lady.”

Control

parenthood, , , , , , ,

There is a mom at the kiddie gym who is always at open play with us. She has a 4 year old boy and she constantly hovers over him like he will break at any moment.

Hovering Mom (glancing at Nora): “How old is your daughter?”
Me: “16 months.”
Hovering Mom: “She’s getting so big!”
Me: “I know! I feel like it happened overnight! This morning she grabbed the monitor camera off the wall in her room– I didn’t even realize she could reach it!”
Hovering Mom: “Oh, yeah, I learned that lesson with my daughter. You have to put the camera in a hidden place so they don’t even know it’s there.”
Me: “Oh, I didn’t know you had a daughter! I’ve never seen her here.”
Hovering Mom: “Right, that’s because she’s 16.”
Me: “Oh, wow! So…wait– she’s 16 and you have hidden cameras in her room?”
Hovering Mom: “Yes.”
Me: Thinking_Face_Emoji
Hovering Mom: “You’ll understand when your kid is a teenager. It seems extreme but it’s necessary. You can’t trust anything anymore, especially with all the filth that’s on the internet.”
Me: “I guess…I just…I don’t know, I hope I don’t feel the need to put cameras in Nora’s room when she’s a teen.”
Hovering Mom: “Well it’s important to have as much control as possible over our kids, isn’t it?”

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