The Reasons We Don't Do Stuff

I have resurfaced from somewhere beneath mountains of laundry, crumpled notes inside schoolbags, homework assignments ready to be photocopied and handed out, class lists and seating charts, and the cooking and cleaning that sort of happens in between.

The school year has begun. And as a teacher and as a mother the school year is my life force.

My daughter, the little girl who was too shy to speak at school until January of last year, has blended into her new class seamlessly. She is thrilled about her new Morahs even if she can't remember their names; she repeats everything they say and reports to me where all of her classmates' brothers attend school. More than one person has commented me on how outgoing and independent she is. And each time I hear it I just manage to avoid laughing.

Independent? I don't know. It sure doesn't fee like it when she is insistent on breathing down my neck when I'm cooking, when she demands to hold my hand as I sit near her bed and wish her good night, when she wails about how much she loves me and and how much she will miss me if she does, in fact, go to sleep in her own room and not visit me during the night, and when she begs me to sit next to her at every meal and simply watch her eat.

To all the attachment parenting advocates: be freaking careful what you wish for.

(As a general rule, I love my kids. But some moments are more loved than others.)

Of course this change in routine means that there are plenty of new things for us to discuss (read: argue about) and we are certainly getting our fill. I can't decide if I'm proud or horrified that my three-year-old's vocabulary is peppered with "this is making me crazy" and "I'm so frustrated." I'm almost sure that there is a book somewhere that will say how great it is for her to express herself this way. (Most books do not mention the decibels or intonation of such expressions, so it must mean that all variables are cool.)

As always, there are some discussions that leave me wondering if my nose is growing more rapidly than most others. This weeks highlights include:

"Yes of course I am looking on the computer for lipstick to buy for you. It's just that I can't seem to find the right color for you. I think maybe they will get some more soon."

"I do want to go with you to your friends' house, but we can't this second. They are sleeping now. I think they sleep a lot." (I imagine the mother of these little girls has her eyebrows past her hairline reading this.)

"We can't go swimming because all pools have to be put away once school starts. It's dangerous around the pollution of the school buses."

"Morah doesn't let you bring more than one penny to school because pennies have germs."

I hope she reads this one day.

And I hope she realizes that motherhood demands the creativity of motherly lies.

And that it's not always easy to come up with something plausible.

And she should appreciate how hard I am working to come up with good reasons for everything we don't do.