Soup's Up

At the beginning of last week, out of nowhere, my daughter asked me to take her to Souplantation. I had been a few times before I had a child and I didn't think much of it. Since she came along though, I now think it is the best dining experience ever. Let me clarify, the best dining experience with a child.

I have come to become very fond of the food though. It all started with my pregnancy. It was the first place my friend and I went to when I gained an appetite after a rough first trimester. Maybe thats why my daughter likes it so much.

I am a member of the Veg Club -- it's a special few that get invited in (if you go to the Souplantation website, you can be a special member too). I receive coupons for lunch and dinner. I have a few partners in crime, and for a while, we all attended regularly. A bit of time had passed though since our last visit, and apparently the establishment had made a good impression on my little one. For three mornings in a row she asked to go to "Soupantaton" and on Wednsday of last week, I finally agreed.

My husband was going to meet us after work, which made her even more excited. That morning, she asked if we were going right then. I explained that we had to wait for dinner so that daddy could come too. She began to plan her menu. She wanted, pizza, macaroni and cheese, soup and ice cream from a machine. That whole day she told anyone who would listen that she was going to Souplantaion, and what she was going to get. We printed our coupons and headed to the cafeteria-style temple that had the food of her dreams. She is so easy to please sometimes -- it is really sweet.

We met my husband, and the three of us headed down the salad bar. She is clear she doesn't want salad, just sunflower seeds, raisins and peas. She is saving room for her favorites. We sit down, and she gets started on her salad bar snacks as I make her a plate of macaroni, pizza, and a little bowl of soup. We are all pretty happy and she is blissfully chomping down not one, but two servings of macaroni. She has a very good appetite to begin with so I am not surprised to see her enjoying her food so much. We all begin to slow down a bit, when she says she her belly hurts. That usually means she needs to use the toilet and when you are dealing with only a few months of potty training (pardon the pun) under her belt, you move quickly to the nearest bathroom. Three weeks ago she had the stomach flu for the first time. Since then she thinks it's funny to say, she needs to throw up.

When she said it in the bathroom I had a hunch she wasn't joking, but when she bent over the toilet, she quickly stood up, looked at me and said, "I just made a joke." She used the toilet and we headed back to the table. We sat down, and one minute later she said she had to go again. Reluctantly, I took her and she didn't have to go. In the stall I got her pants up and turned around for a second and heard her cough. When I looked at her she was projectile vomiting while scooting back as if she could get away from it. It felt like it went on for so long, and there was so much. At one point I decided to see if we could get at least some of it in the toilet so I picked her up midway and made a pretty trail on the floor and into the toilet. It was everywhere. Having thrown up for most of my pregnancy, and having just gone through a bug with her, I thought of myself as a pro when it came to this stuff.

I calmed her down, and cleaned her up. When I turned around and looked at the floor I knew what needed to be done. I had made a choice when I became a parent to not leave a mess anywhere. Not at a friends house and not on the floor of a restaurant. I had to clean at least most of it up. I couldn't see sending a stranger in to clean this up. I grabbed toilet seat covers in two hands and went to work. At first I was proud of myself, I am mentally capable of recognizing that this kind of thing happens, and it is from my own child so I can handle it. Shortly after that thought, I gagged, but I still trucked on. I did the best I could and then washed both of us and left to tell someone. When my husband saw us and I told him what happened, he couldn't believe I tried to clean it up. He reminded me that it was Souplantation, a buffet, and that this probably happens every day. In anycase, if I gagged, for sure an innocent employee would too. I stand by my decision.

Turns out, she didn't over-eat, and that she has the stomach flu again. Never a dull moment. We thought it was over yesterday and went for an outing. We took her to Crate and Barrel and we were testing out a nice new couch when she threw up again. Luckily, all over me. Oh, the glory.

If any of you faithful readers want to be a Veg Member now, let me know.

LA LA Land

I took my mail out of the mailbox today and sorted the non-junk mail from the junk mail. The junk pile was the largest of course, and I realized that I had put a magazine in the junk pile, because I wasn't sure it was a real magazine or just a dinky fake one. I took a closer look it was called "Los Angeles Living". Trash, was my first thought. My second thought was that I actually live in Los Angeles, so perhaps there is something useful in there. My third thought was "OMG, I live in Los Angeles! WTF am I still doing here?!"

I grew up in one of the fabulous five boroughs of New York. Queens to be exact. When I say I grew up in New York City people assume that would mean Manhattan. Not unlike LA, Manhattan consists of a lot of transplants from other parts of the country. Queens, however is made up of natives and then transplants, but transplants from around the world. You could walk a few blocks in Queens and see restaurants that represent the whole globe. I grew up with so much diversity, economically and racially. The subway line closest to my house is known to be the most international in the whole city.

I am proud of where I am from, but I say that with some complaints too. My public school education was okay, not great. I had a few amazing teachers, but also a few horrible ones. My fifth grade teacher Mrs. Leddy came to school drunk and you could smell it on her breath when she lost her temper and yelled in your face. Mrs. Lee though was my favorite. She was an older black woman who taught us to say "yes" instead of "yeah." She shared stories of her two sons all the time, and was loving and gentle. She had just what I needed as a second grader. At twenty, my childhood best friend and I looked her up and invited her to meet us at Lincoln Center. Much to our surprise, she did and I am grateful that we got to tell her what she meant to us.

I always assumed I would be raising my children in a similar enviornment. My parents still live in New York and when I left over twelve years ago, I had no intention of staying away this long. I visit a lot, and make sure my daughter sees the city the way I saw it, but I know it isn't the same as growing up there. Instead, we live in sunny Beverly Hills. Racial diversity: not too much. Economic diversity: not unless you count rich to very rich. The school she is zoned for here, I am sure is better than the one I went to. Actually, I know it is because I looked it up. So as far as her test scores are concerned, she will come out ahead. As far, as the real world though, I have serious doubts.

I will stop trying to compare Beverly Hills to Flushing Queens now. I know if I wanted to find more of what I had growing up, there are better places in L.A. to find it. I also know there are things that I would have a hard time giving up if I left here. Trader Joes is in NYC now but I heard it's a mob scene. I have also grown to be intolerant to cold weather and crowded subway cars. I just want to raise a girl who values books and not bags. Who wants to play at her friends house because she likes her and not because she has a Malibu Barbie ( I know 80's reference, but I couldn't think of anything else). I don't want all of her friends to be white, and I don't want her to feel she is small if she doesn't have a lot of money.

I know that a lot of what I want for her is my responsibility to show her. I don't buy into the idea that the "best" preschool is the only way to ensure her college education. I don't believe in being waitlisted for Mommy and Me classes, and I also don't like the emphasis on materialism starting in the sandbox. I know there are people who live here and also don't buy into those ideas. I am friends with a bunch of them, and have watched some of them raise amazing, sensitive, self confident children. So, my work is cut out for me. I'll write again in eighteen to twenty years and let you know how I did.

Occupied Territory

Heavy title, I know. It's crazy what is going on in that part of the world, but relax I'm not going to talk about politics on a blog about my kid. The only part of the Middle East I can relate to is having to duck from rocks from my daughter's pockets when I pull her clothes out of the dryer.

There is an explosion happening here though. Her vocabulary. I feel like I have either been writing about complaints I have, or venting about how hard my job is, so today I want to stop and acknowledge how impressed I am with my girl. There has been a very positive shift since the big power struggle a few weeks back. It been refreshingly easier to be with her and she is clearly aware that she has a choice in how she can react when things don't go her way. She is rolling with the punches better.

A few weeks ago, I would say her vocabulary was somewhat limited to the word "no." Not to say that word has stopped -- it hasn't, and when she uses it, it is very loud and clear. Since her behavior has mellowed out, she is suddenly extremely polite. She says please and thank you. She says, "May I please see that?" She even (sometimes up to three times a day) says, "Mommy, I love you." It's pretty freakin' sweet. She is able to express her emotions (even if not everyone can understand her) in a sensitive and giving way. Over the last few days with her I have had so many moments of awe when she says things. I feel a wave of happiness physicaly go through my body and leave me with a proud glow of love for her. I am really enjoying who she is, and who she is becoming right now.

She concerns herself with what is around her. She wants to know what has happened when she sees another child crying. She will ask why they are sad. When she is eating something and enjoying it, she will practicaly sing the word "yummy" and then generously asks if we want to try some too. When I come in to her room at night to tuck her in the second or third time, she can see my frustration. She will say, "Mommy, you happy?" I respond by saying I will be when she goes to sleep, I then tuck her in and I am leaving she says, "Mommy, you happy now?" When my husband was jumping around to entertain her this evening, she said, "Don't hurt yourself, daddy."

I know it sounds cliche to say how time seems to be flying by when I think about how she was a baby a minute ago. This little chatter box a year ago barely spoke three words. Her doctor said that if at eighteen months she didn't speak more, we should take her for speech therapy. I know there is the technical reality of how kids develop, but it blows my mind to see an individual emerge before my eyes. How I can use a word once and the next day it's part of her communication forever is baffling. A couple of days ago, I was holding her an she asked for something. I explained I couldn't get it in that moment because my hands were full. She looked up at me and asked, "Your hands are occupied, mommy?"

She has that right, but that's not the only part of me thats being taken over -- so is my heart.

My Princess Diary

A new book is out that has gotten a lot of attention. It has my attention too.

It's called, "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein. It speaks to the phenomenon of girlie girl culture among little ones today. She explains how young children have nothing to define their sexuality by, except what they wear, and what they play with, so that results in them wanting to be very extreme. In an effort to express their masculinity, boys will often wear a super hero costume, or carry their Thomas the Tank engine everywhere they go. Girls will insist on wearing a dress, or all pink, or a tiara. This is my nightmare!

I can admit this now that I have her, but I wanted a girl so badly. So did my husband, maybe even more than I did. We didn't find out the gender of the baby when I was pregnant, and sometimes made myself refer to my growing baby by the boys name my husband and I had chosen, just to prepare myself for any possible disappointment. Right after giving birth, it didn't even occur to me that the warm new baby on my chest had a gender. I was thrilled to be seeing it had an ear, and to be able to touch it. When the nurse asked my husband to tell us what we had, she asked with a Russian accent "Is Boy?" We both looked at each other and didn't say a thing. We were proccesing. We weren't unhappy just surprised. Then my husband took a look, and said (or I should say exclaimed), "It's a girl!" We both cried and shared a moment of gleeful relief. I can't say for certain why we both wanted a girl, or that we wouldn't be over the moon if we had a boy, we just maybe wanted our girl and thats what we got.

Soon after we got home packages of pink started arriving. It felt odd, since neither my husband or I were really into the color, we naturally assumed our daughter didn't need to have it either. That was the beginning of the realization that just because you make a decision, it doesn't mean society is going to make it easy for you to honor your ideas. Now at two and a half, I see that it's only going to get harder and harder to fight the inevitable. I wasn't a big fan of Barbie, the color pink, or even dresses for that matter, but I owned some, nonetheless. It was a combination of conforming and peer pressure. What would the other girls play with at my house if I didn't have my own Cabbage Patch Kid? My daughter loves to play outside, cook with me, and sing and dance to music. She didn't even notice a princess until she saw them at almost all of her friends houses. Now she asks their names. This is exactly what those folks at Disney were hoping for. In fact that is why there are so many more princess products on the market than ever before.

I'm not going to tell my girl what she can or can't like. I will even take her to see Disney movies, despite the fact that there are a lot of dead, missing or just plain evil women in a lot of them. I even bought her a little Rapunzal doll at Target because I knew she would love it. I won't spoil her fun. I do wish it didn't come at her so heavy-handed, though. What happened to "Free to Be You and Me?" I am not the worlds biggest feminist, but I do think there is something that reeks of spoiled rotten when I think of what a princess really is: a special, lucky rich girl. I loved Annie growing up, but she was appreciative of her riches. She was humbled by her rough start and seemed to just get lucky. I'm just afraid that all of these stories send the wrong message. What if we don't make enough money to get her a pony if she wants one? If she harbors resentment, then my theory is proven. If she works so hard as an adult that she is driven enough to own her own ranch, well then I am wrong. In which case bring on the gowns!

As I write this I will put my own disclaimer on this. My first movie was Cinderella. It was a big deal to have a movie date with my mom, and I remember it clearly. I was five, and I remember laughing, and I remember being really scared. I don't remember wanting to be her when I left though. Perhaps, I am over thinking the whole thing. Then again, like the author mentions in her book, girls are starting in this craze much younger than in my generation. Most of the three year olds I know have already seen their first movie. I've already been criticized for sheltering my daughter because she hasn't seen a movie yet. There is so much time. For now, I will embrace the days my daughter doesn't carry her purse and asks for pants instead of a dress. I will be more appreciative of the fact that her favorite color is brown, and that she likes freeze dance more than Tinkerbell. I'm not holding my breath that it will be like that next week though.

Pinball Wizard

From the time my daughter (AKA spitfire) flew out onto this earth, she had a mission. She was rearing and ready to go. Her eyes were wide and alert and she was taking everything in. Like a shark, her plan required that she keep moving at all times. She was no quiet peaceful bundle of joy. I never ate sitting down. I needed to bounce and bop up and down. She had requirements and requests that had my husband jumping through hoops and bouncing on balls. If we tired, our baby drill sergeant would make herself heard.

I looked at others with newborns and watched as they blissfully ate at a cafe with friends. Or watched a "Mommy and Me" movie, and could tell you what they saw afterwards. I longed to rest in a golden slumber with my new baby on my chest, but she didn't want to miss anything.

Her high energy and super active tricks were entertaining for all those who witnessed. She rolled over before she was three months old, and it wasn't just a chance occurrence. She couldn't stop. I would put her down on her back, and she would flip onto her belly. She would stick her head up and look around with her big brown eyes. She actually had this proud look of accomplishment, until she tired herself and couldn't flip back around. I would put her back on her back and a second later she was flipped again. Repeat, repeat, repeat, for two whole weeks, day and night.

She wasn't a big napper and hated sitting in the car seat or a stroller. My husband and I were getting very tired by month four. It was hard enough not sleeping, but not sitting down, or eating slowly, or getting to finish a thought, was getting to us. At one check up at our pediatrician's office, my husband asked if she could have ADD. A family member suggested she was hyperactive and would need to be medicated when she was older. I was pleased to see the Dr. laugh it off. She said it was too early for any of that to be a possibility, and that we just had a spirited little one. Phew!!

I made peace with the fact that I too would have to be super active. I embraced the fact that I had a better figure as a new mom than I ever did before. I even began teaching a fitness class for new moms that let me run my girl around for an hour and make it seem normal. At ten months she was walking and I was running. I had to anticipate her every move, and at the end of each day we were both sleeping better. I just learned how she operated. She was like a puppy who needed to be run everyday. She was happy if she got outside to play. Thank goodness I am not raising her in cold weather -- that I wouldn't have been able to adapt as well.

Every night before she goes to bed, she looks up at me from her crib and says, "where we going after my nap?" I don't have the heart to tell her that the day is done and that breakfast is where she is going. I tell her where we might be going the next day. She never falls asleep without the next activity lined up. My husband is one of the most chill people I know. He can relax like a pro, so I don't think she got this non stop thing from him. I didn't even think to point the finger at myself (come on now, who does that?). Two of my closest friends did though. I told them about her question before bed and both of them separately asked if that sounded familiar. I'm not going to try to defend myself. They are spot on. I like to know what is next, and I like to go, go, go (to a fault sometimes). There goes to nature vs. nurture, at least in this case.

As I get closer to the idea of attempting to accept the possibility that MAYBE we want another child, my friend shed some light. She said I might actually get an easier baby next time. She coined my daughter's nick name, "the pinball." She pointed out that running all day long is not exactly the kind of beginning she had with her daughter. She said I looked shocked, and the idea that the next one might be a bit more chill, fell across my face like a huge revelation. We shall see. For now, I am humming to the music of Tommy, and honing my pinball skills.

It's Not Easy Being Green

For a toddler, being "green" is difficult. It can be adorable to watch this tiny little being figure out all this newness, but it can also be frustrating for all parties involved.

Green popped into my head when I tried to explain to my daughter why we don't throw all the garbage away in the blue pail, and that most of the yucky stuff goes in the black one. I explained that the blue one is for things that we can use again. It's hard to explain that the light she can reach and turn on herself shouldn't be on right now.

Yesterday when we walked by a few bright yellow flowers growing from the ground, she wanted to pick them. I had to figure out a way to explain that we don't pick flowers, we just buy the ones at the stores (that other people picked). No one is born with an instinct to conserve. She would start five different apples all day if I let her. Take a few bites, throw it away, then a few minutes later start another one. That marshmallow test, where they told the kids (sitting and salivating in front of a marshmallow) that if they could wait a few minutes they would get two. The youngest kid was four -- they wouldn't waste their time or marshmallows on a two year old.

In terms of the immaturity kind of green, kids minds can ripen so fast. What isn't fast is my ability to think on my toes when I try to explain new things. I often find myself trying to explain why something is the way it is, or works the way it does. My wide eyed little wonder looks up at me and asks me "why" countless times a day. She has a new fondness for throwing pennies into fountains. She stared by noticing a bunch sitting on the bottom of a fountain and wanting to pick them up. I explained that people put them there so we don't take them. "Why?" I start out and say things like "because, the people made a wish and then they tossed them in."

Immediately she had me emptying my pockets of all my hard earned pennies. Happily, she would throw them into the fountain. I would ask her if she had a wish and she would respond by saying she wished for water for the pennies. Okay so perhaps I didn't really explain it that well. I explain again that she could wish for something she really wanted. Yesterday, she said, "I wish for my friends." Now obviously, my two year old didn't have a falling out with her friends and wish for them back, but I do think she knows her friends make her happy, so I think she got it. It did pain me for a second, when I flashed forward to her at thirteen wishing for friends. Oh dear, I hope I have the strength to watch her go through junior high.

There is so much trial and error for me as a parent. That understanding of the wishes took a couple of weeks. I would explain things and find myself talking too much, or saying too little. I would say words she didn't know yet and then have to explain what the words meant. I would give some head heavy philosophical answer and she would furrow her brow. I also gave short answers which just lead to more questions. Yesterday (it was a full day between the fountain and now this), we were waiting to cross the street. The hand was red and she wanted to go. I explained that we have to wait until the hand is gone and the white man lights up. White man? Who thought to do that? I know I am being ridiculously sensitive to political correctness but saying "look for the white man to say go before you can walk" just doesn't feel right. Aren't there brown or yellow lights they could have used instead? This is Los Angeles and white is not the majority anyway so wouldn't a different color made more sense? I quickly said it again but left out the word "white." I said she had to wait for the man to light up. Or the person to light up. At that point I realized she isn't getting any of this, and saying less is more.

She has a book about Martin Luther King that we bought on his birthday. It is for young kids, but not quite as young as her. It explains that he stood up for what he believed in, and that blacks should have the same rights as whites. I didn't read all of that though. I just said that he and his friends wanted to ride the bus and go out to eat at restaurants, and that he spoke up so they could.

She doesn't notice people are different colors and I am not interested in pointing that out. People are born tolerant -- they just learn racism right? That night, she picked up the book and pointed to the man on the podium and said "That's Martin, mommy. He want to go out to eat." She will put it all together in her own time. It baffles me when I think about how much she observes and retains.

It might be tough to be green, but I find it's tougher trying to figure out how much water I need to help her grow.

Who's The Boss?

Last week I got a wake-up call from a friend. I brought my sweet little munchkin to her house to play. Her daughter is four days older than mine. The girls wanted to do play doh so we set it up on a table and sat down. Almost instantly there was a shriek of whining. My daughter wanted to sit right next to me. There are days where I swear if she could get back into my uterus she would. My friend sat across from her daughter and I sat across from mine. The table only had four chairs around it but across wasn't close enough for her. I know as parents we need to pick our battles but I didn't want to budge on this one. Lately, I feel I take the easy way out too often and just give in just to prevent a tantrum.

Deep down I know I am doing a big disservice to my daughter, my husband and myself by not being firm with her. I know there is a whole movement of people who don't believe in saying "No" to their children. If I can't admit out load that I think I fell into that group I can at least write it here. I think I fell somehow strangely, unknowingly, and unwillingly into that group. The only difference is I don't believe in not saying no. I was just too scared to do it.

Holding my whining and crying girl in my arms, I said, "I am sorry you are sad. I know it's hard but mommy is going to sit right across from you. I am right here, it's okay." She cried louder and for dramatic effect threw in some screaming. My friend looked up at me and offered me some helping words. Very gently (since parenting advice is not always well received), she began to share how hard this same behavior was for her, and what she did. I told her, no begged her, to please give me advice. I knew I needed to make a change -- I just needed a little push.

She explained that there is a time and a place to protect little one's feelings but when it comes down to something that has to get done or a protest from a child that gets in the way of having to get out the door, you have to remind yourself of who's the boss.

Sounds simple, but don't get too sassy -- it isn't.

The definition of the word tantrum is a childish fit of rage; outburst of bad temper. So? No big deal, right? What is wrong with me that I am hesitating to assert my authority with my two-and-a-half year old? The word rage and the word bad. There you have it, ladies and gents (other than my dad, I suppose not a single man will read this -- but hey, it flows better). I don't like when anyone is angry. It unnerves me. It's uncomfortable and I tense up. I want to run away and avoid it. The word bad brings to mind naughty, disobedient, spoiled and even a little evil. So those two, in combination, make me self-conscious, and maybe even a bit embarrassed. What does it say about me that I can't calm my kid down? Apparently it says that I am forgetting that I have to say no sometimes. It also says my baby is sad, which in turn makes me want to rescue her. And then, I just want to check out. Neither is a very good option.

Thanks to my friend reminding me that she is two-and-a-half, and that's what their job is at that age. She needs to protest, to figure out her boundaries and my boundaries. Once I told her in the car (as if this awesome bit of communication was going to fix everything) that mommy and daddy are in charge, and she is our little girl. As such, she has to listen. Her response was as if she stuck her middle finger at me. She said, "No, mommy is a lady, daddy is a little boy and I am the boss." She had that all a little backwards, so I took it upon my self to change things a bit this past week. I stopped asking her to do everything. I told her when it was important and asked her when it didn't matter. The first few days were rough, but a change has been made. I have never seen one so drastic. Then she got sick and all rules went out the window and we had a few rough days again but now she is getting it, and I am getting it too, and it's working.

Now who's the boss? Me, that's right. Too sassy?