didaink

Raising Girls for Dummies?

She is poking at her thighs and belly in the mirror again when I walk into the bathroom after her shower. 

“Mama, why can’t I be skinny?” Gulp. BREATHE. Don’t panic.

But, I can feel the heat rising up in my chest. Here we go again. She’s not even nine year’s old! Which “skinny” girl at school said something this time? I want to know! Because I will sit on that mean little bitch with my big fat ass and make her appreciate the importance of kindness and diversity! Uh… I, uh… didn’t just shout that out inside my head and write it down on paper, did I? No. No, I didn’t. Phew! “Payback Mama” appears to have left the building.

“Did someone say something to you today at school? Was it Bella again?”

“No, not really. But, why can’t my stomach be like hers?”

Hadn’t she overcome this nonsense yet? Have I not given her enough love, enough pep talks, enough support to push out all that crap on the playground, the toxic put-downs that eat away at a girl’s self-confidence throughout the day? I thought I had made a dent in my daughter’s fragile psyche with my last speech just a few months ago. That speech was stellar, jeweled with every adjective I could think of at the time: smart, beautiful, unique, loving, talented, gifted, funny, creative, determined, strong, generous, gullible. Okay, I left that last one out, but now, I almost wish I hadn’t.  

“Honey, you are gorgeous exactly as you are. And you can’t keep believing what other people tell you about yourself.”

“She says I'm chubby and that my pants are too tight.”

Teaching your child to stand up to a popular girl with bedazzled clothes from a wannabe-Disney-set store at the mall is much harder than it appears on Wizards of Waverly Place. I don’t recommend that you try it the way it’s written on that show or on iCarly, because the episode usually ends with everyone hugging it out, agreeing to go shopping together, and then the whole thing starts up all over again.

Our last serious talk about body types came after another startling accident on the turnpike to pre-adolescence, an expressway I didn’t think we’d be driving down until age ten or eleven. I was minding my own business, picking up dirty socks from the hallway carpet, when I looked up and crashed right into my eight year old daughter posing in the bathroom mirror, sucking in her stomach so hard that all I could see was her rib cage sticking out.

What happened to my last textbook heart-to-heart homily about celebrating your body and its unique shape, loving every inch of yourself? It seems to have disappeared into the optical illusion that a parental pep talk can completely erase a child’s self-doubt and the outside influences that surround our children. Because here we are again back at square one, and I’ve read all the books. This time, I want a speedy fix to get through yet another learning curve about how to raise a self-confident daughter.  If only there was a Raising Happy, Healthy Girls for Dummies. But dummies can and do carry consealed weapons.

“We’re Italian.”

“Bella’s Italian too.”

“We’re Curvy-Italian. And you’re half Brazilian, don’t forget, so that makes you a gorgeous combination of curves and, well… curves.”

“But, I don’t want curves! I want to be skinny!”

It’s down and dirty time now. I am rolling out the big guns and pointing them directly at “skinny” with all the ammo I’ve got. My regular “good news/bad news” speech ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I was saving it for my poker face puberty speech, but pre-adolescent body trumps poker face puberty every time.

“Honey, I have some good news and some great news for you. Which do you want first?”

“What do you mean great news?”

“You heard what I said… “

“I want the great news first then.”

“You have curves!”

“What? Then, what’s the good news?”

“There is no bad news.”

“Mama…”

“Don’t Mama Mia, me. No one -- not a girl like Bella or anyone else -- is going to make you believe that you can’t be curvy and healthy, strong and beautiful.”

“You really think so?”

“I really, really, really think so. But, do you?”

“I do.”

I think I just married my daughter to herself… Curvy Italians aren’t that dumb after all, it seems -- for now, for today. I will need to find a tutor, though, to help me rewrite that poker face puberty speech. Clearly, it will require many aces up my sleeve. Hopefully, I still have a few more years to work on it. Either that or I’ll have to take a job in Vegas.

 

 

Post Valentine's Day Evil Mother Syndrome

It’s Saturday morning, 8:57am. My husband and daughter are still sound asleep, sleeping off their “Sweetheart Ball” hangovers on my scheduled sleep-in day. My son and I have been watching cartoons since 6:35. I thought it was a school day, his explanation at 6:30, fully dressed. 

“You told me I should always get dressed as soon as I wake-up then come tell you.”

Good times, good times. 

It’s not that I’m begrudging last night’s, father-daughter Valentine’s Day dance extravaganza and subsequent sleep-in way past the reasonable sleep-in hour.  No, no.  It’s that I might be suffering from Post Valentine’s Day Evil Mother Syndrome, PVDEMS.  It can last anywhere from 2-14 days, and it’s going on Day 4 for me I think. I probably should be seen. Too bad it’s Saturday morning and I can’t get an appointment down at Urgent Care because they’re only taking “emergency” patients, blah, blah, blah. If this isn’t a valid emergency I don’t know what is, I just raided each of my children’s Valentine’s candy for the third day in a row while trying to walk past it on my way to the coffee pot.

“Is your father up yet?  Is your sister up yet??”

“Um, Mama… I think you’re screaming a little.”

Oh, no, I am not. I am NOT a begrudgeoner. It’s the Hershey Kisses screaming, the Sweethearts, the Rolos, the homemade hearts on a stick smothered in rainbow sprinkles, the Dum Dums, the special edition pink and purple M & M’s, the strawberry marshmallow hearts, the Blow-Pops. It’s the ’frickin Fun Dip, I tell you!

PVDEMS ain’t pretty, people -- especially on a Saturday morning when your head should still be near a pillow instead of the interior of a pink and red crepe-paper box.

 

 

Size 47

It’s official, my old number has gone belly-up... Here, now, sits its replacement:  47.

47 – 47 – 47

There, I said it. Then, upon saying it, wrote it down on this blank white page, by last count... 4 times, like it's no big woop. Maybe it's not. 

Now that I see it there in print it doesn’t look so bad; the 4 sitting almost elegantly next to the seven, crossing its long leg the way a flamingo might just before taking a relaxing nap… and the 7, well, it’s not as curvy as the 6 that used to sit there, nudging the four with its wide derrierre, but it too looks somewhat chic… its flat head wearing a sleek sou'wester that curves ever-so slightly, providing some shade and shelter from the sunny and rainy days up ahead.

Does anyone really care how old I am? Probably not. Can’t imagine why they would. I’m not even sure that I care that much about what number I have become overnight. Maybe that’s why I find it actually liberating to reveal my new number to the world. I’m somehow coping better this year than I was last year, my brand new 47 shoes ready for me to break them in during the next school year of life that awaits me, hopefully without too many blisters.

Maybe they’ll be like a pair of funky boots that help me to stand taller, sturdier, with a new perspective on the “forty-something” number that most women hope and pray no one will ever attempt to guess. But, I’m so much better this year about aging than I was a short year ago on my birthday, and ~ if I do say-so myself ~ my skin is looking a whole lot better than it did seven years ago.

I was, at 40, hitting puberty all over again with a terrific crop of junior-high acne that showed up when my hormones went berserk after the birth of my daughter. Then, at 42, these same 8th grade pranksters vandalized my pores once more when my son arrived on the scene, my graffitied forehead and cheeks spray-painted with a new patch of red bumps that would require heavy coats of zinc oxide diaper rash cream. Luckily, I had a vat of it from Costco for my baby boy's matching buttocks.

Atleast motherhood sits more comfortably on my shoulders now then it did when I had a drooling six-month old perched there, who then morphed into a territorial, screaming toddler demanding to climb back up, my pregnant belly about to burst with screaming baby number two. At 47, I am still coping with two demanding children under the age of nine, but I don’t feel like a teenage-buzzing alarm clock anymore handling it.  I'd rather think of myself today as a regal grandfather clock, my big hand pointing towards the half-century mark with pride, my little hand reaching for another glass of wine.

It feels good to reveal the truth about my new number. I think I'll stand upon it proudly now, taller from the thought, enjoying the view from here. There will come a day when I cannot stand for long periods of time because my knees don’t work so good, and I will think back and remember the color of those funkadelic boots. Lucky girl. Size 47.