Dear

Dear Amaya,

Even though you

scream like a banshee in time out

sleep 8 hours a night

announce in shrieks if you see a cockroach in your room at 5:30 am

tell me “NO!” and throw yourself on the floor if I tell you to go pee

insist that you need to poop once we get into the car and make me turn around

then put your hands in the toilet

and tell me you don’t know why you do that

or why you insist on chewing your hair, your shirt, and any random item

until all the above are completely sopping wet

I do love you.

And I’m trying to love you.

Maybe you could help me  out a little with that.

Just a thought.

Mayday

Amaya’s never been particularly good at following directions. Her independence usually overrides her desire to please. Despite a rebellious streak in high school, I generally followed the rules. I certainly mostly did what was expected of me, with a healthy amount of personal choice and preference (despite what my parents might say).

I can accept that Amaya is going to be a very different person than me. Most of the time I admire her independence, because it does make for strong qualities as well. I recently read something that said “you as the parent know your own child better than what others know from their observations.”

Here’s something we all observed.

Caption: Amaya rubbing her head after hitting herself in the face with poi balls during the preschool May Day performance.

The next part, which I didn’t take a picture of, was Amaya turning away from the audience and staring off into space while the rest of the performance finished without her.

She does look pretty cute. I’m expecting that this disdain of “going along with the program” will continue into the teenage years. So I’m preparing myself.

But I’m not prepared.

Summer

Would you hate me more if I

complained about this (I melted as I walked down to the office today)

or

bragged about this (I don’t understand why you don’t live here with us).

School ends on Thursday.

The mangoes are coming.

This baby better stay put for 2 more months so I can soak up every minute of it.

Wimp

When I got pregnant this time, I thought, “This time I won’t be paranoid, because I’ll know what to expect.”

Well, this one doesn’t know how to stay with the program. Everything has been different.

At 29 weeks I’m having, what I’m assuming, are crazy braxton hix that make me feel like my stomach is just going to squeeze itself so hard that the entire bubble will fold in on itself. Oh, and they hurt. Like, are painless contractions supposed to hurt?

This has been happening for about 4 weeks, and everything is fine with the baby, so I know I’m just paranoid. I keep telling myself to get through until the end of school, but we all know I’ll probably go two weeks over my due date anyway.

Mostly I just know I’m a total wimp when it comes to pain. I’ve been reading books on the Bradley method and the whole thing is just freaking me out. People say, “Oh, you forget the pain.”  But no. I don’t. Every dream I’ve had this week has been about labor.

Jake showed up after his swim today with the gnarliest blue bubble sting ever. It looked like the king of blue bubbles wrapped around his body about 30 times. I swear. He looked like a burn victim. At least half of his body was completely covered in huge, puffy lines of welts—torso, arms, face, hands, legs, feet. Thank goodness he doesn’t swim in the nude. He wouldn’t let me take a picture.

Looking at it was like watching a horror movie. So hard to look at. So hard to look away.

I asked him, “Does it hurt?”

“Mostly itchy.”

Sheesh. I can’t figure out if he has no nerve endings, or if I just have pain so rarely that I cringe at the first tinge.

Can you imagine if I was in labor and the doctor came in and asked, “Are you in pain?”

“Mostly itchy.”

Wouldn’t I just be the biggest bad a** around?

Sick

Apparently Campylobacter is going around Amaya’s preschool.

Apparently she woke up throwing up and with diarrhea, three separate times. (why does everything happen at night?) Luckily I had the foresight to buy new sheets for her bed this weekend, because we had to change everything 3 times last night. And give her a bath 3 times.

Apparently this is dangerous to my unborn baby.

Apparently this is the last week of school and I CAN’T MISS A DAY.

I need my mom. I seriously Kayaked her flight at $400 this morning.

The only thing I keep thinking other than “Oh my gosh what is that smell” is just wait. Pretty soon there will be two little sick-ees to deal with.

No wonder parents are crazy.

Guilty Pleasure

So when Jake and Amaya brought home 2 malassadas for themselves, because I was at the awards banquet, I felt bad.

Not that I hadn’t already eaten, since 2 pm

1. A 1/2 C of dulce de leche haagen dazs

2. 2 cookies

3. A ho ho

and when Jake offered to share some bites with me, I just looked away and said, “No.” Grumpily.

And then my dad called to let me know, with his $2.50 per minute phone call that Mom and he had eaten at 4 Japanese bakeries today.

My poor fat-clogged heart could just break for feeling so left out.

Disroutine

Everyone touts the routine. Kids like it, they say. You’ll like it, they say.

Well, they didn’t meet Amaya.

She’s teaching me more than all the books I’ve read on the subject. Routines don’t thrill us all. I myself get depressed when I realize I’m in a routine. Any routine. Especially if I think that routine is going to continue. So why should I think it’s always going to be good for her?

And some people like them. Good for you. I admire schedules and note taking and Spring cleaning. But once I start doing it I feel like I want to scream. I don’t get that feeling of accomplishment that people talk about either. I feel like I never ever want to do that again. That’s the problem with routines. It’s bound to show up again.

Amaya’s okay with a routine. Meaning, she doesn’t mind it. Meaning, she tolerates it. Meaning, it takes about 4 months for her to settle into one even if you are completely and totally faithful and insist that she put herself to sleep or come when you count to five before she gets time out or that every single day we have to brush her hair. She’s extremely sure that this time, even though we’ve never ever gone a day without taking a bath or shower, that if she throws a tantrum she will not have to. And I still have to RE-put her in time out about 10 million times because she does not stay there.

What she really lives for is when I say, “It’s furlough Friday, and you don’t have to go to school.”

On Friday morning she woke up and I told her that, and she was completely thrilled that everything we did that day would be spontaneous, unscheduled, and in our control, rather than a routine’s control.

Robbie came over with Kadin. Yes! She would love to go to the beach right now! So we went. 

Then she said we should make some lunch, and she helped me.

Daddy came home after his class, and she looked around in the fridge for something else to eat. How about a humongous strawberry? Yes. “Are we having a special day?” she asked. Yes.

What? Is that Mikey and Minami? Here? She ran to Pammy’s house and I could hear cackling all the way around the house.

Daddy was getting ready to go get his exercise, but it started raining. So, yes, Amaya would love to go to the beach. Again.

A long bucket bath later with M&M in the big tub, she got dressed and I told her it was time to brush her hair. Because we always brush her hair.

Tantrum.

We brushed anyway, and then I let her know we were going to go out to eat. With Robbie, Scott, and Kadin. She jumped for joy and clapped her hands. I’m not joking.

She fell asleep in the car seat on the way home, so we put her to bed. Without brushing her teeth.

For once. I’m a fanatic about teeth brushing, y’know.

And Now for Something Completely Insane

School life lately is like a sitcom. I’ll be in a meeting, and I have that kind of out of body experience where I can see the whole conversation from the outside, in.

If I were to categorize the show, I would definitely say, parody.

The educational consultants would come in and explain to everyone that this week, when they come in to observe the teachers, they would like teachers to use the word “red” at least 15 times because it’s shown to improve student engagement.

Standing on one’s head certainly couldn’t hurt either. Maybe we should have a three-day meeting about it just to make sure everyone knows what to do because it is totally possible to meet this list of demands during a 30 second observation.

Then, a person would stand up and shoot someone else with a banana, and another would say, “Now, what did you go and do that for?”

And the guy with the banana would say, “Well, the bloke just doesn’t understand all the work that we teachers do!” Everyone would nod in agreement, saying, “Yes, yes, I suppose he’s got some logic there.”

And the meeting would continue. And the meeting would be about the attendance policy.

The audience would laugh uproariously, because these crazy actors are completely deadpan about their delivery. As if everyone was taking the entire thing seriously.

Because killer rabbits are just as dead serious as finding a way to keep kids from skipping class.

Strong Women and Men

Today when I got home I decided that I deserved a cookie.

Several cookies, maybe.

And then someone should make me dinner. Preferably that person would be Chef Mavro. And then more dessert.

Then a movie. Yes. I definitely deserved a movie. A funny one. In a large theater, no one sitting directly in front of or behind me, and no cell phones with bright screens across the theater to distract me.

All of those options were somewhat difficult to fulfill on a Tuesday night, so I compromised. I got an Acai bowl with granola (which is basically several cookies broken up into pieces), drove into Haleiwa for Storto’s sandwiches, and rented a movie from Redbox. Possibly a malassada will be included before the night is through.

Being pregnant with this baby has taught me I am a completely worthless human being and I am not built for any sort of hardship. The girl gets up at 6am and I decide she’s out to get me. I get 50 phone calls that I have to answer to and I put on my annoyed face. I catch a glimpse of my legs in the mirror and I think, “Yikes. I need to eat something to console myself.” One student says Shakespeare was and is in two senses of the word, “gay” and I have to talk myself out of throttling her. I get home after my 8-3 job and plop down on the couch in exhaustion.

I could never be a Pioneer. A commoner during Elizabethan times. A child in Afghanistan. A working class citizen in Greece. A fisherman on the bayou.

I probably couldn't even be you.

Or live anywhere other than Hawaii. Did I mention there was a draft yesterday afternoon? Hello. My name is Wuss.