To my beautiful, bouncy Bee on her birthday.

To my sweetest, dearest Bee-babygirl,

 

Today, sweetheart, you are finally five. You are wonderfully, beautifully, fantastically five and my heart is so full of love and laughter and excitement for you that I can hardly breathe around all the feelings you make bubble up. You are so excited about growing up and I have to say: you’re here. You’re a Big Kid. Even better – You’re You.

 

It’s true, Bee. You are more than just a Big Kid. You might whine because you think your big sister gets all the attention and all the glory of being Bigger and Older and (in your mind at least) always More Than You, but I think that is because she is just more defined than you. Gracie is Gracie, The Dramatic Older Child. You, my beautiful Bee-Baby, you contain multitudes. You are my fabulous five-year-old laughing and giggling conspiratorially with your chums before your Pre-K graduation and then you are pitching a fit because I dared to tell you it was bedtime. You are my court jester and my dramatist and my helper child and the one who stalls and masterfully manipulates the situation so you don’t have to clean. You are my child who refuses to be pinned to a single personality. And great googly moogly how I love you for it, dear heart.

 

I love the way you try on different selves and incorporate them all into your different Bees. I love the way you keep me guessing to see who you’re going to be each day, each hour, each minute. You might exasperate me from time to time, and it might be easier if you would just pick a style and GO WITH IT so I would know how to parent you always, but gosh you make loving you so much more fun because of all the work I put into it. Truth be told, I am a little envious of the way you approach life, refusing to shrink the world, your experiences or even yourself. Certainly, you don’t shrink you attitude for any one or any thing!

 

Yes, there are still pieces of Baby-Bee and Todder Bee lurking in your behaviors. I’ve come to realize this year that that’s just how you’re always going to be. You’re the baby of the family and your big sister and I simply adore you – of course you’re going to milk that a little! But I’ve also noticed how easily you adjust yourself to meet any occasion. You need to act like a Big Kid to fit in when you move into the Schoolers’ Room? No problem! You talk about music and friends and all manner of things so easily that I wonder if you aren’t turning 8 or 9. Hanging with the Pre-Ks today? Fine – well you can shrink yourself and play house and argue at the sand station, too. You’re my chameleon, little one, having fun and getting the most out of every situation you can. You’ve reminded me of a very valuable lesson, Bee – I need to treat you how I’d like you to act. And you know what? You always give me your all.

 

Yes, you’ve arrived. Or, rather, you’ve made us all meet you where you were all along. Your sister made a splash when she arrived in The Land of Five; The Land of Big Kidville. Not you – you made us all run over to where you were. You moved the action and showed us that you were here this whole time – we’ve just been looking in all the wrong places, trying to see you through a different lens.

 

In short, you’re brilliant, Bee. You know yourself. You know people. And you know how to pull the strings of the world to machinate all sorts of fun. You have a yard of guts, but even more will power. If you don’t want to do something, you ain’t gonna – but if you make up your mind to do something, look out opposition because good lord you will kill yourself trying.

 

Yes, you have a lot of fun that way – being oblivious to the rest. Oblivious to the cheesestick wrappers you lay around, oblivious to the markers littering the floor after your art masterpieces are complete (oblivious even to me throwing away the markers because you left them out), oblivious to the Barbie and dollhouse debris that litters the floor when you insist the room is picked up. You’re a tour de fun cycloning through the house, just as a kid your age should be. As you always have been. And as you always will be. The only thing you’re not oblivious to, oh beautiful Bee-girl, is when you feel you’ve been slighted. Then everything best move to a soundproof room because lord, we’re gonna hear about it. You immediately start crying and then you tattle, and then you declare it’s NOT FAIR that Gracie is always going to be two years older than you, or that she gets an iPod (never mind that I’ve promise you one when you turn seven, oh no), and that Gracie gets to take medicine (!?!), and that Gracie had friends over last time, or she had a sleepover, and, and, and… The list is long and – I am sure – very thorough. You love your “stister” so much you want to be exactly like her, and that is hard when she is very much different from you, never mind two whole years older.

 

You’ll get there, Bee. And sooner rather than later – you’re growing so fast already! I’m enjoying watching you grow and rediscovering who you are, every day. Because every day you’re a new You. I love my ever-changing Bee-girl. I love that you make me feel I’m parenting so many more children than just two (no matter how many times you make me sigh – really). You make me wish I was a kid again so I could run and laugh and join you on all of the adventures you conjure up. You’re that fun to watch! Instead I’ll just cheer you on from the sidelines and supply you with cheesesticks and gum and tic-tacs and I’ll hold your Bear and be your safety-gools every time you need me.

 

I love you, Bee-girl. I’m so flippin’ proud you chose me to be your superhero and let me in on some of your fun. And I promise I will always, always be here for all of it and all of you – no matter how large your life is. I can tell already it’s going to be epic.

 

Love,

Mommy

Bee’s Greatest Hits

As much as I want to deny it, Bee-baby has really grown up quite a bit. I maybe had to go to my archives to see just how much. And WOW, is it a lot. (I need to give that kiddo more credit, really.) Here are some of my favorite vignettes.

There was once a time before Bee was potty-trained and my carpets lived in fear.

She frequently takes my breath away (and hey, I forgot I used to have a changing table).

She went from quiet, shy toddler to being loud and demanding like the rest of us.

She decided to show off her sense of humor by dubbing all animals “chicken nuggets.”

She conquered a speech impediment.

She got crazy with the cheeze whiz, er, I mean diaper cream.

She’s conquered a fear of thunderstorms.

I let her turn three. (That was the year with All The Puking.)

There’s the time she asked for a polar bear.

She put all her faith in a pretend pet dinosaur.

She learned to hold her own with her sister.

Proved all she thinks about is cheese.

She tried to (but didn’t quite) master the basic gist of evolution.

Someone let her turn FOUR. Sheesh.

She proved she would have made a great big sister. (Also? That she loves sarcasm.)

How I know she’s not kidding about her favorite things (aka: with age comes consistency).

She waxed nostalgic about matrimony and step-families with wit and good humor.

She got a big-girl, fancy-schmancy hair cut (and Mama only panicked a little).

In which my four-year-old gave me an anatomy lesson. Sigh.

I meant it – the kid *gets* sarcasm. Like whoa.

She developed Never-Ending Hives. And then sort-of conquered them. But not really. At all.

What a freakin’ journey into full-blown awesomeness, Bee. I’m so glad I know you!

Why do all the good nights seem to include bacon?

Hmmm… I might be onto something here. Bacon = greatness. Or perhaps, bacon = lurve? Maybe some more experimentation is needed. Yes, I think so.

Because Gracie read out loud two chapters of Ramona the Pest:

While I cooked this:

Then I made and we consumed eight delicious slices of french toast and the girls bathed argument-free while I cleaned the kitchen. We topped off the night with dessert and pajamas and an hour of Anne of Green Gables on TV.

Long live summer! And God bless bacon.

I’m hoping he’s just this side of crazyouttahismind.

There’s something wrong with me. Okay, there are many things wrong with me, but my biggest problem – by far – is my overactive imagination. Normally, I would say my imagination was my prized possession, but “normal” tends to fall between dawn and dusk. Imagination and nighttime do not seem to mix. To wit:

One night last week, as I was putting Bee back to bed for the 5th time, I thought I heard something in the living room. Well, I did not (exactly) think it was in the living room; rather, I was in the living room when I thought I heard it. In fact, it was pretty darn bright in the living room since it was the night of the brightest full moon I can remember having in quite some time. On my way back through the living room, having tucked my youngest back into bed and extracted a fervent promise that she would not ever get back up again, I decided I most certainly had heard something – I very confused bird was perched atop my chimney and was trilling his morning song at the moon.

“Damn bird,” I thought. “Stupid thing thinks it’s daytime, the moon is so bright. Boy is he gonna have a long day tomorrow. Stupid bird.” And off I went back to sleep.

Cue another back-to-bed trek, this time a few nights later. Now the room isn’t quite so bright. But guess what? Yep, the bird is still singing. Not nearly quite so gustily as last time, but he’s there. I half-thought some pointed remarks in his direction and I sleepwalked my way back to bed and fell right back to sleep, thankful that the crazybird wasn’t busy being confused right next to my bedroom window.

So it went over the course of this past week. Any time I woke up during the night, I heard the bird. I started to wonder if it was really just a creaky vent or that spinny-around thing on top of the house, but it sounded definitely bird-like. Plus, it trilled a definite song, not just a constant repetition of one or two notes. Bird. Definitely. A crazybird, but still. Bird.

And then there was this weekend, the lovely moment when the balance of crazy shifted from the stupid bird into my own sanity ledger. Because, see, I was up until 3 a.m. on Saturday night, and as I was walking through the house shutting off lights, I heard the bird again. This time I got confirmation from Mike. “See? Do you hear that?!” I demanded. Crazy bird. And right on the heels of my victory, as Mike and I were making fun of the stupid mixed-up bird, wondering what kind of songbird stays up all night singing, it hit me – I have a vampire bird stalking my house. The damn things just waiting to suck my blood and make me one of them!

And that is when I decided that I am never allowed to a) sleep alone or b) wonder anything ever again. My mind just can’t be trusted to stay on the tracks with that one. Vampire birds. Heh. Crazy never sounded so good.

Told you so.

When I said I knew my child was a klutz, I wasn’t kidding. Tonight, Gracie hurt herself sitting on the toilet. Seriously – she has a pretty bad bruise and cut on the inside of her thigh. How does a child manage to do this, you ask? Well, it helps to be both gifted and talented and mighty klutzy. Then, all she has to do is accidentally lift up the toilet seat a teeeeeeensy bit and then when she sits down, a bit of skin has to be trapped under the toilet seat. At this point, said klutzy child will commence screaming.

No, I’m not kidding.

Yes, I actually took a picture. I’ve become That Mom.

An excellent example of a klutzy kind of accident (versus getting a shovel to the face because a riled up classroom full of children isn’t being properly supervised. Ahem.) and one that happens all the freaking time around here.

Thank god it’s my weekend off because I need to stock up on band-aids and ace bandages! I hope your weekend is full of much more exciting plans than mine. Heh.

Looking ahead.

I can’t believe the summer is almost half over.

Next week is Bee’s (actual) birthday. Celebratory dinner out, birthday cupcakes, a new set of wishes, and – of course – presents from the family.

Then it’s July 4th. Fireworks. Flag cake. Lots of carnivals and rides and glowsticks coming out of our ears. (No, not really.) (Except, yes maybe.)

Then the girls are off for a month at dad’s house and I am left to enjoy a month of uninterrupted sleep. Huzzah!

Before you know it, it’s August. Our annual trip home to see Grandma and Grandpa. Trips to the beach. Arcades. Bumper cars. Maybe a train ride and the country store. Mystic Seaport and Aquarium. Mark Twain’s house. Duck tours. Fancy tea parties. A family cookout.

Then, a treat – we can fight over whether it’s for the kids or Mommy or Auntie Kim. Auntie Kim is traveling back to Tejas with us. We get her for the entire month. Zoo trips. Planetarium trips for star spotting. Picnics at the Japanese Gardens. Legoland. Staged train robberies. Wii-dancing. Sleepovers.

Yes, summer is almost over, but it seems backloaded with all of my favorite parts.

At some point, it passes Klutzy and heads straight into Ridiculous.

Stop me if I’m overreacting. No, really. Because I might have overshot this one just a wee bit. See, Gracie came home yesterday with an accident report. Again. She had another one the day before, and two from last week, not to mention the scrapes and bruises and gajillions of mosquito bites….oh, okay, mosquito bites maybe don’t count, except I did send a gallon of Off! for the center to apply for that very reason. I mean, at some point my job as a mom is to speak up and ask for an explanation, right?

Let me back up a bit. Gracie has always been a klutz - I think that is fairly well established. So there have always been bumps and bruises and minor brushes with catastrophes of both the self-inflicted and tussles-with-friends variety. Then, in March, there was the Thud Heard Round The World, when Gracie fell off the playground equipment at school and bashed the back of her head against a metal pole, requiring four stitches in her scalp and also incurring a small skull fracture. Even though we were out close to $400 in medical co-pays, I didn’t raise a fuss (except when they tried to charge me for the days Gracie missed that week). I knew the teachers on duty on the playground and – let’s face it – I know my daughter’s a klutz. No big deal, right?

Well, then there was the car accident and another serious head-bump. Not daycare’s fault and, for once, not Gracie’s fault either.

Then there was the week in which I doubted that Gracie would ever grow back skin on her knees or just carry scar tissue around for the rest of her life. She scraped her knees on the playground every. single. day. for a week. That was also the week the school nurse called and said Gracie had an eight-inch gash on her leg that maybe but probably didn’t need stitches. That kid’s insurance card never gets a chance to gather dust, lemme tell ya.

Then, last week, I walked into daycare to find Gracie sitting in the office with a cold paper towel applied to her tooth. She had slid down the slide kinda wonky, they said, and knocked it on the bottom. Except now that I think about it, they don’t have slides on their playground. That will be discussed later. Ahem, anyway, I checked her mouth as I wildly tried to remember if that eye tooth was a baby tooth or a permanent one, and calmed her down. The tooth wasn’t loose, but she did complain that it hurt consistently enough all night that I gave her tylenol and checked her tooth the next morning.

Later that same week, Gracie’s teacher told me that she hadn’t written up the report yet, but that a kid had kicked Gracie in the shin three times and made her fall to the ground because she wouldn’t give him the ball. (Hellooooo, McFly – aren’t you kids in kindergarten and older?! Shouldn’t you know better?!) The teacher said she would be speaking to the boy’s parents. Fine, okay.

On Monday I picked up the girls and Gracie had yet another report – she and another kid were picking up and the other child accidentally kneed Gracie in the mouth and her two front teeth were a little loose. I almost lost my cool right then and there. Those two teeth ARE permanent. I checked them and they were a little loose, but barely. They weren’t bad enough to go to the dentist or anything. I watched them that night and checked them the next morning and they seemed better. I’m sure they’ll firm up completely again. At least the assistant director who took the signed report seemed a little frustrated, too.

And then yesterday. Yesterday was what put me over the edge. The class had gone on a field trip to an animal shelter. Good deal, right? It’s free, the animals get some attention for an hour, and the kids get to do something kinda cool and get out of the center for awhile. Fine. Good. Except somehow Gracie got hit in the head with a shovel by another student. Her nose was swollen and she has a pretty good size scratch.

WTH?!! Aren’t the teachers paying the smallest amount of attention to what’s going on? I know part of it is luck, and part of it is my child’s klutziness – but part of it is also supervision. An accident here or there would be one thing, but it’s reached the point where I am no longer all that confident that I’m going to get my kid back in one piece at the end of the day. I know the student involved in the tooth incident this week and the shovel-to-the-face incident; she’s a good kid and Gracie considers her a friend. However, I know she can also be a handful, for all her good intentions and lovely qualities. She needs supervision. And those are the kids the teachers should have an eye on. She gets rambunctious and they should be especially paying attention if she has a shovel in her hand. Yes, Gracie should know not to stand next to someone working a shovel, but she is not entirely at fault here.

And there lies my question – am I going overboard if I walk into daycare later and politely, but firmly ask what the heck is going on? Should I just let it slide off my back as part of childhood, or has it reached the point that they really need to rally the troops and freshen their focus? This, this, is why I was irate when the daycare director rolled her eyes a bit last week when I was hesitant to let Gracie and Bee go on a rock-climbing field trip. Yes, it was indoors, and yes, they would have on harnesses and there would be safety systems. But no helmets. And I’m really not sure something wouldn’t have happened.

Kids will be kids – I know that. But I also know, having watched a few hundred dozens of them myself, that you are more careful with other peoples’ children than you are with you own. Just in case. Just in case she bumps her head or knocks his teeth loose, or any other number of scenarios. I think they have been doing a rather crappy job of that lately. I want that to change. And that’s what I’m going to say when I sit down with the director tonight. As a parent entrusting them with my children, I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.

Cross your fingers and count your blessings.

With everything else going on this weekend, I don’t think I told you that I snuck in a follow-up appointment for Miss Bee with her pretty, pretty allergist. It was kinda nutsy, keeping the appointment when I had missed work for two appointments and a stomach bug already that week, and the invading army of feral ants waiting for me at home, and a party to get ready for, and and and…. But I kinda sorta needed to find out if Bee’s hivies had given up their secrets: was there a cure? Or was she just plain cursed?

I don’t know if driving through horrid rush hour traffic across and then south of the city took the romance out of it, but this time I found it a lot easy to pay attention to the words coming out of Dr. Hivey’s mouth. Maybe it was the fact that Bee kept shifting on the paper table liner, creating a deafening thunder of crinkle, or maybe it was because Gracie had decided to drape herself all over my lap and be inappropriately lovey-dovey when I was trying to pay attention. (Kids – can you ever win?!) In any case, I think I aced the part where the little cartoon hearts above my head weren’t noticeable. Thank you, children, for dashing the five minutes of fun I could have had in my head. (Insert mock heavy sigh here.)

So, the long and short of our 10 minute conversation was that they have no idea what’s going on. Bee didn’t have any of the multitude of rare diseases they tested for. Neither did she have any allergies that were off the chart. She did pop for year-long molds and also for dogs, but since she’s not noticeably worse when she comes back from her dad’s house with their three dogs, Dr. Hivey doesn’t think the dogs are what’s causing the hives. After finishing our way through the maze of tests they ran, I asked what our next step was. You know, since nothing we’ve done so far has given us any sort of clue.

“Well, I’d wait until she’s been rock solid on her meds without a break-out for three or four weeks and then just stop them and see what happens.”

Well. That was worth an hour of rush hour traffic and $27.

“I know I wouldn’t want to hear this if it was my kid, but you really have it easier than most. I see people who come in on four or five medications and they’re still covered with hives. At least Bee’s are under control.”

And he’s right. At least we can keep the hivies away. If it turns out that we can’t – well, there goes the only hope left: that this is a virus that is just taking its sweet time running its course. If Bee can keep stretching out the number of days she can go med-free between breakouts (she improved from 3 days to 5 days hive-free last time we went cold turkey), then we’ll know she’s slowly getting over her neverending hives. And, well, there’s the chance they won’t ever go away. So it really is like he said – we just gotta cross our fingers and count our blessings. And maybe buy mama some stock in zyrtec.

The curse continues.

Last year, I decided that Bee’s birthday was cursed. This year, oh this year – this year I know it for sure.

I was kinda spazzing out heading into it. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, but last year I was calm and happy-go-lightly and that didn’t help any either. Anyway, I hadn’t heard back from any of Bee’s friends, and I couldn’t get ahold of my lawn guy to reschedule (since he usually arrives about the time we’d be partying), and then the weather forecast said it was going to be 104° degrees outside with winds at 25-35 mph, so I didn’t know whether to move the party inside or reschedule it or just cancel birthdays altogether. I decided to risk it and have it outside if we could get the canopy up in the blustery winds and maybe everyone would just go home early. Then my friends from across the street and I could usher our kids inside and celebrate making it through the party with a drink or two.

Of course, that was just the anxiety level before things started going wrong. Like Friday morning when we were getting ready for daycare/work and, upon clearing her plate to the sink, Gracie exclaimed, “Hey, there’s an ant over here!” Yeah – an ant and about 20 of his best buddies. They were behind the sink, next to the sink, crawling towards the sink – and I couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. There weren’t enough of them to really make a line. So I killed as many as I could find and headed out the door to work, hoping they wouldn’t have taken over the entire kitchen by the time I came home. Plus there was the fact that the only way to kill sugar (or feral) ants is to put out napalm and let them carry it back to the hive ant house colony place. AKA, you can’t kill the nasty little buggers. Yeah, ants and baking cakes kinda don’t go well together. Squick.

But that wasn’t even the worst thing. See, because I came home, discovered where they were coming into the house (the electrical outlet behind the cutting board, napalmed the ever-livin’ lights outta ‘em, and baked the cake on the other side of the kitchen. And checked on ‘em every few minutes. (The ants not the cake.) And then the next morning when they had eaten all the napalm, I killed the rest of the ants and covered the outlet with electrical tape. And crossed all my fingers and toes. It seemed to work. Which meant we were due for another crisis.

Cue the dinner-plate sized water bubble that was suspended from the bathroom ceiling! Oh yes. I’m lucky I saw it, because I never use the girls’ bathroom. I was actually cleaning the bathroom for the guests and happened to look up. And promptly swore and ran up into the attic. Where I noticed my air conditioner was leaking alllllll over the floor and two of my Christmas storage boxes. That were made of cardboard. Whoops. The a/c had probably been leaking for a day or two, judging by the size of the puddle and the amount of mold that had started growing on the boxes. Good thing it was only supposed to be 104°! But hey, on the bright side, now I didn’t have to worry about whether to move the party inside. Heh. So I called Mike, who recommended a great a/c outfit he used. They only charged $25 for service calls and promised to be out by 2 o’clock that afternoon. Sold! Of course, I was still trying to mop up the puddle in the attic so it didn’t get into the electrical, and I had to cut a hole in the foil of the a/c so I could direct the dripping stream of water into a trash can AND I had to still get ready for the party. OH! And the girls decided to act the worst I have ever in my life see them behave. So badly, that they spent two hours lying on their beds doing nothing because they flat. out. refused. to help me when everything was going wrong. Or help set up the party. You know – that I was trying to still have because of THEM.

Really, by the time the party started and the only people to show up were Corrie and her girls – again – I didn’t even care. Bee didn’t care – she and her sister ran around with J. and N. and splashed in the giant inflatable pool and finally got the hang of the slip and slide. And at least no one was burned to a crisp this year. Only five ants escaped the napalm and the electrical tape (either they are were superior specimens or else their progeny will would have had extra heads or something). The 25 mph breeze made being outside in the shade (with our giant drinks) downright enjoyable. I mean, it didn’t feel warmer than 90° out there! And the a/c guy showed up and had the house cooling off by 5pm.

So, Bee, you might be birthday cursed, but I still made you what is quite possibly my favorite cake ever:

Everyone picked pieces from different parts of the cake, but no one fought over any of them so I didn’t care. And after the wind knocked the third plate of cake off the table and onto the ground, we just gave up and started eating out of the pan anyway. Might not be what most parents would have done, but we decided – given all we were already battling – to just go with it. I might remember this year as The Birthday The Ants Took Over the Kitchen And the Air Conditioner Almost Fell Through The Floor, but I’m pretty sure Bee will remember it as The Birthday We Got To Eat ALL THAT CAKE Out Of The Pan!

And that’s okay by me.

Book Review (without spoilers): Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon

I felt such pull from the storyline that I immediately went out and bought the book; luckily the trade paperback had just been issued. The hook in the bookflap description was perfect; the cover picture demanded I start reading right away; I was ready to be whisked away through secret doors and other lands (fairies optional) by protagonists getting ready to leave that magical age of childhood.

And then as page followed page, my anticipation fell flat. My heart sunk. The magic faded. Plot line? Excellent. Writing and execution? Ehhh… This was the first book by McMahon, so I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe I wanted too much. Because so much of the story set-up seemed cliche. The silly, slightly stupid main female character. Stereotypical, sensibly woodsy man who loves her anyway. (At least, the narrator *said* Sam loved Phoebe, we were never really *shown* as much.) I will say that once the story got going, the writing did improve. By the end, when plot points were resolving and villains were unveiled, McMahon seemed much more sure of herself – or maybe I was just so anxious to see what way the ending would fall that I didn’t care as much.

Final word: Am I glad I read it? Yes. Will I read it again? No, probably not. If someone asked to borrow it, I’d be interested to see what she/he thought, but I wouldn’t give the book the weight of actively recommending it to someone. Two-and-a-half stars, but with the right execution, this book easily could have been worth four.