Moms and Daughters

I can still remember the exact moment I had at about 16 weeks pregnant when I was swimming laps in the indoor pool at our Downtown YMCA and I had this overwhelming feeling that I was having a boy. Overwhelming, as in THIS IS A SIGN, I had no doubt that this child was a boy. Mark and I had tossed around both boy and girl names (Max for a boy, and Sadie for a girl) and I loved them both. Admittedly actually, I was more in love with the name Sadie than Max, however, because Mark was insistent that Max's formal name be Maximus, which I was not so crazy about. But I was sure, mid-lap that day in the pool in fact, that that baby was a boy baby Max and that was the end of any doubt in my mind.

So I was surprised when our wonderful doctor told me a few weeks later that he was pretty sure that the baby was a girl. Mark and I laughed when the doctor said "Its either a girl, or it better be a boy with a really good sense of humor."  And in hindsight, I wasn't really surprised, given what we knew about "boy swimmers" and "girl swimmers" and the timing of when I actually ovulated that month.
I wasn't disappointed in finding out that she was a girl exactly, but I was worried. While it is laughable now that I thought then that I had any clue about what raising a child of any gender would be like, I was worried about the mother-daughter relationship. 

My mother gave 100% of her own life to raise three daughters and one son, and today, I have tremendous respect for that. But our dynamic has never been ideal, and perhaps that is saying it nicely. I never remember a time of not fighting with my mother, not back talking to her, not having my feelings hurt by her. Not wanting her love and approval, and not feeling like I was ever getting it. I was obstinate, strong willed, "horrid" she would later tell me laughingly, like in the nursery rhyme about a girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead "...when she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid."  Even as adults, it is still my father who I turn to for affirmation and a listening ear. If I want a fast lecture, my mother is always ready to give it though.

I was worried that this girl baby would have the same relationship with me that I have (or lack) with my mother, and would prefer instead her father. What if I screw her up, I often thought.

Yet, one thousand times since the day she was born, I have thanked God for giving me just the daughter I deserved. I have no doubt that it is her love of me that has made me a great mother.

Just this morning I noticed something that something that has been developing over the last few weeks - and that is a true team mentality of "Girls Rule" in our house. You can see it in the picture above where Sadie is just over-the-top to have both Tyler and I there together. She adores her father, and she is the first one out the door for the promised Daddy Daughter Daisy Donut Dates that seem to happen about every other week at Krispy Kreme.  But just in the last few weeks, she has started this funny way of seeking affirmation that she and I have a bond because we are mother and daughter. This morning she went to go to the bathroom before we were leaving for preschool and saw that Mark had left the toilet seat up. She came to the kitchen and this is what transpired:

          Sadie [with head cocked to the side and eyes a little bit squeezed, as if we were gossiping]: Mommy, Daddy left the toilet seat up again today!

          Me: Well did you just put it down and go tinkle?

          Sadie: Yes, but Mommy, we really need to do something about this. He has done it a few times now. We need to send him an email and tell him that there are more girls in our house than boys, so we get to make the rules, right? OK Mommy?

I am getting a lot of "Right Mommy?" these days, at the end of what she is saying (which, by the way, what she is saying doesn't appear to ever end really... it is a series of long diatribes but interspersed throughout I, she will redirect me with a "Right Mommy? or "OK Mommy?" and I nod, and she can move on with her story). Last night Mark joked with Sadie that he had eaten the rest of her Easter Candy and she turned to me and said "He's just joking, right Mommy?"  Again the side head tilt, the eyes squeezed together, as if to suggest that she and I are on the Side of Truth, and Daddy is stuck in the Land of Silly.

I admit that I love this. I love it with all of my heart and soul and mind. I have no doubt that boys have a wonderful bond with their mothers, or that daughters are also very bonded to their dads, but I just feel like ours is so incredibly wonderful right now. My daughter pretty much had ear infections consistently from March 17 through May 1 and, even with the magic of a multi-thousand dollar trip to Walt Disneyworld thrown in there, had her share of horrid moments over our difficult spring. But the last couple weeks have been so full of sunshine and love and laughter and bonding with us.  In the midst of getting seven shots at her four year check up the other day, when the doctor gave her two purple lollipops to cheer her up, she held the other one in her hand and said "this one is for Tyler." What kind of kid thinks charitably like that?

I still lay down on Sadie's bed every night when I put her to sleep. When she was an baby and in her toddler years, I feel like we tried every sleep training method under the sun. But ever since she has moved to her big girl bed at about two and a half, I have given in to the reading books together in bed and then laying together as we say our prayers and share our reflections on the day, in the dark, and she eventually drifts off to sleep. Sometimes it takes 2 minutes, other times it might take 15, but never more than that.

She's my only child, and I have 15 minutes to give her. The only thing waiting for me is generally housework, or television, or work emails. All of the other tasks eventually get done, though I complain about them all a lot and I never feel organized or on top of all the things I am supposed to be handling at work or at home. But I love our nighttime routine, and I kind of hope that we do it for a long long time. I love laying there and feeling like my daughter thinks that she and I are a wonderful team. As I said before, she makes me a wonderful mother.