Twice in the past couple of weeks I have been stricken by the realization that my daughter doesn't know all of me. It bewilders me that I could birth this being and give her 100% of my emotions, and probably 97% of my body's energy since she was conceived, and have moments where I realize that she doesn't know me equally as well as I know her. After all, I know all of her, I know every crevice of her 43 inch body... to the point of knowing which of her teeth will be easier to floss because of the different size of the gaps between them. I can tell by just glancing at her if her expression is saying "I am starting to get an ear infection" or "my feelings are hurt" or "I need some protein for energy" or "I need to go tinkle." I feel like I wake up often an instant before she does, as if my umbilical chord is still there, I still can sense her. When she went to camp yesterday, even without a quiver of her lip, I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was scared to be there without a friend. And when she got out of the car today, I could tell from her eyes that she was confident and ready to try it again and hopefully have a good day.
But it does strike me me when we discover that there are things that she doesn't know about me. Sometimes it is reference to people, such as the family friends that I grew up with, and Sadie will say "who is that?" And I am shocked that she lives a life not knowing exactly how formative my best friends from growing up in Mt. Vernon were, my first crush at Mansion House, the friendships with the priests at Good Shepherd Church, people like my aunts and uncles, or my brother Scott because he doesn't visit ever (hint hint), or so many other people that I knew and cherish in my heart but don't see now.
Surely a child can't learn everything about a parent's past, especially at the age of 4. But it is the things in the present that tickle me even more. Sometimes she will say things that confirm in my mind that 4 year olds are truly highly egotistical creatures who think that if they didn't see their mother do something, then it just didn't happen.
A humorous recent example involved Krispy Kreme donuts, an institution here in Richmond, and in Winston-Salem where I went to law school, and in Mt. Vernon where I grew up. I am thinking I would be hard pressed to find a friend, coworker, or acquaintance who knows me in real life who would not know how much I love to eat sweets. That I have been battling the same 10 lbs since I was about 14 (OK, those that knew me in high school or immediately past birth will know that it was more than 10 lbs.) -- and the obvious reason why I can easily run seven miles, or work out every day during lunch, or train for marathons, and yet still not be able to lose those 10 lbs is that I love to eat. And I am not talking about vegetables.
A friend of mine was talking to me at the pool last weekend and we were saying how much we love going down to Captain Franks in Nags Head when we are vacationing at the Outer Banks, and she said "The trouble with that place is, I eat my hot dog and I find it very hard to stop at one dog... I always really want to order a second one but I don't." That's the difference between her and me. Mark who heard the conversation laughed... because when he and I got to Captain Franks, I order two hot dogs off the bat and then casually ask him if I worked out enough to deserve a third that day (to which he is mortified, and says "Please don't eat more hot dogs than me in front of all of these people.") I love their hot dogs. But I love desserts more. And I love Krispy Kreme donuts a lot.
My breakfasts at home are Greek yogurt with toasted oats sprinkled on top. Every day of Sadie's life, I think, I have had this breakfast. When naming my favorite food, Sadie will say it is oats. How pathetic is that? But she believes it to be true.
She and Mark have a Saturday morning routine that they call Daddy Daughter [and often Daisy] Donut Date. They head out at the same time I leave for my long run, and they hit Krispy Kreme. I don't go with them. And I don't ask what they order. Somehow 90 minutes passes, they get Daisy exercised at some park along the way, and I get my run and shower accomplished, and then our day carries on. I don't ask, and they don't volunteer any of the details -- it is just their thing. And I like that they have their thing. I have never asked to join, as donuts are much easier to avoid when you don't see them.
One day a couple of weeks ago, Mark needed to spend the morning with his dad again in Williamsburg. So he got up at 6 am or something like that, and he went to get hot donuts and have them at home by the time Sadie awakened. She was ecstatic to discover this, and they happily munched on their warm donuts as I was getting ready to leave for my run. There were two donuts left in the box that I noticed as I was getting ready to throw the box away. Sadie suggested "Mommy, those are for you, you should have those donuts." I was ready to decline. In fact, I was declining loudly in my head. But they were still warm. And they smelled so good.
So on a whim of sorts, I said "OK, I will." and I sat down with a donut and my daughter and her Daddy to eat it. I took one bite and Sadie grinned and said to me "Do you like it Mommy? This is the first time you have ever had a donut!" Mark and I almost choked at this. I almost responded with "Sadie, Mommy has probably had 500 of these donuts over the years" but I don't think she would have believed it. It just makes me laugh... that anyone who spends as much time with me as she does actually believes that I had never had a donut before. I did manage to throw the second donut away, by the way.
Another funny occurrence was last weekend at the pool. Sadie loves to watch the kids go off the two low diving boards that are there. They do regular jumps, or flips, or cannon-balls, and she just loves watching them. She has begun to ask when she will be old enough to go off the boards, but then she answers her own question with "When I am 10. Then I will be able to do it." She is scared, and while some of her four year old friends do it, she can't imagine that she will be ready for many years. As we were having this conversation (rather, as she was having this conversation out loud with herself)... she said to me "Well I can't go off the board Mommy, because you can't go off of a diving board either, and we can only do the same things."
This is her logic for why Mark can eat hot sauce ("Mommy and I don't like hot sauce, do we Mommy?") and many other things these days. More evidence of Team Mommy and Sadie.
But I couldn't let that one rest. "Mommy can go off the diving board", I told her "I did it all the time when I was younger." She was stunned. Visibly, like mouth opened stunned. Not like an "I dare you Mommy" grin, but she honestly did not believe this could be true.
So I had to show her.
Out of the three feet I climbed and I walked around to the 10 feet. Up the ladder and I walked down the long board. It wobbled and shook. Two thoughts crossed my mind instantly as I stood there. The first was that I didn't think I had been on any sort of diving board in about 24 years- the summer I turned 18 and stopped spending every minute at Mansion House pool. The second was remembering walking on the high-diving board at Mansion House one time when I was about 6, with my brother behind me on the ladder, as I begged him to let me get off and climb back down the ladder. I remember vividly the images of the other kids waiting on the ladder stairs or in the line and wanting so badly to be down there instead of up top. I must have jumped into the water from there, as I know that my brother would not have let me chicken out. I don't recall the jump at all, I just remember looking down the ladder and wishing that I wasn't where I was.
The same feeling, amazingly, came over me on the low diving board at Willow Oaks. There were a host of other boys and girls, all somewhere between 5-10 like I had been, waiting in line behind me. And I thought "this is silly, I can just climb down the stairs and not go now" as I was on the board at 42. But I could look out to the three feet and even with my recent nearsightedness, I could see Sadie and Mark watching me, cheering for me. And I thought "What kind of signal would I send to this child of mine if I chickened out?" I would do it of course. Because, after all, she thought that I couldn't do it. And she needed to be reminded that she, like me, could do anything she wanted to.
So I jumped off the diving board. 25 plus years after I had done it last, off of some measly low diving board, I overcame my silly fear and jumped. And the water rushed in my head... it was like my ears had just opened up and I could feel all the water pressure in there. And I did what I did as a kid and went all the way to the bottom and touched it with my feet and then pushed back up. I felt both very young and very old at the same time. It was very momentous.
Being a mom to a newborn was physically hard. My life immediately had become someone else's and not my own, and that was physically exhausting.
But now, the challenges of being a mom to a four year old are also difficult. I should be able to decline having donuts and have whatever I want to eat for breakfast, for goodness sake. But I want to send a signal to her that no foods are off limits, that everything is OK in moderation, that I have self control and so does she, and that I work hard enough to have treats every once in awhile for goodness sake. I want to prove to her that she doesn't know everything, and that just because she didn't see it happen doesn't mean it isn't true. I want to teach her faith. I want to teach her that her mother can jump off a diving board, just like I can go to a meeting and she can go to a new camp where she has no friends and still make friends. I want to teach her what it is like to fail and to succeed. To try and to decline. That there are some times that you can chicken out and that's OK.
And that there are some times that you need to just jump.
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