booandbunny

Tucking her in last night, searching for the right word, all I could tell her was: “You are so strong. So strong. It’s one thing to learn to go out and punch and kick. It’s another thing to go out, knowing you’re going to get punched and kicked, and take it and keep fighting. You are so strong. Here,” I kissed her forehead. “Here,” I squeezed her bicep. “Here,” I squeezed her leg. “And here,” I tapped a tickle zone. She flashed a weary but ever-sparkling smile and burrowed deeper into the covers.

Every day I marvel at her perfect blend of girly frills and tomboy force. Last night was a great example. To advance to orange belt at karate she had to fight for 30 minutes, prove she could defend herself even when worn out. Six four-minute bouts with a one minute break in between, all carefully monitored by parents and instructors. She stayed on her feet, blocked, punched, kicked her way to the next level. Took a few good blows (mind you, she wears loads of protective gear, limiting damage but she still feels the pain).

“Mommy, I couldn’t hold back the tears,” she said all red in the face, snot streaming from her nose after the crying, hair sticky with sweat. She was smashed between two 11-year-old boys, the friends who just fought her as she took the next step in her journey. She was embarrassed about the crying, but more about the boogers I think. Free from the congratulatory grasp of the final 11-year-old boy (No, her dad and I aren’t sure how we feel about this ;p) she took a hug from her hero, a 15-year-old girl balancing the same frills and force at a different stage in life, then pulled off gear and went to clean up her face.

The evening at the dojo wore on and her dad and I finished our tests. As I was cooling down I looked over to see my daughter with her back to her hero, who was carefully braiding the long shiny locks I’m not allowed to braid.

At 9 my daughter’s getting too old for some of the kinds of time we used to spend together. Maybe I just don’t want to admit how close she is to leaving her childhood, to entering adolescence, to discovering the kind of woman she is and the kind of woman she wants to be.

She was sitting across the table from me working on a scrapbook about her cats while I worked on my scrapbook about her. Suddenly I had a vivid memory. Seeing this amazing person before me, it was hard to realize it was the same body I had held in this full-color recollection.

She was about four days old … smaller than a bread box … wearing a green and white striped onesy with a little Noah’s Ark embroidered on it. Surrounded by pillows, none of which was in the right place to help us. My early ’90s jewel-tone paisley bedding was quite the clashy background to that gender-neutral onesy. Her hair was much darker then, what she had of it. But that’s not what I remember most in this moment. Its her beet-red body, tensed in a perfectly rigid protest … her shiny, toothless gums … her trembling tongue as she silently screamed holy, bloody murder. The only sounds she made came when she gasped for breath. All this I remember through the blurred vision of a sobbing mother.

“This is not what I expected,” I blurted to my husband when he came in. “She won’t eat! I can’t get her to eat!” What a man, calming us both down the way he did. Nothing’s more irrational than an engorged first-time mom with a baby who won’t eat. Looking at her scream all I could think was “We can’t go to the zoo together. I can’t read you stories or do projects with you. I can’t even FEED you right now! How am I going to this?”

But then an amazing thing happened. She figured it out. I figured it out. She grew. I grew. I’ve found so many new corners of myself in my daughter’s eyes. And we go to the zoo and we do lots of projects and she loves stories … all kinds … a good book … a good movie … an inspiring piece of art.

Of course sometimes she doesn’t mind the kinds of time we used to spend together. Over the weekend she wiggled her way next to me on the sofa and covered us both with a blanket. She watched Harry Potter, I drifted off to sleep, just like those late nights in the rocking chair after she finally figured out how to eat. That’s my girl … my young woman.

Frill and Force.

I can’t wait to see what else we figure out together.

// posted by HoBess @ 4/18/2007 10:14:00 AM 3 comments

As the spring season gives way to summer retailers and designers across the region have been thrown for a major loop by the lack of demand for girls clothing and shoes. One manager of a local Target reported no movement in his girls shoe department in the past three weeks.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Moms and young girls have been walking out of here with tennis shoes and nothing else.”

At the local mall things were almost as bad. “I’ve never seen an entire season’s fashions sit on the racks,” a Macy’s rep said. “We have no idea what to expect with the back-to-school season. The winter orders are on my desk. I just don’t know what to send in.”

Mid-range retailers such as Marshall’s and Kohls reported some sales, having restocked certain brands twice in the past two weeks.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that the styles that are selling are all similar to each other,” a Kohls rep said. “They’re what I would call ‘girls’ clothes’ … you know … smocked sun dresses for Easter, sandals with ankle straps. The camouflage bubble minis and sparkly flip flops are going to be 60-80 percent off soon. I can’t believe we still haven’t sold any of that stuff.”

One mom was spotted with her 9-year-old daughter at Marshall’s on Friday in the shoe department. The little girl didn’t even turn her head to look at the wedge-heeled flip flops.

“She’s never been allowed to have that stuff,” the mother said. “And she knows better than to ask for it now. She’s 9 … not 19. And there’s no reason my 9-year-old should be forced to dress that way. If I search hard enough, there are options.”

Apparently more and more moms are feeling this way, some dad’s too.

“I wouldn’t let her wear that when she’s 15,” a dad said in Target on Saturday. “Why would I let her wear it when she’s 7?”

Meanwhile, in the blogosphere reporters are combing through a recent find encouraging consumers to exercise their full power. “Why buy it if you don’t really like it?” said Friday’s entry at She’s9NotBrittany.blogspot.com. “You work hard for that money! Spend it on something you find appropriate for your young daughter, not what retailers are sticking out there and saying they should wear.

“If enough of us put our money where our mouths are, designers and retailers will be forced to change to meet demands.”

Until then, the Marshall’s mom and her 9-year-old daughter will continue the pattern they’ve followed for years.

“First we try Target, then Kohl’s, then Old Navy and Marshall’s. I don’t know why I stick to that order because I have different luck every season,” the mom said. “But I can’t afford the places that really make clothing for young girls, such as Talbot’s or Children’s Place. So, we just find a day when we’ve got the energy to shop and get what we can. She knows our rules, and I think she just might be beginning to understand them. Just because everyone else does it doesn’t make it right for you. And I’m only spending our money on what I think is right for her.”

// posted by HoBess @ 4/07/2007 08:27:00 AM 3 comments

“OK, Peanut, I’m ready for you,” my mother-in-law says one July afternoon. The two had gone with the rest of the family to pick peaches earlier that day in the oppressive heat and humidity that is St. Louis in the summer. Now that the peaches were peeled and sliced, the cooking was pre-schooler friendly.
“I need your big footstool, Grandma,” Peanut says, having done this before.
Once in place, she’s giddy with anticipation. Grandma explains what they’re going to do and Peanut listens intently. She follows instructions to the letter.
Grandma started baking with them when they were about 2 years old. She kept it simple, ready made dough she sliced and they helped her place on cookie sheets. Grandma doesn’t limit the cooking to the girls, either. Her grandsons are more than welcome when willing.

It’s Thanksgiving, and the tiny house in farm country is filled with South Suburban Chicagoans, each with that trademark accent, all of them Bears fans. Ditka’s in charge and hopes are high, but not as high as the expectations for dinner. It would just be a few hours before Grandma’s stuffing hit the table.
The kitchen is the heart of the home and it’s rare to find Grandma anywhere else. She sits at that formica table to do just about everything: read the paper, write letters or lists, clip coupons, play cards with family or friends, have a cup of coffee.
Like most homes built in the 1940s or 1960s, the kitchen is a self-contained room, not open to other areas like so many kitchens built today. And Grandma’s is big. With the right number of tables and chairs, she easily seated about 15 for Thanksgiving dinner.
The stuffing pan is all but picked clean. All that remains is a mountain of dishes … and no dishwasher. Grandma, my mom and my aunt start cleaning up. I grab a towel.

Peanut’s at the opposite end of the house when she hears the timer beep. She starts off at full speed, until she’s reminded to walk in the house. She watches as Grandma removes seven individual peach cobblers from the oven, and checks on them periodically as they cool.
“We’ll scoop out a hole and fill it with ice cream,” Grandma says. “How does that sound?”
A beaming smile is her only response.
Unfortunately for Peanut, Grandpa grilled steak and there was fresh corn and tomatoes for dinner. She’s too full to eat much cobbler.
Ah, late July in the Midwest.

Grandma usually found something for me to do, even if it was just to sit and watch. I remember helping her with a Polish pastry cookie. I had to keep my distance during the frying, but when it came time to sift the powdered sugar, the job was all mine.
I loved those cookies.
The kitchen was the heart of her home. From there all good things came: food, family, traditions, memories.

Family treasures come in all shapes and sizes. Many are those memories… sifting powdered sugar, my daughter’s cobbler.

When I was in Chicago for Grandma’s memorial service I took time to flip through her recipe boxes. I could see her hands … the wear and tear of a life in the kitchen, the solitary sparkle of her wedding diamond.

The hours those hands spent perusing the boxes were evident. Tabs are missing or nearly broken off the dividers. Some cards are stained, a few sport her fingerprints. By far the majority of the recipes are methodically typed onto the cards, but many are clippings glued with trusty Rubber Cement. Inside each lid is glued a series of tips and shortcuts.

She had two recipes for those Polish pastries and four for poppy seed roll, but there’s no trace of a recipe for her stuffing.

“Please don’t tell me you cook dinner for three kids every night,” a co-worker of my husband’s said to me shortly before Grandma died. Her statement made me a bit uncomfortable, but I answered truthfully.
“I do.”
I’m a stay-at-home mom on a budget. Less nutritious fast foods are more expensive than what I cook.

It’s rare when I let the kids do too much. Usually they get to put away ingredients or set the table. But they see me cooking … and they learn.

Cooking with your kids doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be planned. Let them pull stuff off the shelves. Let them set or clear the table. Let them get messy. Let them cleanup. Let them decide the menu. Let them watch … and they will remember.

// posted by HoBess @ 3/25/2007 03:55:00 PM 2 comments

Who do you think you are pulling me from my bed in the middle of the night? My eyes squint, my body coils up, resisting the beams that pour forth from the computer screen. Would that my hands could keep up with you! I’d answer your call with pen on paper by candle flicker.

But once uncaged you’re a bit vengeful … perhaps angry with me for ignoring you so long. So you spit forth your retaliation, sometimes in a venomous rage that leaves me sleepless for days. I suppose I deserve it.

I mean, who else in my life would I dare to shut out in such a fashion? If my child wakes me in the night I rise and give full attention. If my lover rolls over to me in the darkness I awaken and respond. If my employer rings my phone I immediately take action. If a friend in need knocks at my door I open my home. You are all of these things and yet I feel no guilt in turning my back on you. I would never think of putting any living thing in a box so stagnant, so soundproof, so tight that I could only hear it’s distant cries through the strange silence that is a suburban weeknight.

So I can forgive you for tormenting me these past days in your newfound freedom. All these weeks of my bemoaning your departure must have been extraordinarily exasperating for you, considering I had packed you up and put you away. Imagine my surprise when I found you there in such deplorable conditions!

a steel box

sealed shut

wrapped in numerous blankets

so as to stifle your cries

tucked in a dark corner.

My inspiration stuffed in storage because I was too busy living to make time for myself. But life was gray and robotic with such a colorful creature caged.

Starting out with this I thought of so many comparisons: a pesky mosquito; a seduction; an unrelenting master. But my inspiration is more of a dog on a leash. Sometimes it’s pulling me somewhere I’ve never been. Sometimes I’m pulling it back on course. Sometimes it runs off or I ignore it. And sometimes we just stroll while I sip a latte.

// posted by HoBess @ 3/18/2007 04:43:00 PM 1 comments