I have been feeling very somber and nostalgic about the kids, mourning the loss of their babyhoods. This probably has a lot to do with Anna's recent emotional growth spurt, aided, no doubt, by hanging out with Lilly, the neighbor girl, who is 6 years old, but strikes me as a mature 6. As in, unpleasant. I shouldn't be so negative, and she has really grown on me and can be an incredibly sweet thing. But she is stealing my baby. She wears a bikini and likes to bask in the sun. In her bikini. Doing nothing else. Lying on a towel, in the front yard, looking pretty. And so this is what Anna likes to do now. (Not in a bikini, mind you.)
There are two very different aspects to Anna's development that bother me; one is completely and totally out of my control, and one makes me want to grab her by the ears and hiss, "I didn't raise you to act this way!" She has found an attitude that I suppose is normal. Or, no, typical might be a better word. (There's nothing normal about pre-adolescence or adolescence--it's awkward and painful for all involved, right?) Man, is she opinionated. (I can't imagine where she gets this from, as there aren't many opinionated women in her lineage*.) And when she gets tired or doesn't feel well, hell hath no fury like Anna scorned. And if we're out in public (or anywhere near Lilly) and we have to scold her in some way (usually for having a total conniption over not getting her way), her eyes furrow and she mouths and/or hisses, "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!" She has learned to be embarrassed, which is the only comforting part of this for me. I can embarrass her as much as she can embarrass me. Powerful stuff. But it feels like in the blink of an eye, she learned to value a peer's opinion above mine. It's like a knife in my heart! I am desperate to find some way, any way, to prevent this from coming between us. Or to prevent her hating me. I don't want to be the enemy, and I already feel like we're starting her adolescence on the wrong foot. And she's FIVE.
But the other part of this, the part I have no control over whatsoever, is the inevitability of her growing into an adolescent girl. We spent a couple of days this weekend at our community pool. I watched with a sick fascination all of the young girls, all in bikinis, walking in small groups, giggling and pushing, laughing and chasing. I watched them as small groups of young boys, trying to look incredibly cool, approached. The girls flipped their hair, switched their weight from foot to foot, one hand on a hip, trying to look equally cool, and, in my mind at least, trying not to feel incredibly naked. I suspect these children were middle school age--maybe 12 or 13? I can remember myself at this age very clearly, and I'd have sooner died than worn a bikini and been standing around talking to male classmates as if everything was completely normal. But, my god, middle school was a rough age for me. I usually relive the pain when I watch young girls like these, which is a sure sign that I'm totally not over it. Yet, I am. Enough so that I grew up, got married and had kids, and am a competent adult who is, I suppose, a positive contributor to society. But deep down, I think I still am that awkward, four-eyed 12 year old who had teachers for best friends and who cried at night because a boy would never like her. (Oh man, the only thing that could make this post better, or more excruciating, would be if I had an actual photo of my 12 year old self as evidence.)
But, I am healthy enough to know that I never have to go back there. That pain and awkwardness has passed, and is probably long forgotten by classmates. Hell, I survived my 10-year class reunion, and even helped to plan it, and very few people treated me funny or avoided me. (There were a select couple of people who I felt avoided me, but it is just as likely that they were ashamed of their adolescent behavior, the way they treated people like me, and didn't want to be reminded of it. I doubt it was because they didn't want to be stuck talking to the 7th grade dork, right?) But when I imagine Anna going through this, I could just cry. (And Emmy, too, of course, though I worry about her less for two reasons: 1) I will have already endured it by the time Emmy gets there; worrying on her behalf is preemptive; and 2) I don't see her being much like me when she grows up; I see a confident, bubbly, athletic girl who will probably be arm wrestling the 12 year old boys instead of painting her fingernails for them. I hope I'm right.)
As I see it, Anna could go one of two ways on this. Maybe she will be exactly like me. And I'll ache for her and do everything I can to make her feel pretty and special and cool, because that was what I think was so dreadfully lacking for me. But, maybe Anna will be more like those girls at the pool this weekend. Maybe she will be pretty, and well-liked. Maybe she won't mind standing around in a bikini, with her child-like body fully exposed, trying to look more adult than she really is. And maybe she'll have lots of friends, and maybe boys will give her attention. And then god help us all. I don't want her to be obsessed with appearances and popularity, and I'm really not sure how to coach a daughter through that.
All I want is for her to grow up to be independent, confident, and capable. I also know that this dithering, again, is silly. I know that in the end, she will be fine. I am always reminding myself that this too shall pass. She is going to change friends almost daily in these grade school years, and her attitudes and opinions will change with them, I'm sure. The best thing I can do is to probably not get too worked up about any of it, and to just help her stay grounded and respect our most basic values. But, my god, how the next 15 years of her life scare me.
But anyhow! What I really wanted to write about today... since my babies are growing up, and are abandoning all of the things I cherish about their silliness and innocence, I want to make sure to remember as much of these days as possible.
"You're crackin' me out!"
It started a long time ago with Anna, who has since stopped saying it. But it must have made an impression on Emmy, because she now says it all the time. It's so great. It has the feeling of both "you're freaking me out" and "you're cracking me up," but she generally uses it when we're being silly, when she's annoyed, or when we say something she has trouble believing. If I am singing too loudly in the car and bothering her: "Mom, you're crackin' me out!" Or "No, Emmy, really! This year when we go to the beach, we will be able to walk to an ice cream store every day." "You're crackin' me out, Mom!!"
"Bonkerhead sketto on the wall!"
This is the punchline to any joke. The classic:
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Sketto."
"Sketto who?"
"BONKERHEAD SKETTO ON THE WALL!!!! Bwahahahahahahahaha..."
Or any variation of this. Bonkerhead is both amusing and insulting. They use it when fighting and one or the other will cry, "She called me bonkerhead, waaaaaaah..." But usually this is just a really fun word for all-purpose laughs. I'm really not sure where the whole expression came from. I think Emmy invented it. Sketto might be a variation of spaghetti, and maybe someone once told her about the throw-a-noodle-at-the-wall doneness test, and she thought spaghetti on the wall was hilarious?
The other word with endless comedic potential: poop. Poopyhead sketto on the wall! Bonkerhead poop! Poop on the wall! I'm eating poop for dinner! Look at my plate of poop!! Bwahahahahahahahahaahah....
A classic Anna joke:
"Why'd the chicken cross the road?"
"Because he POOPED on the road!!!! Bwhahahahahahahah...."
But at least that joke makes sense, sort of. It is a reason, even if illogical. Most of her jokes make no sense at all. They're not even sentences. Oh, here's Anna telling the classic banana/orange joke:
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Orange."
"Orange who?"
"Why did the banana cross the road?!"
I keep trying to explain the idea of puns, and how to put together an appropriate knock-knock joke, to no avail. I know Emmy's too little to construct a real joke, but, man, Anna. Come on!!
The vast majority of our time spent telling jokes is in the car on our way to school/work. There's something else we do a lot in the car:
The animal guessing game
Anna invented this game, though we helped to fine-tune it. Basically, you think of an animal, and then other people take turns asking yes-or-no questions until they figure out what your animal is. It's a great game, and it's also played a lot during meals. They haven't been bringing it up as often lately, which is too bad. More than once Anna has gotten a game going with a bunch of grown-ups at a birthday party, and long after the kids tire of the game, the adults keep going. We end up arguing about the accuracy of our answers (quick! Google it: do boa constrictors have teeth?) but always learn something (they do. Woe is me.) But my favorite part of the game is when Anna's not sure of an answer. If you ask whether her animal has a tail, she might scrunch up her nose, think for a few seconds, then say, "Well, I'm going to say no, but if I'm wrong, that's okay." For the first few weeks that we played this game, Emmy only had one trick up her sleeve: shark. Emmy would say, "Okaaaaaayyyy, I have my animal." "Does it live in the water?" "Yes." "Does it have sharp teeth?" "Yessssss." Is it a shark? "Yesssss! Yay!" And she was pretty good in the beginning! We had an animal that we knew lived in the water but did not have fins, and she guessed octopus which I thought was simply brilliant. And then she got really bad at the game. She must have lost interest, but she stopped asking informative questions and when she was the animal-thinker, she'd just keep changing the animal as we asked questions. She'd say it didn't have any legs early in the questioning, and then after 10 or so questions, we'd learn that the animal now had eight legs. Oy.
Emmy faces
Emmy's make-a-funny-face face is priceless. She cocks her head to one side, rolls her eyes up as high as they'll go and sticks her tongue our of the side of her mouth. Then she breaks into the best laugh in the history of laughs. She squishes her eyes completely shut, bares her front teeth and goes "chee hee hee hee hee..." like Ernie.
That's all I can think of for now.
*Quite possibly the most blatant sarcasm to ever be uttered.
