Five

Dear Alyce,

Yesterday you woke up and you were five years old. Do you remember when you were born? I do. You'll learn about this when you're older, but grown-ups are always thinking about the past. We cling to it the way that you leap toward your future. I think about the day you were born because it was magical. You don't ask me too often to tell you the story of your birth, except for the part where we named you (and I love to tell that story). But one day you'll want to know that it was very, very cold outside on the day you were born. I'll tell you how I walked around the house for almost two days, encouraging you to move down, down, down.  How I was frightened of my labour pains but then you were born I wasn't frightened anymore. How when we met I understood that you were mine and I knew how to love you and everything was how it should be. Sometimes I make mistakes but I always know how to love you. I write you love letters all the time, like this one, on your birthday.

Will you read this when you are grown and remember what it was like to be five? Let me help. You still believe in imaginary worlds, even though you pretend not to sometimes. One day at school I watched your librarian read you a story about bats sneaking into a library late at night to read all the books, and then she asked your class if this story could happen in real life. (Of course it could happen, bats love to read, we all know that.) You were the only one to raise your hand. So now I'm watching you learn that other people have already stopped believing in stories, and while it makes me sad to think you might have given up hope, I know better. I still believe in fairies, Alyce, so don't bother with what other people think.

Before you were born I thought children were sweet and delicious. You, my Alyce, are sweet and delicious, but you are also brave, and confident, and stubborn, and curious, and electric. The other day you asked me what would happen if a space rock hit the earth like it did the dinosaurs. Later that day you asked me to explain war. I wish you still asked mostly about unicorns, but you are five now and have one small foot planted firmly in the world. You already know why it is wrong to hurt someone else, that one of our most important tasks in this world is to be kind. You also know that things are complicated and that sometimes it isn't easy to be kind. But the thing is, you try harder than anyone I know, and that is one of the reasons I love you so much.

I struggled writing this letter. I started yesterday, on your birthday, but I kept putting it away. Nothing felt right. Ask anyone else and they'll tell you why: I'm not quite on board with your growing older. Why is this so hard for mothers to do, to get on board with the inevitable, and wonderfully exciting new things you'll experience as you get bigger and bigger, like wearing earrings, going to the mall alone with your friends, or falling in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hands down the greatest heroine ever)? Is it because we worry about the not-so-wonderfully exciting new things you'll also experience? I think it is all true. But there is something else that makes me drag my feet. I have loved so much about you at every year of your life, and at each birthday I just can't imagine that there could be more.

So I'll use this special place, this blog I write mostly to you and your sister, to tell you all the wonderful things I love about you when you are five. I love that you pronounce scissors as zizzors, and say burgerker instead of burger. I love how you spoon me when we sleep together, how you nuzzle your head in the space at the back of my neck. I love how you sing, dance, and leap your way through so much of your life. I love how you never forget your sister. I love that you asked for a fish for your birthday and you named him Periwinkle. I love that you care so deeply.

Yesterday you woke up and you were five years old. I predict that it will be an excellent year.

Love,
Your Mama

Dear Alyce

First day.

Dear Alyce,

We often write letters to people when we aren't quite sure how to say what we're feeling in person. Or, maybe when we really want to make sure that we're heard. We talk a lot, don't we? Sometimes you do most of the talking, other times it's me who can't stop going on and on. Do you like our conversations? Do you wish they were mostly about princesses and rainbows and sparkles, and less about responsibilities and manners and growing up? You might, and I'd understand that. You're four (and a half) and your primary job in life is to surround yourself with things that make you smile. On most days I want you to concern yourself with imaginary friends, fairy tales, dress-up clothes, and dancing, but sometimes I have to direct your attention to things that don't at first seem like any fun at all.

Like school.

You and I are alike in more ways than I ever could have imagined. We both adore moving our bodies to music and singing loudly in the car. And I think given the freedom to do so, you and I could spend the rest of our days wandering around the city, bouncing from bakery to bakery, delirious from all those quality carbohydrates. I think you'd choose chocolate cupcakes every time, and I would probably alternate between an airy pastry of some kind and a good baguette with some chocolate. We also both love so hard that sometimes we get all wound up in the intensity of those feelings. Because we love so much we get hurt a lot, not in the grand, dramatic kind of heartache, but by those smaller (though powerful) wounds. And don't think I haven't noticed how much time you spend worrying about other people's feelings. I could write a book on that skill, and I'll lend it to you some time, though I'd rather not. And it's funny, isn't it, how we can so immediately become wrapped up in each others feelings?

Off to school.

This happened a few mornings ago. It was your first day of senior kindergarten and your first day at a new school. Holy cow, that's big. Of course you were a junior kindergartener last year, but somehow that seems so beginner, so part-time (and to think you were only three years old)! But this year is different and no matter our preparations, it caught all of us by surprise, taking the wind out of us a bit on Tuesday morning. Now you are four (and a half) and you're ready for the big-time (or the full-time, at least). I have been so excited for you, eager to help you pick out your favourite backpack, lunch bag, and back-to-school gold sparkle shoes. Now if only you'd put them on your feet instead of carrying them around all day. (That you carry your special treasures with you at all times in bags or in your hands is one of the things about you that sneaks into my heart, never to leave.)

They are awfully nice shoes.

But Tuesday morning was a tough one. I had stayed up late the night before making you a special back to school card and planning a chocolate chip pancake breakfast. I even put the good linens on the table. I am a hopeless (hopeless!) romantic when it comes to school. No matter the rough ending of my dissertation, school has always filled me with the same kind of joy that Mondays bring me, though on a much bigger scale. I love the potential of school, of all the things you can learn and all the ways your world can change. When I was younger, though a bit older than you, I'd daydream about running away to a school for dancers, or a private school where I could wear a uniform (influenced as I was by Fame and Dead Poet's Society). When I watch you take for your first steps toward school, my heart beats a bit faster because I can already see how much you and I are alike. I can already see how you look ahead to your own transformations, even at four (and a half). You are so ready to step out into that world.

That first day I was eager, I often am, and I was unprepared for your reaction that morning. Of course it really isn't a surprise that you rejected my card and refused chocolate chip pancakes. You were hurting and scared and all the while you were watching me, aware of how you were hurting my feelings and caught between wanting to make me happy and wanting to put your foot down in the face of your big first day. I am not going to school, mama. Not even once, you declared repeatedly. Not that you said much at all. You marched around the house trying to show me how much you were hurting by trying to convince me that you didn't care about anything at all. But you did care. You were missing your old friends, worried about making news ones. I tried to be brave in the midst of all these hurt feelings, but mostly I was disappointed that you didn't like my card or my pancakes.

Of course, and it was plain to see, my hurt feelings weren't really about you turning your nose at my card, but were about that panic settling in under my skin, that realization that you were leaving. Until now you've always been mine at home, even when you spent time in that other world. No matter anything else, you're still mine, and I'll hold on as tight as I can, even when I'm not paying attention to myself. Because if I had been paying attention I would have seen that the card, the linens, the new school clothes were really about me avoiding an enormous sense of grief over my first child growing older, and happier and stronger and funnier and sillier. Yes, of course, I'm grateful that I have the blessings of a healthy family and my grief isn't over the sadness of ill health or tragic circumstances. But it is still a grieving. Watching you grow is a complicated sport. I am cheering for you, encouraging you to reach further and faster, but I also kind of just want you to stay behind with me.

No wait, I don't want you to stay behind at all, I want you to move forward. And I'll always be here if you want to fill me in on the details. Like I said, it's complicated.

All of those feelings emerged when, a few moments before it was time to leave, you found your way into the kitchen where I was nursing my own sad heart and asked me if you could have some breakfast. I asked you what you wanted, and you only replied, I want you, mama, before running into me so hard I almost lost my balance. Your emotions, like mine, had finally come to the surface and you were able to just cry for a few moments, exposed as we were. I scooped you up on my lap and we sat for a few minutes, maybe more, just hanging out with each others fears. And then that was it. We love hard, we get hurt hard, but then we just get things done, you and me. You quickly ate your pancake (the ones I had planned the night before) and we all set off for school, you, me, Shira and Papa. Somehow I just knew that I should pack your back-to-school card, and I'm glad I did. You showed it proudly to your new teacher and have barely let go of it since.

There are many good things that come out of such intensity, so please don't ever apologize for that. Do apologize to your sister, however, who four days later is still completely devastated by your departure each morning. I guess you've got it all figured out now, but Shira still feels a bit lost. Thank you for giving her such big hugs after school each day. It brings her so much joy, which helps take some of the edge off of the fact that you run to her first after school, not me.  I don't mind waiting.

She waits all day long for you to come home from school.

I'm not sure if you'll remember this, but the first thing you said to me after school on Tuesday was this: This was the best day ever. Ever.  I think our work here is done. We are quite the team, aren't we?

Love,
mama

Saying no

I found this letter in a box of things I can't seem to get rid of, and I am so grateful I kept it. This is a letter given to me when I was twelve by my seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Cowan. He was a remarkable teacher who was kind enough to see how much I was struggling with trying to be perfect. I was having a hard year socially (understatement of the century) and I was throwing myself into my academics and anything else that I could do well, such as ballet. It seems that I have always been exceedingly hard on myself and worried about what other people might think. There are many reasons for this, but at this particular time I was dealing with some very harsh judgment from my circle of friends (that resulted in losing those friends, for the most part). I was always a kid who had high expectations of herself, and dealing with rejection at the social level intensified my need to be perfect in other areas of my life. I was flailing under this pressure and this very kind teacher reached out to me:

It is terribly worrying to have a whole lot of people expecting you to do well in everything you do, all the time. At some point it becomes necessary to consider every activity, every class, every assignment, every friendship, and ask if it is worth it to you to continue, or to try to meet someone else's expectations...We need to talk about time and how to spend it. Only time has value. Nothing else does. 

I have received so many encouraging replies since my post on authenticity. Thank you for these words, too, and thank you for sharing some of your own authentic "reveals." I think the kind of authenticity I want to practice in my life is found right here in Mr. Cowan's letter. Being authentic means sometimes letting go of expectations, sometimes coming from others, other times coming from yourself. Expectations themselves are not bad, in fact, I think they are quite valuable (and I think Gretchen Rubin is spot on with her take on this). But when these expectations stand in the way of living the life you want to, when you feel paralyzed by what other people will think, it's time to reassess (I'm looking straight at myself, by the way).

Thank you, Mr. Cowan, for your many kindnesses. Also, thank you for introducing me to E.A. Poe, Shakespeare, and writing for the sake of writing.

2012, A few words: Part Two

Dear 2012:

I reached out to you earlier, and I've been waiting things out a bit before getting back to you. I wanted to let January take its course, you know, I didn't want to be pushy. Having considered the previous year's chaos and realizing that too many decisions were made in haste, I wanted to take things slow.

Mostly, I was just afraid. Nervous to take any decisive steps for fear that I'd choose the wrong path. There is so much wonderful freedom that comes with the position we find ourselves in, but with this freedom comes the sometimes suffocating pressure of knowing that our family needs to move forward (and also needs those basic life sustaining goods, like rent and food). 2012, I'm not asking for any special favours, really, I'm not. But I am asking for good push in the right direction and just a little support. We can do the rest.

I don't want to focus on last year anymore. I'm letting it go. We are settling in to our new surroundings in Canada (and having moved in with my mum, some of these surroundings are more familiar than others), we are tentatively planting some roots. We are tentative not because we're not sure we want to stay, but because we are--or at least, I am--a bit nervous about the steps we take. But we are stepping nonetheless.

I made an enormously deep step last week: I applied to midwifery school.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am making yet another massive change. That's the usual thing to do after a year like mine, right? This is a radical decision and I am terrified. I am mostly terrified that others will judge me making another bad decision. I'm worried they won't stand behind me as I move toward a path that I've wanted so dearly for so many years. I hear in my head all the second-guessing about money and careers and won't you just get a job already and stop going to school? Yes, I've been in school for what feels like a zillion years. Yes, it would be awesome to work and provide for my family today, right now. No, I don't think I'm being selfish. And yes, maybe I'll help deliver your baby one day. I'd love to!

Now that last one sounds awesome. Because the one thing that doesn't terrify me is the opportunity to be a midwife. I will be a good midwife. It will be hard work, but I can do hard.

When I wrote my list last year, becoming a midwife came only after having more children (which is still in the works, but later). I added it to my list but I never made a big deal out of it. It wasn't the right time to talk about it because I knew I'd be looking for other work and I feared someone finding my blog and thinking to themselves, who wants to hire this wannabe midwife for our decidedly un-midwife type job? Not us! I wanted to shout from every corner of this blog that after twelve years of dreaming about midwifery school, I was going to do it. Instead I remained (almost) silent. Of course I still talked the ears off of my friends about it, some of whom spent a very long time helping me craft an midwifery school application that I hope will land me an interview (thank you from the bottom of my midwife-loving heart, by the way), but I tried to keep my big ideas away from this blog.

Not anymore. 2012, this is where you come in. I need that push I mentioned earlier. We are trying our best to choose our steps wisely, Matt is now looking for his own new job, I'm working part-time from home and spending the rest of time with The Children. We are slowly moving towards, well, moving (out of my mum's house, that is). Matt and I carefully considered what is best for our future and we decided, in the spirit of this freedom we find ourselves navigating, that our little family was going to make me a midwife. I am grateful. I am relieved.

And I really hope I get an interview.


Yours sincerely,
with love and kindness,
and fingers crossed,
danielle

Dear Alyce, Concering You Being Three

Dear Alyce, Concerning You Being Three:

My Alyce. You have grown into a delicious little girl. Yesterday you informed me that when you grow up you'd like to be both a princess and a dragon-catcher. I appreciate your combined desire for luxury and adventure. I am happy to support your ambitions in any way that I can. I do hope, however, that you permit me to be something else besides your prince, which is the title you bestow on me when we're playing dancing princesses. I guess being a prince is better than only being your lady in waiting, especially if as your prince I can join you on your dragon-finding expeditions. But I like beautiful gowns, too. Let's make Hille your prince. He won't mind. In fact, I think he'd kind of like it.

But your sometimes your world is more than twirling princesses and chasing dragons. Sometimes your days are filled with the most powerful emotions I've ever seen, soaring up and down at a moment's notice, catching the entire house off-guard. One moment you are Sleeping Beauty, dressed in your best pjs and crown, and the next you are losing that crowned head because I asked you to wash your hands after using the potty. You aren't just annoyed that I'm getting in your royal way with my tedious requests, you are collapsed in a heap of despair. This despair is the most intense, chaotic, melodramatic emotion I've witnessed. Ever.

Just yesterday I was loading the dishwasher, and when I asked you to wait before pushing in the racks (seeing as my hands were still inside the dishwasher), in what I thought was my perfectly patient parenting voice, your response felt catastrophic. I don't want to even get into the details of what happened next, as neither of us come out looking good. Let's just say that later, when we were both done crying, I appreciated how you gave me your best bunny to squeeze and how you rubbed my face.

At three, your days are often dances between two worlds, between dancing princesses and an exceedingly cruel reality where your parents insist that you wash your hands/don't sit on your sister or hit your mama/put on your dress/ok, put on your other dress/ok, fine, put on that other dress/please don't collapse into another tragic heap/and other seemingly ridiculous demands. Sometimes I forget that you are so busy learning how to do everything that you don't have time to worry about pleasantries. You are three. You are excited, impatient, curious, and sensitive. You are three.

EverydaySomedays I forget that you are three and I expect you to comply with my very reasonable demands. And everydaysomdays I forget that I am the grown-up and that I should limit my own meltdowns appropriately (one, maybe two, per day). I expect that we will figure this all out sometime soon, hopefully before Shira turns three. At the very least I'll make you deal with her. Speaking of Shira, I think she'd make a very fine prince.

Yours sincerely,

The woman who grew you in my belly and then pushed you out after more than one day of labour. Without painkillers. Also known as Mama. xxx

Singing Rules

Dear Alyce, Concerning the Rules for Singing:

I love to hear you sing. Love it. I love it when you sing while you eat, bathe, play, skip, build, paint, and cook. I also love it when you sing in the car. I have no preference when it comes to the song choice, though that might change as you grow and develop musical tastes that I will surely find undesirable. That will be ok, we’ll get through that stage, perhaps brought together by a mutual love of Barbra Streisand, as was the agreement I had with my own mother. No matter how much we might disagree, we always have Yentl.

Today I enjoyed your silly rendition of The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, the ABCs, and My Favourite Colour. I also appreciated the songs you made up about chocolate, princesses who love chocolate, and spiders who love chocolate. Really, I love them all. Seriously, Alyce, you have a free pass to sing all the time. It makes your Mama happy.

However.

We need to establish some ground rules when it comes to duets. You see, I also love to sing. As a child I could spend the whole afternoon belting out songs in my room, and even when I learned that my room wasn’t soundproof and that everyone else could hear me, I still sang. Singing has always made me feel joyful in a way that I think you already understand, even at the age of three.

My point is this: you are not the only one permitted to sing. Yes, you sing beautifully, and yes, you make up some fantastic songs about chocolate, but this does not make you Queen of Singing. There, I said it. It seems that whenever I start singing along with you, innocently experiencing a moment of joy, you immediately, in no uncertain terms, order me to stop. While I expected that you would forbid me to sing around you as a teenager, I was unprepared for your strong opinions about my singing voice at this early age. And I’d love you to clear something up for me: are offended by my singing voice or have I simply violated the “no one else gets to sing but me” rule? I think it’s the latter, and I’m unhappy with this arrangement.

It is my suggestion that we meet in the next few days, having had some time to consider the facts, and establish some new rules. I am happy to compromise, but I an unwilling to keep quiet in your presence, because, frankly, you are always in my presence. So let’s schedule a meeting over hot chocolate, my treat.

Yours sincerely,

The woman who grew you in my belly and then pushed you out after more than one day of labour. Without painkillers. Also known as Mama. xxx