When I started this I fully intended to post only once a week, and stick to my slow parenting regimen. Most of the people I know don’t have time to read more blogs, I don’t want to add to their stress, and I don’t have time to write much more than once a week. Also, I’m a perfectionist.
There, I said it. I’m a perfectionist and I don’t like the idea of posting something I haven’t revised to the nth degree. (What is the nth degree?) But I’m finding that I miss being here, “people” (my hordes of followers) are asking when I’m going to post again, and I love the practice of writing this way; it’s different than the way I approach a poem. I just sit down…and write. Huh. Imagine that.
So…maybe a little pressure is a good thing for Pokey Mama, maybe I post a bit between the “official” Pokey Mama installments. Besides, we’ve reached a benchmark: yesterday my girl baby turned 12. She promised she wouldn’t get older than 4th grade, but that was back when she still liked me.
Those of you whose kids still think you’re an infallible, hippocratic-oath-abiding, sharp-dressing, provider-of-all-things-yummy-and-wonderful Goddess, savor it. These days my husband and I have a mantra: when my daughter rolls her eyes at us we look at each other, smack our foreheads and say, Oh, I forgot! I’m the stupidest person in the world. It scares me that this makes us feel better.
I should make it clear that my daughter is wonderful (of course, but she really is) and I know she loves me. She may even (secretly) still admire me. Back when she was dazzled by my greatness this is what she made for a school project:
But now it’s her job to think she knows more than I do, and it’s my job to let her believe that…some of the time. When I’m short on sleep it’s my job to yell things I later regret. Or, if I’m rested, to patiently explain why it makes sense for her to appreciate my wisdom and experience. Because I say so. That’s why. So there.
Tonight this girl goes to her first school dance. You can tell from those feet she’s going to be an amazing dancer.
Amy Dryansky 
I obviously have LOTS of time ’cause I’m reading your blog (WAY better than organizing my room, planning a memorial, looking for work, writing, – you get it).
And, luckily my 12-year old is a boy and just says things like, “you know, I am going to have to rebel against you one day and get all hormonal.” And unluckily, my 8 year old (you know who) who is mostly the bestest loving girl ever to me, occasionally says things like, “I don’t think you should wear that, you have old lady legs.” Sigh. (So her, 12- I shudder to think.)
Happy Birthday, sweet Maddy! She sounds like just the kind of feisty girl we need more of in this world! In my opinion, Maddy’s behaviors are proof of a job well done, Pokey Mama!
Sweet! Your in-between post strikes me as very fitting – that’s my experience of both poem writing and parenting. The on-the-flyness, the un-scriptedness, “this isn’t how I thought it would be” and yet it is. There is intention and then there’s what follows. And yeah, those feet look like they’re meant for dancing!
Oh lordy, I am helpless before sweet baby girl pics. And is there anything better than school project afro hair? I have it on good authority that the daughter years between 11-17 pretty well suck eggs, but improve mightily thereafter… But oh, those feet, they do dance all over your heart!
Just so you know, my 5 year old said today, “I wonder what it would be like to have the kind of Mom who never hurts you.” This after I searched- very gently- his head for ticks. I shudder to think what he’ll say to me when he is twelve. Maybe this is why they say boys are easier on Moms… We fall of the pedestal so very early on. Or, at least, I do.
I can’t believe those are her feet. Those are cute feet. I wish I’d known her then, but I am even happier that I get to know her now.