Demons, Saints and Dead Crows

It's amazing to me, the subjects that can come up from listening to the radio...particularly now that the girls are actually paying attention to the lyrics of a song. Imagine Dragons' Demons came on, and Sophie was off to the races. (Note: my sentences often cut off because Sophie is a chronic interrupter who doesn't care for long answers. Oh, the irony that her forever burden is to be saddled with a rambling, inarticulate mother.)

Sophie: "What is a demon?"
Me: "Well, I guess a demon is something that haunts you, that causes you regret or"
S: "What is a saint?"
M: "Um...well, the word is often used to describe someone who"
S: "Why does he say there is a beast inside? Inside where? Inside his house?"
M: "I think he means inside himself, like"
S: "Inside his BODY? WHY? How did that happen? Like in the movie where the mom and girl switch bodies? Did he switch bodies with a demon?"
M: "Well, I"
S: "And why is he hot? Is it summertime? Oooh...is he the sun?"
M: "Well, that's a good thought, but I think he might be referring to"
S: "What does 'kingdom come' mean?"
M: "Oh, my. Well. It's a religious term, I guess, referring to what happens when someone dies, like if they see the kingdom"
S: "Crows are so beautiful when they die."
M: "Um...what?"
S:  "When a crow dies, then all the other crows make a circle around the dead crow and feel very sad about him being dead."
M: "Really? That is beaut"
S: "And then they fly away and the dead crow is eaten and that's the circle of life and it is very natural and no one can do anything about it. You can't fight it, Mom. You can't fight the circle of life."
M: [speechless]
S: "I think a demon is a bad monster, and he is telling someone to not get burned by the demon, which is him, or they will have to see the king in the kingdom and ask for medicine."
M: "Uh, I think you are probably right."
S: "Not probably. I AM right. Because you just have to listen to the words, Mommy. The words tell you the story, that's what my teacher says. I'm not making this up."
M: "Well, thank you for letting me know"
S: "Mom, stop talking! I can't hear the music!!"

Survival instinct

Clearly, my kindergartener is a genius.

Vexing tornado of wrath

Emma had another epic meltdown about pants. Yes, you read that right...I said pants.

She is fanatical about what she wears. The texture, the feel, the length, the exact right balance of tightness and looseness. She has very specific needs when it comes to clothing, mysterious, ever-changing needs that are impossible to completely identify or meet.

I have tried to be accommodating, up to a point. When I was little, I had no choice at all in what I wore. We didn't have much money, and my parents put me in whatever they could afford. I hated a lot of it, and I'm sure I voiced that opinion. But I didn't dare dream of refusing to wear something. I started working when I was 11, and from that moment on I bought my own clothes. I loved the freedom of choosing what I wanted within my own budget, and to a certain extent, I wanted to extend that freedom of choice to my daughters. Emma is her own person with her own preferences, and - to a reasonable degree - I want to respect and foster that.

Also, I am not without sympathy to her clothing dilemma. A lot of her odd clothing requirements are less about preference and more about comfort. She is very sensitive to the feel of the clothes she wears, and I don't want her to be uncomfortable. So I have listened to her laundry list of wishes and tried very hard to buy her things I think she will like. But pleasing Emma is not that straightforward. The main problem she and I have is that she will try things on and declare she likes them, and we take the tags off and keep them, and then they are washed and she puts them on and decides she loathes them and they can never touch her skin ever ever again and we've just wasted precious money and time.

So, after many times of the above scenario and lots of lecturing and angry words about gratitude and wastefulness and personal responsibility, she has lost the privilege of picking out what she wears until she can stand by, and accept the consequences of, her choices. The only clothes currently in her dresser are ones she has already tried on and approved. I'm not forcing her to wear mohair long johns or wool pants suits. (I admit though...the thought has crossed my mind.) Of course, she has since changed her mind about many of these same clothes, deciding she no longer "likes" them, after we were no longer able to return them. And she resents the loss of control, which is fueling her anger. So right now, it kinda goes like this in our house: I choose, she wears, and every single day is a battle.

Today, it was over skinny black pants that I bought her right before Christmas. I do a lot of shopping at the thrift store...not only for the obvious reason of cost, but also because pre-worn clothes are softer and tend to be more appealing for Emma texture-wise. She tried the pants on and said she liked them, but they were too loose in the waist. Santa brought her a belt for Christmas that she loves, so problem solved, right?

The minute she put on the pants, she went ballistic. Sample utterings this morning included: "They are killing me!" "Oh my god, these pants, THESE PANTS!" "The bottoms bunch up and I look like a freak." "They are itchy and awful." "They hurt, they hurt, they hurt!" "WHY are you doing this to me????!"

She whined. She screamed. She walked like a robot, refusing to bend her legs because, apparently, the pants are so awful that they rendered her knees useless. She rolled her eyes, growled, moaned. She said several rude things, which earned her a bedtime right after dinner this evening. All told, it was a temper tantrum. An impressive show of will in a two-year-old. But a nine-year-old? The word ridiculous kept springing to mind.

Mostly, Sophie and I ignored her. (After many years of trial and error, we have learned in these instances that the less attention paid, the better.) The pants stayed on. I drove her to school, kissed her goodbye, and watched her robot-walk her way through the doors. Battle over, for now. And tomorrow? Once more into the breach, my friends.

I'm not proud to admit this, but her behavior drives me around the bend. I know it shouldn't, that I should let her antics roll right off my back, that she wants a reaction. But oh, dear lord, that is so much easier said than done. I worry about her, about how emotional and prone to anger she is. I worry I'm failing as a mom by not helping her figure out a more effective way to deal with her feelings. I worry because she is ME. She is so much like me, it sometimes takes my breath away. And I know that there are aspects to my personality that are hard to live with...for others, and for me. I don't want that for her. I really, really don't.

Emma can be sweet and kind and generous and gentle and a thousand other amazing things. She can also be a vexing tornado of wrath. And all that said, I adore her. All of her, every single aspect that makes her who she is. Because all the many facets of her personality have mixed together, creating this astounding, complex, amazing person...a person that I feel privileged to have in my life, even in her very worst moments. I love her. I just don't always know how to deal with her.

The polar vortex has nothin' on the tooth fairy

So, remember that last post a couple days ago where Sophie lost her first tooth and was all like, "Oh, Hi blood! Nice to see ya. Let's be friends" and her picture looked like she was being held hostage and trying desperately to send info about her location with her eyes and I predicted that the Tooth Fairy would be visiting us again soon because the ousted tooth's neighbor was leaning at a 45 degree angle and seemed ready to bolt any second?

Well, the whole point of the above rambling paragraph is to preface the use of one of my favorite sentences in the English language: I WAS RIGHT.

It's hard to see the space at the bottom where the two teeth used to be because she was literally clamping her jaw shut with excitement. But trust me...it's there. The space, I mean. Not the teeth. They be gone.

This time there was no muss, no fuss. Sophie asked Chris to pull the tooth out because she thought it was ready to leave. (By this point the tooth was literally lying prone in her mouth, so I think she assessed the situation correctly.) However, just as Chris accepted the challenge, Sophie decided maybe she'd try yanking it out herself. And then..boom. Reach in, pull out, done.

So the tooth fairy came again last night, undeterred by the weather. That's twice now that she's braved the polar vortex, so clearly she's a pretty tough lady. (I think T.P. is a woman, but my daughters think the tooth fairy is a man who looks suspiciously like Dwayne Johnson.) Anyway, polar vortex is, as far as I can tell, just a really cool way of saying that right now it is very, very, very cold. Everywhere. Over 30 states are under some type of danger warning, and the vortex has been messing with the Chicago area pretty impressively. Basically, if you take a foot of snow and throw in record-breaking temps (at our worst, we had a high of -6 degrees - A HIGH - with a -30 wind chill), then you have a polar vortex. Ta-da! School was cancelled for two days, and basically all of Chicagoland shut down Monday. But does the tooth fairy let stupid polar vortexes slow her down? HELL NO. Lady's got a job to do. This, more than anything, is why I'm convinced that Ms. Fairy is a woman.

Here are a couple photos I took of our backyard, right after the snow fell and before true polar vortex hit. The quiet was so deep and profound and peaceful...like the snow had wrapped up the whole world in a thick, comforting, very-very-not-warm blanket.

Mother Nature is so damn cool. I wonder if M-Nat and T-Fairy know each other? I hope so. Cool chicks should totally stick together.

Teeth, blood and fairies...oh my!

Sophie "lost" her first tooth last nigh.

I put lost in quotes because the tooth did not leave of its own volition. It had been loose for awhile, and I think it was ready to come out. But the tooth actually separated from Sophie's mouth only after she tripped and did a face plant into the ground. So the tooth was not really lost; it was ousted.

As is typical in these types of situations, there was blood. If Sophie had injured another body part and even the tiniest drop of blood had been spied, sobbing and hysteria would have insued. But because she was so damn excited to lose her first tooth, the blood became a badge of honor. We rinsed out her mouth with salt water a few times, and that was that. Not a word of complaint.

Tucking her in for bed, I was dismayed to see that she hadn't cleaned up her room. "Sophie, I hope the Tooth Fairy can make it to your bed tonight without tripping. It's dangerous in here."

Sophie replied, "Mommy, the Tooth Fairy flies. You don't have to worry about that. She is very good at her job."

This morning...five dollars! And T.F. even left behind the tooth so it can be placed in Sophie's tooth box, which she has been patiently waiting to use now for over a year.

Sophie was right...that Tooth Fairy is a total professional. And that's a good thing, because the ousted tooth's neighbor is barely hanging on. I think we'll be seeing T.F. again very soon.

The Mathews Family on NYE: A Photo/Video Essay

New Year's Eve 2013 in the Mathews household was all about the board games. And cocktails. And games. And tears. And games. And ridiculous local television coverage that made me embarrassed for Chicago. And GAMES!

New Year's Eve begins with a rousing game of Beat the Parents! Will they beat us? Time will tell. And yes, those are Mommy and Daddy drinks in the picture. We gotta level the playing field somehow, folks.

 

The kids win! BUT...the parents are into their third cocktail each, which means....THE PARENTS WIN TOO!!!!

Next board game...Labyrinth. Who will win, WHO WILL WIN?

And the victor is...Emma! Final verdict for Labyrinth: two thumbs up. In fact, we like it so much, we play it again.

Labyrinth Take 2: Sophie wins! Very proud smile with tears still drying on her face because 30 seconds earlier, she was convinced she had lost and crumpled into a sobbing mass of despair. Ah...the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, the emotional roller coaster of Olympians and six-year-olds everywhere.

Up next...Make 'N' Break.

Make 'N' Break: A Video Snippet.

We have a winner!!! Anyone notice I'm the only one that hasn't won a game yet? I blame the margaritas. Also...this is not normally how my husband looks. He doesn't usually come across this handsome. :)

All four of us made it til midnight, and all we got was this lousy awesome selfie. :)

Happy 2014 from the Mathews family! May your year be filled with wonder, laughter and love.