Bodies in Motion

     Last Thursday, on a net suspended about 30 feet above a thin tumbling pad, on the way from a foam triangle-filled crawlspace to a twin set of wave slides, Clara made friends with a 3-year-old named Keira. I don't remember a lot of their first exchange, because I was trying to splay my limbs so that each of my feet and one hand rested on the net's side supports.  That way, the other hand would be free to grab Clara when the net broke.  Keira would have to fend for herself.
     The play structure took up part of a converted warehouse, and, besides its great height, was about 100 feet long.  It had three different slides and multiple foam-covered nooks, platform ladders, crawl spaces and nets.  Parents were encouraged to join their spawn in play, and many did, though none shared my sheen of cold brow sweat.
     We'd heard about this place from friends and decided to check it out while it was still too nasty and cold outside to go to the park.
     "Okay, guys, let's keep moving," I said, as Keira blithely sat back on her haunches on the net, regaling Clara with tales of being chased by a pretend dragon.
     Some sort of extreme gym for parents and a healthy sandwich bar took up another part of the warehouse. From time to time, Keira's dad, sweaty and bulging of bicep, came over to check on her from the gym portion, where he was bucking tractor tires across the floor and whipping large-gauge steel chains in what I imagine was the mother of all tricep and upper-back workouts.
     Clara, Keira and I finally followed a twisting tunnel to the top of the wave slides.  They were jointly called, "The Bronco Tsunami" (one was orange and one was blue).  Keira went down by herself; I went down with Clara on my lap.  She giggled all the way down and immediately wanted to go back up.  When we got to the platform ladder, I held my hands like a stirrup for her to step in so she wouldn't suffer the indignity of having me lift her up each successive platform (Keira, bless her, had figured out how to climb the side netting and so didn't require my help).
     At the top, for my child, I army-crawled under a low-slung foam roller, feeling a breeze where no breeze should blow as my jeans shimmied down my pelvis.  Putting my hands to my waist to keep them from slipping further.  Forced to use my chin to help further my progress along the tunnel.  Hoping Keira's dad had not come again to check on her.
     When we found ourselves at the top of the Tsunami slides again, Keira turned to Clara and said, "I can go down by myself," before shooting down the slide, blond hair streaming behind.  From my perspective, it was a breathtakingly ill-timed remark.
     Clara pushed me away and would have gone shooting down alone after Keira had I not maintained a fistful of the back of her sweater.  It was a moment of great parental portent.  When we had gone down the slide together, it had not seemed particularly fast.  But Clara was only two!  Yes, but Keira went down just fine and, though older, she and Clara seemed to me roughly the same size.
     "I go down by myself!" Clara shouted, wriggling furiously.
      Would I become  one of those parents who can't let go? Would I be one of those mothers who become volunteers in their child's high school so they can have lunch with them in the cafeteria every day? Who keep their forty-five-year-old child's bedroom exactly as it was when the child was eight, including stuffed animals, etc?  Who refer to their adult child as "Poopsie"?
     I let go of Clara's sweater.
     On the first bump of the slide, I saw a gap of air about four inches wide open between her bottom and the slide's surface.
     "Oh s#%*!" I yelled, propelling myself down the slide after her.
     On the second bump, she spun around so she was facing the side of the slide and on the third bump she lost all composure and landed on her back, arms and legs flapping wildly.  She came tumbling out the bottom, landing spread-eagle on the crash pad.
     Keira stood over her.  "WOW!" she said. "Are you okay?"
     "Oh, Honey!" I moaned as I came out the bottom immediately after.  I reached to pick her up but she furiously slapped my hands away.
     "NO!!" she thundered, standing up and hustling away from me and after Keira.  Now that they were on the floor, I could see Keira was a good three inches taller.  Clara was holding her shoulders in a stiff, hurt, angry way as she stalked away.  She tilted her head down so her hair screened her face, but a peek showed big blue eyes filled with tears and little pink lips trembling with emotion.
     She marched behind Keira to a play kitchen set up under one part of the play structure.  Something told me I'd best hang back and monitor from a distance.  Clara managed to gulp back all her tears in a few minutes and was soon fixing Keira a pretend bacon sandwich.  She didn't appear to be hurt physically, though it had been a mistake to let her go down the slide alone.  The bigger mistake, the bigger hurt, was that, by letting her go down alone and thus crash so spectacularly, and then by coming right after and trying to coddle and kiss her, I'd embarrassed her in front of her new friend.

Cupcake

     On Saturday, Clara stood on a kitchen chair, watching me ice 36 cupcakes.  I'd gotten three kinds of icing: bright pink, yellow and blue.  They came in a can similar to the Cheese Whiz can, and each had four different nozzle attachments for making designs.
     The naked cupcakes had been enticing; the lure of the iced cupcakes could almost not be borne.
    "Hey, no touching!" I reminded Clara as she crouched over a particularly icing-laden one at the end of the tray.  Her little fingers danced around the outside of the wrapper, and then formed a hovering cocoon over the frosted part.
     "NO," I said, scooting her chair back a little.  The pattern on the front of her T-shirt peeked out the top of the scooped neck on her fancy dress.  I'd gotten the dress at Goodwill.  It was supposed to look "Victorian," in keeping with her birthday party's Mary Poppins theme.  There was a hat too, but heaven knew where she'd ditched that.
     As guests arrived, other little girls in party dresses flitted over to watch the decorating.  Sophie's hair was done in sausage curls.  Hazel wore a pretty pastel frock and Sharlene had on a flat hat and sash over her dress that read: "Votes for Women" (The mother of Mary Poppins' charges was a suffragette).
    Sophie instructed me to make a blue flower surrounded by pink frosting on one cupcake.  As I was obliging with this request, Clara stealthily pulled the cupcake on which she'd been obsessing closer to herself.  Ever so gently-- almost as though it were an accident, as though she'd misjudged the space between her lips and the frosting--she dipped her head towards it.  I saw all this in my periphery, and glanced over in time to see her little tongue eroding the ridge of bright blue icing on her upper lip.
     "Okay, everybody go play," I said, picking up the tray and placing it on the counter.  They all did, but Clara came wandering back a few minutes later.
     "Mommy, come play with me," she said, gazing up at me sorrowfully.
     "Honey, I have to cook.  Besides, there are a million kids here to play with."  Sometimes I forget Clara is only two.  I expect her to always go and independently find someone or something to play with, but she is not of an age to do so.  Later I feel guilty for treating her like she's four.  And I think of how sad I'll feel when she's no longer a sweet-faced, bumbling little toddler.
     "Mommy.  Huggy."
     I picked her up and put her on one hip while I iced with my free hand.  The tendons on the side of my arm strained awkwardly while I pressed my index finger hard into the icing can's nozzle.
    After awhile Clara let me put her down and ran off to play.  People talked and ate cucumber and cream cheese, egg salad and swiss, and peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches.  Everyone had a Shirley Temple or two.  The kids got into power struggles and drew with sidewalk chalk on butcher paper.  Finally it was time to sing Happy Birthday.
     Clara came and stood next to me while everyone sang, smiling and clasping her hands a little, as though she wanted to give a speech but wasn't sure what to say.  Then the expression on her face turned hammy, like she might suddenly break into a celebratory jig or something.
     I gave her her cupcake afterwards. She ate all the frosting off it and took exactly one bite of cake.
     Later, as the guests were leaving and I was putting her into her booster seat for a proper lunch, she professed she wanted people to sing Happy Birthday to her again.
    "Sorry, it's a one-time thing," I explained, "But I'll sing it later to you if you want." I snapped the booster seat tray over her lap and continued, "Okay, so what was your favorite part of your birthday party?"
    Her answer was quick and unequivocal: "Cupcakes!"

Hurling Objects

     Last night, before reading Fox in Socks, I said to Clara, "Can I tell you something?"

     "Yes," she quickly replied.  Anything to hurry along the evidently meaningful conversation coming.  To wipe that steady, overbearing gaze off my face and get me to read about Mr. Knox Sir.

     "Tonight Mommy is going to give you one set of huggies, and then Daddy will give you one set of huggies, okay?"  Lord, Child, the night is half gone by the time we usually make it out of your room, I silently added.

     "Yes," Clara replied.

     "Can you look at me and say, 'Okay, Mom?'"

     "O-Tay, Mom." (Flipping through the first few pages of Fox in Socks with a plump toddler digit).

     "And then Mom will put your blankets on and stroke your hair one time, and Dad will stroke your hair one time.  And then we will give you kisses one time before we shut off the lights and close the door, okay?  Can you say, 'Okay, Mom'?" Last night I fell asleep and started drooling on your crib railing while stroking your hair for the twentieth time.  

    "O-Tay, Mom," Clara said, glancing up and grinning.  I suddenly found myself faintly unbearable, a pedantic teacher curbing free will and extracting false promises.  Maybe it would work, though.     

     We finished the book.  I maneuvered her Dora the Explorer toothbrush around her teeth while she hindered my progress by attempting to suck all the Thomas the Train toothpaste off the toothbrush's bristles. 

     We put her in her crib and covered her with all thirteen of her blankets, a procedure she has lately insisted upon and that usually turns her into a little sweat-ball. 

     "Are you sure you want all these blankets?" I asked.

     "Yes," she said firmly.

     I stroked her hair once and gave her one set of kisses.  As I straightened to leave, she said, urgently, "One more strokes, awright?"

     "Hey, we said one, remember!  You agreed," I pointed out.

     "Yes. Just one more strokes peese.  Just one more.  Awright.  Thanku."  Her tone, professional and crisp, both anticipated and curtailed any protests. She was an executive skilled at pulling extra work from slacker employees.

     "Alright, but this is the last one," I said.

     Ten minutes later, after several protracted rounds of hair-stroking and kiss-blowing, I finally gave up and left, turning off the light behind me.  

     I caught a glimpse of her just before I softly closed the door.  Her face was suffused with rage. Her fists clenched the top rail of her crib as her remarkably athletic toddler thighs pumped up and down.  (When she grows a little older, she will realize that she can easily catapult herself over the rail, a high jumper in a pink, Cinderella-embellished Pull-up.)  

     Simon and I sat on the couch downstairs awhile and listened.  

    THUNK! came from her room, syncopated with a shriek.

    I raised my eyebrows at Simon.

   "Her sippy cup," he said.

   "Ah, yes.  Probably hit the dresser on its downward trajectory."

   CA-LUNK, LUNK, LUNK.

   "Books, maybe?" Simon said.

   "How?"

   "I don't know.  Maybe she can reach the bookshelf beside her crib."

   A few minutes passed.  Her screams had lessened in intensity, and I could hear thick dregs of exhaustion in her voice, yet she refused to sleep.  When I finally went back into her room, I could see why.  She had hurled all her blankets and pillow onto the floor and stood shivering in her thin jammies in the corner of her crib.

    She lay wordlessly down and I put all her blankets back on, one by one.  Her curly head looked extra small protruding from the mountain of covers.  Her enormous eyes searched my face as I murmured comfort. She pointed in mute misery to her hair.  

    "Strokes," she finally muttered.  I stroked her hair.

    She pointed to her mouth.  I gave her some more kisses.

    It turned out to be a mercifully short hair-stroking and kiss-blowing session.  Yet even still I found myself lingering, tucking tear-soaked curls behind her ears and rubbing her back.  Her eyes drowsed. 

     "Yeave, Mommy," she finally whispered.

     I left her room, and the night was at last silent.

Two tigers

     On Monday, Clara made off with the belt to my bathrobe.  She put it in a loop on the bathroom floor.

     "It's too tired, Mommy," she said.

     "What's too tired?  Who's too tired?" I asked, rubbing semi-pricey age-defying lotion into my cheeks.  Clara held out her paw for a squirt and carefully rubbed it on her belly.

      "It's too tired," she repeated.

      "Well, maybe it needs a nap," I suggested.

      "No!!!! It's too tired!"

      As I have for the last several months, I leaned in close to her and squinted, trying to fathom what she was saying.

      "Say it again," I said.

      She looked at me for a moment, clearly pained.

      "It's too tir-gud," she said.

      My mind worked and worked through its tired convolutions.  And then a spark.

     "Rarrr," Clara encouraged.

     "Tigers!!!" I shouted.  "It's two tigers!!!!"

     "Yes, Mommy!" Clara beamed.

     "There are two tigers in the bathrobe belt loop on the floor!!"

     "Yes, Mommy!  Two tigers.  Daddy tiger and baby tiger.  'Whaaahhh, whaaaahhh.' This is the baby."

     

Ketchup

     Last night, as I spooned piles of whole wheat penne with melted cheese onto Clara's booster-seat tray, it occurred to me, with a swoon in my heart, that I'd forgotten to buy ketchup at the grocery store.  There was about a half teaspoonful left in the bottle, and that was after I'd turned it upside-down and whacked the bottle's bottom several times with my palm.

     To Clara, cheesy noodles without ketchup is like Eggs Benedict without the sauce, chicken cordon bleu without the swiss, Tina Turner without the hair.

     " 'Dup," said Clara, pointing with a dimpled finger to the the northwestern quadrant of her tray, which she usually reserves for ketchup.

     "Comin' right up," I said casually. I ducked behind the refrigerator and gestured wildly at Simon.  At that moment, getting Clara to eat her cheesy noodles without ketchup seemed about as likely as Wilbur suddenly sitting up on his haunches, using an old utility bill to whip up an origami bird with his paws. 

     As usual, Simon presented an un-ruffled front.  

     "Give her options," he said calmly.  "V8.  Pickles."     

     "She wants something to dip the noodles in," I whispered.  Knowing this battle so well I could predict the exact length and tenor of Clara's kvetches when I asked her if she'd like V8 instead of ketchup.

     "Mommy! Ketchup! Peese!" Clara called from her chair.

     "Nevermind, I have an idea," I muttered.  Hiding behind the fridge, I carefully spooned some plain spaghetti sauce from the meal I'd made for Simon and me into the almost-empty ketchup bottle.  (Clara will typically eat what we eat, or at least try some of it before resorting to her old stand-bys of PB & J, scrambled eggs, cheesy noodles, etc. Last night was the exception.  I'd sensed she was so ravenous, she didn't have the patience for spaghetti bolognese.) 

     When I squirted the ketchup/spaghetti sauce onto Clara's tray, she looked at it with disbelief and exasperation.

     "What? It's ketchup!" I said.

     "Mommy! I want 'dup!" she whined, pinning a shred of parsley in the sauce with her finger and smearing it around.  How could she eat cheesy noodles without ketchup? It was simply inconceivable. She began to melt down a little, and I realized she'd reached the point of hunger and exhaustion that precludes all mental flexibility.

     "Run next door to Kami and see if she'll let us borrow some ketchup," I instructed Simon.

     So Simon put on his coat, his hat and his shoes and went next door, returning a few minutes later with a big bottle of ketchup.

     Clara tucked into her meal with aplomb, and Simon sat down to eat his.

     "I love you, Daddy," said Clara a moment later, when a particularly large clump of cheese forced her to take a break and breath.

     "I love you, too," said Simon from his chair at the end of the table, where he sat spinning spaghetti bolognese on his fork.