Month: June 2009

Drizzly Wednesday, June 24

Grace regaled me this morning with tales of her new summer camp (while modeling my shoes). She is most excited by the fact that they have computers at camp. And photography. She told me all about the cafeteria, and about how this summer (unlike the last 2, at the same camp) she actually lines up with her tray and goes through the cafeteria line. She told me about how she has her very own locker for swimming, and that they swim twice a day in the temporary above-ground pools that have been set up inside, on the hockey rink. Once, she said, “for strokes and stuff.” And the other time, “For free swim. That’s the fun one.”

Visions of her playing Marco Polo dance through my head. I remember being this age at summer camp, and the damp coldness of tugging on an already-wet bathing suit for another swimming lesson. I love this camp. As far as I can tell it’s a close approximation of a city high school experience. And Grace is delighted with it.

Whit woke me up at 7:05 when he climbed into bed with her. He giggled while he told me all about dinner with Nana last night. He talked about the roast chicken that she had brought over, with oy-ebs (took me a while to figure out this was herbs). This vegetable and fruit fearing child was so proud of himself for eating the green specks of oyebs, you’d think he had devoured a spinach and kale salad. “And, guess what, Mummy!?” he said, a piece-de-resistance sparkle in his eye, “There was a lemon in the chicken. Stuffed up its bottom!!!”

This afternoon I took Whit to swimming. In the drizzle. We were early, of course, and he was cheerful as he cantered around the pool waiting his turn, tugging up his swimming trunks that are too big and kept falling down, his skim-milk white skin (so much like mine) fairly glowing in the gloom.

Still, he remains resolutely unbuoyant. He sinks like a stone. I wonder if it’s his utter lack of body fat? He loves the water and spends his 30 minutes with his hands clasped around the neck of his college student teacher, laughing and having a ball. But float? Let go? No. At the end of the lesson, Chris, Whit’s teacher, was trying to get him to do a sitting down dive. It looks like he’s about to. But then he just dropped his hands, scooted off his butt into the water, and threw himself into Chris’s arms again.

Grace

Yesterday, Gracie and I both rode segways for the first time. Very cool. It boggles my mind to remember the over-heated press the segway received when it was invented: the item that will revolutionize modern life! The single most important invention of this century! I don’t agree with that. But they were fun to ride. And Grace got the hang of it very fast.

She’s had a rough week, my girl. She has been tired and for some reason unable to recoup her sleep. She’s been wired and whiny, exhausted and explosive. She has been rigid and unable to bounce back when something doesn’t go her way (any of this sound familiar?).

Today was a tough day. She was difficult during the drive home from NH, and then a trip to Bread & Circus was full of whining and complaining and heel-dragging. We got home and she was, in her nails-on-chalkboard way, expressing her displeasure about something (I don’t even remember what) when I snapped at her, loudly. She looked at me in surprise and immediately burst into tears. She ran upstairs and, in a few minutes, surprised me by being able to turn it around.

She came downstairs and cheerfully helped me make dinner, set the table, put away clean napkins, etc. She was frankly a delight for about 45 minutes. Then, after dinner, she wanted to blow out a candle (that she had dipped yesterday at Clark’s Trading Post). She blew it out and wanted to make a wish but Whit started talking and she started crying that she could not concentrate on her wish when someone was talking. I relit the candle and we tried again, two more times.

Finally, with Grace in floods of tears about her inability to make her wish, I blew my top and started full-on yelling at her. I sent her upstairs crying and cleaned up the kitchen, feeling miserable and guilty. She went straight to bed at 6:20 but spent at least 45 minutes on and off screaming/wailing/crying in her room. I went in several times trying to calm her down to no avail. She wanted the candle up in her room to make her wish again. I said no.

She finally went to sleep but I still feel awful about it. I know that all of the behaviors she exhibited tonight are ones I still demonstrate at 35. I can be inflexible, unable to cope with people not doing what I want, emotional, and hair-triggery. She is acting out behaviors that she inherited from me: they are probably both innate and learned. In both cases, clearly and utterly my fault. And if I am any example, she’s got a lifetime ahead of them.

So I yelled at my child because she aggravated me, but even more because I hate knowing that it is I, and only I, who has given her this baggage to carry. Her inability to cope when the world won’t bend to her will is my responsibility. Oh, what a poor legacy I have given her. I am ashamed at my own immaturity; she was behaving badly but she does not deserve to be yelled at and I ought not take out my own frustration about my weaknesses on her.

Oh, Gracie girl, you deserve so much more than you have in me. I will go into your room tonight and smother you with kisses, and I will sleep with a heavy heart.