Sixteen Weeks: March of the Parents

Why is it that sometimes I have all the patience in the world, and at other times I want to just run out of the room screaming? For instance, last night as Emily squealed about getting soap in her eyes while I washed her hair in the shower and she frantically tried to wipe it out with the plastic shower curtan lining, I laughed at the hilarity of a slippery five-year-old throwing a tantrum about soap, and then she ended up laughing as well. Then there are other times when she's being paticular about "the show" (a pretend game in which I am Emily's neighbor and she comes to visit me) and she wants me to talk on the phone to one of her "friends". I don't know why, but she's always liked me to talk on a pretend phone and I've always found it boring, and well, annoying. So, when she handed me her fluffy pink play phone and said it was Diamond (an awful girl from her preschool who we thankfully never see anymore), I said "You know, I don't feel like talking on the phone right now", maybe too sharply, but isn't it a life lesson that people don't always want to do what you want them to do?

Another midly annoying development lately is Emily's discovery of commercials. We recently got cable service through the university, which includes Nickelodeon. It's been a downhill progression from no tv at all last year to just 12 local channels, and now full cable including HBO. But unlike the Disney channel's blatent self-promotional spots, Nickelodeon has real comercials for things like cereal that turns your milk green. As if it wasn't difficult enough to escape the cereal aisle with just a box of unsweetened Cherios in hand, Emily now has these images of kids having way too much fun eating breakfast imprinted on her little brain.

So, I'm the parent right? Don't let her watch, right? Well, I sort of figure that she will be exposed to all kinds of advertising eventually, at least this gives us a chance to talk about it. I told her, "The point of commercials is to make you want things, usually things we don't need". And she agreed. She's still just so innocent about these things, I just hate that she's finally catching on.

But speaking of imprinting, I bought Emily her first real soccer ball this weekend and we went to her school and kicked it around for a bit. It was so sweet to watch her akwardly run up to the ball, turn her foot out, kind of scoot the ball, and it would roll about three feet. But she's honestly quite good for never playing before. I had a good time, even with my not having kicked a ball around for six years. Muscle memmory, it's crazy. Not that I have any muscles to remember anything... but anyway.

Hopefully we'll get her on some kind of team soon. She's still working on swimming, because I'd like her to be able to swim for my own sanity. But I want to walk the fine line between encouraging her to enjoy soccer, since I had such a fantastic time playing when I was younger, and pushing her into a sport just because used to play it. Of course, admittedly, a little part of me would like her to be better at it than I was. That's wrong, right? Is it wrong then to be looking at the Camp Sealth website and figuring out what session she'll go to next summer? Okay, then it's probably also wrong to be teaching her camp songs, so she'll have a leg up on all the other kids.

But it's not as though I want her to go to camp because I went to camp. I want her to go to camp because it had such a profound influence on the person I am today. It allowed me exposure to other cultures, people, lifestyles, and time to gain my independence and reflection away from real life. Sound like a walking advertisement? Well, it is true. Camp, for me can be summed up on one word: Magic.

Sometimes it seems that Will is piece of cake compared to Emily, but I guess it's just the age. With Will, I don't worry about whether our decisions are affecting his fragile self-esteem or I don't know, discussions on death, or why we can't marry our brothers.

But Will. He's such a good baby. Really. We went to see March of the Penguins last weekend (Which Emily had been just dying to see thanks to comercials!) and he sat quietly during the first part of the movie, ate a little, fell asleep, then woke up for he credits, and hardly made a peep. This was my first movie since Ian and I saw Kingdom of Heaven almost four months ago and I sat there uncomfortable and timing what turned out to be false labor. Then I didn't eat any popcorn and felt like the seats were made of wood, and aside from Orlando Bloom's uncanny ability to stare off into space and squint his eyes, the movie left much to be desired. This time, on the other hand, the movie was so touching, interesting, and beautiful, the seats were soft, and the popcorn was so buttery and salty and delicous. Maybe it's because we get out so often, or maybe it was that as new parents, we could understand the penguin's sacrifice, their grief for the chicks that died from a) the cold b) starvation or c) the cold.

At the end, I was very glad not to be a penguin. And also glad to be the parent of these two incredible kids.