This
is not something I normally brag about, but it turns out that I am a tad casual as a mother. I was first given an inkling of this possibility a few weeks ago during
my older child’s two and a half week Spring holiday.
It
was taxing one because most of the time my daughter was either injured—sprained
ankle and mild whiplash—or sick, in this case with whooping cough. Pertussis if
you’re fussy about titles. What transpired was that most days, I spent it in
her room, keeping her and my baby
company. It’s not a big room. She has a lot of energy. I had also been sleeping
with her every night. Yet oddly, when asked about it later, I was flooded with
a joy that made me grin like an idiot and I would confess, “Welllll, I didn’t
do a lot because Jl was sick, butttt…”
The
days were broken up by the occasional outing, one of which was to a friend’s
house in the Valley. No, not the Asian valley,
San Gabriel, where I was born, the famous
one. You know, the one whose accent was made famous by that awful song, Valley
Girl? Yeah, that one. So there I was, traveling “over the hill” as those from
the Westside of town call it towards the great unknown. Thank goodness for the
GPS which is absolutely useless and guided me towards the mall. Um,
wait, that might have been my internal compass seeking the local Bloomies…
At
any rate, upon arrival, she proceeded
to ply me and my children with all sorts of gluten-based foods and I continue
to blame her for making me recall just how
much I love crusty bread. Italian, rustic, French style, I love it all. *ahhhh*
My
baby was going through a bout of intense stranger anxiety so I *got* to be her
high chair for the entire seven hour visit. That was a joy. No, really, it was.
She’s awfully cute and fat. At one point, my friend offered me a tangerine to
then offer her. She would not accept food directly from this stranger, which of
course provided me with an endless supply of embarrassment. No matter how much
people will insist that they understand,
parents with half a conscience feel constantly embarrassed by the people their
babies are frightened by. I met one woman who said that her sister’s new
boyfriend frightened the bejesus out of her youngest because he was rockin a dome.
So there you are.
Thing
is, my baby loves tangerines. She rejects
the pricier blood oranges I covet (more for me) but those Cuties are just
perfect for my cutie. I dutifully broke it up into wedges and fed her one. Which
she promptly shoved into her mouth and gummed, primarily because she only has
teeth in the front and has grasped that those eight are simply for an initial
bite, not for more thorough mastication.
After
gumming it for a few seconds, she swallowed. She’s done this many, many times. She
likes food inordinately and has a very sophisticated palette as a matter of
fact. Of course she picks this time
to choke. She does this cute Puss-in-Boots-from-Shrek kind of hacking motion
with her neck, back and forth, and…I wait. I mean, I’ve got to see if she’s really having trouble or if she’ll
eventually work it out. I mean, she’s sitting on my lap, I can easily reach in
there with my finger if necessary but I don’t want to alarm her unnecessarily. Or
make her cry, which is the far more important consideration.
So
the upshot? She swallows and then continues to shove the other wedges into her
cute little mouth.
My
friend’s response?
“Boy,
you sure were calm about that!”
This
was not a compliment. *ahem*
I
laughed rather abashedly and said, “Well, after all, I’m sitting here and I just
wanted to see if she would work it out or not. She did, right?”
I
was not defensive. And just to make certain, I recounted this story to a friend whom we carpool with and he confirmed this was definitely not a compliment.
The
second time, I was taking Jl school and I had to drop off a form for her after
school Mandarin class. She was wearing her neckbrace and truthfully, she’d had
it on for three weeks by then so I completely forgot about it. One of her
teachers, who happens to be a friend of mine exclaimed, “Oh my god! What
happened to you?!”
As
parents will do in such situations, I immediately thought the question was
directed at me and so I answered it
while my daughter espied a friend and promptly began playing with her. “Oh, you
know,” I shrugged, “it’s just a mild whiplash she got over the holiday and she
reinjured it over the weekend. That’s all.”
My friend bursts out laughing and says to me, “That’s what I love about you! You’re
so casual.” And then imitates me
shrugging.
Hmm.
I’m starting to see a trend. Twice in as many weeks. Feeling a twinge of criticism somewhere...
The
third time was all me. I was in the backyard. Feeding Kl, guess what? Yes, tangerines.
I’ve since learned that she does better when she can bite into the Cutie all by
herself so I peel them and just offer them to her whole. Well, she began biting
and bit off a wedge. Which, you
guessed it, made her choke.
I
sat and waited. Sure enough, in a second, she worked it out, coughed it up and
it fell on the outdoor carpet. Now that it was nicely spiced with miniature
rocks or whatever else is on it, she picked it up again with her paw and shoved
it back in. This time it went in without a hitch.
But
then it occurred to me. Maybe I should have done something different. I don’t know. Reached in there with my finger? Cut the
things? No, that would be too much trouble.
So
there you are. Casual. That and I smack her butt. I’m certain,
absolutely certain, that if she could, she’d call child services.
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