The Parent Hood

Dear Zebra Room Teachers,

Here is my baby.  She is one of the most precious people in the whole world to me.  Today is her first day of pre-school.

She thinks she is a real true princess.  We indulge this kind of thinking.

She has decided she does not want to grow up.  It was quite the feat to get her to agree to turn four.  She really wanted to stay three.  It was only the promise of copious amounts of chocolate birthday cake that swayed her over.  She is adamant, though, that she will grow no older.  We also indulge this.  This means you can never ever use the “Well, you want to be a BIG girl…” line of reasoning with her.  She doesn’t.  She wants to be my baby.  If you push her, she will suck her thumb and pretend she cannot speak.

In fact, some of us (ahem, her mother) may even be responsible for it by saying to her (over and over) “You’ll always be my baby, won’t you?” and “Stop growing so fast!” and perhaps, in times of quiet desperation “Don’t grow up and leave me!  Promise?”  We (ahem, me) take full responsibility.  Please remind us (ahem, me) of this whole little clever ruse when she is 34 and refuses to move out of our basement and requires I do her laundry and make her chicken nuggets.  OK?

Her favorite colors are pink and purple.  We have indulged this too.  We always let her choose pink or purple for whatever – her cup at dinner, the book we will read her, a new toothbrush, her backpack, our Kitchenaide mixer, the family automobile, the siding for the house, etc.  It grows on you after awhile.

She is a carnivore, pure and simple.  She likes steak and turkey legs and baby back ribs and Slim Jims.  I know those things don’t come up on the preschool lunch menu too often, which means she might just hate everything you guys serve to her.  This would be our fault, too.

Oh, Zebra Room Teachers, have mercy on me.  I’m a 43 year old mother of five and she’s my BABY.  Of course I’ve ruined her for anyone else – can’t you see the desperation on my face?  Who will take care of me in my old age?  It always falls to the youngest.  I’m just doing my best to keep her ostracized by society and nestled firmly in my royal pink nest eating Slim Jims.

Deal with it.

Love,

Rae-Rae’s Mommy

Many years ago, there was a mother.  No, a mommy, really.  There was a mommy and she loved her little girls.  She wanted to start a new Christmas tradition that was all theirs, something special they would look forward to every year.

“A snow globe!” she exclaimed with delight.  “I’ll choose just the right special snow globes, one for each of my two girls!”

And so it had begun.

Every year, the mother would search high and low for the perfect snow globes.  Some of them were very expensive!  But the joy on the face of the children was worth ten times the price.  Each year, the little girls were excited to discover what sort of snow globe Santa had chosen for them that year.

And so it continued.

The mother had more daughters and folded them into the snow globe tradition.  Eventually, she was buying five snow globes for five daughters.  One year, she thought she spotted an eye roll when the snow globe was unwrapped.  Maybe not.  Perhaps she imagined it.  None the less, there wasn’t the same magic around the snow globes anymore.

When she had to have a new wing built onto her home for the storage and display of all the wonderful snow globes, she began to suspect she had a problem.  While it was true she had no cats at all, it was clear she was in the running as the crazy snow globe lady.  Still, she couldn’t stop.

In 2005 came the realization that two of the daughters had moved out into their own places and taken no snow globes with them.  What could this mean?  Had the tradition outworn its welcome?  Was the snow globe magic gone?  And if Armageddon were to occur, could the family even drink the water from the globes for survival?  What good were the damn snow globes anyway?  Stupid tradition!

If only she had saved all the boxes, then the snow globes would have retained their value.  She could have sold them all on eBay to other crazy snow globe collectors and perhaps raised the $2,800 necessary to buy a Wii on the black market.  Live and learn, she thought to herself.  Live. And. Learn.

Alas, the snow globe tradition ended after 2005 but each year when Christmas was imminent, the mother had to stop herself from window shopping.  From stopping in the San Francisco Music Box Company store and touching the beautiful globes on the shelves.  From visiting the Disney site’s snow globe section.  From thinking about the snow globe tradition and how much it had meant to her, to them, when it was at its peak.

Sometimes at night she’d go into the special snow globe wing of the house (which was really not a wing at all but a set of glass-doored shelves in the little girls’ bedroom – pardon the literary license) and looked at them… the Tinkerbell one from when Amber was crazy for Tink, the Eeyore one which was Katie’s favorite character from Winnie the Pooh, the carousel horse one when Katie was into carousel horses,  the dolphin when Amber was into dolphins, the Noah’s Ark one for Sarah’s first Christmas, the ones with the girls’ college mascots from when they were in college, and so many more.  All those snow globes, all those years.  Each one representing a special Christmas memory, a special time in the lives of these girls.  These wonderful girls.  So many years collecting them.

Sometimes she would lift one up, blow the dust from its dome, and wind the key on the bottom just a little, just enough to hear a few seconds from “It’s a Small World After All” or “You Are the Wind Beneath my Wings”.  Maybe from “Brahms’ Lullaby” or “Fur Elise” or any number of other sentimental and sappy tunes.  Snow globes always have sentimental and sappy tunes.  That’s the part that makes the mother cry, right?  Those sentimental and sappy tunes… hard to keep a dry eye.  Because of the tunes, you know.

Late one night, when everyone else was sleeping, the mother snuck online and found a beautiful snow globe with Big Nutbrown Hare and Little Nutbrown Hare that said “Guess How Much I Love You” on the front.  Quietly, quickly, when no one was looking, she snuck it into her shopping cart and did a swift check out.  When the package arrives, she will open it in private, listen to the “Ode to Joy” music that comes out when she winds it up, and then she’ll sneak it onto the shelves behind the glass doors in the little girls’ room.  It will be her secret – no one else needs to know.

And they lived happily ever after.