Blog Archives
“I can rescue myself!”
“I a princess!”
There are some moments where you can see a flash of the person you hope your child is becoming. It’s hard to know during those moments how much of it is brainwashing (admittedly by me), desire to please you, their own personality or good upbringing (:-)). But they sure do make you feel good inside.
K’s teachers are constantly telling me that she speaks her mind (loudly). One of her teachers calls her “fresh.” Which is probably more accurate than my preferred word of “sassy” since it communicates her tendency to defy authority from time to time.
At any rate – judge for yourself yesterday’s scenario:
K said to her preschool teacher (ticking off each of the following with successive fingers):
- “I can surrender”
- “I can protect”
- “I a princess”
- “I’m wearing a purple dress.”
“I look pretty now, right?”
Says her teacher: “What’s the fifth one? And if you’re a princess, does that mean you want a prince to come swoop you off your feet and rescue you?”
Replies K: “oh no, I can do all that myself!”
- “I can rescue things.”
My Self-Rescuing Princess
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My Kid Uses Chopsticks Better Than I Do
Seriously. My father used to tell me that the true test of someone’s ability to use chopsticks was being able to pick up peanuts with them. I wonder what he would think of my not quite three year old picking up Goldfish? See below for pictures. Read the rest of this entry
The Tribulations of Parenting: K Episode 2.10
My little girl growing up
One of the things about parenting that people talk a lot about but you don’t really appreciate is how you feel when your kid tells you that someone hurt her. In this instance, I don’t mean physically – Day care/pre-school has its perils, so my kid has been pushed, bitten, kicked and had her hair pulled, but mostly it all falls under what I would call reasonable expectations. Here, I’m talking about the emotional hurt – and the realization that your kid not only mature enough to feel it, but also has grown enough to articulate it. Case in point:
Like this:
K Interlude: Episode … uh … 1.3?
Two interludes:
K: “I’m Mommy, and you’re Katherine.”
Me: “So I’m Katherine?”
K: Yes.
M: Then I must be really cute.
K: And smart!
That’s my girl. Second interlude involves our seemingly never-ending potty training battle. Read the rest of this entry
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Celebrating the New Year – ABC-style
In my last post, K and I wished you all a hearty Gung Hay Fat Choy, in honor of the Chinese New Year. Well, today, J, K and I all went down to Chinatown to watch the Lion Dance festivities.
Neuro-what?
Last week, I talked about one aspect of the 180-lb tumor story. But besides the Flight, Fight or Fright conundrum, I was also struck by something else:
Of the 200+ articles I found on the web, my trusty Google News search suggests that only eight actually named NF as the cause of the tumor. 8. Out of more than 220. The rest merely referred to a “rare genetic disorder.” What’s more concerning is this: the CEO of the hospital where the operation took place told CNN that it was the same disease as that of “The Elephant Man.” Except the latest research suggests that Joseph Merrick, popularly known as “The Elephant Man,” is suspected of having Proteus Syndrome – a completely unrelated disease. If the medical community doesn’t even understand NF, and the press doesn’t report on it when provided an opportunity to educate, it’s no wonder that so few people have ever heard of the condition.
Keeping Perspective: Flight, Fright or Fight
For you news junkies out there, you may have heard about the 180-lb tumor that was removed from a 32-year-old Vietnamese man, Nguyen Duy Hai, in Ho Chi Minh City. If you saw it, you probably had an “oh my god,” “gross,” “wow that’s incredible” or a “can you imagine?” moment. I’ve had those moments too. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve also had the “I’m so glad it isn’t me” reaction. I think all these reactions are perfectly normal. It’s one way that we remind ourselves that despite all our complaints, there are still many, many people who have it worse than we do in some way, shape or form.
But for me, this story was an unpleasant reminder of what could happen to my little girl. Just six short weeks ago, I talked about the struggle for calm in the face of my daughter’s neurofibromatosis (NF type 1). Because it turns out that this Vietnamese man also has NF1.
Take Your Girliness and Shove It
Why does this exist?
Most of you know my rather strong feelings about gender stereotypes and expectations. I don’t have a problem with girls being exposed to “girly” things, but I do have a problem because it seems that everything a girl is exposed to is “girly.” Why are there entire aisles awash in pink? Why must everything be Barbie-this or Princess-that? And why do I always have to go to the boys’ section to find red, grey or black gloves or shoes that are neither pink nor have hearts or princesses all over them?
