7.

Dear little Miss M,

First of all, you are no longer that little. But you are still Miss M, and you will always be Miss M. When you were first born, I started calling you Miss M, or sometimes just "ma'm." You seemed like such an old soul in a tiny little body, and needed something far more formal than the name we'd given you.

Still does this, but in bigger PJs.

You were indignant and angry from the start. I remember every night you'd cry from 6 pm-8 pm. Every single night. Two hours straight. Angry, balled up fists in the air. Mad at only god knows what, for god knows what reason. And you hated sleep; you didn't want to miss a thing (you are still like this). The moment you took your first step, I felt a rush of relief - you were free, FREE! But also a deep sadness...the first step is the beginning of the end of babyhood...toddlerdom...childhood. It's been 7 years, and in another mere 9 you'll be driving. It goes so, so fast.  

You are a strong-willed, determined little girl. You like girly things like cheerleading, make up, nail polish, dancing, One Direction, Nick (and Joe) Jonas, sparkles, the color pink, Disney princesses, Disney's anti-princesses, and you'd really really like to go on a date with a boy except I can tell: you don't even know what that really means or entails. But you also like boy things like skateboards and scooters, Star Wars, soccer, Sunday night football (which you understand so much better than I do - thank your father, he's just made you cool with all the jocks), worms and roly poly bugs, all things gross, and fart jokes. 

Loves to party. With sparkles.

You are a becoming a mini-me, but with a lot of good balance from your dad's genetics. You are highly imaginative and in your own head a lot (me); yet you're a total social butterfly who can't say no to a good party (your dad). You love stories and music and creativity (me); yet you're analytical enough to be one of the best mathematicians in your class (your dad). You're disorganized (me), but you can clean like nobody's business when necessary (your dad). You're all emotions (me) but really logical (your dad) (emotions + logic = bless you, my darling...you got a looooong, crazy road ahead of you trying to marry those two character traits). You are stubborn (me) but not unreasonable (your dad). You have an illogical issue with shoes and clothes (that's all me...and you got nothing from your dad to counteract that, sorry).

Yesterday, I completely lost it with you. In public. I am sorry, sweet girl. When things like that happen, where afterwards I am filled with guilt and What-The-Heck-Is-WRONG-With-You-Amy?! thoughts, I always hope it becomes a memory that gets buried deep deep down in the recesses of your brain. And I'm sorry I've taught you cuss words. I'd honestly intended to wait until you were at least 10. (I'm sure by now you get it: mommy's got a temper, and now you know why you do, too.) 

....and/or she'll be running her own small country.

Sometimes, because you are such an old soul and also very tall for your age, I forget: you are only 6 (now 7), just a baby. And I am having a hard life, and so are you. You cry a lot and ask why daddy can't come over for a sandwich, and why we can't be together as a family anymore. You asked, for your birthday this year, if you and I could spend the night at daddy's house, and all three of us sleep in the same bed like we did a long time ago. You are sad when you're with daddy because you miss me and worry I'm lonely without you. You are sad when you're with me because you miss daddy and worry he's lonely without you. 

Your tender heart breaks mine a lot; I have tremendous amounts of guilt about what I did this summer. But I also did it because I deeply felt that, in the long run, it would be the very best thing for all three of us and I never ever do anything without weighing all the possible best/worst case scenarios and being prepared to accept any and all consequences that follow every choice I make. I feel like it's really important you know that...on the first birthday you've had not waking up in a house that has both me and daddy.

Cheerleader. For dolphins.

At night, you like me to make up stories for you in which you are rescued or whisked away by Harry Styles of One Direction until you giggle yourself silly. Then I draw pictures on your back and sing You Are My Sunshine or The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow or Somewhere Over the Rainbow until you fall asleep. And after you are asleep, I stare at your profile, and I can still see the little face from the ultrasound images 7 years ago. Isn't that amazing? From a side angle in the dark, you are still a mysterious part of me. I remember I couldn't believe you were actually inside of me. And even now, years later, I can still feel the surreal, freakish sensation of having your tiny feet swipe at my insides when you were finally big enough to make your presence known. I watch you sleep and think about how small you once were, how your entire body fit perfectly on my chest, and I remember how we'd defy all the What Not To Do parenting articles and risk it just to lie together, napping...me on the sofa, you on my chest. Really, it was the only way you could sleep. You have been sleeping on top of me ever since, often with a foot in my face.

But mostly I just look at your sweet sleeping self a lot of nights and think the same thing I thought when you were lying in the bassinet next to me in the hospital: I can't believe my body made you, and that you picked me to be your mommy. You are the happiest and saddest and most exciting and silliest and angriest and scariest and hardest and best thing I have ever done, and ever will do. 

My most favorite thing ever.

Happy 7th year on Earth, little Miss M. I'm so lucky I get to be YOUR mommy. You are my favorite, my most favorite little girl, on the WHOLE planet. There is no other little girl I love more than you, no other little girl I ever want to hug and kiss and fight and laugh and sing and cry and watch movies and dance and take nature hikes with. 

I hope you are growing up with more happy moments than sad (but I think some sadness is good for you, too - so you can appreciate the happy), and more than anything else that you know how tremendously loved you are. Every single night before you fall asleep, after I sing You Are My Sunshine to you, I say: "You are my very best blessing." I made a conscious choice when you were 2 hours old to do that, to make sure those are almost always the last words you hear before you fall asleep, no matter what kind of day you or I or we have had. It's the most important thing to me that you know you are a blessing, that you are worthy of love, that you are perfect just as you are...because one day you will encounter people who will make you question that, and doubt yourself. Which is why my biggest wish for you, every day, is that as you grow up you'll encounter far more of the OTHER kind of people, the ones who will see who you really are and love even the darkest parts of you.

I send prayers to the Universe, on a consistent basis, that you are one day in a home of your very own, one that you'll fill up with things that bring you peace and happiness and inspire moments of creative abandon full of wild recklessness. I write daily requests to Whatever is listening, that you'll find something to do with your life that brings you joy and makes you feel good, and that you'll be surrounded with people who help you and support you through the gloomiest bits while bringing your life a little weirdness, a lot of extraordinary, and great gigantic gobs of blessings and love. 

You are the all the very best parts of me and your daddy wrapped up in one beautiful place, in one growing and magnificently magical child, and more than that, you are my very best blessing of all. I love you, sweet girl. Happy birthday. 

Love,
Mommy
October 30, 2015

Miss M likes zombie eyes.

My very best blessing. Thank you, Universe.

six.

I'll write about my magical, ghostly trip to the beach last weekend later (if I can find time to breathe between Halloween and birthday festivities). First, I need to talk about Miss M. Because she is six today. Six! SIX. A mere four years from one whole decade here on Earth. I've been here for four decades, and I still remember when I turned my first decade old. Where do the decades go?

I remember lying in the hospital room after Miss M was yanked from my body, and staring at her--how can a person's body make something so incredibly amazing? And yet so alien-like and freakish? All at once? Yes, yes, Biologists--I KNOW the scientific process; but sleeping babies are all about magic. 

I remember watching her tiny body sleep, thinking: she will never be any more perfect than she is right now--she has never had a bug bite, a scratch, a pimple; she has never had anything tragic happen to her (well, unless being ripped from the liquid warmth of a safe womb counts), there's not a single thing in her world right now to mar her perfection. I remember thinking: here is a human being who's a completely clean slate, existing in the most perfect state of being humans ever get to exist in. (I do sometimes think most of our navel gazing as adults is a dull, pathetic attempt to go back to this state of perfect perfection, to recapture the precise moments in which we were absolutely Okay. Before, you know, our parents' and their parents' and all of our ancestral baggage laid claim to our innate wellness, and the boxing match of wills with the Universe began.)

I remember strapping her baby body into the car seat and climbing in next to her and realizing: Wow. They just...GIVE these things to you. No instruction manuals, no stickers, no warning labels. Just: Here ya go. Try not to have Child Services called or anything. (So far, so good! Fingers crossed.) 

I remember standing in her bedroom one night, holding her soft, sweet, little body cradled on my shoulder, and I remember watching us sway together in a mirror, with a soft nightlight illuminating the room around us...it didn't really feel real then, and I remember thinking: One day, I won't be able to do this with her anymore, and I should burn this moment into my brain forever and ever and hold onto it as tight as I possibly can. And I did. And it is still there. As if it we just did that yesterday.

And then one year passed, and two, and three, and now here we are. At age six. Six! As each year comes and goes, someone will invariably say to me: Oh, I love this age! This was my favorite age. Enjoy her at this age. They grow up so fast and this age will never come again. And then I will spend that whole year going: Wow. You know, I really do miss that one age that one person told me three years ago not to miss...but this age? pssh. Let's go age (X)! I am soooo very over YOU, age (X), and all your ridiculous issues. (Each age has its unique challenges, is what I think I'm trying to say...and you will never appreciate how easy those challenges were until you're looking at them in the muddied rear view mirror of Life's macho, over-the-top, gas guzzling monster truck.)

Miss M can practically read now. I started typing this right before she fell asleep, and she was using her phonics skills to try to sound out what I was typing. Before I know it, I won't be able to get away with things like spelling out the location of her hidden birthday gifts in front of her. 

And she's in love! With strangers and little boys in her class alike. You guys! This is so different from four years ago, when she was mostly concerned with Yo Gabba Gabba and  getting enough yaw-yee bops (lollipops) at her birthday party. In four years from now, when she is 10, will I be longing for the days when she just obsessed over little boys who wanted nothing to do with girls, boy bands from Britain, and Frozen ice princesses? (Probably.)

I think childhood is magical. I wish I'd known, when I was growing up, that I was partaking in this very strange, delicious bit of sorcery called Childhood. And this makes me wish more children were like Peter Pan, who totally understood what odd blackness is afoot when a body and mind begin to get bigger and older. Instead, I was like I think a lot of children are, including my own Miss M: I kept thinking older would better and wiser and I'd have more freedom. When I was six, I couldn't wait to be ten. When I was ten, I thought 16 was when it all started to come together. When I was 16, I was certain 21 was when the magic finally happened. When I was 21, it hadn't sunk in yet that this is IT. There IS no older or wiser or freedom. Just one more year and then another year after that and one more after that.

Year 21 seems to be where Childhood goes to die.

(This may be one reason why some people are driven to have children, but now we're going down a philosophical path that's less about M and more about her Mommy so let's backtrack to the most important part of this essay, shall we?)

Miss M is my most very favorite human on the entire planet. I cannot think of anyone who makes me happier, angrier, more in love, more frustrated, more joyous, more scared, more amazed, and more complete than little Miss M. I remember feeling sort of restless and without form for a good 30 or so years...and then, one day, staring down at a plus sign on a pregnancy stick feeling blown away. It wasn't until a doctor showed me her shadowy form and beating, tiny heart on an ultrasound that I truly believed she was in there. And when I believed that, I felt a huge surge, a tremendous rush of relief, and sort of deep, visceral knowledge: I can plant my feet now. This is why I had to go through THAT tunnel to scale THAT bridge to rock climb THAT cliff. So I could plant my feet, right HERE. With you, dear Child.

I remember sitting very still with her inside of me, before I could feel her move around, knowing that this is what God is like: you can't see, feel, or hear God...but God is in there, somewhere. And then I remember the feeling of her tiny feet swiping around my insides, and knowing: this is what God is like: you can't see or hear or talk to God...but occasionally there will be a swipe, a little something to let you know, Hey there, hello out there--yes! It's ME, I'm really in here.

And then out she came--six years ago. Sucking maniacally on her fingers, hungry from the start. Screaming and shaking balled up fists at the world angrily, on cue, every night from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm when she finally gave out and let go of whatever chapped her little buns every single day. Curly-haired in ways that make her scream like she's being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition when we comb hair. Demanding and indignant, yet kind-hearted and silly. A lover of jokes about farts and stinky feet, terrified of the dark and the Big Bad Wolf, a princess-wannabe, and a budding Oscar/Emmy/Golden Globe winning actress. A reader and a writer with really bad handwriting. Dances like Seinfeld's Elaine, but not with wolves (or dogs, because those terrify her, too). A reluctant swimmer-turned-mermaid. A singer of inappropriately adult songs because her mother refused to listen to kid song CDs on long car rides when she was a baby. An advanced cusser, curator of swears, because her mother also couldn't get a handle on her road rage issues on morning car rides early in M's life. A night owl and grumpy morning person (like her mother); overly opinionated and bossy (like her father). 

She loves princesses and the color pink in ways that make me nervous, so thank god for a sporty dad who's turned her onto soccer and insists she play outside in the dirt as much as possible. She has a musician's soul, but if you could see the song playlist she's demanded I create on my Spotify account for her so we can listen to HER songs in the car, I feel confident in saying you'll agree with me when I contend that Iggy Azalea is simply not a good influence for a six year old's developing psyche or brain. Lourde, maybe. But definitely not Iggy. Don't even get me started on Miley Cyrus.

She would stamp her feet and scowl at you for agreeing with me about that, and try to manipulate you by saying something morose and sad like, "Well then. I guess that proves YOU don't love me EITHER!!!!" before flouncing off to slam her bedroom door. Later, she'll come out and insist on watching STAR WARS or Minecraft or something boy-ish, and will act like she doesn't know she has two X chromosomes because she'll giggle relentlessly about fart jokes. This will make you wonder: (a) where did the angry girly girl go? Not that I miss her, but seriously--where is she? and (b) should I be worried? is this early hormonal surges...or bipolar? 

And then, if you are very sad and crying, or you stub your toe or get a case of really bad cramps, Miss M The Future Psychotherapist and Nurse will swoop in to salve  your wounds with back rubs and shushes: "It's okay...don't worry...breathe...just breathe...it will be okay...you'll be okay, I promise..." Because this is what she hears all the time herself...no, seriously, like 50 times a day, because every day something makes her sob with inconsolable abandon, or she insist she has a mortal flesh wound somewhere. 

Are you getting that she's exhausting? But it's a good exhausting. It's a "I wish I didn't have a job where I have to spend all day with 25 other people's kids so I could really focus on your amazingness" kind of exhausting. But that's okay, because I think most children exhaust their parents, if most children are doing their jobs correctly. 

But more than any of that, I think she's grand. Just darling and very, very grand. I think, one day, she'll take her inappropriate song lyrics-loving, giggling soccer star princess self to far flung places and teach the natives how to fart and belch in ways that will send them into peals of ridiculous laughter, especially if they do so while in a bathtub. And I think she'll be a big, massive super star one day, and also that if she actually does become an Oscar winning actress, she'll also become an Oscar winning screenwriter/director/producer at the same time, because if there's one thing in the world Miss M can't stand, it's to be told what to do, and she's too opinionated to let other people have the final say anyway. 

I think my little Miss M's got transcendent, iridescent, impossibly large fairy wings, finely threaded with the purest of pink glitter-dust, hidden under her mud-soaked soccer uniform, and my biggest wish, each year as she inches closer to Year 21, each moment we pass other people's Favorite, Most Enjoyable Ages of Childhood, is that one morning she'll wake up to realize the Big Bad Wolf knows all about her hidden, impossibly large, iridescently pink glitter fairy wings; that the existence of these wings actually strike terror deep within him and he is afraid of her, far more than she could ever imagine being afraid of him. My heart wants her heart to know this makes her more powerful than she knows, much more capable than she realizes, that she is able to weave certain kinds of alchemy in the world that would marvel Merlin.


In fact, one day, when she DOES realize all of that, I hope I'm there to see her peel off the soccer uniform, unfurl her pink glitter fairy wings; I hope I'm allowed to witness her flights to as many wild and majestic places of terrifying splendors as she can find. Because I know she will conquer these places, and that these places will be better for having experienced her and she will be stronger for having experienced them. And I pray I will not be too exhausted and can marvel at her artistically adept ability to weave wonder at everything and inside everyone she touches, even when she stamps her feet with all her completely indignant, over-the-top, opinionated, control freak demands along the way.

But for today? I'm just trying to keep all the Frozen- and One Direction-themed shit hidden, because she's also pretty wily at figuring out my game plans. 

I love you, Sweet Melissa. My entire life got better when you came out of me six years ago. 

summer fade.

Crap. It's the end of July, you guys. I'll be back to the grind again very soon. Crap.

This was a good summer. I cried a little, laughed a lot, danced and sang and swam, read a lot, wrote quite a bit, cleaned up randomly placed groups of toys in odd locations I like to call Lifestyle Art by M. I drank wine on my back porch while (wo)manning the grill, scooped out tiny tree frogs from that grill and certain death. I got 30 mosquito bites all over me that will leave scars, I just know it. I had a run in with a hot hair brush that will certainly scar right up. I have some heart scars that are less visible, too. I probably caused some as well. Which I am sad about.

But If I had to pick one favorite memory from the whole thing, I'd pick the Friday back in June I got to see my sweet girl kick Fear's ass to the curb and put her head underwater for the first time ever. And then do it again and again, and basically become obsessed with swimming underwater. My favorite part of the whole summer was getting to hang out and watch my land-locked Ariel transform herself back into a mermaid. With a spangly tail and a healthy fear of the deep end in case sharks are lurking at the bottom (which is just smart--because helloooo: SHARKNADO).

All in all, I'd say this summer had its hills and valleys, good times and sad. It had its laughs and sighs and road mishaps and memories. I'm sure this school year will be similar--Life's kind of just like that: yin complements yang. Live and learn. Growth from the bad and good. Letting go when necessary, making sad and hard decisions when faced with truth. But also some really ridiculous real moments of love and dear friends.

So I made a slideshow of some of my favorites from these moments of memories. I did try to upload better music--I mean, I had all kinds of cool songs ready to go for this (so! hard! to decide!): Leonard Cohen (whose mournful and gravelly voice I feel to my heart's depths), Damien Rice (who I'd throw everything away for and travel the world with...if he'd just ask), some haunting theme songs from favorite movies I'm dying to share with anyone and everyone...and finally, after hours of searching and indecision, I settled on Demi Lovato's version of Let It Go from FROZEN, since that was pretty much the theme for Summer 2014 at my house.

....only to find out kizoa.com makes you pay if you want to use your own music in your slideshows. And dammit, I'm tapped out, Internet. I can't even tell you how much I dropped on school supplies last week. Plus, now that I have a school age child? Holy pencils, it's just expensive.

So here's the poor person's version of a summer movie that should have, could have, had a far more sweeping musical score:  Summer Fade.

If I had to pick a theme song for this summer (that was NOT from FROZEN), I would pick THIS SONG:

Because I love this movie, Al Pacino, dancing, Leonard Cohen, and songs in minor keys. But not the end of summer. I do NOT love the end of summer. Thus: a song in minor key. But with happy dancing. (Yin, yang. Remember?)

m is for mermaid.

Mermaids. Do you believe in them? The scientist part of me says No, but the magic in my soul says GO! When I was six, my mother signed me up for swim lessons at the YMCA. I was so scared of water, I'd wear my bathing suit under my clothes and then tell the swim instructors I'd forgotten it. (How does one take swim lessons and just casually forget their bathing suit every single time? Six year olds are not known for their rapier-like logic, and the only thing I can think of to explain why none of the adults around me clued in on that by, say, Day 2, is that, well...it was the 70s. If you're in your 40s or older, certainly you know what I mean when I say that.) Eventually someone caught on and I remember a really nice instructor sitting in the ladies' changing room with me, asking me gentle questions that basically all said the same thing: We all know you're lying; why are you lying? After awhile, she got me to admit I was a being a big fibber, shimmy out of my patchwork flared jeans and Winnie the Pooh t-shirt, and reveal the (probably polyester since it was the 70s) bathing suit. And then we got in the pool.

I don't remember exactly what happened after that--I sort of remember clinging to the sides of the pool a lot, just watching the others do the lesson and refusing to participate. For some reason, after awhile (or a day or two? it was the 70s, when time was complicated), I took a risk and ventured beyond the walls of the pool. And then I put my head underwater. And it. was. MAGIC.

After that, I was practically a fish. Which is only as it should be, since I'm a Pisces and we happen to be fishes (two actually, joined at the tails, swimming opposite directions, which really sums me up nicely). And then I was in a pool, every day unless it was thundering and lightning, all summer long. In the deep end. Pretending I was a mermaid, falling in love with Australian spy Robert Scorpio from the soap opera General Hospital. (Even as a child, I had an inability to resist when it came to men with non-American accents.)

I don't know why it came as a big surprise to me that I'd give birth to a child who was also fearful of water. Fear of water is probably the most ironic phobia, being that we live on a water-covered planet, we gestate in fluid, and our bodies are mostly made up of water. (And dust from the cosmos, but that's another post.) Further, I find it really flippant of Mother Nature to have had the audacity to not put gills on us. So unfair, Mother Earth. A real evolutionary foul play.

So Miss M: always terrified of water. Not of water itself, but rather of putting her head beneath it. I've felt, for these last 5 years or so, this is partly genetic and also partly because one night during bath time when M was a mere wee sprite of one year, I turned to grab a washcloth for a split second...and when I turned back to her, she was under the water looking up at me with sort of calmly shocked gaze. And then I pulled her out and she started wailing; water probably went up her nose. (Don't turn your back on babies in water! Not even for a split second! Horrifying, horrifying.)

After that, it was almost impossible to get her under water. And she didn't like it in her face. Holy god forbid you get a drop of water on one of her cheeks--the entire bath process had to come to a screeching halt so we could carefully wipe off the offensive thing.

She got slightly better as she got older. Like, when I had to wash her hair, I could pull down the shower head and run it over her head...as long as her head was aaaall the way back and we had a towel at hand for any water-on-face mishaps. Just thinking about the process is making me want to take a nap. Kids are freaking exhausting. And really picky, yet so fickle. Honestly, some days it feels like I'm living with a tiny little despotic Norma Desmond.

At any rate, we've had quite the time trying to get Miss M over her fear of going underwater. Two years ago we did swim lessons at Lifetime Fitness, this past spring we took lessons through our county's park and rec services. Both experiences were less than satisfactory for us--they made the parents stay and watch, so M would run over to me a lot and beg to go home. To avoid law suits and red-faced parental hostility, they took the gentle approach: lovingly dump water on the head, soothingly try to cajole her scared ass out into 3 feet of water. Both times, I let the instructors know I was fine with just dumping her in the deep end and letting her figure it out. I wasn't going to be That Parent; they had my full support, do what you gotta do, ladies, you're the swimming experts. Both times, the instructors looked at me like I was the insanest parent they'd ever encountered. (No I wasn't: I once watched a mom change a poopy diaper right next to the pool at Lifetime Fitness. The lifeguards had a fit and she had a fit that they had a fit. While standing with a poopy diaper in her hand. People are nutty. And gross.)

And then we found Ms. Kim, who taught both my niece and nephew to swim. And my niece, let me tell you: my niece is a stubborn, tough cookie. Ms. K earned her money with G. So when I was at the end of my rope--Melissa HAS to learn how to swim; knowing how to swim will save your life and therefore is NOT optional--my sister in law gave us Ms. Kim's number. After we registered M, we got a 5 page email with all The Rules. Rule #1 being NO PARENTS ALLOWED. (And a suggestion to bring earphones and music to relax for 30 minutes while shit gets really real for your child.)

So we went today. Today was Day 1 of Really Real Swim Lessons. I wasn't nervous going in; I was nervous about what I was going to be hauling home with me in the backseat of the car afterwards. Would she just be very quiet and shell shocked? Or would I be taking home Wendy from THE SHINING, right after Jack chopped through a door with an axe screaming, "Here's Johnny!" determined to kill her. I didn't know.

But we went, and she went into the pool area willingly (like a lamb to a slaughter) (I did think it--I swear to you, I had that thought right inside my brain as I watched her little back retreat from me.)

Thirty minutes later, Melissa came out dripping wet from head to toe.

"Mommy," she screamed, "I DID IT! I put my head under the water! I used Ms. Kim's magic orange goggles and I did it! I did it! Are you SO proud of me?"

"Oh yes yes yes, sweet girl," I said, "I am so SO proud of you!"

And then Ms. Kim told me Miss M had swallowed a ton of pool water in the fight process, and not to be upset--there could be a lot of throwing up on the way home. And, on cue, Melissa vomited all over Ms. Kim's parents' porch. Nice. And then, on the way home, Melissa asked for a snack because her tummy hurt...and proceeded to vomit up two more tons of her stomach's contents.

Lovely, lovely. Sooooo...I just got done spending 40 minutes in the heat of the early Georgia evening mopping up vomit chunks from the back of my car. You know what you learn when you have to mop up vomit chunks in summer heat and humidity for 40 minutes? You learn that (1) stomachs, even tiny 5 year old ones, hold a freakishly enormous volume of food and water--I swear, why are we not in the camel family? surely we could traverse the desert with what our stomachs can hold; (2) the insides of human beings are absolutely disgusting--they look disgusting, they smell disgusting...we are all just walking/talking containers of revolting, repulsive ick; and (3) poop is way more desirable to clean up than vomit. I'm pretty sure I could walk through a sewer full of fecal matter for a whole day with very little reaction, but the second I smelled vomit floating with the feces, I'd be hurling up my own guts, creating multiple hernias and whatnot. (Note: tomorrow, there will be nooooo blueberry muffin plus chocolate milk snacks beforehand. Pure water until all pool vomit has cleared the area.)

So it was a slightly traumatic afternoon for both Miss M and I. Afterwards, I asked her if she had fun. "Yes," she said, "I had fun but not TOO much fun."

"Well, I was so so SO proud of you, my big girl. You were SO very brave!"

"But mommy," M said sadly, "You didn't see me."

"What do you mean," I asked.

"I MEAN," she sighed dramatically, " I WASN'T brave. I was SCARED!"

"What did Ms. Kim say when you were scared?"

"She said if I didn't get my hands off her neck she was going to dump me."

"But now you know how to put your head underwater and you can DO it, big girl! I am SO proud of you!"

That's when I was told I was talking too much and she didn't want to talk about it anymore. DOG WITH A BLOG was on and she only wanted to hear them talk.

And that, my friends, is how you train up child (in a swimming pool). I say this all the time, about how I do worry about the wussification of America. And today I realized I may have been a part of that wussification of America in my little teeny corner of this country. So thank god for strong people like Ms. Kim, thank god for them. America, put people like her in charge. You aren't going to like it, and you're probably going to blow chunks on Day 1 and probably Days 2 and 3, but by Day 5? You're swimming like a mermaid. Or merman. Mergirl. Boy. Whatever.

      

Pre-Life Changing Event.

Post-Life Changing Event (two mermaids in a car).