Princess and the Pea

Who's growing pains?

Sometimes there are moments you think,"I have to remember this." And then you go on to throw the wash in the dryer or let the dog out, and it's lost under the crashing waves of life in motion.

This evening Rosie came down for dinner after a shower, wearing a too short summer nightie, a faded blue nylon one with pink piping. Her wet hair was wrapped up in a towel twisted on top of her head -- a feat she recently accomplished. A beauty she is, like a Dove soap model. She looked all about twenty except for one thing... she was sucking her thumb.

It's a habit she's trying to grow out of (after a chat with an othrodontist) -- sort of. Its her default position after a long day of play.

Today I was glad she was still sucking her thumb. I don't want her to grow up just yet.

The Bracelet, Part 2

It’s normal that children keep secrets from parents. It’s part of being independent and judicious about one’s personal space.

My husband found the bracelet the boy gave Rosie last week. It was a rather nice trinket with mother of pearl heart. It was in a box at the bottom of her backpack. He went to clear out the ridiculous amount of books weighing the backpack down in order to fit in her lunch box. He neatly laid out all the unnecessary items on her desk. But with the typical rush of pre-bus stop hustle Rosie threw the bracelet back in. Her Dad did not have a chance to inquire about it, seeing he was practicing vocabulary words with Adele.

Oh well.

Rosie and I did take the dog for a long walk yesterday. It was a cold November morning, but the light was luminous off the yellow maple leaves scattered along the edges of the field. It was the first day we had hats and scarves on, marking a new season. She was quite the chatterbox, commenting on just about anything: Who got straight As and who got the A minuses. I told her that it seemed this year her teacher is an easy grader, unlike last year. “Well, Madame S said that next semester that the conduct grades won’t be so easy to get. She was talking to the boys, really.”

Then she said that it’s not easy for Steven and Jake to cross their legs like girls do. “’Well, it’s not really a good habit for girls to have, either,” I noted. “Well, it’s fine for me because I just switch,” she said matter of fact.

Funny, what comes up in a conversation.

But the mention of boys did allow an opening. I asked about the boy who seems to like her, the one who gave her a pink teddy bear for Valentines Day last year – in third grade. “I don’t like boys, Mom,” she said emphatically. “Well, it’s OK if you do,” I allowed. “Besides there was that whole double date thing at the sock hop, so what was that about?” Then she told me how her girlfriend was freaked out when mother asked her if she kissed the boy. “Well, I can understand her mom’s curiosity. After all, these boys are giving gifts and they are only 10 years old.” I did not mention the bracelet. I figured the mention of the pink teddy bear kept me – and her – in the clear on that account.

“How do you think they get the gifts?” I asked. “Do you think their mom or dad goes to the store with them? I mean I know when you buy something. Or, maybe the boys have older sibs that do it for them?”

“Well, they do have older brothers and sisters,” Rosie went on, telling me who was who in these boys’ family constellations. “I’m just not really into boys right now,” she declared.

“Well, that’s fine by me, but you know as you get older and go to middle school, you’ll see this boy-girl stuff will be a bigger deal. You can talk to me or Dad about any of it… we were your age once, too, you know.”

Rosie began to skip and spin, showing of some figure skating moves, as the leaves crunched under her landing thump. “What?” she implored.

Nothing, my look retorted. “What a glorious morning, isn’t it?”

The Bracelet

Apparently, the little boy courting my now 10 year old gave her a bracelet at the Sock Hop last week. Just found out from her girlfriend’s mom — we co-hosted the girls’10 year old birthday party this evening at our house since they are a day apart. It’s the 3rd year in a row of such a festivity.

Apparently, while the double date was fairly platonic at the school gym, the boys succeeded in giving the girls each a bracelet. So my questions are: Did their parents know? Do the boys have the money to go out and shop, for god’s sake? Why didn’t the boys’ moms or dads introduce themselves at the gathering? And, most importantly, why didn’t Rosie tell me about it?

Is it me — the quiet but observant mother that raises her brow from time to time when questionable things arise, yet it’s better to keep my mouth shout? Am I emitting the classic message: “You are too young to think of dating”? (Which, of course, I am — and of course, it’s true).

The curious part is that the other mother asked me not to mention it to Rosie — the bracelet thing — because then Rosie would know that the she told me, and she’d lose her trust with her daughter. I mean, come on! Then we’re just replicating the social rule — “don’t tell!”

It must be hard for Rosie to share. She doesn’t have older sibs to spill the beans, to forge the way, to make it easy to slip by unnoticed. She probably knows that all this boyfriend-girlfriend stuff is silly… She usually tells me about the other gossip of who likes whom. She gets embarrassed when her friends talk about it in the back seat of our battered mini van (and I make sure not to look the rear view mirror).

I can’t ask her about it either and put her on the spot. She’d melt from the heat of her blush. It does beg the question of how to stay connected to a child who already is expert in the social and cultural rules — who follows them for the most part and knows when she’s pushing the limits even as an innocent.

Some of us think we are post-modern, feminist, open and cool moms. But are we? When it comes down to it the scripts are deeply engraved into social consciousness. The Dos & Don’ts are taught from early on – Ariel the Little Mermaid defying her formidable father and cliquey sisters comes to mind.

Last night I came home from a long day of travel, delayed trains and planes, and crashed on the sofa. The kids came back late from “Movie Night” at school. Rosie just collapsed full body on top of mine, too tired to make it up the stairs. She began to cry silently from the exhaustion of the week — her birthday week — and the endless day. “You Ok?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’m so tired I could cry, but I’m so glad to see you tonight,” I said. Rosie sunk in a little bit deeper.

Who needs talking?

Sock Hop 2007

The fall weather finally settled in New England on this particular Friday night, as the dry leaves swirled in the brick nooks of the elementary school. There was a mix of warmth and coolness that seemed to ignite the fragrance of the earth, bringing to mind the night football games that I, and my girlfriends of long ago, attended. But on this eve a new generation kids streamed into the gym for the first “sock hop” of their lives and of the 4th grade school year. Parents lingered at the door, hesitating at the blast of music bellowing from the cavernous room, gesturing with hands covering their ears and rolling their eyes as if to say: “I can think of better things to do on a Friday night.”

My daughter, Rosie, had corrected me earlier in the day when I mentioned “the dance”. “It’s not a dance, Mom,” she declared.

“Ok then, what, ‘a get-together’?” I asked. That seemed to satisfy her. It was only later that I got wind that she and a best friend were supposed to have a “double date” with two boys, and it seemed that Rosie was just sort of going along with it. “Well, I can’t help it if Patrick likes me,” she said with a blush when I raised my brow at the revelation of this rendezvous.

Oh brother, I thought to myself. It’s really pretty harmless, but why on earth is the elementary school having socks hops? Isn’t that more appropriate for middle school? Of course, I had to look up the history of the phrase sock hop – albeit in a rather unacademic way. According to Wikipedia:

“Sock Hop is a term coined in the 1950s in the United States, following the growth in popularity of rock and roll, to refer to informal sponsored dances at American high schools, typically held on the grounds of the high school itself in the gymnasium or cafeteria. Music was often recorded, sometimes live.
Initially the term referred to the practice of removing one's shoes in order to dance in stocking feet, typically to spare the floor from the scuff marks of dress shoes.”

Did you notice the words, “high school” in that definition? A high school dance. And here we are 50 years later socializing our little boys and girls not yet 10 years old into a heterosexual pas de deux when most parents I know haven’t even talked about puberty, dating, or the dilemmas having two left feet.

Of course, the gym offered space for what was basically free-for-all group bouncing, sliding, sporadic line dancing formations, chicken dances, toilet paper mummy-wrapping and frequent, mostly unintentional body slams. Yes, pretty innocent. The boys hung together. The girls hung together. The gendered groups bobbed among each other like amoebas. Is there anybody in charge here other than the DJ? How about a line dance instructor?

The parents were the wallflowers at this sock hop, voyeurs of pre-pubertal mass confusion infused with a strange sense of parental curiosity. “Don’t you think this whole dance thing is a bit odd at this age?” I yelled above the cacophony to another mother.

“I thought the same thing,” she shouted back. “Fortunately, Mary could have cared less about what she wore, and is still in her school clothes.” “Yah, Rosie, too.” But there was this double date issue that was still lingering. I searched out the two boys with the help of a father sitting next to me. They were little guys. One was wearing a pink (yes, pink) dress shirt and had a buzz cut akin to Dennis the Menis. The other child, Rosie’s apparent admirer, was a cute chubby and freckled Irish kid in a baseball shirt. He was a least a head shorter than she.

When I was in fourth and fifth grades we had an annual square dance, and our father or mother was our date. It was a blast, being arm in arm and swung around by a bigger person, the centrifugal force and squeals of laughter evoking a natural high. The square dance caller, with a deep drawling voice, brought a sense of order to it all.

“Swing your partner dosey-doe.”

To those that think I’m being nostalgic or saccharine, be assured I’m hardly a throwback to more conservative eras. But there was something about that square dance that brought a sense of community and connection. The idea of partnering was meeting everybody along the way and laughing in the punch line about stepping on the math teacher’s toes, or bumping into the jiggly body of corpulent Mrs. D, the music teacher.

My parents were divorced (an unusual occurrence 30 years ago causing me a bit of personal shame) and so the year when I was 10 years old and my father brought me to the square dance, I thought I was so special. At the time girls wore dresses – often hand made; and boys wore ties. My Dad moved across the country the following year leaving the next square dance date to my uncle. My Dad was hardly to be seen except for court-mandated summer vacations. Of course, a different sort of innocence was lost then.