When I get questions about writing, I always feel kind of squirmy. The entire act of creating through writing is a shifty gray area, and applying hard and fast rules and regulations to it is a bit like trying to pin down jello. If you’re looking for an outline, a blue print, or a game plan… it ain’t out there. You have to trudge through most of those soggy gray areas all by your lonesome and find out what works for you.

*Pictures from our latest excursion to my favorite store.

In my mind I’m 25.

Maybe 28.

I don’t deviate from this mental existence except on rare occasions.

 

This past weekend it rained all Saturday. We decided to enjoy the weather and just stop. We put on the breaks. We played hide and seek behind the curtains. We blew bubbles in between the rain storms. We discovered Jane has an allergy to strawberries that makes her poor little mouth break out. We also discovered Mabel  hates it when we play hide and seek with Jane, so she shredded her toy in anger. We had a very, very good day. It was a much needed rainy stop.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails related to my last post. Some people have expressed concern about our teaching Jane to push someone who is biting her. Most have done so in a very friendly, peaceful way. Let me just say, thank you. While we may not necessarily agree with each other, it’s refreshing to receive emails that are tempered with kind words.

Here’s what I believe. As a woman, I believe in defending oneself against violence. We live in a country where domestic violence is the leading cause of injury for women, more than car accidents, muggings, and assault combined.

I hear you.

“Isn’t it a little early to worry about those kinds of things, Liz? It’s just biting.” 

It’s biting now. But in elementary it might be a bully. In high school it might be a boyfriend who bruises her arm when he gets upset. We live in a society that places more emphasis on how girls look than how they feel about themselves. Our culture doesn’t teach girls to stick up for themselves, it teaches them to be pretty. What lies underneath situations like this is an opportunity to teach  Jane that she is important, no matter how little she is. It’s an opportunity to teach her that she is important, that she is tough, and she doesn’t have to tolerate bullying or biting or any other physical incidents that make her uncomfortable. Little girls need to feel they have permission to say no. And defend themselves. As parents it is our responsibility to give her this permission.

So yes, I will teach Jane that it is alright to push someone away who is hurting her. I will teach her to yell for them to stop, to run, to tell a teacher, and make a big scene if she needs to. I want my sweet, gentle daughter to always feel it is her right to stop someone from hurting her, not to wait politely until said bully is through biting or pinching her,  and then tell the teacher after the fact. I realize this probably cements the fact I’ll never make a good Quaker (although I really like most of what they have to say). I realize I’ll probably get a bunch more emails about the whole “feminism” issue. But that’s alright. The only thing that matters to me is that Jane feels it’s her right to stop someone who hurts her. If she understands that, we’ve done our job.

 

*all names have been changed to protect the innocent*

Jane walked through the door yesterday and held out her arm.

“Joey bite you,” she stated.

I looked at her arm and the big red puffed up mark where Joey’s teeth obviously clamped down on my baby girl  like a plump piece of ham.

“Joey bit you?” I asked.

She nodded, “Joey bite you.”

This has been happening often. Too often for my comfort.

I will say that her daycare is very vigilant, and they always send notes home explaining the situation, what they did, whether or not she cried. They always make us aware, and they always hold her and put ice on it and kiss the boo boo’s. They take every step possible to prevent biting. But hey, biting happens. It’s still an excellent daycare. That’s not what worries me.

A few weeks ago her teacher told us that Jane is the sweet one. She said when Jane gets her toys taken away or she gets hit, she never hits back. This didn’t sit well with me.

“We have to teach her to stick up for herself. But I don’t want to make her aggressive,” I thought to myself.

At this particular juncture I noticed her laying on the floor, splayed out beside the dog, pursing her lips and whispering, “Mabel kiss? Mabel kiss?”

Mabel leaned in and licked Jane’s lips and I realized there was zero danger of that kid becoming too aggressive.

I sat her down and began our talk.

“Jane, when someone bites you, you push them away and say ‘NO! Don’t bite me!”

She stared at me like I had two heads.

I said, “See, if Joey bites you, push him away and say, ‘NO! Don’t bite me!”

Jane pondered this for a moment.

“Joey bite you.”

“That’s right, and if someone bites you, you push them away and say, “NO! Don’t bite me!” I demonstrated again.

“NO! Joey don’t bite you!” Jane yelled gleefully.

“That’s right! But say, “Don’t bite me!” I said.

“Don’t bite YOU!” she yelled back.

“No, Jane…”

But then I realized that personal pronouns aren’t her thing right now and we can worry about that later.

Jane eyed the bright red teeth marks on her arm and sighed, “Joey bite you. Joey fwend.”

Tears sprung into my eyes and I took a deep breath. They weren’t sad tears. They were Hulk smash tears.

“He’s your friend but he cannot bite you. You push him away and tell him no.”

She crawled into my lap, “Joey fwend.”

At this point I had a vision. I walked into the daycare, pointed my finger at all the children and said, “The next person who bites my kid is gonna get it. I don’t know what it is. But I’ll think of something. And it will be awful. So DON’T BITE MY KID.” Then the teachers looked nervous, and security came in, and then came a restraining order. The vision began better than it ended and helped me realize that this is not a viable option.

Our society really embraces the boy culture. “Aw, he’s such a boy,” we say to each other as the little fellas run around breaking things, pushing each other, and drawing pictures on the walls with crayons (not all little fellas, some are calm and sweet and gentle). But somehow, we don’t give that freedom to little girls. Little girls are supposed to be sweet and say please and thank you and never fight. Little girls are supposed to play with dolls and speak softly. Little girls are supposed to sit still and behave.

To this I say BOLOGNA.

I’m so thankful for Jane’s sweet, gentle heart. But I also know that in this life a girl has to be tough sometimes. And in order to be tough, girls need parents who give them permission to be tough.

My sisters, on the other hand, were rare ducks. They were born into this world with an invisible “don’t tread on me” tattoo stamped on their arms. Once, when I was around 8 and Rebecca was Jane’s age, a little neighborhood boy punched me. He hit me right in the stomach and it took the wind completely out of my lungs. In those moments of shock I slumped to the ground and in the corner of my eye I saw Rebecca spring to her feet.

We’d been playing in the sprinkler, and she was wearing nothing but a water logged diaper. She grabbed a big stick off the ground and charged the boy like a deranged kamikaze pilot, stick flailing, stocky feet running at full force.

“DON’T HIT WIZ!” she screamed.

I remember distinctly that the boy ran from her. I mean, he should have, because she fully intended to beat him to the best of her abilities.

But what I realized yesterday while talking with Jane is that she doesn’t have that. She doesn’t have the innate, “pick on me or mine and I’ll filet you with this stick” reaction to violence or mistreatment. She just makes peace because someone is her “fwend.”

So we’ll work on it. Slowly but surely. She’ll always be sweet and gentle. I just want her to feel fully justified in saying no. And pushing back. And maybe, on occasion, waving a big stick around in the air.

I may not be able to teach her about personal pronouns for a while, but I want her to know it’s ok to be tough.

 

Jane and I are home by ourselves a lot at night. After I put her to bed I like to go out onto the patio by myself. I listen to the frogs by the creek and I eat mint leaves. No, seriously. Like a cow, I’m out there gnawing on mint leaves. In the dark. This is my current idea of having a good time.

If you had told me, way back when I was tanning my skin into a leather bag and taping pictures into my senior year notebook, that one day I would be a project manager who sat in the dark eating mint leaves and listening to frogs FOR FUN I would have laughed. Or cried. Or ran. Probably a combination of all three. My life was in a holding pattern for the awesomeness that lurked just around the corner. My entire high school existence was spent in a state of boredom, completely sure that a more fabulous existence was waiting for me out there in the universe.

Then I went to college. And while I loved college, I was certain then too that something better was coming. And so it went with every new phase of my life. I wasted so much time waiting for the wonderfulness waiting just around the corner. I did not see the wonderfulness already around me.

I’m trying to make sure that isn’t happening now. I’m trying to soak in these humid nights under patio lights listening to frogs. I don’t want to miss this present wonderfulness, however, simple, and however lonely at times.