Maybe it’s just because I have a fever or a painful skin issue that came out of nowhere, but I’m feeling sad when I look at the issues of High Five and Highlights that are currently taking up real estate on my bathroom floor.
I just for the first time took a glance at the page of “our family traditions,” just about 10 minutes after saying goodnight to my kids on a night when my 7-year-old son melted down because we went upstairs too late to read in bed.
The pull quote is from an 8-year-old who adores the fact that her mom reads for a half-hour — a half-hour! — with her and with her sibling. Each. Separately.
What time do they have dinner? 4:30? How do you find the time for that, and what does the other one do while waiting?
Wait a second. That’s “sisters'” rooms — plural possessive. If that little Karina seriously understands correct use of apostrophes, my jaw is going all the way through the floor.
I felt guilty tonight because of the meltdown and the failure to at least read a few pages. Yes, we should have read something. But both kids needed to get to sleep! I assuaged him with having him tell me what he’d read that morning of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (when he woke up way too early, hence the meltdown).
I sort of combined that with his recent request, the telling of tales from when I was “a little girl.” He seems to really enjoy this, and for the past month that we’ve been doing it, it’s been a good exercise to practice finding happy memories and finding ways to share sadder info that won’t burden him with sadness — to make sure I convey the idea that you will eventually get over pretty much anything, and even learn from it!
I shared my tales of watching Fantasy Island as a young girl and how it’s really not all that great to watch or even read scary stuff before bed. I suggested that instead he think about the images from the beautiful watercolors in Grandfather Twilight: the sun setting and the moon rising; the calm sea and the animals with their eyes closed.
Then he asked, “Why don’t we do that anymore?”
Um, because I suck and keeping up traditions?
Really, I told him, it just wasn’t working. He was asking me unrelated questions while I was reading. But we could start it again if he wanted…
Then I sang the bedtime song I’ve been singing both kids since they started to sleep together, and my daughter for a long time. I had also recited — from memory — Time for Bed, but it seemed in recent weeks like going out on a song was calmer. So I gave up that tradition.
Until my daughter told me a few nights ago that I needed to “do the animals.” Tonight my son complained that he wished I wouldn’t because he was just about to fall asleep but then added, “Could you close the curtain all the way?”
We have no great family traditions I can think of that my children would want to share in highlights. If I start something, I fall off the wagon, or I let it change if it seems like it ought to. We’ve stopped doing our thankful blessing before meals, our candle… I have a profound respect for the Waldorf way and for ritual, but at 40, I’m still a newbie. I can’t even get on board to always give them their cod liver oil at the same time. Evening supplements are a little better, but not 100%.
And as for holiday traditions, nothing is ever the same. There is no “we always” in my house. That makes me sad. The only thing I think my kids could agree on is that we always have sausage at breakfast. And usually eggs, and usually broth, often with peas.
Do I refrain from committing in full because I think the world will fall apart if we hang ours on sameness and it disappears for a day?
Or am I just a coward? Or more flexible than I give myself credit for?
Having just read Cheryl Strayed’s novel Torch, about a brother and a sister whose mom dies quickly of cancer when they are 17 and 20, I wonder just what the heck my kids will remember me doing all the time.
Probably sitting at the computer.
2013 NaBloPoMo archives
Day 4: All I needed to know about myself I learned on Land/Sea
Day 6: So many choices! A blessing and a curse
See also the archive of my 2012 NaBloPoMo poems
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