Meet Pink P, Kindergartener Extraordinaire

Pink P's kindergarten teacher asked us to spend a page telling her about our children. I'm not sure this is what she meant, but here's what I wrote. Maybe I'll chuck the whole thing and start over.

* Pink has moved five times in her five years of life. Two of these were major moves (to Japan and back and from one state to another). Fortunately, Pink has always been good at making friends. 

*We try not to make a big deal out of her allergies. She loves it when she meets other kids with allergies, and she knows how to be careful about food. That said, she doesn't really get why such vigilance is so important. 

*Sometimes Pink can be quite ornery. I'm sure, in part, this is because she's the middle child, a girl stuck between two brothers. It doesn't help that her older brother demands attention due to his ASD and her younger due to health issues and general two-year-old boy shenanigans. 

* She's got a great sense of humor. She loves well. She loves big, and she loves often. 

*Pink has quietly mastered some impressive skills. She essentially taught herself how to tie her shoes, for example. So, for all her timidness and anxiety, she takes some pretty big steps on her own without even asking for help. 

*For the longest time, she would only wear pink dresses. She is more girly than I ever was, and she has a very clear sense of style. She insists on non-matching socks and loves it when her grandma paints her toe nails (something her mom refuses to do). 

*She likes Hello Kitty, princesses, ballerinas, horses, and unicorns. 

*Pink spent most of the first 18 months of her life in Japan, so her first language was Japanese. When we moved back to the US, she refused to speak for months. Now she can hardly speak Japanese at all, though we are trying to teach her. She's proud of her Japanese-ness and likes to tell other people she can speak Japanese (even though her pronunciation is pretty bad). 

*Her father only speaks to her in Japanese, so she often ignores him. 

*She's a great artist. She gets that from her dad. 

*Since her schooling experience has been so different from her brother's, I sometimes feel like I'm not "doing it right." It's great that I don't have to "micromanage" her day like I do for him, but I often worry that I will overlook or underplay something that's important to her. 

So, what do you think? What kinds of things do you write when the teacher asks you to tell him/her about your child? Help me out here!

Heaven Help Us

Easter is coming. You know what that means.

Easter clothes.

I should tell you up front that I have always hated Easter clothes. Always. Dresses and tights. Pastel colors. White shoes. The hat (dear God, the hat). The frilly gloves. Even now I get a little nauseous thinking about those outfits--especially the ones I wore during my awkward pre-teen years!

It seems Pink P and I don't quite feel the same about Easter. She loves Easter clothes. Adores them. So much so that she absolutely must go Easter dress shopping with me. It appears the days of blissfully choosing her clothes are over.

So, on Saturday, we reluctantly and despondently enthusiastically set out to find an Easter dress. At the first store, we made our way through several racks of dresses before Pink P found one that met her high standards. It nearly gave me a panic attack.  I mean, look at it:

Why do they even make dresses like this in her size? Are they trying to kill unsuspecting moms like me?

I tried redirecting Pink. "Here's a good one," I said, pulling an admittedly toddler-esque dress off the rack.

Pink would have nothing to do with it. She gave me a slight but clear shake of her head. "Are you sure?" I asked, enthusiastically. "Look, it has flowers!!"

"Uh-uh," she replied, more forcefully this time. Suddenly, I could imagine exactly what her teenage years were going to look like.

In the end, we left the store with this one. A good compromise, I thought. Especially since it didn't make my stomach tighten and bring tears to my eyes.

As we walked out of the store, Pink P said, "I want the other dress, the one Grandma showed me." Drat! I was hoping she'd forgotten about that one. "Okay," I said, "We'll go look," thinking, of course, that they'd all be gone. I'd waited long enough to go dress shopping, after all.

I was right. When we got to the second store, they only had a few of the dresses left, and all three of them were in her size. All three. Since Grandma had told Pink it was the perfect dress, I had no choice. 

So, for now, we have two dresses and a little less than a week to decide which one will become the dress. Here's hoping I can convince Pink P to love the more conservative one! I know I need to get over it, but I'm just not ready for her to grow up.

Fortunately, some things never change. 

What's not to love about matching big brother/toddler shirts and Easter ties?

PS: Look what I found when I was going through the pictures I took for this post. Apparently Stow has figured out how to take pictures of himself. Which reminds me: if you get a random face time request from me, just ignore it. Stow's particularly fond of this feature on my phone. Besides knowing how to work my phone better than I do, Stow has also perfected the art of turning door knobs, scaling baby gates, and standing on counters and tables.

Heaven help us!

Halloween is Coming, Panic!

"Pink P, what do you want to be for Halloween?"
"A pink princess ballerina."
"Are you sure you don't want to be a monkey or a dragon, or maybe a doctor or a professor?" I ask, hoping that a) she will agree to make use of one of the costumes we already have, and b) choose to be something a little more self-sufficient.
"Ballerina. Princess."
(Sigh).

Sky was a frog, a samurai, a dragon, a doctor, a SWAT team member. In fact, we avoided being a superhero of any kind until last year when I found a Bumble Bee costume on sale. Last year, I have to admit, Pink P was a princess. That costume was on sale, too. Yes, all of my parenting ideals swiftly crumble at the sight of a sale. But that's beside the point. This year, my resolve is in tact, and I'm desperate to have Pink P dress like something a little more respectable than a pink princess ballerina. The problem is, I don't know how to pull it off.

+++++++++++++++++


It has never been easy to costume Pink P. Her first Halloween, we were in Tokyo. Even by American standards, Pink P was big for her age, so she was downright monstrous in Japan. I looked everywhere for a cute costume for her. Baby costumes are adorable, after all, so I looked for something, anything like what you see in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. Maybe she could go as a lady bug, or a bumble bee, or a banana, or peas in a pod. Or maybe she could be a baby lion or a puppy dog. I looked, and looked, and looked. In the end, I swear, all I could find that fit was a Mike Wazowski costume in Japanese 3T size.

+++++++++++++++++

That year, the only trick-or-treating opportunities were in the ex-pat communities of Minato-ku. So, we dressed the kids up and took the train across town. Baby Mike Wazowski, Dr. Sky, Ren and I boarded the train in Ikebukuro and settled in for our 20 minute ride. Because Pink P traveled by stroller, the full effect of her costume was lost on the casual observer. But people stared at Sky. Not just the occasional second glance or lone starer to which we'd become accustomed after several months in Japan, but a train-full of downright staring. "Wow," I thought, "they must really dig the kids' costumes. I did a great job." (I'm never one to miss a chance at self-congratulations, particularly when the task required even the slightest bit of creativity.)

As we got closer to Minato-ku, the staring got less and less. I didn't piece things together until the ride back, though. This time the phenomenon occurred in reverse. When we got on the train, no one gave us the time of day, but by the time we were two or three stops from our destination, everyone was looking at Sky. Finally, an older woman leaned over to me and said, "Did you know your son looks an awful lot like a doctor?"

Vote for Tinkerbell

You all have probably figured out from earlier posts that I am not a fan of princesses (or pink or tea parties or shiny castles or any of it). In fact, I was the quintessential tomboy growing up (remind me never to use the word tomboy with Sky again—that led to an awkward and essentially irreparable exchange). So much so, that when my sister got married when I was just thirteen, I refused to be in her wedding because under no circumstances did I intend to wear a dress (unfortunately, the refusal of a 13 y.o. doesn’t go far with a bride bordering on bridezilla-ness and there are some unfortunate pictures to prove it).

Such adamant tomboyish-ness could only naturally lead to me giving birth to the girliest of girlie girls. Despite my best attempts to keep any and all princesses out of her life (which failed – see blog #1), one of Pink P’s first words was pink and the first book she tried to buy at the bookstore was, you guessed it, a book about a ballerina dressed as a princess.

Pink P’s world centers on pink, princesses, and castles, in that order. She only wants to buy pink things. Pink cookies, pink cupcakes, pink bricks, pink emery boards, pink tampons … Me: “Pink P. what do you want for Christmas?” Pink P: “Pink!!” Me: “Pink what?” Pink P: “Pink pink!” You get the idea.

She insists on dressing herself, and she will only wear pink dresses. Pink dresses! And as a result of her adamant pinkness, we have a lot of pink things at our house (even though Sky constantly warns me that I might be enabling a dangerous addiction).

With the pink come the princesses. You can probably guess my issue with princesses. They wear a lot of dresses, sing a lot of songs, and sit around all day waiting for a prince to rescue them. They have a lot of money that they don’t work for, and when they do work around the house, they leave most of the hard stuff up to the helpful forest animals. Nothing good can come from loving princesses (unless you are a prince in a fairy tale, and I doubt you would be reading my blog if you were).


That’s why I vote for Tinkerbell. First, she’s not really a princess (a distinction currently lost on Pink P). Second, she doesn’t wear pink. Third, and most importantly, she has a job. Tinkerbell tinkers. Sure she makes some poorly-conceived choices, but she never stops working to fix them. So, when you see my kid in a Tinkerbell shirt, don’t think I have lost the princess battle entirely.

(Like the picture says, it's from DisneyFairies.jp)

Pink Princess Potty Mouth

So Sky never went through the potty talk phase. Pink P, on the other hand, relishes it. Remember, this is the kid who loves dresses and Hello Kitty and princesses. But her potty mouth is so bad, sometimes I will hear her in the next room saying to herself, "Poopy, potty, hee, hee" and laughing hysterically.

And at breakfast, she likes to make up songs.

♬ Jingle Poop, Jingle Poop, Jingle Fart, Fart, Fart ♬
♬ Frosty the Fart, Fart, with the Poop, Poop, Poop, Poop, Potty! ♬
(for some reason, she's fond of Christmas music)

Not sure how I ended up mom to a curly-haired three-year old potty mouth who is most often decked from head to toe in pink. So far, warnings and time outs don't seem to discourage her. (She's THAT committed). I hope this isn't a sign for the delinquency to come!

While Pink P is singing about poop, Sky is usually making his daily observations on a number of different topics. Over oatmeal and yogurt, the conversation (if you can call it that) goes something like this.

"Why did Darth Vader tell Luke he was his father?" or "Kyla's mom has a baby in her tummy, too, but her arms are a lot skinnier than yours." or "Did you know Daddy is just like Captain Underpants? He only wears underwear, too, except he goes outside like that." (These "conversation starters" most often leave me speechless--which is fine because it turns out he doesn't expect answers any way).

Not sure what I will do when #3 learns to talk.

Blog posts from the past...

My old blog is defunct, so here are a few posts from the fifteen months I spent rearing a 3-4 year old and a 2 - 17 month old in Japan.


2008/10/02
Bad Mom Redux
I have started making my own baby food. This is not, as some of you might assume, an attempt for me to get off of the "Bad Mom" list. It's a purely economical decision--a jar of baby food costs approximately a $1.50. Granted these appear to be healthy choices, and who can turn down "Kewpie"? In our pantry right now (for those days when I just don't have time or ingredients to make my own food): Rice Porridge with Fish and Seaweed, Stewed Chicken Liver, Risotto with Flounder and Vegetables, Meat Dumpling Stew, Chinese Tofu and Steamed Fish, Tuna Tomato Risotto, Rice Porridge with Chicken and Root Vegetables... What I make is not nearly as good, I assume, but Pink P seems to like it!

If the making of my own baby food edged me closer to getting off the "Bad Mom" list, I am sure the fact I completely missed Pink P's six-month check up places me promptly back at the bottom of the pile! See, here they do immunizations separate from well-child checks, and I didn't really realize this. I had wondered about it but didn't really read the materials the city health center had given me very carefully (it was all written in Japanese, after all). When I finally got around to investigating, it was time for her 9-month check. Yikes! Of course, when I took her for her 9-month check, the doctor was kind enough to point out my error. Thanks, thanks a lot.

2008/7/21
Earthquake!

When we first moved to Tokyo, I received a disaster preparedness manual for dealing with earthquakes. It was at once funny (reminding us to yell "Earthquake! Turn off the gas!" at least three times when we feel a major quake occuring and telling us to begin rebuilding our community the third day--no sooner, no later--after a major earthquake) and quite sobering. It is very specific as to how phone services will work, how traffic will be diverted, where our meeting points and evacuation centers are, etc...At my son's kindergarten, all of the kids have emergency cushions. These crack me up (and frighten me at the same time) because they are very thin square pillows (only about an inch thick) that the kids are supposed to use to cover their heads in the case of an earthquake. Helmets would make a lot more sense, don't you think?


2008/06/23
For the Record...
I should confess that Sky went to school with a princess band-aid on his toe today. He seems to like Ariel from The Little Mermaid the best (he's already used three of the Ariel band-aids). He calls her "the princess with lots of water." If the teacher noticed it when she made him change his mud-filled socks this morning, she didn't mention it.

2008/06/17
Losing the Princess Battle
When we found out Pink P was going to be a girl, I have to admit I panicked a little. What if she was into tea parties and princesses? I mean, I was the ultimate tomboy, and pink is one of my least favorite colors. What would I do with a girly girl? Before she was born, I set out to buy gender-neutral-colored clothes (I did the same thing with her brother), picking a lot of greens and browns. Still, I began to supsect my efforts were in vain when we were picking out plates for Sky's birthday (six weeks before Pink P was even born). He was torn between Thomas, Animal Planet, and Princesses! We ended up going with Thomas, but it was a toss up!

On the day of Pink P's baptism, her brother was ecstatic. "She's a princess!" he said. How sweet, I thought, until I realized his excitement came from the fact that she was wearing a dress. He promptly took a look up her skirt.

Recently he has taken to tying his blanket around his waist so that he can be a princess. [Lest you are worried, he does also tie his blanket around his neck and pretend to be Super Why (from PBS) or Anpanman (a flying beanpaste bun super hero that is popular with his age group here--don't ask)]. Irony of all ironies: the other day, I found myself saying, "Just wait until Pink P gets bigger. Then you guys can play princess together."