Claire has a collection of Pooh stories (not written by A.A. Milne) that she loves; one is called “Don’t Talk to Strangers, Pooh.” I dread when she asks it to be read to her, and I always re-word it as I read. I don’t want to instill a fear of strangers into my daughter. How is she to make friends in this world, or find her way, or ask for help when she needs it? I simply want her to understand never to go off anywhere with a stranger. I want her to learn this until she is of age — that is, a confident adult who can assess risks and listen to her intuitive signals.

When I was a child, my disposition and personality attracted bullies. I was a sentimental child with zero self-confidence. (I grew up into a depressed adult with zero self-confidence, but with enough gumption and drive to heal and overcome this.) I have vivid memories of being taunted:

• a bully yanking a play necklace off me in kindergarten, watching the beads scatter everywhere, hearing him tell me I could not stand on the school porch and he would kill me if I did (thank you Mark S.);
• an older child riding his bike around me in ever tighter circles as I walked to piano lessons a few blocks from home, threatening to run into me;
• being choked (hands tight around the neck) by a boy in third grade when I would not give him a book that I had brought to school (thank you Tony F.) — fortunately the teacher was nearby and pried his hands from my throat;
• being tormented throughout fourth and fifth grade by a “friend” who happened to be the local Presbyterian minister’s kid — she hid my belongings, said terrible things to and about me, ganged up with another girl against me (thanks Suzanne H.). I was so relieved when our fifth grade teacher told me she was moving away to Massachusetts that summer;
• being punched in the stomach by a class bully (a girl no less) in fifth grade (thank you Colleen F.);
• being exiled from my four friends with whom I shared a table (and locker) in sixth grade — all girls, who are great at emotional bullying.

That last incident was the first — and only — time I ever fought back. It began on a Wednesday, escalated into Thursday; that night, after being physically ill with fear and worry about what they would do next, I vowed the first one to harass me the next day would get kicked in the stomach. One of them approached me with a taunt, and I kicked. Then I fled, hysterical and sobbing, to the principal’s office. I asked to call my mother, and I begged her to come take me home. The principal intervened and said they’d figure out what was going on. I was terrified that I’d hurt the girl, that I was in big trouble, that I was hated by the entire sixth grade. I spent the day with the school counselor processing all this. He came with me when I went to apologize to the girl. This was a Friday. The principal called the other girls’ parents to tell them about the ostracism. The following Monday (I agonized all weekend about what might happen next), the girls came to apologize to me and make up, and I was accepted again. That was the day of the class picnic. Life was wonderful again, for the moment.

This was all exacerbated by the fact that from age 8 through 12, life at home was not placid and secure. In fact, throughout my teen years this was the case, but by the time I reached high school I had primarily withdrawn from school life and was mostly left alone. Oh, except for the nasty rumor that I was having an affair in 11th grade with my social studies teacher; I had a crush on him, but more importantly, he listened to me pour out my troubles and referred me to the school psychologist, whom I began to see and whom I credit with keeping me intact through graduation. I’m not at liberty to describe why my home life was as it was; it’s only important to know that the milieu, combined with my personality, combined in such a way as to make me a target.

I know that it’s an animal instinct to go for the jugular, to attack the weak one. I know that fearfulness, simpering, flinching, and crying triggers the meanness in others. I have felt that meanness in myself, been tempted by it, and have occasionally indulged it. When I grew up, I realized that if I had a daughter, I want to help her to know that it is perfectly all right to defend herself. Now, my daughter is not me — she has a differently personality and home life — and I’m careful not to project my past onto her. Still, there are things worth knowing.

When I was twelve, there was a carnival down the road at Taunton Corners. Every year it came for the Firemen’s Field Days. At that age, I was allowed to walk down there myself, about a mile away. The man running the duck game flirted with me. I was taken by the attention. I flirted back in the innocent way a 12-year-old does. Then he made a suggestion to me, that I should come back that evening when the carnival was closed to spend time with him. I was intrigued, and tempted, and scared, and unnerved. Something felt icky about the way he looked at me, about the suggestion. I felt uncomfortable, and I never went; I also never back to that game. That was a good decision. I listened to my intuition, and it did not guide me poorly.

I ignored my intuition when I was 31. I ended up sexually assaulted. Not that it was my fault. It’s just that, looking back, I see the signals that I ignored because I was trying to be “a nice person,” (such a strong cultural expectation for women). I remember my reluctance to fight back, to scream; my desperate attempt to reject what was happening.

So, how does one raise a child to be secure but not naive, savvy but not paranoid? There are two books filled good guidance to answer this question, both written by Gavin DeBecker. I am pulling an excerpt from one of his books below. It is a “test” of sorts, one which he suspects many adults would not “pass” if they asked themselves these questions.

I’m not advocating raising children to be violent, to be bullies, to be snots and brats. Yet in certain circumstances, it is vitally important to be able to know and do the following. The questions pertain to interactions children have with adults, but in some cases it may be useful to think of them in context with kids who are bigger and older than the child in question.

Do your children know…

1. How to honor their feelings – if someone makes them uncomfortable, that’s an important signal;
2. You (the parents) are strong enough to hear about any experience they’ve had, no matter how unpleasant;
3. It’s okay to rebuff and defy adults;
4. It’s okay to be assertive;
5. How to ask for assistance or help;
6. How to choose whom to ask;
7. How to describe their peril;
8. It’s okay to strike, even to injure, someone if they believe they are in danger, and that you’ll support any action they take as a result of feeling uncomfortable or afraid;
9. It’s okay to make noise, to scream, to yell, to run;
10. If someone even tries to force them to go somewhere, what they scream should include, “This is not my father” (because onlookers seeing a child scream or even struggle are likely to assume the adult is a parent);
11. If someone says, “Don’t yell,” the thing to do is yell (and the corollary: If someone says, “Don’t tell,” the thing to do is tell);
12. To fully resist ever going anywhere out of public view with someone they don’t know, and particularly to resist going anywhere with someone who tries to persuade them.

–Gavin DeBecker, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

I’ve been wanting to give Claire a barn to play with, but many of them are outrageously expensive. So I found an old box and, with a little cutting and taping and painting, ended up with a barn. Claire helped me paint the barn red. Then I took over with the roof and trim, and collaged the inside of the box. I’ve had the paint, paper, and tape on hand for years, so for a very minimal cost we have a toy barn! It may not last as long as a wooden one, but we had fun making it (especially me). Now all we need are some farm animals!

One of my sisters visited later in June, and Claire was pretty horrible to her too. After the first day in which Claire was shy and sweet, she would raise her voice to her aunt. “Don’t say words!” “Go away!” “Don’t look at me!” These demands were accompanied by screeching. (Claire didn’t have the same feelings toward her uncle, however; he was just nifty.) We took the opportunity to admonish her about being kind, but the bottom line is that in this new house and new life there was an unfamiliar person taking a lot of my attention and time, and this just didn’t sit well with Claire.

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine came to visit, and Claire behaved similarly. She warmed up to my friend a bit, but would bluntly state her wishes too, such as “Don’t talk to me.” Then last Friday, when her beloved babysitter came for the first time in a month, she decided the babysitter was no good either. After about 45 minutes with A__, she didn’t want the babysitter to sit in the same room, or touch any of her toys, and so on. I got a call about an hour before I was due home; A__ informing me what was happening to let me know. I decided that as long as Claire was safe (not self-injuring or something), that I would come home at my planned time. When I came home she’d been crying and wailing for me and clung to me.

She’s even been mean to her father in this way. And increasingly, Claire says, “I want to go back to the old house.” I conclude that this has been a seismic shift for her. If she can be taken away from her home, then what about Mommy? What if Mommy is taken away, or she is taken from Mommy? Many days she doesn’t want to go anywhere, sometimes not even outside. Not to the grocery store, the park, for a walk. Pushing her is a catalyst for a tantrum; then everyone is miserable, so what’s the point?

And the tantrums! Oh, they have become ever more voluble and frequent.

However, it’s not all negative stuff. Claire is as sweet, playful, and loving as ever — even more so. So much change in a little life…

We’ve done a few activities, such as:

Berry picking in June!

“Washing” windows:

Baking cakes (and licking batter off the beater):

Having backyard picnics:

Enjoying the sprinkler:

And making stuff, like sand clay and painting birdhouses! Claire made the bowl with a little shaping help from me, and I made the candle holder.

I painted the white coat and Claire added her flair:

Onward to August!

Yesterday in the bath, Claire said she was performing a science experiment. She has Munchkin foam letters, and they stick to surfaces in the tub and the stall walls. So she took the letter J and put it on her head to see if it would stick. She shook her head, and it fell off. She did this four or five times. Then she said, “Let’s see if the letter L will stick.” She repeated the procedure, and indeed it did! (My occasional guilt for allowing her to watch television in the early morning was alleviated in this moment. She learns a great deal from her favorite shows: Caillou, Curious George, Olivia, Word World, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, and My Friends Tigger & Pooh.)

At the same time, she still needs lots of cuddling and mothering and fathering. Her sleep remains disrupted from the move. I added a makeshift curtain to her window to help darken the room a bit. The challenge, it seems, is that on days she naps she has difficulty falling asleep, and on days she does not nap she falls asleep early and well but it is a long, cranky, and sometimes tearful afternoon and evening until then!

Last night I rocked and sang to her, and she was all wiggles and squirms. After 25 minutes of this I told her it was time to go to sleep and I put her in the crib. She protested with a whine. I covered her and said nighty-night. Then I left. The whining continued. I did some chores in the kitchen as the whining progressed to crying. First it was protest crying — not entirely real, not fully committed — but after half an hour she was crying at full bore.

I went to her and asked, “What’s with all this llama drama?” (See books by Anna Dewdney for reference.) She asked for a tissue to blow her nose, and then I rocked her. As she lay in my arms with a tear-streaked face, she spoke in a tremulous voice. She said she’d felt alone and that she was crying like a baby so I would come back. She said she had a boo-boo on her knee, and so I kissed it. Then she explained how the Kleenex helps get the boogers out of her nose.

So I rocked and sang again, for about 25 minutes, and she snuggled against me and fell asleep. At 9:20 I put her down in the crib, and she slept until 6:45 (earlier than usual, but much better than 5:20 a.m.!)

In a few moments we’ll head out to a farm and pick berries with new friends from down the street. The boys are 7 and 5, and they love Claire and (so far) play well with her. I notice that Claire really plays well with older kids who understand turn-taking and sharing. She doesn’t follow game rules very well yet and isn’t as organized, but she has more fun with kids who don’t grab toys from her and understand when she “uses her words.” The extra benefit of these new friends is that I really really like their mom!

Tuesday we move. And start to settle in. And return to the old house to take a few stray items and clean a bit. We return the keys on May 31, and this chapter of our lives is closed.

This home has been Claire’s home. When we first made the offer, she said she didn’t want a new house. She liked this one. But over the past two months, with repeated trips to the new home, she has gradually warmed up to the possibility. Husband painted her room lavender, and I made a cozy place in the cubby hole under the stairs, and she has discovered the wonderful possibilities of the back yard. So she has been remarkably laid-back as boxes pile up around her, and all that is familiar disappears. She was even eager to take her decorations off her bedroom walls.

I’m running on empty, but I feel good about how everything is going. Next time I write a post, it’ll be in the new home!

At our follow-up appointment on Tuesday, we discussed the situation. It turns out that Claire has asthma. This may be something she outgrows, as her respiratory system gets bigger and her immunity builds. She’s very petite. We have an asthma plan. When she’s healthy, it’s the green zone, and we need not do anything. At the sign of any sickness (fever, runny nose, sneezing, congestion, coughing — any one of these) we enter the yellow zone. We are to give her albuterol every four hours round the clock and prednisone twice a day until the cold goes away.

However, if she’s in the yellow zone more than a week, or she falls into a coughing spiral as she has, we enter the red zone and need to seek emergency attention — Urgent Care if they’re open, the ER if not.

At first I felt a little sad about pulling her out of preschool. I really want her to have the social outlet, and I want it too. The doctor pointed out, though, that if she’s sick all the time, she can’t get the social contact anyway. And preschool is a lot more exposure to illness than small play-dates with friends. So, I set about creating an at-home curriculum for us next year: reading/phonics, science, art & craft, music, games, adventure days. I’ll invite a couple friends over to join us now and then. And after more pondering, I realize that I have a gift. Soon enough, Claire will go to school five days a week and enter into her own life away from me. I have the privilege of her company for another year, at least, and maybe two.

I just returned from a day-long retreat with my friend Karen, where I realized something else. We’ve resorted to doing “puffs” — breathing ten times from a little chamber where the medicine is squirted into — because she fought the breathing treatments that took ten minutes every time. And I realized, today, that by sitting with her and helping her count breaths to ten, I am setting the foundation for her to learn how to settle herself and become aware of breath. It also helps me to stop and breathe, and be quiet. Breathing is the foundation of meditation, which leads to attention, which leads to love, which leads to patience, which leads to forgiveness, which leads to peace.

So what first seems like a hindrance has turned out to have aspects to appreciate. I’m grateful for that.

——-

I have written this post quickly, because my life is in flux and I have to give my attention to other things: dinner, and packing. I feel eloquence is lacking in the above reflection, but it will have to do. We move on Tuesday! So much to do before that!

We move in two weeks. Husband is at the house doing all sorts of little things to prepare it, and we’re waiting for a couple of small messy jobs to get done. Then cleaning, then moving.

I’ve noticed since becoming a mother I have written less. No, I take that back. For the first two years of Claire’s life, I wrote about her. Then I decided to reign that in, since she is developing greater agency over her life. Lately, blogging about my life strikes me as an incredibly narcissistic activity; it always has been, but at one point I actually thought it had value. Increasingly, though, I see that my vignettes, reflections, and insights are not original, and I’m not certain that writing them (here or in a paper journal) effects anything beneficial. I don’t seem to need to do it anymore. So this blog has become a place to link to resources related to my current activity (parenting) and the occasional photo or movie of Claire. This morning I realized there are usually three factors that cause my writing silence; any one of these can be cause for me to abandon writing for while:

1. I am very busy with daily activities (such as when I worked and went to school, both full-time).
2. I am content with my life.
3. I feel that to write is to express nothing unique or new, and to blog is just adding another voice to the cacophony of Twitterers, bloggers, Facebookers (of which I’m an avid user) and other sundry voices.

As it happens, all of these factors are true at the moment. Hence, my sporadic posts.

I’ve been reading voraciously this year. Some years I barely touch fiction, other years I devour it. This is a fiction year. Yet I’ve also been immersed in a number of existential books by Eckhart Tolle, and most recently I’ve been soaking in Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life.

At this point, I’ll keep living as usual. There’s a season for all things, and the writing season will probably come ’round again.

In California, you sign all the legal and mortgage paperwork and then they give you the keys later. We’ll legally have our house on May 4, and then the fun begins. Tenting for pests, small repairs, installing things, packing, packing, and more packing, sorting and donating, packing, and then moving. May will be a busy month.

And then we’ll nest. Claire already loves the back yard. I’ve got ideas for planting… and I must remind myself we have many years in which to do all these things.

If you live in Silicon Valley and need a realtor, contact ours: CJ Brasiel. She also has a blog. CJ makes it happen. We hired her on January 1, and we had a house by Easter.

I stand here nipping a bit of lunch while Claire eats, so this post will be brief as usual.