Fear and Parenting in Las Vegas

Travel up a hill in a bright and cheery LA suburb.

Follow the road as it curves and ascends.

Make your first right.

Climb again. This time even steeper.

It’s the second house on the left.

Remember the Red Doors.

Through those Red Doors, you will find a wooden floor that socked feet slid upon during sibling chase scenes.

Don’t run into the grandfather clock. It was a gift. An anniversary gift. Mom will be pissed.

Make a right and see the bedroom door on your left. The door that had to be replaced because a cowboy boot punched its way through because you were inside. And he didn’t want you there. It was his space. It was a safe space. You wanted to be safe.

Return to the hall. Go to the next door on your left. The cool porcelain that was never dirty. The tub where you learned to shave your legs. The bathroom art that made you question why people drew pictures of toilets to hang in bathrooms. Wasn’t there anything better to draw? Why would anyone want to look at a picture of a john when they were sitting on one? Life’s great mysteries.

Return to the hall. At the end. There it is. A room where ghosts and demons lived in the closet and you willed them away each night with memorized verses and mumbled hymns. A bookshelf with a boom box that fueled pop star fantasies. A three-story Barbie condo with cardboard walls warped from dog pee.

Return to the hall. The door to your left. The door to your left. To enter it is to be transformed. It is not safe. Drawn in and compelled to flee. Drawn in and compelled to flee.

Flee to the Red Door, dear child. Flee to the Red Door.

This post is in response to a moving experience I had with The Wilderness Downtown. Check it out and see what you’d say to your younger self.

Special thanks to Amy from Taste Like Crazy for sharing this amazing find.

For the past two years, every paper Boo has brought home from school has been perfect.

No, she’s not perfect.

She makes lots of mistakes.

It’s just that, for the past two years, she’s had the opportunity to fix them before her teacher’s red pen hit the page.

Now, she’s flying without a net.

She forgot to check and make sure she did both sides of a worksheet.

She mixed up a “p” and an “a.”

She confuses her “d”s and “b”s.

She’s under time constraints and is feeling the pressure.

Her teacher is nice, but focused on performance, not feelings.

Boo is learning hard lessons.  She’s feeling the pressure. The days of getting by with her charm are over.

She’s got to deliver the goods. She’s got to take her time to do it right the first time. She’s got to focus on the task at hand.

Tough stuff when you’re six.

This morning, I dropped my three-year-old son, Doodle off at the same daycare/preschool that he’s attended since he was six weeks old.

I nearly forgot it was the start of a new “school” year and he would be changing rooms.

He was already familiar with his new teachers, having had them in other rooms at other stages of his development.

But this time, when I dropped him off, his new teacher asked me a question…

Is there anything you’d like me to know?

Well, yes. There are a few things you should know about my son.

• He loves trains and dinosaurs.
• He gets grumpy when he is tired and/or hungry.
• When we drop him off, he’ll usually start his day with a banana.
• He’ll be the last child to settle for his nap and the hardest one to wake up.
• Please don’t let him nap longer than an hour and a half. Otherwise he’ll be impossible at bedtime.
• We’ve given up the fight for a nap at home on weekends and holidays. He is allowed to play quietly in his room while I regain my sanity.
• He’s a picky eater, and manage to make a mess with whatever he decides to put in his mouth.
• He’ll greet whomever is picking him up with a smile and hug that makes him/her believe he’s been waiting all day just to see him/her.
• His favorite movie is “Cars” and his favorite hairstyle is “spiky.”
• He’s fully potty trained, but likes an audience and needs help wiping.
• He needs to work on his language and fine motor skills so he can be ready for his Pre-K evaluation at Ye Olde Catholic school this spring.
• He loves to ride bikes and go down slides the wrong way.
• He’s broken his arm twice on playground equipment. He’s a risk taker and does not bounce well.
• You can usually get him to share if you ask him to “take turns.”
• He does well with a routine and clear and consistent expectations, but he reserves the right to change the rules on you at any time.
• Sometimes he falls apart, the only thing that will calm him down is to hold him and hold him tight. Yes, he will fight you, and may take a swing at you. His cries can peel the paint off the walls, but he will settle into a heap of sobs and cling to you with profuse apologies for his transgression. He will love you even more for teaching him how to pull his shit together.
• His best friend is the little curly redhead boy. They’re always together and can’t leave each day without hugging each other.
• He’s learned to put his shoes on.
• He’s a master manipulator. Don’t believe him when he tells you he can’t do something. Please don’t let him get away with it.
• Please don’t soothe his moods with food. If you feed him healthy stuff on a regular basis, you should be fine. Giving him cookies and sweet stuff turns him into exactly what you’re trying to avoid — a blonde tornado of preschool hell. Sweets are cool on occasion and (please) not just before he comes home.
• It takes a village to raise this little man, so you’ll see quite the cast of characters trouping through this room at pickup and dropoff. There will be me and his dad, our respective partners, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas, grandpas, and an awesome babysitter. Have no fear. He knows his people.
• I fully expect him to come home filthy each day. It’s how I know he’s had fun.
• Hug him often and remind him he is loved.

I am thankful, dear teacher, that you’ve decided that locking yourself in room with a dozen 3-4 year-olds is your life’s calling. It’s a job that I would take only if the alternative was being Paris Hilton’s publicist.

If there’s something you need, please don’t hand me a gift wrap or cookie dough catalog. I have enough paper for three Christmases and my ass needs cookie dough like Angelina Jolie’s lips need botox. Just tell me what you need and we’ll get it.

If my angel is being a pain in the ass, please tell me. Trust me, this will not be news. Let’s work together to figure out why he’s being an asshole and fix it together. Because, in the end, we want angels, not assholes, right? The world has enough of the latter.

So, here’s to a great school year. I look forward to bawling with you this next August when we look back on how much he’s grown and changed as he heads off to reform Catholic school with his big sister.

Love,

Doodle’s Mom (but you can call me Nancy)