How Chloe Almost Got Hurt Over a Pair of One Hundred Dollar Sneakers . . .

Jackie and I are two very different women.  My idea of a nice day is putting on a pair of heels and going out to lunch, while she would prefer to put on a pair of hiking boots and go on an outdoor adventure. Our friendship works because it is reciprocal.  We indulge each other; she comes to Buddakan with me and I go hiking with her. 

Jackie wearing a fur trimmed cape to the farm! Yesssss! Fashion!

This weekend she decided that we should take our kids to Harvest Moon Farm and Orchard so that Chloe could participate in an Easter Egg Hunt.  The 50 minute ride to rural NY was scenic and I noticed myself beginning to breathe more deeply the farther we got outside of the city. Chloe delighted in having a fresh eager ear for her stories, while Noah read a book on his phone up front.  It's almost as if the personalities of our children are reversed:  Chloe is active and gregarious like Jackie, and Noah is quiet and observant like me.

When we arrived at the farm there was snow on the ground, and not a bud on a tree.  Nevertheless the sun was shining, the wind was still,  and I immediately perked up when I saw this:

#farmlife

Chloe, Jackie, and I went inside to buy apple cider donuts. The donuts alone were worth the hour ride: light, fluffy, straight out of the deep-fryer, and warm.

Yum!!

While we were in the store, Chloe spent about a minute looking at baby chickens in an incubator and decided that she would rather be outside. That bold seven year old of mine ran off and ended up talking someone into letting her into the bouncy house without a ticket!  Sometimes, I look at her in wonder.  When I was her age, I would have been clinging to my mother's side in fear of the other people.  She has no fear of the world or her place in it.

Afterwards Chloe found more than her fair share of eggs in the Easter Egg Hunt, rode a horse,  had lunch, and played on a makeshift slide and swing set.

When it was time to get into the car to leave, we looked down and Chloe was covered in mud looking like Pigpen from Peanuts.  Her jeans were splattered with a particularly foul smelling dirt and her boots were completely covered in it.  She only had the boots since December (they were a Christmas gift from Grandma), but they were now unwearable and Jackie wasn't trying to have those nasty things in her car.

aka Chlo-Chlo

We decided to leave the boots in the parking lot and head to the mall to get her some new shoes. At that point I was mildly irritated, but as we walked into Nordstrom I looked at Chloe strutting around in her mix-matched dirty pink and purple socks and got heated.  She was prancing around, flipping her braids like being shoeless in public was a perfectly acceptable wardrobe option.  It took everything in my power not to snatch her up and tell her that she should be embarrassed (she's lucky that Grandma wasn't there).

To make things worse, when we went to the third floor to look at children's shoes, Chloe immediately ran toward the most expensive ones.  When I picked out a pair of functional navy blue Converse she had the AUDACITY to pout and pretend that she couldn't get them on her feet.  Then she began making this strange mewing noise- like the very act of trying them on was hurting her.  I honestly felt like knocking her upside her head, but I figured that would not be a good look for Nordstrom.

Did this child realize that she should be grateful that she had a mother with the time and inclination to take her to a farm and spend $8.00 so she could sit her behind on a horse for two minutes?
Did she understand that she should be thankful for getting a new pair of shoes on a day that we were NOT celebrating the day of her birth?  Did she not get that it made no sense for me to spend one hundred dollars on a pair of shoes when she did not have the sense to take care of the ones that she had?

Of course not, because despite the fact that her personality is nothing like mine, she is my daughter and she expects the best.  And even though she walked out of Nordstrom with a pair of navy blue Converse, rather than the sparkly pink Sketchers that she wanted-she made them WORK!


   

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Her tolerance of nonsense is at an all time low

Back in the day when I spent 10, 000 a year on Preschool,  one of the things that I disliked the most was the birthday parties.  It seemed like every weekend I was buying a gift I couldn't afford and heading to the celebration of one of her friend's birthdays on the Upper West Side.  Even though it can appear otherwise, I am an introvert.  I dislike socializing with people that I don't know (especially when there are juice boxes available instead of wine).  Furthermore, being the only single parent in the mix made me feel awkward and sorry for myself.

Anyway, this weekend when Chloe was invited to a birthday party I was relieved when her father agreed to take her.  The morning of the party I could have sworn that my sweet seven year old had morphed into a sixteen year-old drama queen.  She was stomping around the house slamming doors, messing with her freshly braided hair, and claiming that "nothing was going right today."  I had a feeling that she was afraid that her father wasn't going to show up, even though he had called to reassure her that he was on his way.

When he did arrive we were putting her coat on and she said something about being excited to go her "best friend's" party.  I responded, "that's not your best friend" (the girl had been part of a group that ganged up on Chloe earlier in the year).  She replied, "yes she is, we've known each other since Kindergarten."  I asked if the girl was always nice to her,  and then Chloe went off!!!

She turned to her father and said "well, I only see YOU once every two weeks.  You're just a number in my phone. But you're still my father!  You don't even like my mother! All you do is argue about money. You don't need money to be happy!"  She was preaching like it was Sunday while her father and I stood there with stupid grins on our faces.  She wasn't angry or sad, just very matter-of-fact.

Ridel started hugging Chloe, laughing and telling her that he and I were friends (kinda true), while I slowly made my way up the stairs before she told me more about myself.  I was proud of the way that she expressed herself so directly,  yet sad that the lesson that she is learning is that it is ok for people not to consistently treat her with kindness because of her father's inability or unwillingness to be there when she wants.  One of the things that I like the most about Chloe is that she is an extremely loving child who likes people and makes friends easily.  Everyone in the neighborhood knows her: the mail woman, the crossing guard, the man in the corner store.  She is very much like her father in that way, but unlike him, I want her to know what healthy love looks like as a child.

After the party ended, Chloe and Ridel returned home laughing and tripping up the stairs.  They were excited to share videos of Chloe skating around around like a seasoned pro and Ridel struggling to keep up holding onto the side of the rink.  When we had a moment alone, I asked Ridel what he thought about what Chloe said.  His response was "it was hot!"  Thinking that he has misunderstood the question, I asked again and he repeated, "it was hot; what she said was how she felt, and Chloe never lies.  She said that she needs more time, and I'm going to try to be there for her."  There was no defensiveness, no claims that I was over-reacting.  And because of that there is hope.