Three more bites

The other night Natalie wanted to leave the dinner table.

"Three more bites," I said. And then I returned to eating and thinking. And soon she pulled me back from my drifting.

"All done, Mama." Had she eaten three bites? Really?

"Yes, three." I didn't believe it.

"Are you fibbing, Natalie?"

"Nooooooo."

"It's not right to fib. Did you really eat three bites?"

"Yyyyyyep!"

I sized her up. She held my gaze. What now?

"You know God watches over us. Right, honey?"

"Yyyyyyep!" She goes to kindergarten at a Methodist church, after all.

"He's always watching us. Always."


She kept her eyes on mine. And then a smile spread across her face.

"I eat one more bite, Mama."

The Filipina Ladies Room

There is a ladies room on the second floor of the County building that I sometimes use because it's a little farther away and so involves a short walk and therefore more time away from my desk. It's the little pleasures.

Anyway, every time I visit, there are typically two or three ladies already there. And they are invariably Filipina. They are County employees and they are speaking Tagalog.


And while I am there I quietly listen to their conversations as they wash their hands and fix their hair, never understanding a single word that they're saying.

And then I walk back to my office wondering why that ladies room and not some other ladies room has become the Filipina Ladies Room. I think about a ladies room surveillance, noting from where the ladies come and to where they go after. I wonder how and why they all started using those facilities.

By the time I return to my desk I've usually forgotten about it. But not today! I'm going to get to the bottom of this. No pun intended.

Lost and Found

Tony was having a feng shui attack on Saturday. I sat on his bed as he hoed out his closet, and carried bags of clothes, including a green and purple leather/satin reversible Mighty Ducks jacket, to the VFW Post. (Its time had definitely come.)

In the car, he was still stricken by the attack. He pulled out papers from the glove box and center console. And to pass the time, I read a magazine in the passenger seat. When he pulled a tube of hand cream from the console, I took the opportunity to slather some on, removing my engagement ring and placing it on my lap, in the open magazine.

Which I promptly threw into the bag of trash Tony was collecting. With the ring still inside it.

Except I didn't realize this of course until I stood up outside the car and noticed my bare ring finger.

I patted my sweatshirt pockets and my shorts pockets and I think I said something like: "My ring! My ring! Where is it? Help me! Help meeeeee!"

Tony calmly looked around the car, under my seat and then asked if I was sure I had taken it off in the car.

"Yes! No... I don't know!"

He then sat back down in the driver's seat. And as my heart raced and my mouth went dry, he methodically removed one item at a time until he heard a clink. And caught a glimmer. And followed the flash of light to a little nook by the door where my ring sat waiting to be picked back up.

He put it back onto my finger. I cried and hugged him.


"I thought it was goooone." I cried.

But it's not! And I'm not taking it off anymore!

Homework

It used to be princesses. Princesses in the morning, at night, all the live long day. "Sleeping Beauty" on the portable DVD player, fast-forwarding through the scary parts. Lengthy discussions on Cinderella's step-sisters and her various outfits: brown dress to scrub the floor, blue to the ball, white to marry the Prince.

Since Sept. 8, the DVD player has not been turned on. Not even once. Sept. 8 was the first day of kindergarten.

And now, Natalie has a new addiction. It's more intense than her love for princesses. And harder for me to understand. (You see, my success has come despite my work ethic, not because of it.)

It's homework.
Yes, homework in kindergarten. I cursed it. I railed against it. But then I saw how much Natalie liked it and how much she was blossoming. It was just another part of this amazing burst of confidence. And now, I use it to my advantage.

Last night, she wouldn't undress for her bath. And I had to ask her three times to clear the table. She just couldn't tear herself away from her homework.

Then I had what Oprah calls the "Aha Moment."

"Natalie, if you don't get into the bath right now, there's no homework tonight!"

She was in that bath in two minutes flat.

Mama Wear Yellow Dress, I Wear Yellow Dress

I was worried about telling Natalie that I was getting married.

It actually produced quite a lot of anxiety for me.

That is because, before agreeing to marry Tony, I had promised to marry Natalie. She had the wedding all planned out. She would wear Mama's White Dress, a traditional gown that I wore to marry Daddy that now resides in a box in her closet. And I would wear my blue Cinderella dress, which was a great hit with the pre-schoolers at the Halloween carnival last year.

Whenever she talked about it, she'd remind me: "I wear Mama's white dress; Mama wear Mama's blue Cinderella dress."

I took off my ring when I first saw her, waiting for the right moment to break the news. When I'd found the moment, buckling her into the car after school, I showed her the ring. She grasped my hand, drawing it close to her smudged glasses.

Then she looked at my other hand and asked why Tony had only given me one ring. I told her what the ring meant, that Tony asked me to marry him and I said I would. She studied the ring, and then looked up.

"I wear Mama's White Dress and Mama wear Mama's blue Cinderella dress."

"Yes, baby. That's right."

Nothing would change that, I told her. And then I told her what marrying Tony meant. That we'd pick out a new house and paint her room lavender and that we'd have a party to celebrate. Which meant that we'd dress up.

Natalie thought about that as I drove us home from school. And then she told me her new plans.

"I know, Mama! Mama wear yellow dress, I wear yellow dress!"

She has one in particular in mind.

Watermelon

It's the universally flattering nail polish shade preferred by three generations of Fitzsimons women.

Natalie's World

Mornings around here can be a little hectic.

We get up early enough: 5:40 in order for Natalie to be at school and me at my desk by 8.

Nevertheless, we are often running behind. We lie in bed cuddling. We swaddle Baby Miss Ann and talk about our dreams. We plan our outfits. We make coffee and chocolate milk and smoothies and sausage and oatmeal.

And then about 25 minutes before we're supposed to leave, I get into the shower. And while I'm doing my makeup, Natalie brings her tea set into the bathroom. While I'm drying my hair, she stands at the door, her little lips moving, but I can't hear a thing. This is all very stressful for Mama.

Enter the camera. Lately, Natalie will disappear for five minutes, returning to ask: "Mama, I take peek-peek my babies?" She has arranged her babies just so and now she wants to photograph them.

So I give her the camera, grateful for a moment's peace. And later, I look at what she's shot, and as I click from one frame to the next I see Baby Miss Ann - lots of Baby Miss Ann - and her other babies, and me, and Elmo, and the apartment.

I see what Natalie sees. I see her sweet little life.