I'm reading Nabukov, Invitation to a Beheading, which is probably not what I need to be reading. I already feel like the world is contrived and artificial, I don't need help from him.

Like I went to a baby shower yesterday, which seem about as staged as a Catholic mass. Everyone enters, pregnant mom arrives, everyone yells surprise. Greetings continue, then the organized, slightly frantic friend will make various announcements: time to eat, time to play a shower game, time to open presents. Then cake. That was the best part, I think.

It was lovely, really. And kudos to the mom-to-be, who gets to go home with a lot of schwag. (Most of which I think is unnecessary to raising of young, I mean Diaper Genie-whatever). Maybe I'm just jealous that they are doing it "the right way." Get engaged, get married, work and save, buy a modest house and raise your kids, send them to college, retire and die. Which wouldn't even be such a prison sentence if you could at least enjoy it. Mom-to-be is going back to her low paying job almost immediately. But it doesn't matter-lawyers and doctors, cashiers and waitresses, even Anjelina Jolie I suspect, are all on this treadmill going nowhere. So how am I expected to enjoy a baby shower when I can't even find a Meaning For It All.

So, this morning, full of ennui and self loathing, I went to church. I didn't want to. And the service was pretty tame-regular pastors were not in attendance, student preacher preaching. Lackluster song choices, if I may say so, and one that was so hard to sing that we all just mumbled through it. Bitchy of me, I know, but I was in a critical mood. But I did see one old friend who I gravitated toward and she gave me a big hug and I told her I woke up on the wrong side of bed and she said that that's ok, just straighten it out now. And I got a few more hugs from people who genuinely like me. And I saw that the lady I helped last week when she almost passed out from the heat was back in her pew. They didn't have to admit her after all, just gave her a tune up and sent her home. And another parishioner who I saw in the ER this week was ok. And the wife of another good old guy I took care of a few weeks ago told me that he's going home, there's nothing more to be done and he wants to spend his last days sitting in his chair and looking out his window and that it's ok. And it was ok. Because sometimes ok is enough.

So, I got hugs and a reminder that I am both liked and useful, which is not too shabby for a Sunday morning. I like church. I'm still not sure who I'm praying to or what all the details are, but it is a tonic for those things that can't be fixed by either logic or therapy.

I got back home, still a little irritable (really, now, STILL?), wanting to write and getting interrupted a dozen times with "Mommy, can I...?" Just when I thought I would lose my stack, and S could tell, she went and brought me a sticker. Of a dragonfly, because she knows they are a special to me. And we stuck it on my phone so I can have a substantial reminder that I can't always get what I want, but sometimes I get a gentle and loving reminder not to be such a poop head.

Let 'em play

When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don't know how I survived,
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.

Dar Williams, "When I Was a Boy"

At the most recent parents' conference, we were told that Youngest Daughter wanted to be called "Peter" by her teachers and classmates. Ah, we explained, well, see, she's been into Spider Man. So she's pretending to be Peter Parker. Naturally. The teacher said, with a little smile, well, she has a very good imagination. But it's a little distracting.

I see. It's not that I mind the idea of school, but do they have to be so, well, schoolish about it? In kindergarten, no less. Once I fought down the urge to smack her, I wanted to say to her, seriously? I mean, she's five. She still believes in the Easter Bunny. To her, imagining is as important as adding and subtracting(which she can do) and learning her sight words. I know she's young for kindergarten, the youngest in her class, in fact. It's an all day kindergarten too, I'd like to point out. I remember my kindergarten. I think it lasted long enough for my mother to make the beds and have coffee with the neighbor moms. We spent most of the time, if memory serves, a.playing b. using paste and c. learning a few things. We had a snack, laid our heads on the table for a few minutes rest, heard a story and went home. Somehow with this backward system we all managed to grow up and become reasonably responsible adults.

When I look around my daughter's classroom, I notice that most kids are indeed listening (mostly) and sitting criss-cross-applesauce still and listening (mostly). Because I think most of them have been in daycare and know the drill. And let me be clear:I have nothing against daycare, all-day kindergarten, organized sports, enrichment programs, after-school activities, Pop Warner, pottery classes, et al. It's just that there's so MUCH of it. I feel like our kids are falling into two groups: the docile and the non-docile. So we give the non-docile kids a diagnosis and some pills and there you go.

I'm not exaggerating. When Eldest Daughter was in second grade, in a school system I won't name (rhymes with "Pillsborough"), she was found to have a learning disability. Before they would evaluate her for extra help, they wanted me to put her on Ritalin. But, I said, I spoke with her doctor and she doesn't have ADHD. Well, said the school nurse, some doctors work with us.

Maybe I'm too sensitive about the whole thing. Teachers gotta teach, kids gotta behave. But it's the sinking feeling that if yours isn't the docile little lamb, well then, maybe there's something wrong with them. But I refuse to believe that my spunky, spirited, FIERCE child needs a label, let alone a diagnostic code. For inspiration I found Lenore Skenazy's website and book called Free Range Kids (freerangekids.wordpress.com). It celebrates a time when your mom would kick you out of the house for the day and call you back in when it was dinner time. And if you came home covered in dirt she might scream a bit, but then she'd just throw you in the tub and scrub you within an inch of your life. Nowadays they bring in the decontamination unit and a gallon of Purell.

Also, I have in my possession, a great book called Raising Your Spirited Child:a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, energetic, by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Seriously, my little one is intense. And sweet, smart, funny, contrary, and exasperating. I wonder if I could handle a class full of kids like her. Sometimes I wonder why she can't be an "easy" child. I think back with fondness for all the "easy" things her sister did, forgetting that she had her exasperating moments, as well. Then I remind myself that Well Behaved
Women
Girls Rarely Make History.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.