![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work I was thinking about how I am much less self-righteous about how other people raise their kids now that I am a parent. When I was raising dream children in my head, they were perfect darlings who never pitched a fit in the supermarket (because I loved them too much for them ever to be that unhappy) and who never crawled around on the dirty floor under a booth at a pizza parlor while I sat nibbling on a salad thinking, "Screw it, at least no one is tripping over him and I know exactly what he is up to. He is up to finding the things that the people here before us dropped on the floor." Reality has a way of humbling a person.
In fact, my dream children only ate in pizza parlors on special occasions, like birthday parties for children whose parents were lacked my own nutritional savvy. My dream children ate lots of vegetables, whole grains and only lean cuts of meat. They did not tell me as I buckled them in their car seats to pick them up from daycare to go eat supper, "No, no supper! Pizza! Want pizza!"
He knows that supper is a wholesome variety of meat, grains and vegetables, whereas pizza is a tasty treat. He also knows which one he prefers.
The buffet I take him to has pizza on a whole-wheat crust that allows me to kid myself that I am not feeding him complete garbage. It also serves an amazing basil tomato soup and has a salad bar. These last two features appeal to me, not my son. If I try to give him something from the salad bar he looks incredulous and says, "No, want pizza!!"
After we get home from having pizza instead of supper, it's time to give my not-a-dream child his bath. I know I am not bathing a dream child because dream children do not squirt me in the face with bathtub toys. They also do not delight in reaching out of the tub to put wet hands on my jeans because they think it looks neat to watch the light blue denim turn dark when it gets wet. After their bath, the children in my dreams would quietly put on their pajamas instead of running around naked while I chased them. They did not laugh and squirm while I tried to get them dressed. Once they were pajama clad, they did not beg me to read just one more bedtime story while they spilled apple juice all over me (not that it mattered, since my jeans were already wet).
By and large, though, he is better than my dream children. Their skin didn't smell as sweet, and the smooth flesh did not feel like silk when I rubbed their pizza-filled Buddha bellies. Their kisses weren't from puckers so wet that I had to dry off my face with my hand when they weren't looking. In fact, their kisses were very tidy and prim. I didn't know that wet baby kisses were desirable, since the moisture makes them sink in and touch the very center of my heart. The dream children were boring, now that I think of it. Nice, neat, quiet, clean and ever-so dull.
I know I am not his dream mom, either. A dream mom wouldn't drop him off at a daycare center when he is still sleepy and not pick him up until 12 hours later. A dream mom wouldn't stop reading after only 5 stories and then make him go to bed even though he isn't a bit tired. A dream mom wouldn't threaten to sell him on EBay when he has a tantrum in the grocery store. In fact, a dream mom would not have taken away his bananas and given them to the cashier to ring up, which is the only reason he even needed to have a tantrum in the first place.
It turns out that neither one of us is a dream come true. I am an inept and imperfect mother. So far he forgives me, even when I tell him that we have to have supper, not pizza, on most nights. He, on the other hand, surpasses my dream children. I guess I didn't know what I really wanted in a child until I had one in my lap. He's the dream I lacked the imagination to dream up -- wet kisses, tantrums and all.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
In fact, my dream children only ate in pizza parlors on special occasions, like birthday parties for children whose parents were lacked my own nutritional savvy. My dream children ate lots of vegetables, whole grains and only lean cuts of meat. They did not tell me as I buckled them in their car seats to pick them up from daycare to go eat supper, "No, no supper! Pizza! Want pizza!"
He knows that supper is a wholesome variety of meat, grains and vegetables, whereas pizza is a tasty treat. He also knows which one he prefers.
The buffet I take him to has pizza on a whole-wheat crust that allows me to kid myself that I am not feeding him complete garbage. It also serves an amazing basil tomato soup and has a salad bar. These last two features appeal to me, not my son. If I try to give him something from the salad bar he looks incredulous and says, "No, want pizza!!"
After we get home from having pizza instead of supper, it's time to give my not-a-dream child his bath. I know I am not bathing a dream child because dream children do not squirt me in the face with bathtub toys. They also do not delight in reaching out of the tub to put wet hands on my jeans because they think it looks neat to watch the light blue denim turn dark when it gets wet. After their bath, the children in my dreams would quietly put on their pajamas instead of running around naked while I chased them. They did not laugh and squirm while I tried to get them dressed. Once they were pajama clad, they did not beg me to read just one more bedtime story while they spilled apple juice all over me (not that it mattered, since my jeans were already wet).
By and large, though, he is better than my dream children. Their skin didn't smell as sweet, and the smooth flesh did not feel like silk when I rubbed their pizza-filled Buddha bellies. Their kisses weren't from puckers so wet that I had to dry off my face with my hand when they weren't looking. In fact, their kisses were very tidy and prim. I didn't know that wet baby kisses were desirable, since the moisture makes them sink in and touch the very center of my heart. The dream children were boring, now that I think of it. Nice, neat, quiet, clean and ever-so dull.
I know I am not his dream mom, either. A dream mom wouldn't drop him off at a daycare center when he is still sleepy and not pick him up until 12 hours later. A dream mom wouldn't stop reading after only 5 stories and then make him go to bed even though he isn't a bit tired. A dream mom wouldn't threaten to sell him on EBay when he has a tantrum in the grocery store. In fact, a dream mom would not have taken away his bananas and given them to the cashier to ring up, which is the only reason he even needed to have a tantrum in the first place.
It turns out that neither one of us is a dream come true. I am an inept and imperfect mother. So far he forgives me, even when I tell him that we have to have supper, not pizza, on most nights. He, on the other hand, surpasses my dream children. I guess I didn't know what I really wanted in a child until I had one in my lap. He's the dream I lacked the imagination to dream up -- wet kisses, tantrums and all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 07:59 pm (UTC)