Posts Tagged Under Maya Creedman
Sick AND Tired Mommy
There are no sick days for mothers.
The Philosophy of Bad Timing
My four-year old takes the Asking Endless Questions stage seriously.
OK, So I’m Not So Good at Finding Things
My talent for losing things is coupled with an inability to locate those misplaced items.
Passing the Baton
My family tree vibrates from top to bottom with talented musicians. My father is not one of them. He sings off-key and his piano skills consist of thumping out chords from “The Fake Book” while humming enthusiastically.
Nauseous with Nostalgia
My youngest child just turned one. Colby’s official transition to toddlerhood – marked by a family BBQ and several renditions of “Happy Birthday” – wasn’t all sweet smiles and cupcakes. Behind the excitement and celebration was a lingering sadness. The truth is that Colby’s first year ended before I was ready to move on.
Grief wasn’t an ingredient in my older son’s first birthday. Each new development – from crawling to Kai’s first song – was as sweet as his very first cupcake. Only recently did I recognize the finality of each milestone. This leads to scary questions such as: If I’m not ready to move on now, how will I feel when my boys leave home? After all, if the first year can pass like a turn of a page, college is little more than a magazine article away.
To try to reassure myself, I imagine myself thirty years from now looking back in time. What advice would I give myself? Having only the benefit of imaginary hindsight, I can only answer with what I already know. I need to enjoy my kids and collect good memories along the way.
By Maya CreedmanOh, Those Whiz Mommies
Watching a mom with kids in line at Starbucks, I smiled in recognition. She urged her preschooler trying to make a choice, while attempting to keep her toddler from molesting the packaged sandwiches. I knew this mom was hoping that the treats would buy her a few quiet moments to sip her latte in peace.
I’ve been there.
Except that I was wrong. This was no slacker mom. She sat the children down at the table next to me spreading napkins to shelter the scones from germs and puncturing straws perfectly through milk cartons. I generally forget to get extra napkins until the milk spills over someone’s pants and on to the floor because I’ve allowed my child to puncture his own milk carton.
By Maya CreedmanHuman Anatomy, Preschool Style
My four-year-old son has a new curiosity about the human anatomy.
Boobs, breasts, ta-tas, hooters, or whatever you call them. He has endless questions. “Why do boys have nipples, but not boobs? Why aren’t Mommy’s boobs flat so that baby Colby can be “closer?” How does Mommy make milk? Why doesn’t Daddy have breasts?”
I prefer the current boob obsession to his discovery of private parts when he was two. In the bath, he’d yell, “Penis!” as he yanked his little dude with glee. I shrugged and guessed it must be a guy thing. At least he was still in diapers, so I didn’t have to battle the “hands in the pants” habit. Still, I was relieved when he stopped yelling, “I have penis? Mommy has ‘china?’” in public restrooms.
A year later, he was fascinated with my enormous belly and concerned about how his baby brother would make it out. I thought I’d done an adequate job of explaining that there was a special tunnel until he began requesting “A Baby is Born” for his bedtime book every night for weeks. Each time we’d look through the book, he’d have more questions until he’d developed his own monologue to accompany the photographs.
By Maya CreedmanForward to the Past
Years before I became a mom, I bought something for my future child. At the time it seemed overly sentimental and silly. A twenty-two-year-old graduate student, hostelling around Eastern Europe with a single backpack and a budget that barely allowed for three meals a day can’t make unnecessary purchases.
But in the gift shop of the Budapest Art Museum, I fell in love with a piece of artwork that I absolutely had to buy for my future child’s nursery. Something about the two dressed bunnies riding on the back of a tangerine lion made me smile. My traveling companion politely averted her eyes as I forked over my lunch money in exchange for the bulky poster.
“It’ll be worth it someday,” I told Paulette as she offered me a bite of her pizza.
By Maya CreedmanNina’s iPod
It took me six months to take her tiny red iPod out of the case. It took me another three months to listen to her music. At first it seemed wrong, like snooping. Like the time, years ago, I opened a notebook she’d forgotten and read words not intended for me.
She was the one with real musical talent, even though I, the older sister, took piano lessons first. Before she could play award-winning concertos, we played “Chopsticks” – duet style – with loud and overindulgent improvisations. We were two sisters, one brunette and one blond, sharing a piano bench, fingers dancing together.
Nina’s been dead for almost ten months now. Yet, sometimes, when my fingers skim over her iPod’s playlist, she chooses a song for me, her musical tastes deeper and more eccentric than my own.
By Maya CreedmanCandlelight
Exactly sixteen minutes after our power went out, my three-year old was rocking out to the “Star Wars” soundtrack on my husband’s iPod. Banjo music twanged at top volume from the baby’s new Learn and Groove music table.
My husband rummaged through the pile of batteries and emergency gear covering the dining room table. At that point, I should have realized that losing our electricity wouldn’t be all candles and snuggles in front of the fire.
Still, I couldn’t quite shake the idea that this power outage could be a mini vacation. After all, I couldn’t cook meals or do laundry. Instead, we could build cities made of blocks, and play cards, charades and read books by candlelight. If the storm eased up, maybe we could even do a little puddle stomping.
By Maya Creedman