I don't write posts about the kids on their birthdays every year. One kid would plan my demise if I waxed poetic about him. The other doesn't really care or think about it but I am just not quite articulate enough to do this type of post justice.
Still, I've been looking at her lately and seeing that "O-my-she-grew-up-overnight" change that happens periodically. And I feel guilty. The last two years I've been sucked into the vortex of school, laptop addiction, and general life challenges. I guess you could say I've been a disengaged parent. So she's growing up, finishing third grade and sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock and have a do-over. Because I have no actual expectation that will happen, I am hanging on for the next few weeks so I can finish this semester and then compensate inappropriately with manicures and movies and painting ceramics at ridiculous prices.
Marley is a kid who has challenged me from the beginning. She wouldn't sleep when I wanted her to. She wouldn't stop pouring things from one container into another. She wouldn't stop drawing on any surface she could find. She is always VERY, VERY LOUD and she doesn't sit still.
We are completely different. COMPLETELY. My other kid, the one I'm not allowed to talk about, is a lot like me. I get him.
I am a worrier, full of anxieties about the future that I try to keep hidden.
Marley lives in the present. It is all about the NOW for her.
I am always looking for the deeper meaning and often unsettled.
Marley stops at the pretty, shiny surface of things and is satisfied.
I am uncoordinated and content to laze my days away on the couch.
Marley is impressively coordinated and wants to go, go, go. Cartwheels, splits, jumps, skipping, running, flipping around the bars. Nonstop action.
I love to read.
Marley? Not so much. There are BETTER things to do with her time.
I don't go for the obviously girly stuff.
Marley is pink and purple, 24/7.
I'm sure I'm not not the first parent who wondered what the Lord was thinking by giving her a child so opposite in temperament. But I might guess he gave me my opposite so that the two of us wouldn't drown in instropectiveness and a lack of sunlight. Who knows... regardless, I look at her and I just can't stand it... I love my little blonde dynamo.
Here's a post I wrote a while back with pics of me and Marley.
7 comments:
Isn't it funny how different we can be from our kids. Nina is going to be 9 on Monday and she too is the one different from me.
Mary, she's just simply wonderful and you are to enjoy her.
Hope she had a wonderful day & all her dreams come true this year. I loved the cake.
There's an old pop song (by the Rolling Stones, maybe?) that says (and I'm paraphrasing) that you can't always get what you want, you get what you need. That is so true about kids -- their otherness forces us to grow. And/or imbibe.
I'm reading that paragraph back and while it makes perfect sense to me I fear it's just babble to everyone else. And possibly kind of offensive. In MY defense: I've got a cold, I'm kinda muddled.
it's funny, i have one who is so like me and one that just makes sit back and think, "what ARE you?!" happy birthday marley
Happy Birthday to Marley! Love the cake too Mary Lue -
Awwww....happy belated birthday to the lovely gal. Oh, and she IS lovely.
<-- has one JUST like her....
G-d has a funny sense of humour...LOL
A few days late to your two days late: she's a dynamo. And she needs you to balance her out. Happy birthday and all the proper felicitations.
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