Be My, Be My Baby

Last week, inspired by lots of things–one parenting guru (Vicki Hoefle, of Parenting on Track, whose cult I am totally joining), one excellent book that purports to be about parenting the ADHD child, but is really about examining your parenting style in the middle of your kid’s childhood and figuring out who you really want to be as your grade schooler turns into a teen (that would be Katherine Ellison’s Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention), my feeling of relative relaxation due to a decision to knock out whole hosts of activities for December (I love saying no. I really, really love saying no) and just a good day, I scooped up Rory while waiting for Sam to finish his hockey practice and gave her a big snuggle. Usually hockey practice is a great place to be with any kids, because the kids who aren’t on the ice get as much exercise as those who are, and no one cares if they run, climb, jump, shout and otherwise act like the place is a big giant playground. Can’t recommend it highly enough when the weather outside is frightful, really. And three littles had indeed been running and jumping like mad, but now Rory wanted a cuddle.

No problem! Bomb them with love, as Ellison would say. Connect, Hoefle would tell me. So many of my interactions with Rory ) are corrective, or directive–all of them, really, but her more than the others, because they each have at least one activity that I can sit and do with them, whereas Rory is more of a runner-around than a sitter, and we kind of haven’t found our thing yet. Working on that, but that’s another story.

Anyway, up in the lap, snuggle snuggle. After about ten minutes, Rory looks up and says “I your baby.”

“Yes,” I say, stupidly, and not really thinking–I’ve just treated myself to the Maira Kalman illustrated copy Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, and because I am a word geek, I’m engrossed. I snuggle hard. “You will always be my baby! No matter how big you get, you will always be my baby!”

Verily, I am the dumbest parent in the whole world.

Read the rest of this post (which is a lot like the one two posts down, but not the same, and will also lead you to some great other blogs) on No Hands But Ours.


One Response to “Be My, Be My Baby”

  1. Lisen says:

    Hi! Would you recommend Ellison’s book to a friend of mine whose son has been diagnosed w/ ADHD and is on meds, but who, if you ask me, has been misdiagnosed?