parenting

December Daughters

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Miss Mythili

Miss Logical:
Daddy had to take a cold shower
because we took all the water
with our up-to-the-line bath.
Miss Tattle-Tale:
(whiny voice)Grandpa, Daddy has the binoculars
and he won’t let me have them!
Miss Manipulative:
I am not going to brush my teeth
or comb my hair until you give me Blankey.
Miss Dreamer:
Wait, star, I need to change my wish!
I actually don’t want to be
a monkey living in a tree.
Miss Imaginative:
(holding a broken piece of cilantro)
I just don’t understand why your
daughter would think it’s OK
to jump over the water like that.
Miss Mythili,
my ever-changing artistic child.

Riona

if i say no to your sister,
she stomps her feet
and demands justice.
if i say no to you,
you reluctantly leave the room,
rest your little legs on a chair,
and silently allow
the crocodile tears to flow down your cheeks.
how could i ever say no to the child
who can’t go an hour
without an I love you
or a kiss on the cheek
or a snuggle on the couch?

Isabella

in the course of a few months
of second grade,
you have learned the
kissing-marriage-baby-carriage song
and its R-rated 21st century version,
how to access the Internet
and what web sites have the best games,
how to apply lipstick
and pose like a model for pictures,
how to multiply and say
Newton’s laws of motion
in English and Spanish,
and how to grow up
too quickly right before my eyes.

Fifty-Seven

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it takes two sisters
four hours to make
three pies
dessert for fourteen people
when we include
two of six aunts
two of seven uncles.
three platters of lasagna
and forty-two plates later
we celebrate
year fifty-seven of
my father’s life
who with two “old” legs
just rode
twenty-four miles up a mountain
and hiked three and a half
and still carries his four grandkids
wherever the
endless numbers add up to next.

Underbelly

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we are here now,
sister, brother-in-law, niece,
grandparents who have filled
the underbelly of the tree
with Wal-mart’s
explosion of Chinese reality.

he and i lie in the dark
on our basement floor mattress,
the tint of the waning moon
lingering light upon his whiskered face.

Santa has already arrived,
stripped down because
the underbelly of the tree
regurgitated its recklessness.

i will never forget,
i tell him,
this time at my own
grandparents’ house,
when my mother,
her measly salary
half of my father’s pittance,
after seeing the
gifts my grandmother
inundated us with,
turned to him and said,
‘I hate being poor.‘

i try to remember this
as we rise before the sun,
set up the camera
in anticipation of their anxious faces,
and spend hours
exchanging money, goods
from the underbelly of the tree
that seems to mock,
wealth, wealth, wealth
with its shedding branches
that drop needles
like tears onto the hardwood.

Niece

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she clings to her mama’s bosom,
her face a mirror of her father,
and crawls about the room
with the intentions
of discovering every tiny item
that ever was dropped on the floor.

i try to pick her up,
but she can hear her mama’s voice,
and i remember how much i loved, hated
the need that my girls no longer have.

Light

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she shines a light
that she’ll only sometimes
allow us to see.

for the most part,
she’s masked in mystery
that neither of us understands.

so when i see a ray
shine through, please do not
block its passage into the night.

i have coaxed her for years,
just as i have coaxed you. yet,
light eludes me, darkness ensues.

Devoured

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how to feed six children:
mix one pound of beef,
one pound of pasta,
a giant jar of tomatoes,
two cups of white sauce,
a few kid-friendly spices,
and place it on the table.

fifteen minutes later,
after firsts and seconds are devoured,
put in a movie and wait.
they’ll wander into the kitchen
one at a time,
begging to be fed again.

get out the half gallon
of ice cream and
place it on the table.
five minutes later,
after firsts and seconds are devoured,
brush their teeth and put them to bed.

when the sun rises,
repeat,
repeat,
repeat.

Choice

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do we fight this fight
or give in for one night?
do we stand our ground
and put up with the sound?

it’s hard to know what to do
when it isn’t us, but you
we can’t control what others want
only their actions tonight will haunt.

sleep will come when exhaustion wins
and we’ll forget this evening’s sins
moving on to the light of day
we’ll say what we want to say.

November Daughters

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Mythili

Freshly six, your latest
obsessions are your new Zhu Zhu
and the Tangled doll
with hair so long
I had to braid it on day one.
Just like when you were two,
you guard your possessions
as fiercely as a new mother,
holding them close to your chest
on all adventures, theirs and yours.
A year from now, what will you love most?
Will you have abandoned these items
for the latest movie character,
or have given in to your love of books,
your soon-to-be expert knowledge of words?
As I say whenever you ask me a question
that I’m not so sure of an answer to
(my response, in your eyes, a yes),
we’ll see.

Riona

With a long line,
a tiny half circle attached,
a diagonal drawn like a
ray of light across the page,
you have written the first
letter of your name. You ask
for more, and I feed them to you.
You swallow them up and
regurgitate the connected-dot i,
the perfect o, the upside-down n,
and the little a, a circle and tail.
And just as you are not quite sure
how to make the letters just right,
I am not quite sure how I am
going to stand here and watch you grow.

Isabella

Fifty-four pounds, almost half my weight,
you still ask me to carry you.
I reach around your skinny waist
and hoist you up, your arms
flailing wildly (impossible
for you to be still, even now)
as we move into your bedroom.
A kiss good night, a button on the iPod,
and you will listen to the same song tonight,
on repeat, that has played for six months.
I imagine your wedding day,
your groom picking you up in a dance.
Will you play this song, remember its waltz?
Or will I be the only one singing,
“Cantaremos alto, cantaremos bajo,”
until my heart can go neither high nor low,
but stay as neutral as your weight in my arms allows.

Thanksgiving

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i am better at this
just as you taught me
hand over hand
hand over arm
hand on hand
hand on arm

and now you?
calm as a summer breeze
in the midst of frigid temps
cradling them
in the layers of love
that were missing
from my childhood.

instead i’ll stand here
mashing my angst into potatoes
dicing up boiled eggs
slicing perfect candied yams
doing everything you taught me
and more.

the table is set.
the kitchen is spotless.
my children are loved.
and i should be so thankful
that i know how to do
all that i know how to do.

The Theatre

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We stand in tights, leggings, skirts,
a tie and jacket, dolled up as much as
our fellow theatre-goers
waiting for the train.

Our breaths form miniature clouds
as they enter the humid night air.
We shuffle our feet, clap our hands,
pull up our hoods, rejoice at the lights
of the train curving around the tracks.

Everyone says, How old are they?
Going to the theatre? Shrek tonight?
Beautiful girls, beautiful, beautiful girls.
As we stand clutching the pole, no room.

It couldn’t be better. The pictures we took
(soon to be Christmas cards), the lipstick
now smearing across their cheeks,
the laugh-your-ass-off musical of our dreams.

Four, six, almost eight, I tell them.
They say it only gets better. But how can it
be better than this? Dinner at a local restaurant,
riding the train downtown, the theatre,
three little, little girls as proud as new parents?

We’ll see. For now, I take their tiny hands in mine,
dash through the tunnel with lights that
ring at their anxious pats, their pink jackets
and polka-dot tights reminding me of the youth
we all have within us, the youth, the love we crave.