Cookie in a Nutshell

At my kids' middle school, every year I am asked to write a paper about my child for the teachers to better know them. This is the one I wrote for Cookie this year. (Mind you these are always written last minute because my homework skills are the same as they were when I was in school.)

Cookie is a very special person. I’m sure all parents feel that way about their child (as they should), but if you get to know Cookie I think you will see what I mean. She is the oldest of 5 kids, she is my first baby, she is a miniature me (only better than I could ever hope to be). Cookie was born older and more mature than some adults I know. She was smart from the very beginning, speaking early, reading early, and she has a memory that never fails to surprise me. But the extra something special about Cookie is her innate desire to do what she thinks is right. Whether it is being kind to someone who needs a friend, standing up for others, obeying her elders, getting her homework done, or just having fun, she always tries her best to do it “right.” When she was very little I was constantly having to tell her, “Mistakes are good,” because she would get very upset if she couldn’t make her letters just right, or if she colored out of the lines. She’s a lot more relaxed now, but still does her best to do what is important to her.

Cookie has set very high standards for herself and refuses to just “go with the flow” if the “flow” goes against those standards. This year she has chosen not to read one of the summer books assigned because it has a lot of bad language in it, but she is willing to read any other book in order to make up for it. Even getting good grades isn’t as important to her as sticking to what she feels is right. I hope, as you get to know her, you can see this side of her.

As for her personality, it depends on what side of the coin you see. On one hand, Cookie can be very shy, introverted and quiet. If she doesn’t feel a connection to kids around her she will tend to keep to herself. But if you see her with friends she feels comfortable with you will see the exact opposite. Cookie loves anything that is extremely silly. She loves to laugh and be goofy, she loves to tease and can dish it out as well as take it (if it isn’t mean teasing).

After 2 major moves Cookie was having a hard time feeling like she fit in at school last year. This year she has some friends and I think she is coming out of her shell again and showing a lot more of her true self.

(Tomorrow I will share the one I wrote for Pablo)

geust posting by Cookie

OK, here I go.Hi , its me again, your favorite blogger's daughter, Cookie. While all of you sit there in antagonizing anticipation, waiting to hear the latest news on our move...the Ice Cream family has been happily procrastinating, vacationing in Idaho with family members.We get to sit here, swimming, bike riding,eating ,sleeping, and hanging out, while the movers pack our load of junk and move it all the way to Connecticut. My dad is already there, all alone, freaked out of his mind. Keep him in your prayer, OK? What do I think about all of this?You really want to know? OK , but don't say I didn't warn you. I THINK THE LOW DOWN, DIRTY ,ROTTEN, FILTHY, SON OF A HOG WHO BOUGHT MY DADS BANK AND FORCED US TO MOVE OUT CROSS COUNTRY, LEAVE OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, MY ALL TIME FAVORITE SCHOOL, AND ALL THE SIGHTS OF SEATTLE, DESERVES A GOOD WHOPPIN!!!!!!!! But I also feel grateful to him for having us get used to new cultures, sights, and other things I'm not used to. Talk about mixed feelings. Oh well. Aaaaaaand now, just for the sheer joy of it, I'm not going to give you any more info on what is happening, no pictures, no videos, no nothing, I'm gonna have my mom handle all that. And also, my mom was the one who misplaced the camera cord in the first place, and I cant really think of anything else to say, besides bye bye:]

Good Clean Parenting

I've mentioned before that I have had a hard time with my relationship with Cookie. I've been working on it for several years now, and today we had a lovely moment. We cleaned together. Now, I know this isn't a new idea, in fact it is one of the oldest parenting tricks in the book. But it can be very hard to do. Usually when I have the kids clean we all do it at the same time, and I act more as a task master than a parent in order to keep everyone in line. Or, I give them their job and I move to another room to clean. I actually really don't like being near my kids when they are cleaning because I have zero patience when it comes to whining. I'd rather they whine to an empty room and avoid any confrontations. Either way, cleaning has never been a bonding moment for me and the kids.

Today was different. Today I really needed to get my living room deep cleaned and I really needed help to get it done. I asked Cookie to help, and she showed little enthusiasm but tried her best not to whine. It went as usual for the first 30-45 minutes, but as we kept digging deeper and went beyond the usual living room duties her attitude began to change. Rather than feeling like a slave, she began to feel like a valued helper, like an equal. We began to chat as we cleaned. We talked about our dream bedroom, about what kind of cleaning we preferred to do (we even switched jobs at that point when we realized that we were both doing a job that the other preferred), I shared memories of cleaning with my mom, and we talked about how REAL cleaning makes us feel good inside. We moved furniture, we dusted, we polished, we sorted, we rearranged the whole room. In the end we both sat back and admired our work while slapping a high five. It was wonderful.

I was quickly reminded, after, why I don't usually clean like this. While Cookie and I were bonding Sweet Terror spilled bubble solution all over the place downstairs, and Monster Man snuck a frozen yogurt pop downstairs and managed to dribble here and there. And now it is time for lunch and the younger kids are still in their PJ's. But it was worth it! I may not do this everyday, but I think this kind of cleaning should happen with each child at least once a month.

And, no, despite even moving furniture (very carefully) I have not gone into labor yet. But there is still much deep cleaning ahead... =)

A Mind Like Her Mother's

Saturday evening I took Cookie to our Keepers Club Meeting. It is a sort of Christian Girl Scouts program that is run completely by the parents. A group of fellow homeschoolers put it together as a way for us moms to be able to bond more closely with our daughters. It has been a fantastic program and Cookie has already earned badges on Ice Skating, Insects, Letter Writing, Water Color Painting, and Horses. This last meeting was to help the girls with their Cake Decorating badge. Luckily I wasn't the one teaching because my idea of an ideal Birthday cake is some Little Debbie Snack Cakes with some frosting-from-a-tube decoration. Hey, don't knock it. Last summer we made a killer robot cake with Little Debbie's help. As I was saying, R was teaching the class and she did a great job! She baked up a bunch of 6" devil's food cakes, whipped up some raspberry mousse, Italian butter cream, and several pounds of fondant. Then she taught the girls how to assemble the cakes. I have never worked with fondant before and it was pretty fun, a lot like using modeling clay. Well, I helped Cookie lay the white fondant over her cake and then I stepped back and told her to just ask me if she needed help. She asked me if I could make some brown hair. I was thinking, "Oh she is going to make a girl's face, maybe even a mermaid." All around us the other girls were making fondant flowers, or fondant lakes and green grass topped with little ponies and red roses. Cookie looked at my hair and said, "No, mom, I need man hair. I will make the moustache." Uh, what? Her daddy does not have a moustache so my curiosity was peaked. I helped her build a man's face and then she proceeded to make a very looong twisty tongue come out of his mouth. "So, uh, sweety, what is this supposed to be, exactly?" She looked at me like it should be so obvious.

"Can't you tell??? It's a tongue twister cake." I was so proud I could bust. Turns out she thinks a lot like her ol' ma. This is just like something I would have done =)

I love how the tongue just keeps on going and goes all the way around the base.

We ate it tonight and everyone had to say a tongue twister, 3 times, fast before they could eat their slice. Thanks, Cookie!

The Place Where Friends Are Made

When the Build-a-Bear workshop was first spotlighted on Oprah several years ago I remember thinking, "What a cute idea. I bet a lot of suckers are going to fall for it." As good, smart, friends of mine started buying their children Build-a-Bears I would smuggly think, "SUCKER!" When my daughter first asked for a Build-a-Bear I said, "Oh, honey, they are so expensive. I think you should ask Santa for something else." But what I was really thinking was, "Not on your life, you silly little girl."

Around our house there is a plethora of unused stuffed animals. Everytime we take a load of stuff to the Deseret Industries or Goodwill there is usually a stuffed animal or two in the bag. I don't buy them, ever, but other people keep giving them to us. And, not only do we have plenty of stuffed animals, we also have garbage bags full of cute little baby clothes that we save after every baby. Basically, we have all the makings of our own Build-a-Bear workshop right here. I suggested this to my dissapointed daughter and with the look she gave me I had one of those defining, "Oh no, I've become my mother," kind of moments.

***Flashback Moment***

When I was a kid I wrote a Christmas list that plainly showed my obsession with Strawberry Shortcake. On it I had everything from a Strawberry Shortcake blanket to a tube of Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss. I figured if everything I asked for was Strawberry Shortcake, and if I gave Santa a good price range to work with, I was sure to get something that I asked for (We never had much moeny growing up so I knew that Santa needed price ranges). The next morning as I unwrapped my mother's lovingly homemade strawberry shortcake doll and homemade strawberry shortcake blanket my heart was crushed. I acted pleased and happy but my heart ached. (I still have the doll and blanket and cherish them now that I'm old enough to realize what my mother had done for me out of love). There was also the Cabbage Patch doll dreams of my sister that just couldn't be fulfilled by the lovingly handmade Cabbage Patch style doll my mom made her. Who would have thought that the simple commercial ideas of strawberry scented hair and signatured bums would mean so much to a child?

Who would have thought that a simple fabric heart, that you rub all over yourself and then never see again once they sew your bear up, would mean so much to my child? Well, after 2 1/2 years of consistently being asked for a Build-a-Bear at every birthday and Christmas I finally decided to call her bluff of, "All I want is a Build-a-Bear. I don't want any other toy but that." She didn't receive a single toy from anyone this year; instead I gave her a coupon for lunch at the mall and $40 of Grandma Christmas money to spend on a Build-a-Bear. I bit my tongue through the whole agonizing, lovely, memory making event. Keeping my mouth shut as I forked out $23 for her, her friend, and I to eat in the food court (How on earth do all those teenagers have the money to eat here everyday???) I told myself I was paying for memories. Standing in line for over and hour (NEVER go to the Biuld-a-Bear workshop on the Saturday after Christmas) I was so proud of myself for not trying to talk my daughter into getting the cheapest bear (I listened to other mothers doing what I usually do and I could hear the original joy being sucked away as each little girl had to choose between her dream bear and making her mother happy). 2 1/2 hours later we ended up with just enough money to buy the most expensive bear-cheetah available (my girl has taste) and a cute shirt and jean skirt.

Was it worth it? Did having a full body rubbed heart (seriously, you need to hear the whole cheesey heart rubbing routine they give these kids in the store. It is ridiculous), a hand picked outfit, and a cute little lint removing shower really make this stuffed cheetah any more special in the eyes of a 9 yr old girl? YOU BETCHA IT DID!!! This cheetah is like the coolest toy ever. Everyone wants to hold it. The girls take turns taking it to bed with them. DSSH gets no end of pleasure out of threatening to cut it up or throw it away while his girls chase him screaming. And, though I held my tongue so well at the cash sucking mall, I get the daily pleasure of trying to keep that $40 stuffed animal out of the toilet, off the floor, away from hot chocolate spills, and giving my daughter the constant reminder that I won't replace it if it gets lost, stolen, or ruined. *Sigh* I am my mother's daughter after all.

Taking My Own Medicine

It is a challenge being a parent, no doubt. The hardest part, for me, is knowing that the only way to teach children is by example. You can talk till you are blue in the face, but in the end it doesn't matter a smidge what you say. The most idiotic words a parent can say to their child is, "I don't want you to end up like me." So, how do I get my daughter to understand that I really don't want her to parent the way I have parented her? Notice I don't say "the way I parent," because, as we all know, it is nearly impossible to parent each child the same way. For some reason I am able to consider myself a pretty durn good mom to my other children but not to Cookie. This has been a ache in my heart for many years. I don't know when we started having problems, maybe it was because she was so hard to nurse so we didn't get that relaxed bonding. Maybe it was because I felt jealous when I first realized that I was no longer the only woman in my husbands heart. Maybe it is because she is so much like me and I don't like having a sentient mirror image of myself following me around, demonstrating all my faults. Maybe it is because she is the oldest and so I expect WAY too much from her. Maybe it is a little bit of all these things. What it really comes down to, though, is that I'm not at peace with my child... and that is unacceptable.

This has been a self improvement project of mine for the past 2 years. The best step I took was sending her to public school. As much as it hurt me to give up homeschooling her we really needed that time away from each other for me to gain control of my reactions to her actions, and also just to give us time away from each other to develop our own personalities. But, I hadn't really improved any of my parenting, I had just gained a bit of freedom and the ability to avoid her for half a day.

Lately our biggest struggle has been the way she treats her brother, Monster Man. She hasn't really liked the poor guy since he was 2 and has been rather obvious about it. It took us two years to get her to eat at the same table with him. She still won't sit next to him at dinner, church, or during family prayers. I was able to just accept it as sibling stuff and we set things up so that Monster Man wouldn't notice. But lately things have gotten REALLY bad. Cookie is a good kid and doesn't get in trouble for the most part but it seems like I am lecturing her all the time about the way she treats and talks to her brother. I finally sat her down for a talk and this is basically how it went:

Me: Cookie, what have you been getting in trouble for every day lately?

Her: For talking mean to Monster Man

Me: Do you love him?

Her: (Shrugging) yeah

Me: Honey, if something awful were to happen to Gabe today, if he were to die right now, what would be the last thing he heard you say?

Her: Yelling at him (she is tearing up now)

Me: Have you ever noticed that any time I have to get mad at one of you guys I always end it with hugging you and telling you what I love about you? I do that because I want to make sure that the last thing my children hear from me is how much I love them. When was the last time you told Monster Man that you love him?

Her: I don't know

Me: When was the last time you hugged him?

Her: I don't know

Me: When was the last time you asked him to play with you?

Her: I don't know

Me: When was the last time you said something mean to him?

Her: Just a few minutes ago

Me: Cookie, I know that deep down you love him, but do you think he knows you love him? Now, I have talked to you about this over and over again. You've gotten in lots of trouble and even been punished for the things you've said to him. Nothing I've done has made you stop being mean to him and I think I know why. It isn't enough for you to try to stop being mean, you now have to start actually doing loving things to him. Starting now I want you to tell him you love him at least once a day. I want you to start telling him why you love him. I want you to start hugging him and playing with him. Because unless you start showing him that you love him he will never know. And the more you show him your love the harder it will be for you to be mean to him because you won't like the way it makes it feel anymore.

Later that night I layed in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about why this situation had gotten so bad. Then I started realizing that I needed to show her how to be loving. I am ubber loving with my other kids but, for many reasons, I find it very difficult to be loving to Cookie. It is highly probable that her treatment of Monster Man is simply another reflection of the way I treat her. Ouch! Talk about your humble parenting pie. So, I am determined to be loving towards my daughter. I am going to try the same experiment I gave her. I am going to tell her I love her before she tells me. I am going to ask her if she wants to play chess instead of telling her I don't have time. I am going to stop correcting her unless it is something serious, and even then I will count to ten first. I am going to hug her for no reason. I am going to look at her and tell her she is beautiful. I am going to tell my husband only good things about her for the rest of the year. I am going to start seeing the humor in her little quirks rather than let them make me bristle. I am going to do all of this because, frankly, if she were taken from me this moment I could not be confident in thinking that she knows how much I really love her. No child should have to wonder if their mother really loves them or is just putting up with them.

I love you Cookie, more than I will ever be able to make you understand.

Cookie's Birthday Letter in Chalk

I had a lovely Birthday yesterday. I ate some very special treats, but made sure to be good to my body (meaning, I didn't eat so much that I had to spend the rest of the evening moaning and groaning). I recieved some very nice gifts from my husband and some money from my mom, "Thanks!". Quite a few of my friends and family thought to call or email me, making me feel loved (that's what birthday's are all about, right?). I felt spoiled and special, and that's how a girl should feel on her special day. Now, I have to brag about a very unexpected, very special, very beautiful gift that I was given. When DSSH came home last night, I went out onto the deck to greet him. Before I could even say, "Hi", I noticed sidewalk chalk writing all over the railing of the deck. This is what I found, written by my amazing 8 1/2 yr. old, Cookie:

I (heart) my Mom.

My Mom

My Mom is kind, loving, smart, and gentle. She can help me feel better when I'm sad. She is willing to give up things for me. She can make the rainy day seem sunny and bad dreams go away. Laughs at bad jokes. That is my mom.

My Mom is loving and kind.

With a beautiful face and sensitive mind.

If she smiles at someone they will become blind.

My mom is beautiful and kind.

Her favorite food is cheesecake and creme brule. Happy Birthday Mom.

The world bows down to you.

I (heart) you.

Can you believe this??? I was shocked, touched, amazed, proud. I quickly wrote it down because it will be gone with the next rainfall, and this is Seattle afterall. Cookie and I have had problems getting along with each other and have been really working on our relationship this year, which made this all the more special to me. Anyway, I will stop gushing now. I just wanted to share.