Eighth Year Leaves Mom Wanting More

Friday, February 6, 2004

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Eighth Year Leaves Mom Wanting More

By J’AMY PACHECO

Another year in my little girl’s life concludes this week when she celebrates her eighth birthday.

It’s hard to believe that the tiny premature baby who turned our lives upside down in 1996 is the same brown-haired beauty who keeps me entertained today. It’s also hard to believe that the little girl who insists upon being called “Baby” is now halfway to Sweet 16. It’s unbelievable that eight years can fly by so quickly.

Some of it is a blur—late night bottle feedings and emergency room visits, bouts with assorted illnesses and injuries, a non-stop parade of firsts, from solid food to spoken word.

Other events—some that at first glance seemed destined to fade from memory—remain clear. Requests for “popsa-pickles,” her first pair of “ruby” slippers, a smile she sent from across a kindergarten classroom on Halloween party-day, when she wore an enormous construction paper spider on her head. The day I discovered her first tooth, the night she bit my leg, the morning she woke up with Pink Eye and the afternoon she won the school district’s science fair are as fresh in my memory as when the events took place.

So much has happened in our lives since we unhooked her from her apnea monitor and ventured out into the world. Without a doubt, she has changed our lives—thrusting us into a world of school, new friends, sports, scouting and other adventures upon which only those with children would willingly embark.

Just when I think she’s getting too grown up, she does something to show me she’s still very much a little girl. The girl who longs to be allowed to wear nail polish asked for—and received—a “Bitty Baby” doll for Christmas. So devoted is she to “Baby Amanda” that she begged for a twin for her birthday. (She’s getting it.)

She’s a funny, imaginative girl who is also surprisingly shy around strangers. She can’t stand being left out of a secret, and begs to be informed if she knows one is in the wind.

“Tell me now,” she’ll say, “and I promise I’ll forget.”

She likes eating cookies for breakfast, painting at school and conducting scientific experiments. She wants to be able to prepare dinner for her family, to start a pet rescue service and be allowed to sleep in her clothes every night. She loves Disneyland, Otter Pops and tuna.

She hates peanut butter, taking vitamins and having her hair washed.

She still believes in the reality of Mickey Mouse, Tinker Bell and Santa Claus, and remains certain that monsters live on the other side of nighttime windows.

But she’s a very smart little girl who is fascinated with the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.; who reads way above what a second-grader should, and who has taken up with a group of really smart kids who also happen to be weird.

This group of second-graders makes up songs that are twisted but funny, and tells jokes nobody else gets. They invent playground games, like “Hit the Deck,” that leave mothers wondering how the grass stains get all over their clothing, and leave playground proctors wondering if they suffer from some sort of uncontrollable twitching disease.

These kids, I know, will grow up to read science fiction, to entertain those around them and quite possibly, change the world.

My daughter’s mind is always working, and I often wonder what’s going on inside of it. She talks in her sleep, and these “conversations” intrigue me. A few nights ago, for example, she woke up shouting, “We want more! We want more!”

I couldn’t help asking, “More what?” But sleep took over, and I never got the answer to that question.

As she gets older, our lives become more complicated. It is sometimes difficult trying to balance work with the demands of her scholastic and social needs; hard to prioritize when one seems more pressing, but the other more fleeting.

Nights that used to be spent in front of the television are now spent at the kitchen table, where homework takes center stage. We work together on things I never learned in school, like the metric system.

This eighth year has shown me more than any other how quickly things change in a child’s life; how fast the grown-up years come. This year, I’ve come to appreciate how precious each shared moment is.

So to my daughter, I say not only “Happy Birthday, Baby,” but also “Slow down!” Because when it comes to time with my little girl, I want more! I want more!