My Match

I just finished reading Reilly Kate's birthday post from last year. It's the last post listed in the blog at this point. It was easy to find. And now, over a month late, I am just getting around to blogging her 4th birthday. You'd think I could have found some time to actually do this, squeezed in with the holidays and a two month visit to Chicago all amid a trans Pacific move. Yeah. I could have found the time if it were important to me. Excuses. Excuses.

My first born is four now. Four years old. She's big and sassy and as challenging as she has ever been. Ya know, every year, every stage of her development has been a challenge. I hear other mothers say, "Oh, it'll pass," or "It gets better in year or so." But, oh my, oh my, my daughter is difficult in every stage. That's just how she interacts with the world around her. To change that would completely alter who she is. I don't want that. I'll meet her challenges head on. And butting heads is what we do quite often. As we begin this, my fifth year of motherhood, I am vowing to try to guide her more with nudges rather than with head butts.

Remember that saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle?" Well, I have to tell you that many, many times over the last four years, I've thought he has given me more than I can handle. A friend of mine and I were talking about it a year ago. She suggested that perhaps I just got the wrong child -- a heavenly mix up of sorts due to my having kept my maiden name. "Heather," she said, "if you had just changed your name like you were supposed to..."

Yeah, but since when have I ever done what I was supposed to do? Which, I am told, is just proof positive that Reilly Kate is, in fact, my daughter. When I hear her smart little mouth, it is hard to deny. It's akin to arguing with a mirror.

"Clean these toys off the floor or I will throw them all in the garbage!" I direct with authority.

"Don't talk to me like that or I will throw your stuff in the garbage," she retorts.

I try to keep control of the dialogue. "Hey. I am your mother and you don't talk to me like that."

"I am your daughter and you don't talk to me like that," she says twisting my words to use against me.

"I've had enough!" I bellow. "Go to your room!"

And just as I am telling her to go to her room, she yells, "I'm going to my room," as if we are in some sort of dysfunctional chorus together.

"Fine."

"Fine," and then she adds, "And I'm going to go slam something."

Excellent. Just excellent. Anyone wanna sign up for my parenting classes? They're free.

This is a conversation I have with a FOUR year old, not a fourteen year old. It's as if I've been cloned. My mom actually says, "You've been cloned... and perfected." Reilly Kate is me with the volume turned up, pedal to the metal, amps cranked, the engine souped up, muscles 'roided, on fast forward, and running on jet fuel.

I'm too old for this shit, I tell ya.

She's smart, too. Wicked smart. She gets that from Mike, I'm sure, because she is outwitting me every damn turn. At times it feels like a game of chess. I gotta keep guessing her next move. Mostly, I get my ass handed to me. It's that kind of game. She's that kind of opponent.

But to say that we're opponents is not to say we're adversaries. My mom and I have always had a very turbulent relationship, full of ups and downs, arguments, screamfests, and full on, knock down, drag out fights. As did my mom and her mom. And my grandmother and my great-grandmother before.

Yet we have all been unusually close. My great-grandmother and grandmother lived together most of their lives. They shared a one bedroom apartment as I was growing up. We spent a lot of time together with them at our house or all of us in their apartment. After my great-grandma moved into a nursing home, my grandma moved in with us. My mom and my grandma would fight... oh, they would fight. But they were together, the best of friends, and the closest of confidents. My mom and I are just the same. Although, I have lived thousands upon thousands of miles away since graduating high school, we talk just about every single day.

So it is almost reassuring that Reilly Kate and I clash. When I am at my very wits end with her, Mike will say to me, "Did you expect anything different? You and she are just like your mom and you." Then I know that despite it all, despite all the battles past and those yet to come (God, please, gift me with the ability to survive, just merely survive, her teen years!), we will be unusually close.

I know we will be great friends someday. I look forward to it. She's a really interesting character. She tells great stories, has an infectious laugh with a brilliant smile, is deeply spiritual, has NO fashion sense, is a bit of a social misfit, and talks way too much. She is just my kind of gal. Almost perfect perfected. Almost.

Happy birthday, baby Kate. We've got a few more rounds to go. Are you up for it, my girl?