“Mama! Look at what I made for you! It’s so great for when you wash dishes! You can take your rings off and put it on this!”

But I have seen Dexter.

I know. 

My first grader may just be the ice truck killer.

Now, if I start finding Barbie parts in the fridge, I’m going to have to throw down.

Or at least move out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here, in the fetal position.

So different, these three.

Emily is the leader, the socializer, the performer.

Josh is the thinker, the loner, the think-outside-the-boxer.

Isabella is the artist, the creative one, the class clown…in a giant tutu.

Isabella is such a pleasure to have in class. She’s lovely, she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s well-liked. But, you know, THOSE TUTUS. They are a little, um, distracting. Can you possibly consider, maybe, not allowing her to wear them to school?

No ma’am. I cannot consider this.

She comes by it honestly.

Sorry, teachers. We pick our battles in our house, and we choose not to fight the genetics (or the moonlight, for that matter).

I guess they should be thankful we aren’t fighting about yoga pants. (bazinga!)

“Um. WHAT?”

“You know, before we ice the cake. We have to trime the dome, to even it all out. Otherwise, our cake will be totally lopsided.”

“It’s called what, Isabella? Trimming the who?”

“The DOME. God, Mama, aren’t you listening?”

“I’m sorry. And where did you learn about this dome thing?”

“DUH. From Betty.”

“Betty?”

“Betty Crocker? Mama, please tell me you have heard of her.”

“Baby, I don’t think Betty Crocker is a real person. I think she’s just a brand name?”

“She is so a real person. And she teaches me about cake decorating.”

“Well, anyway, we don’t need to trim the dome or anything because we aren’t frosting the cake.”

“….”

“What?”

“That is so not okay.”

“What isn’t?”

“We made two cakes in 8-inch round pans. WHY DID WE DO THAT IF WE WEREN’T GOING TO FROST THEM?”

“Hey, Isabella, did you know that in Canada they call it ICING and in the states they call it FROSTING?”

“….”

“What?”

“Betty would not approve of this at all.”

Indeed, she would not. Even though I’m still pretty sure she’s not a real person.

All I have to say is that Isabella is really lucky I shared my red velvet cake with her at all.

So, honestly, had it been a fashion show as a fundraiser for, say, a local gas station, I might have said yes.

But when I realized it was for Zareinu, there was no question. We were going to be there.

And needless to say, it was an incredibly moving experience.

To hear from a mother whose daughter Rachel—who has Rett Syndrome—walks when they thought she’d never sit up? Humbling.

To watch children with disabilities walk hand-in-hand with children without disabilities? Humbling.

To watch this?

humbling.

To sit in the car on the way home and talk to my kids about how amazing Zareinu is, how it really is a magical place that does amazing things for a lot of children and families, and have my six-year-old pipe up from the back seat that “all of the kids were the same, Mommy. I don’t know what you mean, special needs. We are all special, we all look the same, no one was different….”?

This was not only humbling; it had me weeping.

Children are amazing creatures, really.

My daughter didn’t see the things some people do. A different look, a different way of walking, a different way of talking. All of the kids there last night were special to her, they all got to dress up and go on the stage. And that’s all she noticed.

Not the differences, the SAMES.

Photography by George Pimentel, WireImage

Did Isabella wear that yesterday? 

And that hits me harder than any gut punch could ever.

I have absolutely no idea what Isabella wore to school yesterday.

It’s not the first time this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last time. It’s interesting, though, that this is what stands out in my mind—the clothes—as an entire day went by and I missed it all. I don’t know what she ate for breakfast, who she sat with on the bus, who she played with at recess. I don’t know if she took a shower or a bath, or if she is even clean at all. I don’t know what she had for dinner, if she begged for dessert, what Full House episode she watched. I don’t know what book she read at bedtime.

Missed. An entire day missed.

It doesn’t really matter, in that moment when I spy the tutu, what sort of day I had. If my hair looked particularly good, if I fit into my skinniest jeans, if I took my Greens+, if I finished a daunting task at work ahead of schedule, if I had great networking conversations, if I had epiphanies, if amazing things happened on the subway.

It doesn’t matter.

Because all I can think about is that damn pink tutu skirt.

This is Isabella.

My Boots. My Bella Bella. My Posey.

My bruiser in princess clothing.

She is sweet and full of hugs and kisses and snugglebums and jewels and pinks and purples and princess dresses and tutus and hairbows and high heels and baby dolls and arts and crafts.

And yet.

She is salty and stubborn and likes to rough-and-tumble and bounce on the trampoline and play Xbox and do math problems and make videos on the Mac and play in the dirt and collect snails and ride a scooter and play soccer.

Two girls in one.

Sweet and Salty.

And, truth be told, not much has changed over the years.

Sure, she has a little more hair and a little less chub, but this sweet and salty little thing came into this world six years ago and turned my world upside-down.

She completed our family; she completed my heart.

I am so lucky I get to be her mama.

(Even when she wants to watch 26 episodes of Full House in a row.)

]]> http://www.alimartell.com/index.php/2011/08/15/sweet-and-salty-at-6/feed/ 7 http://www.alimartell.com/index.php/2011/07/22/when-the-cats-um-still-at-work/ http://www.alimartell.com/index.php/2011/07/22/when-the-cats-um-still-at-work/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:09:11 +0000 ali http://www.alimartell.com/?p=5641 So, remember way back when I found all the hidden videos Isabella had taken of herself in the trash on my iMac?

Well…apparently my child has a love for interesting backgrounds and has way too much time on her hands. Because, you guys, there are MORE.

I don’t even.

I don’t even. 

Well, lookie here what I found on my iMac. They are, like, double rainbow good, I think.

Just y’all wait until I upload the video of her singing I’m Just a Kid by Simple Plan, because that is going viral. Obviously.

Sticky and I do not mix.

Lollipops. Maple syrup. Ice cream. Glue sticks. Cotton candy. Caramel. Timbits. Honey. Laffy Taffys. Gum. Juice.

*Shudders*

The problem with this, of course, is that I am the mother of three young children, two of which tend to be on the sticky side more often than not. It’s really repulsive, actually.

This weekend, on sort of a semi-whim, we grabbed the kids and took them downtown for brunch and to visit Kensington Market and Chinatown for the first time. We often forget that Toronto is such a wonderful city with all of these great nooks and crannies filled with loveliness. We live in the nosebleeds, which means, essentially, that we dont really live anywhere near downtown and require both a car and a subway ride to get there. After spending the last few months working downtown and exploring some of the neighborhoods, I realized that we never take advantage of what this city has to offer. And so, brunch at The Drake Hotel. It was lovely, really, and something different for the kids. They didn’t really notice, as they were elbow deep in their buttermilk pancakes with ice cream and maple sugar berries.

Pancakes. Ice cream. Maple Sugar berries.

Of course, the beauty of having kids old enough to take semi-whim-like trips downtown is that we no longer need strollers or diapers or baby food or bottles or wipes or diaper bags. But, you know, NO WIPES.

This meal was an anti-sticky girl’s nightmare.

So, after hosing the children down as best as we could, giving them a fresh new palette to decorate with further stickiness, we set out for the day. We visited Kensington market and explored the produce and the vintage clothing shops and the bakeries and the cheese shops. We tried on 800 pairs of sunglasses and looked at vintage cowboy boots. We went to Chinatown and bought a new wok and some chopsticks and marveled at all the new fruits and vegetables that we had never seen.

And then. Oh my god. THEN. Someone who was not me bought these for the kids.

Do you know what happens to giant ice creams that are shaped like cartoon characters when they are out for more then 8.6 seconds in 90-degree weather?

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

They were covered, head to toe, in sticky, goopy goodness.

This is the stuff of nightmares, I tell you.

The only thing that could possibly be worse would be if they were SIMULTANEOUSLY CHEWING CEREAL IN MY EARS.

And so I did. I raced out of my office at 4:50. I hopped on the train, so worried about my little girl. The only thing I knew was that she was feeling sick. She went on her class field trip to, well, somewhere, a farm, maybe, and had to sit in the shade for most of the day because her head was hurty. She was sad that she missed the arts and crafts on the trip. I stopped at this gift store at the subway station and overpaid to buy her a farm animal sticker and activity book.

I pulled up to the driveway and smushed the heck out of my little sickie.

And then she ate dinner.

And then she drank pop.

And then she ate some chocolate coins.

And then she hopped into my bed with her pillow pet and her giant pigslashpossum.

And then we watched Land of the Lost.

And then we sang a few Cher songs.

And then we sang a few A Chorus Line songs.

And then we did some arts and crafts.

And that was right about when she turned to me and said,

“I LOVE BEING SICK!”

It was pretty much her best night ever.

Maybe she wasn’t sick at all. Maybe she just wanted to spend the evening watching movies and eating junk food in my bed. Maybe she just needed some Mommy time.

(Or maybe I will be up all night…)

(But I’d really rather assume that it was just a case of Mommy-itis.)

(Really rather.)

Now, of course, I have to wonder what my sick-but-not-sick evening might look like, as I’m sure you can probably guess, it would probably not involve arts and crafts or chocolate coins or pop or Cher songs. Well, with the exception of that Half Breed song because, oh my god, sometimes you can’t not sing that song and think of that headdress.

I guess my night would involve coffee

and cookie dough

and kettle corn

and John Hughes movies

and Mad Men reruns

and my Settlers of Catan app

and a good book

and skype

and some e-retail therapy

and some photography tutorials

and maybe some Cher songs.