Littles at Sundown Excerpts
NOTE FROM CALLIE: I came across this mommy blog which was linked from a private Facebook Group for Sarasota Mommy Bloggers. It definitely ties in to all of this somehow.
Littles
at Sundown
Just a Sarasota Mom Blog
ABOUT ME: I brought two little balls of sunshine to
this town in 2008, starting with my oldest Tristan and then again in 2011 with
my baby Anna. Just a mommy doing her best and loving every moment of it!
WHEN
A PHASE IS SOMETHING GREATER.
We’ve all been there. A few years ago, it was Frozen.
You couldn’t spend a waking moment around your daughter without hearing “Let It
Go” on blast, and seeing Elsa the Snow Queen plastered on every surface her
stickers, costumes, dolls, or drawings could stick to. My Anna has gone through
plenty of them, and so did her older brother Tristan when he was her age. I’ve
been to more baseball games than I can count, I’ve been to practices and
recitals both professional and from the home-made stage (living room couch).
The phase becomes a central part of what your home, family, and life is… For a
few months, at least. Eventually they grow out of it. Tristan switched from
Baseball to Soccer. Anna fell in love with Moana and had a new range of songs
and costumes. But what about when it goes deeper than that?
I thought it was a phase when Anna kept asking me to go
to the Selby Gardens. I thought that she was having a nature phase, which was a
welcome change from song and dance, and I wouldn’t exactly mind it if she
decided that our backyard could use some gardening, but that wasn’t quite it.
The first few times that I took her (it turned into a weekly thing - every
Thursday was Selby day. It made Thursday her favorite day of the week.) I
didn’t think much of it. She liked playing with the other kids, she liked being
in the outdoors, she liked playing. All kids like playing. But then I noticed
something.
Everytime we went to the gardens, everytime that we
went to the play area (the highlight of her day and week), she spent all of her
time around one particular statue. This statue doesn’t particularly have a
name, but all of the local mommies know it, and they know what it means when
your second born child is drawn to it. My little Anna was chosen for something
great, and I couldn’t be prouder. It feels almost like she made Gifted And
Talented in school again, but on an entirely new level. This mom is now a proud
mother of one of the Garden’s Chosen Children.
Here's some of Anna's monthly masterpieces! You can see how thrilled she is to be at the gardens!
Here's some of Anna's monthly masterpieces! You can see how thrilled she is to be at the gardens!
TODAY
THE MOMMY COMMUNITY LOST SOMEONE.
It’s
been a rough few days. This week, I lost not only a good friend, but a good
friend lost the trust of our local motherhood community. Now, most of the other
mommies I’ve met in this wonderful, life-changing blogging community know the
unspoken rules of mommyhood: you never leave the house without saying goodbye,
ice cream is always acceptable lunch on birthdays, never leave the house
without a snack, your second baby is going to be adopted by the Garden Statue
if you’re lucky. These are simple,
undeniable rules!
I was meeting with what was at the time a good mommy
friend of mine. We enjoyed coffee while our kids played with each other. The
topics of conversation were simple things: planning the next trip to Jungle
Gardens,, swimming lessons in the summer, and the milestones our children
reached. That’s when it took a turn for the ugly. When I told her how proud I
was of my little Anna for speaking to the Garden Statue for the first time, she
looked at me like I had two heads.
First she asked me what the garden statue was, which
was a fair question. Unlike my family, she’s not from the area. And so I
explained to her that Sarasota possesses a rich history and that the community
at large strongly encourages its members to get involved. She didn’t seem to
understand how this related to the statue. It was like having to explain to
someone how to breathe, what came as second nature to me, a local, was entirely
foreign to her. Normally I don’t mind explaining these things, it’s part of
being a mom, but what I do mind is another mom judging and screaming at me for
the local customs. She left that conversation calling me names that I will not
repeat, and demanding that our children not spend time with one another again,
like I would let Anna near her after that!
If you’re a mom who is new to the area, be aware that
calling our local customs monstrous or sacrilegious is very rude.
I
came into this year thinking it was going to be a wonderful year of mommy
solidarity, and this friend agreed with me! And yet here she is, looking at how
I am mothering my child and shaming
me for it. I’m trying to be the better mom, but I have never been so disgusted,
disheartened, and outraged at another mother.
SMILE!
THE GARDEN STATUE IS WATCHING!
If
you’re like me and your second child has also been so blessed as to have been
chosen by the Garden Statue, then you have some things to get used to.
My
Anna was recently blessed and is seven years old, and has always been more of a
shy child. But now that’s behind her. It’s only been a few weeks since the
process began, and already I’m seeing changes in her. She’s more sociable, she
has more energy (as if a seven year old needed it) and when she thinks I’m not
looking, I can catch her staring at me.
When
I first noticed this, like any mom, I was a bit freaked out. Why was she
staring at me? Did I have something on my face? Had I done something wrong? Was
she sick? Fortunately, it was none of these things. After going to the library
(with her, of course!), I did some research and found that the children blessed
by the Garden Statue often become His eyes and ears. She’s not staring at me
because something’s wrong, she’s staring at me because He wants to know me,
wants to know my family, and be a part of it. And we are blessed for it.
This
of course can get a little strange once the physical changes start. Anna’s eyes
used to be this beautiful and deep blue, now they’re yellow. Have you ever had
yellow eyes staring at you? If you join the ranks of the Garden Chosen Children
families, you will. And it’s a little creepy, but those eyes are still your
child’s, and you still need to love each and every part of them. Tell your
child how pretty their eyes are as the changes start happening. Tell them how
beautiful or handsome you think their long ears are or how their skin looks
really cool when it’s green like that. A little support will go a long way, and
He will love seeing that you’re so accepting of His choice and interest in your
child.
NO
SCHOOL? NO PROBLEM!
Sometimes
public school isn’t for everyone. Sometimes you could even have one child in
public school while the other needs to be homeschooled! That’s what it’s like
being the mother of a perfectly normal and wonderful ten year old boy, and an
amazing and gifted seven year old girl who was chosen.
Every
child comes with their own unique challenges, and some more than others. For my
little Anna, she’s in the process of a physical change and a behavioral one.
She’s not a typical seven year old, she’s something even better… But it does
make school a problem for her. I couldn’t in good faith drop her off at school
everyday, knowing that the other kids could tease her for her new green skin or
yellow eyes or long ears. For Anna, in her situation, homeschooling was the
best option. As a fulltime mom, I could handle this just like I can handle
anything else thrown at me… But it does present some new obstacles for Anna.
Without
going to school with other kids, making friends is something that’s become hard
for her. I can’t even bring her to the playground without another kid poking
fun at her, and I know the mother bear in me couldn’t stand for it. So what do
I do?
Turn
to trusty old Facebook!
Despite
what people might think, now that we’re connected, it’s easier than ever to
find other moms and other children going through the same struggles and
reaching the same accomplishments you are. Just by spending an afternoon
searching, I found three Facebook Groups specifically for those in Sarasota who
have Chosen children, just like my Anna. Now I have mom pals and she has
friends who are just like her… Everybody wins!
If
you have a Chosen child, I recommend getting connected before the symptoms
become too much to bear. Once your child develops sticky fingers and starts
producing fluid… Well, having some mom pals to vent to and get cleaning advice
from is a lifesaver!
BOUNDARIES
OF STICKY FINGERS
Being
the mother of a chosen child has its struggles, and if you’ve been following
this blog, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s ooze, staring, and
not to mention all of the physical changes that my Anna has undergone. It’s not
only the physical changes, though. With being a chosen child, there comes
changes in behavior: namely taking things that don’t belong to her.
You can see through Anna's monthly masterpieces that she's had some disturbing things on her mind. She want things that don't belong to her, and there were signs leading up to this:
You can see through Anna's monthly masterpieces that she's had some disturbing things on her mind. She want things that don't belong to her, and there were signs leading up to this:
Stealing
is bad, but it’s something that can be tolerated in these special
circumstances, or at least that’s what I thought going in. If she only stole
from me, if she never got in trouble with anything harmful or illegal, things
would be fine. But they’re not fine. Stealing isn’t limited to a quarter for a
gumball here and there, or hiding mommy’s car keys, or even using mommy’s
credit card to buy a new American Girl doll. Sometimes stealing is dangerous.
Most
of the mommies I met in support groups sent either their chosen child or their
siblings away to live with loved ones. I made the choice to keep Anna’s older
brother of three years, Tristan, still living with us as a normal ten year old
boy. He wasn’t immune from the stealing, but we had a few family meetings about
it, and he forgave her just as much as I did. Until she stole something he
couldn’t forgive.
It
was a waking nightmare. I never knew that fingers and teeth were included in
things that the Garden Statue wanted, but they were, and for the first time I
had to stand up and tell Anna (and by proxy Him) that I wasn’t going to allow
for that. Two of the teeth Anna took from Tristan were baby teeth, but one was
an adult tooth, which he will need to have replaced. Fortunately, the fingers
were all able to be sewn back on, though he can’t move them as well as he could
before. We haven’t seen Anna since the incident, but my mother’s intuition just
knows that she’s returned to Him.
I
love Anna and we are truly blessed that He has taken an interest in her, but
for all you mommies out there of chosen children, make sure you keep your other
children safe during this time of transition. Mind your p’s and q’s of sibling
safety, know that sometimes you need to let one child go for the other to
thrive, and always keep this a closely guarded mommy secret.