Addie has been home for a week as of this afternoon. It's been great, but I'm mostly nervous around her. She's so small, and I'm so uncoordinated. By my math, that's a poor equation that comes out with all sorts of bad remainders. So, I'm letting Anna do most of the Addie holding. For now, Addie and I have an agreement. I'll work to be more comfortable holding her, and she'll get some stronger neck muscles.
While watching Anna hold Addie, though, I've been thinking about what the next several years will hold. For the most part, I've been thinking about how to help her avoid the uncomfortable and embarrassing moments that I had, but I fear that there is nothing I can do, as it may just be a rite of passage. I know that middle school is several years off, but I already love Addie so much that I don't want her to have to go through that cesspool. Let me give you an example. Between 6th and 7th grade, my family moved from West Point, New York (I was an Army brat), back to Augusta, Georgia, where we had been stationed before. Being that it was 1990, and West Point was by and large a transient community, jams (Remember jams--long shorts/short pants...?) were still popular. So, the first day of school rolls around, and I show up wearing jams. I learned, very quickly, that jams were no longer popular in Augusta, as everyone had moved on to Duck Heads (freakin' Duck Heads). As a 7th grader, being the only kid wearing jams registered somewhere between catastrophically embarrassing and cataclysmically embarrassing.
So the question is, how can I prevent Addie from having her "I wore jams to the first day of 7th grade" moment? How can I prevent her from having to deal with the "cool" kids? You remember the cool kids, right? The kids that nobody really liked but wanted to hang out with anyway? (Note: if you were a cool kid, you probably do not remember this. Sorry to break it you this way.) That same 7th-grade year, I somehow found myself sitting at the cool kids lunch table for a few months. What I most remember about that time was that I "lent" Chuck Long a dollar just about every day. The sarcastic quotation marks should clue you in that I functioned as a lunch-time ATM. Perhaps that near-daily dollar was really a cool kid tax that I had to pay--which is too bad, because I could have used that money to buy some cool ALF merchandise.
I know my parents wanted to help me avoid things like the jams incident, yet they were powerless in the face of 7th grader who was sure that jams were the long shorts (short pants?) of choice. So, Addie, as you make your way forward in life, just try to listen to me when I tell you that jams are not cool (unless you wear them ironically, then they're awesome). Good luck, kiddo!
Oh, and since you were going to look it up anyway:
4 comments:
Until you feel good about holding with head support thing, you might put her in a sling and carry her close to her body. She's love feeling close to you and it might give you the feeling of ease you're looking for while bonding in this way with her.
i hate to be the bearer of this news, but alf was so out by the time paul was in 7th grade (1990-1991), but not so out that it was yet considered vintage
in short, had paul used his chuck long dollar to buy alf merchandise, it would have been just as disastrous for his social life as were the jams
oh, the jams
Lies! ALF had just finished its run, and Melmac was all the rage! If you would prefer, maybe the all-Prince Batman soundtrack?
summer 1989, i think...i could be wrong about that one but i'm trying to show off without looking it up
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