Lions and Lambs

So, the thing is... the hardest thing to do is nothing.

I've been thinking about lions and lambs lately. I have one of each and I'm not sure which is easier. My fifteen month old, Smiley (Hurricane) Jane, is my lion. She has the EXACT personality of a lioness. She has this big roar and she marches around, full of confidence, absolutely fearless. And she's the strongest little thing, just a ball of determined muscle. I was thinking about that in particular because I'm nursing the latest wound from an unanticipated head butt --she got me right on my cheekbone this time. There's a knot the size of a peach pit and it's going to make a lovely bruise.

If I had to sum up my parenting of Jane, I could do it in one phrase: damage control. She's easy really: I just have to keep behind her EVERY SINGLE SECOND. She inhabits her life so fully somehow -she's always ripping open cabinet doors and dashing the contents to the ground. In fact, she's always ripping ANYTHING open --lift-a-flap books, video boxes, her sister's books and artwork, photos, CD cases -anything she can get her hands on. She learns about life in two ways --by tasting and by destroying. It's hilarious, really, although it requires a higher level of baby proofing than we seem to be capable of attaining.

It's so funny, we had our old house completely baby-proofed before my oldest child, Ana, could even WALK but she was just never the kind of child to unroll an entire roll of toilet paper and tear it into small pieces. She didn't WANT to play in the toilet. When she climbed up on the couch, she sat there quietly, as opposed to standing up and racing end-to-end. She NEVER was a hands-on participant in the diaper-changing process (don't ask) and she never once bloodied my lip while I was putting on her shoes. I never found her INSIDE the fireplace.

Jane is just all about high-energy zest for life. She is just now starting to talk but let me tell you she doesn't have a problem communicating. She has a variety of roars to let us know she's hungry or wants something. She gives kisses with abandon and she will simply fling herself on top of you out of sheer love. In fact, she'll fling herself right out of my arms if I'm not careful and twice now when I've gone to take her out of the tub, she's flung herself backward in rage and cracked her head against the porcelain. Yesterday, she did a belly flop off the couch -- I swear she was trying to see if she could FLY! She is, in every sense of the word, a handful --an adorable and destructive little lion cub.

My lamb, Ana, on the other hand, was an extremely calm baby and has grown into an extremely calm and thoughtful child. But there is so much going on under the surface with her, much of which we only realize after the fact. She lives in her head, that one. One day last year, I had bought Ana a new book and we sat down together and she READ IT TO ME. I didn't even know she could read! She simply taught herself, at the age of three, without any fanfare. But it's really interesting -- she lacks any kind of need to show off her accomplishments. Her teachers still don't really believe me when I tell them she is reading now because she's so quiet in class. (I might have doubted it myself, except she found a book of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons and was immersed in it for several weeks. I finally hid it after I asked her to do something and she looked right at me and said, "Forget it, Lady." Thanks, Calvin.)

Recently, I arrived early to pick Ana up from music class and was able to observe the last fifteen minutes. The teacher was reading from a picture book of "The Magic Flute" while the opera played quietly in the background. Like all good teachers, she was involving the kids by asking questions about the illustrations and if they heard the plot developments in the music. Ana, who was given a video of The Magic Flute by my parents AND who has assigned roles from it to family members almost non-stop AND who has declined to answer to any name other than "Tamino" (the hero) for the past four months, sat silently unless called upon directly. Ana loves her music teacher more than any of her other teachers. But she just couldn't bring herself to call any attention to herself at all, not even to win her beloved teacher's approval.

When we enrolled Ana in pre-school, we were especially excited because her best friend Aaron is in her class and we thought that having a familiar face would help ease the discomfort of our lamb's first group interaction. But this plan has backfired on us, actually. Aaron has been out sick for quite a while (due to a rare complication from the 'flu we all had recently) and Ana has been crying all the way to school, sobbing "Please don't leave me there." She has made no other friends besides Aaron. Her teacher says that she engages with the other children at first and then backs off and just observes. When I arrive to pick her up and the class is on the playground, I see her standing on the fringes of a group of kids, or swinging by herself.

Frankly, my heart hurts so much for her that I almost cannot bear it. I've never felt so helpless. But every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I deposit her in her classroom with big smiles and loads of kisses and then I sniffle all the way home. It's hard to accept that there is nothing I can do for her. I try talking to her about making new friends and how sometimes, although it is hard to reach out to someone, it can mean a really fun new playmate. I don't think she believes me, though, poor little lamb.

Anyway, it is interesting that two such different children came from the same parents and that the answer to parenting them is the same for both: get out of their way. I think this is the hardest lesson of parenthood actually -children come into this world already programmed. And like birds that migrate or salmon that swim upstream, they have to find their own path. There's not much we parents can do to help them. I can run after Jane all day just to try to keep her from hurting herself but I can't just TELL her about the world and have that be enough. And I can encourage Ana and provide comfort for her shyness but I cannot follow her around making friends for her or toting a sign that says "Still Waters Run Deep."

It's just really hard, this parenting thing. I have to laugh at how my preconceived notions of what my kid's childhoods would look like have been so thoroughly trounced by their own ideas. I (and I think I'm pretty typical of my generation of parents) was so determined to give my children the best start, to apply my considerable energy and knowledge to creating the perfect environment in which they can succeed. Well, once I've done that -then what? I mean, I can create the perfect nighttime ritual according to the experts -- the dim nightlight and the music box and the safe, warm bed -- but in the end, my child has to learn to go to sleep by herself. In the end, I still have to stand helplessly by and watch my kids learn their own lessons, some of which are really painful.

I can remember when Ana was about a year old, resting my cheek on hers and moaning, "Please just tell me what you need. Please." She couldn't tell me; in fact, she still can't tell me. In parenting both the lion and the lamb (which makes me what? The Games Keeper?), I think the answer is the same. I can love them unconditionally. I can listen and dry their tears. I can put them in situations that challenge them and in which they can grow. I can watch them try and fall, armed with Brazleton's Touchpoints and the Sears' Baby Book and my heart on my sleeve. I can rejoice when they succeed.

And I can do nothing, as gracefully as possible.

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (almost 4) and Jane (15 months). She lives in Austin, Texas and has taken to wearing shin guards lately.