Wild child

I wrote this when my daughter was small. She is now grown and the single parent of a very active preschooler. I see me in her, I see her in my granddaughter. We labor in love for our children.

Wild Child

It's almost midnight but there she is, my daughter, in her bedroom, far past wide awake, her Fisher-Price tape deck cranked all the way open, blasting her favorite song, Love Shack, by the B-52s. Dressed like the reigning grand dame of little girl drag, she is wearing a green and purple flowered top from her two-piece swimming suit, leggings with a black and red geometric print on them, spike-heeled shoes from her dress-up basket, and bright orange lipstick she got from a babysitter. Her warm brown skin glows amidst the tumble of patterns and colors. Her hair only vaguely resembles the braids I wrestled in that morning. One braid is removed, leaving a mass of startling curls sticking straight out from one side of her head, the remaining four braids are fuzzy and frayed. She is standing on a chair, playing furious air guitar on her tiny yellow and blue plastic toy guitar with no strings, and is loudly singing. She knows every word, every note by heart, and can even jam the guitar solo right on cue.

She obtained this tape thanks to the same babysitter who gave her the lipstick — she thought it was cute that such a little pixy of a girl went ape-shit for the B-52s. My fault, I hadn't included in the babysitter list of instructions this warning: If you bring music with you, avoid rock and roll, and be sure you take it with you when you leave.

"Honey," I say as softly as I am able, "It's way past your bedtime, turn off the music and go to bed." I am trying hard not to yell or scream, to engage her in a battle of wills. I know from experience that she's a great fighter, more persistent, tougher than me. She wins every time.

Actually, I lose with the soft approach too. She won't go to sleep until she is ready to go to sleep, has been like that since she was a baby. But I'm trying to be a good mother, learning the motherly art of restraint. Still, I secretly want to yell shut-the-fuck-up at her, throw away her tape deck, the B-52s and be done with it.

My mother laughs at me when I tell her about my wild child, says it's only fair, that I was a difficult child, too. The truth of this amazes me. There she is, there I am, all over again, a mess of a girl, out of control.