Lesson #19: Sharing

Dear Baby,
I'm gonna start today by sharing something with you. I am in this moment where everything is perfect. Everyone is healthy and your dad and I are able to pursue our dreams while raising you. I am very aware that I am in this moment. This bubble of time. I am aware and grateful at how lucky we are to be in this moment. And I am aware that it is inevitable that this perfect buble will burst. We will get older and jobs will change and people will get old and someone will get sick. But I'm trying not to focus on that. I'm trying to stay present. Because not everyone gets a moment like this, baby. And we are lucky to have it. Right now. Today. And assholes don't sit in gratitude...so I want you to sit with your mommy in this grateful tub of yum.

So, we started a gymnastics class. Every Monday we eat breakfast and then begin to get ready for class. I love how your eyes light up and you clap your hands and giggle with anticipation at the very idea of going. You have taken a liking to "getting ready". You help me make the bed. Which means you pass me the pillows and pull the sheets a bit. You clearly take great pride in doing this and it fills me with joy to watch. Then you pick out my outfit. You always want me to wear high heels. You are partial to a pair of black stiletto half boots that I have. I usually laugh and put them back and put on my motorcycle Ugg boots...which have become my mommy uniform shoe. Then you like to sit on the counter as we wash our face and brush our teeth. Then I do my makeup and you mimic me putting on my mineral powder. Then we pick out your outfit and I struggle to get your wildly curly hair into pig tails. And then we are off...

Mel Gibson has an office in the same building that our gymnastics class. It's funny how Hollywood is constantly spilling into our lives. It all seems perfectly normal but then every once in awhile there is Braveheart as we're headed up to do cartwheels. I thought about this a lot last week. About how normal being among the abnormal is getting. In the last few years alone, I have had lunch with Kevin Bacon, dinner with Lisa Kudrow, coffee with Jessica Beil, cocktails with Courtney Cox & David Arquette...that is becoming just another part of mommy's job. And maybe we'll see Cristina Aguilera and baby Max leaving as we start our gymnastics class today. Yup, there they are. I want to be so very careful with you, baby, I want to keep you grounded in this city of stars. I read this great quote the other day (I can't remember who from, if anyone knows please alert me immediately) "You aren't better than anyone. But no one is better than you." And that resonated with me. It seems like a grounded way to walk through life. Even if Coco Arquette is at your birthday party.

Okay, I digress, back to gymnastics. You love it. You love to go on the trapeze and sing songs in the circle and dance and swing and jump on the trampolene. You embrace the obstacle courses and the free play and the cool zip-line swing. The one thing you suck at, and I say this with love, is sharing. You don't like other kids to be on the equipment when you are on it. You push them off and say "No" in an awesomely authoritatively way that makes me want to laugh when I know I should lovingly scold. I've made you say "sorry" which you do but I can tell you are merely trying to appease me. Sharing isn't something you like doing all of the time. You share with your friends when they come to play but at the gym or at the park...strange kids beware! So we are working on that. Cause it's an asshole trait: not sharing. And we know you aren't an asshole. So, we've got to put a stop to it. No matter how funny it can be.

I wonder if Cristina Aguilera has this problem with Max? We'll work on it, baby. And know that this hiccup of ass-y-ness is a passing thing that is all of four minutes long. The other 56 minutes of class you are fearless and sweet and funny and joyful. Gymnastics on Mondays is my favorite hour of the week. Thank you for that. Now if next week we can get you to be on the slide while Gracie is on it... then we'll be well on our way.

I love you,
Mom