Donuts and Berries

A few years ago, what we thought was a minor leak led to a full roof replacement. Our embarrassing old beater car had just up and quit, so we took out a loan for the roof and signed away the next five years at the Toyota dealership. Long story short, it’s been a long time since our last family vacation. 

In December, we celebrated paying off the roof and vowed to begin bolstering our savings. While walking the dog down our wooded street this morning, my husband mentioned that we haven’t managed to save much.

“Well, we had to put down $1,300 for Violet’s Invisalign,” I said. “Plus, I’m commuting now, so that’s more gas. And every time I go to the store, it’s like $300.”

Our daughter Violet, now 10 years old, has gone from subsisting on donuts and canned chili to preferring organic fruit and vegetables, which I’m mostly happy about. But sometimes it feels like we spend more on berries than our mortgage.

She carries a lunch box to school stuffed with nutritious, high-priced produce that I pray will bolster her immune system. Looking forward to our overdue family vacation, there’s no room for the various viruses, fevers, body aches, weeklong vomiting, and chills that have been making the rounds at school.  

As a parent, it’s hard to know when to prescribe rest and when to push your children, when to cut costs, and when to spring for organic. Stay home for a fever. Rally against a sniffle. Force the gummy vitamins even though Violet whines she’s tired of the taste. Hope for the best. 

Between Harbor Aquatics Swim Team and after-school Girls on the Run practice, Violet never stops moving. Outside with the dog, she keeps going long after our lab calls it quits. Even when she eats until she’s too full, I worry she’s running a calorie deficit.

When I was 10, exercise was collecting branches to build forts in the woods. The only running I did was away from my best friend’s brothers as they shot BB guns at us.

Then middle school hit, and along with it, the end of childhood as I knew it. Our well-intentioned P.E. teachers doled out body composition tests, and just about all the girls lost their minds after learning their body-fat percentage.

Many of my friends developed eating disorders, while I joined the track team, swore off DQ bacon double cheeseburgers, and began a lifelong pattern of on-again, off-again vegetarianism. The no-fat diet of the ’90s grabbed hold of me, and nonsensically, my best friend and I adamantly declined fresh avocados and the wild Alaskan salmon our stepdads caught in favor of devouring entire packages of SnackWell’s cookies and Baked Lays, essentially processed and packaged chemical dust.

“You girls make me sick!” my mom said. “You should learn to look in the mirror and like yourselves because one day you’ll look back and realize that right now, right this minute, you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

My mom and her friends shamelessly proclaimed their envy of our youth. “Your skin! Your cheeks! Your figures!” they gushed. In response, we recited our fat percentages, magnified our microscopic flaws, and cringed.

As elementary school graduation looms, it’s hard not to look back and fear where today’s girls are headed. I try not to project my own experiences onto Violet and her friends, but at the same time, I worry that ignoring the past might make me a fool. 

It’s tempting to hide my own mistakes, to box them up like I did my Barbies and American Girl dolls the moment I turned 12. But if I’ve learned anything during my decade as a parent, it’s that talking is important, and reminding our children again and again that even when we appear busy, frazzled, or too old and out of touch to possibly understand what they’re going through, we’re there for them, ready to drop everything and listen.  

In the overwhelming wake of recent local tragedies, where friends, neighbors, and a beloved dog were killed, my own worries and problems feel small. Struggling through the aftermath, uncertain how best to explain the deaths to Violet, I spoke with my friend, Key Peninsula Firefighter Anne Nesbit.

“Talk to Violet at bedtime,” she said, “or in the car. Always keep talking. Tell her your feelings and leave space for her to share hers, but don’t force it. Just make sure she knows you’re ready to listen.” 

So we talk over dinner. And we talk in the dark on the drive home from swim team. We read books, giggle, and goof around at bedtime, and I’m flooded with joy because she still wants me there. 

I remind myself again and again that I can’t control much. But I can keep buying berries, offering donuts, squirreling away vacation money, and hoping for the best. 

Krisa Bruemmer is an award-winning writer who lives in Vaughn.