I always knew I wanted to be a mother. More than that, I always knew I wanted to have a daughter. As I grew up, I made constant notes about what I would teach her. When I was very small, I would commit to memory small events, moments I thought were essential for when I was the mummy. I ferreted them away, cataloging them so that when I was the mummy, I could pass them along, make sure that my daughter was a bit better prepared for life than I had been. By the time I was 10, I had a surprisingly specific mental list.
1. How to make cookies
2. How to sing (I thought my father was the author of all of James Taylor's songs)
3. How to make quicksand in a pail, and to provide assorted dolls to slowly sink into said bucket
4. How to tie shoelaces (I myself never learned properly until I was in high school)
5. How to sew
6. How to remove a splinter
7. How to play the recorder, piano and any other instrument that might fall into your hands
8. How to be brave when faced with such obstacles as gigantic, freshly-paved driveways
9. How to enjoy getting really dirty, even if it means there are bugs or thorns involved (my mother was an expert at this)
10. How to approach potentially terrifying wild or dead animals
11. How to build a snow fort
12. How to use the monkey bars
These weren't always the most relevant things in my life, but they were the things I either got the most pleasure from or saw as important on some cosmic level.
During the next five years, I became an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy and began to live a vivid private life. I wrote constantly when I wasn't reading, and at the same time began to develop a wide circle of friends. The whole while, in some small part of my brain, I was collecting a to-do list of things that I would have to teach my daughter whenever she was old enough… whoever she might be.