peevish mama

In our kitchen we have one little spot, with one little stool, at which we keep the laptop. It’s the spot where Doctor Dash and I each have our first sips of coffee in the morning, checking email through bleary eyes. It’s the spot where Dash has a beer after work while I finish cooking dinner. We chat, a little or a lot, depending on the vagaries of mood and stress. It’s the spot where we listen to and download music. It’s the spot where I do a lot of my writing and most of my surfing. It’s not the most comfortable spot in the world, but if we’re downstairs, it’s most likely to be where Dash or I are sitting. 

So if you’re a boy who likes to snuggle, you figure out a way to fit in that spot. I can’t tell you how many times he has come down in the morning with crazy bed head wearing his blanket like a shepherd and slipped in behind me on the stool. Taking a cue from the other primates of the world, he seems to understand instinctively that even when you’re too big for mama’s front side, there may still be room for you on mama’s backside. It wasn’t until I saw Saint James sidle in behind Dash that I took note of it with the part of my brain that actually notices things. Perched as he was, he reminded me of a lemur or a monkey. But unlike a lemur or a monkey, who might cling to a parent’s back for protection or mobility or warmth, Saint James perches just because.

Because he can still fit.

Because he wants to.

Photo by B Fresh Photography

Dash and I took Supergirl and Saint James to see the Black Eyed Peas last night and hooooooo Fergie, patron saintess of bootilicious booty-antics, was it ever a spectacle! I realize that every shred of live music we go see ends up on this blog drenched in hyperbole with a cherry on top.* I was trying to describe the experience to Lady Shutterbug this afternoon and I prefaced my panting phone swoon with the excuse that I’m a junky for anything that gets my adrenaline pumping. I think I excused myself because I’m starting to feel a tad abashed about falling head over heels for every single damn concert I go to. I’m a total lightweight, a rube, an easy mark and I would be a terrible music reviewer – Aack! Luuuuuuved these mo fos! They played coconuts and whistled but ohmyGod they rocked me Amadeus! Wooohoo! Woooo! Ya, Rolling Stone, you can just forget about hiring Peevish Mama. I suck at music reviews because nothing gets me all jacked up like loud live music and any shred of objectivity and respectability go right out the window as soon as those first strains go in my ears and down through my guts to my toes and back up again and settle in my ass, which remains a fiery bucking blur for the duration and usually the better part of the next day too.** That’s not really true, but it’s sort of true. It’s a bit of a curse, really. That’s not really true either. It’s a gift. Well, that’s not true. Some might say it’s a weapon. Yes, that’s it, my ass is a double edged sword – and no one, not even I, knows for sure whether it is to be used for good or evil. The base in my chest (Nanook calls it the defib – as in the doctor pulls the stethescope from his ears and gravely intones: “M’am, I’m afraid you have hip hop heart”), the crush of bodies, the flying sweat, the screaming and the music, the sweet, sweet music, go straight to the pleasure center in my brain and for those hours, there is no where, NO WHERE on earth I would rather be.

So all of this is just crazy talk for: take everything I say with a grain (or five hundred) of salt. Except that I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the show was over the top, off the hook and full-on proof that the Peas are SUPERSTAHS for a reason. Dash and I don’t really like to see bands in large venues anymore, but anything we missed in terms of immediacy and flying spittle, was more than compensated for with visual and auditory bling and general high style technical wizardry. There were lasers and robots and huge flashing screens and shiny costumes and synthesized voices and break dancing and such a sustained eruption of confetti that the entire Xcel Energy Center looked pixilated. At one point, Taboo was singing and flying over the crowd on a motorcycle and I questioned whether it had been wise to expose Saint James’ and Supergirl to this as their first concert experience; what could possibly measure up?

Apropos of the costumes, I would like someone to follow me around with Fergie’s wind machine. And a few of her futuristic bodysuits would be nice too. And if I could get those freaky android flygirls to dance around me all the time, well, I guess I would like that quite a bit. She’s hot. And I hear from my friends who were down on the floor in the mad pulsing fray, that she had a wee bruise on her buttock. How sweet! How human of her! See, she may look like a sexy sci-fi space diva but she gets bruises on her ass just like the rest of us.

The Black Eyed Peas may be larger than life and everywhere you look, but the truth remains that they can still sing. And dance. Their music is nothing if not rumpshakin’ musical crack. It’s catchy as shit. Wil.i.am busted out a little DJ set in the middle of the show which was truly one of the most enjoyable 20 minutes in my life, and as he rapped and scatted over Nirvana, the Chili Peppers, Estelle, Journey, The Eurythmics and more, I’m not gonna lie and say I wasn’t dying, DYING to be down in the mosh pit with Crackerjack, Nanook and the hubbies.

But a glance to my left at Saint James, his baseball hat on sideways, pumping his little fist in the air, drinking in every second and not missing a beat, more than made up for my stadium seats. He was ripe for the experience. He swayed his arms with the crowd, yelled, danced, clapped, held up my lit phone, and basically took in the concert with touching wide-eyed sincerity and genuine excitement. Dash said he had as much fun watching Saint James watch the concert, as actually watching the concert.*** And I couldn’t agree more. Your first concert is a big deal, something you never forget and I was hell bent on being privy to theirs. Happily, it was a great one . . . but, then again, aren’t they all? What was your first concert? Tell me about it in the comments section.****

*Case in point, a few months ago Dash and I went to see Zero 7 with Tartare when she was in for a visit and despite fond memories of Epic from my crazy Snoop Dog night with Crackerjack, the show was kind of drag – experimental, dissonant and a bit bizarre (with fleeting moments of total coolness). One of the female lead singers was totally cheesing me out too – she was trying way too hard to be the husky voiced sexy nature girl and I wasn’t buying her hair-in-the-face crooning. I spent the whole time muttering under my breath and quashing the impulse to flick a hair elastic at her stupid freckle face so she could put her mane up. In fact she irritated me so much that I ended up swooning, scaring the bejeezus out of Tartare when I actually slid onto the floor in the public restroom – previously unheard behavior for a germaphobe like myself. So, ya, I hated the band and then I fainted. Can you blame me for not blogging about that? But I had fully intended to, because I had a two lucid thoughts worth exploring when I was on the bathroom floor of Epic: 1. Maybe my meat-eating ways were poisoning me and causing me to pass out at concerts; and 2. It was unbecoming and unseemly for a mother of three to be on the floor of a nightclub bathroom, whatever the reason.  

**Sometimes I really can’t seem to stop dancing and I start to wonder whether I might have a tumor.

***We bought tix for the BEP for Saint James and Supegirl as their main Christmas gift and I cannot say enough about the shift away from the material gift toward the experiential gift. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am. On Christmas Eve they opened up cans of black eyed peas that I had wrapped and put under the tree while Dash queued up I Gotta Feeling and they’ve had all these months to look forward to the big night. The anticipation, the delayed gratification and mostly, the memories are so much better than another lego set. 

**** Query whether it is perhaps time to reign it in when one’s blog post has footnotes.

I think you see people at their purest when they don’t know they’re being watched. Written out, that’s a painfully obvious statement. Yesterday I dropped Supergirl off at school and although I don’t typically walk her in, I do stay and wait until she gets in the door. She ran toward school, her backpack bouncing against her rump, turning around once to wave and blow a kiss. Just like that, she stepped seamlessly out of her home life into her school life, her public life. She had her hand on the door when she spotted a Golden Retriever tied up to the fence. She jerked the door, changed her mind and walked over to the dog, her hand outstretched and facing up — just as Red Vogue taught her. First she knelt, then she sat, her face level with the dog’s. She was petting him, and this is the part that killed me, she found the dog’s tag and bent her face in to read it. It mattered to her. Who is this dog? The dog rested his chin, for just a moment, on top of her bent head. Kids streamed past her as she sat with the dog, running her fingers through his thick biscuit coat. I watched from the car, my foot on the brake, feeling like a voyeur into the very essence of sweetness. How is this girl even mine?

I’m kinda known for being a weeper. There are certain sure-fire triggers that’ll always get the water works going: sad movies, happy movies, children singing, extreme frustration, weddings, funerals, Baptisms, First Communions, chopping onions, handwritten Valentines cards, gin, and soccer games when my son’s hair is looking especially awesome. Note that Irish step dancing is NOT on my list. 

I’m not quite sure what happened today, but I took Devil Baby to Saint James’ school to watch Corda Mor (a local Irish step dancing school) perform, and when they started, I felt that familiar prick in the place where my eyes and nose meet up for coffee. Jesus, I thought to myself, trying to pull it together. What is up with me? The step dancing girls were even wearing these crazy curly wigs which came in only three colors: blond, brown, and mouse brown. That really should have been more than enough to pull me out of the moment, but alas, no amount of fake hair was going to thwart my melancholia. Irish step dancing? Really? I’m not even Irish. 

I definitely tend to have a physical reaction to huge displays of talent, but that runs more along the lines of chills, not tears. When Shaun White nailed that crazy second run on the half pipe after he had won the gold, you could have grated cheese on my goosebumps. Same with exceptional singing, rapping, dancing, guitar solos – chills, baby. But Irish step dancing? Really? 

Devil Baby sat in my lap, rapt and clapping in time with the music. I peered around to catch a look at her expression and she was all eyes, her mouth pursed in a perfect little O. Do you like it? I whispered in her ear. She reached back, placed her whole hand flat on my cheek and held it there for a moment before withdrawing it to continue clapping. I realized in a rush that it wasn’t the girls on the stage who were making me emotional, it was the girl in my lap. I had done this very simple thing that required no effort or money at all and she was LOVING it. She has historically been so unpredictable that I had kind of stopped trying to take her to things, show her things. Remember our last story time? Ya, well, that was our last story time. I don’t know how to explain it apart from admitting that she’s naughty, I’m lazy, time flies and then, poof! I find myself on the verge of tears because my daughter is actually sitting in my lap, snuggling with me and enjoying something. Enjoying something with me. Together. It dawned on me that even though we’re always together, it never feels like we’re together. 

And then I really lost it.

This is what I’ve wanted all along. This. This was an absolute given with Saint James, an absolute pleasure with Supergirl. This. This is why I decided I wanted another baby. This. Could it be that it’s not too late for Devil Baby and I to have this?

I’ve got another post over at Simple Good and Tasty. Check it out.

Saint James came home from school declaring that he was giving up hip hop for lent. Except for one song per day.

Sigh.

We are not raising good Catholics.

I must admit I felt a little better when he told me that Ava is giving up looking in the mirror.

Sigh.

In the last twenty or so hours:

I find my thoughts hovering around my friend, Circus Lady, who is grieving for her dad. I made her soup. What else can I do?

I hear of Alexander McQueen’s death. A fashion designer I have only admired from afar, way out of my reach in every way, but he was only 40.

I spend the darkest hours of the night awake, reading by the light of my phone. The last time I checked the time it was nearly four o’clock a.m.

My youngest daughter pushes me to the brink, no, beyond the brink on the way to school. I yell and say things I regret. I am left feeling like a rung out dishrag, ashamed at myself for my rage and lack of self control.

My cleaning lady tells me she’s pregnant. She is one day older than me and is giddy and scared as any woman pushing forty would be at such unexpected news. It’s all right there, written on her face. I notice we are both standing with our hands clasped in front of our hearts. A gesture of joy? Surprise? Supplication?

I try and fail to find a red fez for Supergirl and I am disproportionately sad about it.

I am too tired for this day.

I’m not sure why, but I know she wants one. She’s been googling the shit out of it for weeks and now this:

She sure looks happy with that red fez on her head. Almost bewildered, like she can’t believe her luck. I’ll admit, it’s an effective strategy. But do I want my daughter running around in a red fez? I mean, she’s already kind of monkey-like. What next, a pint size Sgt. Pepper suit? A tiny organ? I’ll pretend to ponder the notion while I search high and low for a child-size red fez, because, now I can think of no better Valentines gift.

It all started out so innocuously. The time: after school. The scene: the minivan.

Saint James: Do we have anything going on tonight?

Me: Nope. We’re probably going to Punch Pizza later, but that’s it.

Saint James: Can I go down to the park to skate?

Me: Uhhhhhhhhh.

Saint James: I can go by myself. 

Me: Uhhhhhhhh.

Saint James: I can tie my own skates.

Me: Uhhhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhh. OK. I guess. OK. You can tie your own skates?

And so, for the first time ever, I let my boy walk down to the park on his own. It’s not far. A couple blocks. But it’s out of eyeshot and as he smiled, proud as can be, and trudged off with his skates hooked on his hockey stick like a winter sports lovin’ hobo – I held my breath. And I went into full-on cartoon fantasy crazy head. I imagined slamming the door and running up the stairs to the second floor, then running up the stairs to the third floor, then opening a secret door and running up more and more and more stairs until I was in a super high teetering crows nest on top of our roof, from which I could see the park and my son’s little dark green jacket in the distance. I pictured scurrying back downstairs, opening the front door and pulling a telescope out of my pocket. With a shwooop sound it would extend down to the street, take a right and extend all the way to the park, my eyeball bulging out of the end of it, looking left and right, blinking. Ah, the modern conveniences of Looney Toons. How I wish.

The truth is, every fiber of my being (except for maybe one or two) knows that it’s absolutely OK for him to go the park to skate on his own. And not only is it OK, I think it’s good. For a couple seasons now, I’ve been loving the wilderness that is park pick-up hockey and all the lessons it has to teach.

Saint James is kind of shy, so the fact that he manages to nudge his way into games is surprising and makes me curious. Does he ask? Does he just sneak in and start playing? It’s all very mysterious to me.

He and Supergirl go down with Doctor Dash quite often, and sometimes Saint James comes back flushed and happy. Sometimes he comes back pouty and pissed off that the bigger kids weren’t passing to him. In a life of coached, closely supervised, highly taught, pre-packaged sports, he’s not used to being ignored. There’s always a coach with a whistle, making sure everyone gets a chance. Saint James doesn’t know his place in the pecking order. I don’t think he even knows that there is a pecking order. The way I see it, he should be happy to be on the ice with a bunch of older kids that don’t know him and his geeky snow pants from Adam. He just has to keep showing up and eventually he’ll break into this band of unruly ice rats who are too cool to wear jackets or helmets. Some of them don’t even wear gloves! Gasp! Where are their mothers?!

There’s the possibility that he’ll get roughed up, that some little punk a couple years older will say something mean and the thought of that just about slays me. There’s also the possibility that he’ll skate his face off, forgetting about school, piano and his mother. That the feral boy who’s in all our boys will get to come out and play. That his heart will pound and his lungs will ache and he will know no greater happiness than the present moment. I get that. I want that for him. So I let him go.

Yesterday Nanook, Crackerjack and I headed downtown with our poor neglected, understimulated third born girls to MacPhail Center for Music for a Mom Culture event featuring Adam Levy. Adam Levy plays in a few bands around here, our favorite being Hookers and Blow. We had heard that he started a kid music band and thought it might be entertaining to see this guy do his thing for the kiddos. We’ve enjoyed some silly, dance-a-licious Hookers and Blow adventures and are trying to make up for the serious paucity of story times, music classes, and gymboree type shit that has been the fate of our thirds, so there we were.

Before he came on, there was a music class led by a hefty lady with a guitar. Seriously, is this an archetype for music teachers? The girls were not interested in her operatic crooning of Wheels on the Bus and within minutes I found myself outside of the auditorium digging through my purse for one of the three bags of Cheez Its I had brought with me. As I sat in a corner, I watched some well-scrubbed mommies packing up their elaborate snacks into little glass and stainless steel containers. As my daughter licked cheese dust off her fingers, the well-scrubbed mommies offered their toddlers another bit of edamame, a little more red pepper, just one more cube of tofu. Good God, I thought to myself peevishly. There was a time when I would have felt a tinge of inferiority at such a display of peripatetic culinary organization and motivation, but I have completely retrained my thinking and in a masterful feat of mind judo, I turn the tables and manage to feel superior. While they were chopping tofu into perfect little cubes, I had time to peruse all the dresses from the Golden Globes on line. Who’s the sucker? And then Nanook comes out in her sexy brown thigh high boots and tosses a package of fruit snacks on the table for her daughter and I realize that this right here is one of the reasons why we’re friends. (The fruit snacks, not the boots. Well, maybe the boots too.) Maybe the well-scrubbed mommies will become as lazy as we are someday. Maybe not. The point is, after all the switcheroonies took place, we shared a chuckle about the lovely cheese and fruit snack we had conjured out of our bags and went back to enjoy the show.

But I’m not always this blasé about snacks. In fact, I’m about to lose my shit over this whole snack business because Devil Baby is a relentless snacker. As someone who tends to eat in more of the boa constrictor mode – gigantic meals that leave you so stuffed you can’t even think about food until all of the sudden you are starving and ready for the next gigantic meal – I abhore being asked for food every twenty minutes. It just doesn’t seem to be a healthy habit to be thinking about food, much less eating food, with such frequency. I understand little kids need snacks, so I’ve gotten sucked in to the whole thing – especially since my particular little kid will NOT take “no” for an answer. I dole out snacks for peace. If I cut up an apple, she’ll stop asking for food, at least for a few minutes. If I say no, I will find her hooking up her carabiners and scaling the pantry shelves to help herself to some Oreos. So I give her a snack because at least that way, I get to pick what it is and I don’t find myself prying something unhealthy out of her death grip, or more often, just letting her have it.

Every night she sits with us at dinner, not touching a thing on her plate, and Doctor Dash listens patiently while I bitch: Uh, it’s obscene! She doesn’t eat a bit of protein! She eats crap and carbs all day long, she’s a dough girl, this is horrible! She’s not touching her food! Look how she’s not touching her food. It’s terrible! This has GOT to stop. I can’t stand it. She doesn’t eat a speck of meat! What the hell is wrong with her? Here, Devil Baby, one bite, here it’s dipped in mayonnaise, one bite. Arrrgh. Sweet mother of God I’m so sick of this! etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This morning Doctor Dash sent me this article from the New York Times before he went to work and I devoured it with my coffee, muttering like a mad woman Yes, yes, yes!

The point of the article is that snacks are ubiquitious these days and heavens knows, no one is in danger of starving. At first when Saint James started playing soccer, I didn’t really care about the snack. It was our only activity and a rice krispy treat or a Kudos once a week seemed like no big deal. In fact, the first time some parents banned the snacks and juice I thought they were total buzz kills. This is childhood! Where’s the sugar? Where’s the sweetness for our perfect little angels? Well, people, I’ve come around. And then some. Those parents probably had older kids and had had their fill of watching their kids’ bulging-eyed fish faces as they frantically sucked down Capri Suns after every single game and every single of their siblings’ games. Obviously the kids are thirsty after a game, so those juice boxes are drained in an instant. That’s kind of gross. What’s wrong with the water bottle we dutifully schlep every time?

So I realize I’m veering around like a drunken old lady with my flower hat all akilter. On the one hand I scoff at the mommies with the super healthy snacks in pcb-free bento boxes. On the other hand, I would be happy if snacks and juice were banned from all sporting events from here on in. I just think we don’t need to be EATING all the time. It’s about DELAYED GRATIFICATION. The reason I bring snacks around now to a much greater degree than I did with Saint James and Supergirl is because, unlike my other kids, Devil Baby will kick my ass all over the soccer field if I don’t have something for her to graze on while the others play. I didn’t used to be this way. I’m not a Boy Scout by nature. I don’t like to plan ahead. That’s why I nursed my kids – zero prep, zero planning, just a little exhibitionism – that much I can handle. If we really find ourselves starving out in the world, we can always drive somewhere and get a bite, right? If I had packed snacks for the park every single time, how many ravenous hair raising drives to Galoonies for steak and cheese subs would we have missed out on? Practically all of them! And now that Galoonies is gone, I’m so glad we weren’t sitting in the sand eating carrot sticks all those times.

Today I was visiting a potential pre-school for Devil Baby for next year and the tour guide was describing snack time; she said they provide Club Crackers, Ritz Crackers, gold fish and the like and one of the other mothers raised her hand and asked: Are the snacks just crackers or do you include vegetables and protein? I couldn’t help myself. I had to turn around and take a look. And guess what!!! Sister didn’t look so svelte. Maybe she’s a music teacher. Or maybe someone should tell her that if her snack features all the basic food groups, it’s not a snack – IT’S A MEAL!!! 

Maybe that’s why my on-the-go snacks are so half-assed. I don’t really want to admit that I’m planning ahead – I want to pretend we are unfettered by and independent of the tyranny of food. If we happen to squeak by a morning without digging into the celophane, so much the better, no big deal, no harm – no foul, I can save it for the next time. But you better believe if I had boiled edamame or cubed tofu, I’d be busting that out before the first stomach rumble.

Food for thought.

We’re having some veracity issues in our house. And I’ll give you a hint as to the crux of the problem: she made the alien finger puppet pictured above. Doesn’t he just look as guilty as sin? He’s currently residing in one of the plants on the kitchen window sill and more than once, as I ponder the sticky wicket of a fibbing child, my eyes meet his eye and he seems to know something I don’t.

It all started at the old house when I found a teeny tiny little bunny rabbit scrawled on the wall next to the stairs. Oh how I wish I had taken a picture. Devil Baby was far too young to have drawn it. Saint James seemed far too old to have taken a pen to the wall, so of course I suspected Supergirl. Keep in mind that this was a couple years ago, way before she became the girl graffiti artist she is today – although arguably the rabbit was the beginning of it all. I pointed at the rabbit and asked her if she had done it and her reaction surprised me. She denied it. But her denial was served up with gusto: two scoops of vehemence, topped with whipped sincerity and a sprinkling of indignation. I was instantly convinced by her wide-eyed reaction and stormed off to chew out Saint James. He in turn was so befuddled, so confused, so clueless that it became clear to me that I had been duped. I realized with a start that I had a little liar on my hands. It takes one to know one and I knew in that moment that she was a dangerous and formidable foe.

I shook my head in disbelief. It took me years and years of built up good will in the form of straight A’s, peppiness, responsible behavior, industriousness and all around goofiness to get my parents to the point where they would believe pretty much anything I said. And I didn’t really cash in until COLLEGE! And even then, I never actually lied to them, I just failed to mention certain things. Like taking their car to Mardi Gras. Um. Twice. And then there was that time that I went to Greece for a week by myself. I did send them a post card letting them know my whereabouts. I just waited until it was too late for them to object. And it’s not like they asked me if I took their car to New Orleans and I looked at them with giant shining unblinking eyes and slid a big fib sundae over to them which they gobbled up in an instant. No. My specialty was the omission. And I subspecialized in the overly complicated and farfetched white lie to protect someone’s feelings. But a bald faced cover your ass lie? ‘Fraid not. Four years old seemed so young to be so smooth. Danger Danger. It wasn’t that she lied. It was that she lied so well. We were going to have to be super crafty with this little one or she would be running circles around us by the time she was thirteen.

Fast forward to last week. Doctor Dash came up from the basement griping about finding the hand mirror and a tube of Cortaid with the top off on the basement rug. In most families you could probably narrow it down based on the Cortaid, but unfortunately, every one is kind of rashy right now and so it was anybody’s guess. Of course they all denied it, big to little. I’m ruling out Saint James because when questioned directly he crumbles like a house of cards. He’s no liar, my boy. Instead, he dips his head and confesses with such meek, hangdogness, such sincere regret that it takes all the wind out of your sails and you find yourself hugging him even though he just told you he broke the window. It’s an effective strategy, no doubt. Devil Baby could have tried to sooth an itch with the Cortaid, but I just can’t see her having had the forethought to take a mirror, all the better to see that hard to reach itchy spot. So that left Supergirl, but she wasn’t giving up the goods. 

And then a few days later someone took the cap off of my new nail polish and left it open. Prime suspect: Supergirl. Saint James was sleeping. Devil Baby couldn’t reach. Again, the big eyes. The look of shock. The swearing and heart crossing and inscrutable face. I gave her my good cop bad cop routine, switching back and forth like Sybil, trying to knock her off balance, but she’s nimble as a cat. And she seems to know that as parents, we have an absolute horror of a false accusation. So in that sliver of a doubt she finds her foothold – her safe spot. As long as I can’t prove anything and as long as she doesn’t crack, we are stuck in an uneasy stalemate. 

As if coming full circle with the residential graffiti, a couple days ago we found Devil Baby’s name written backwards on the bathroom blinds. Devil Baby can write most of the letters in her name, but certainly not backwards. Obviously it was the work of the Mad Scribbler, but we can’t prove it. I even tried the whole freaky witchy I can tell when you’re lying, I can see it, I can sense it! But obviously it only takes one successful lie to sink that claim. I also tried some good old fashion Catholic guilt – lying is a sin, right? I can’t remember. Nada. She’s a tough nut to crack. But crack her we will. And if we can’t crack her, we’ll just keep reminding her we are totally wise to her ways. Ya, that’s good. We’re onto you, Supergirl. We can’t do anything about it, but we’re onto you.

By the way, this penchant or skill or foible or whatever you want to call it comes from my brother, Golden – a master whopper teller and ass coverer. A master. Man oh man, are we in for it.

Ever have one of those mornings when your kids look perceptibly bigger? Like they yawned and stretched and grew in the night? But why? Did they travel to exotic lands in their dreams? Haggle with heathens? Ride magic carpets? Stumble over sand dunes, flushed and breathless? Did they sail over treacherous seas, fending off pirates and sea creatures and ravenous sharks? Did they swing on vines, outrun avalanches, leap over volcanos, their limbs pounding and reaching, strong and long? Or did they sleep the sleep of mummies, of poisoned beauties – immobile, deep and impossibly dark? Footie pajamas are so telling. One minute they’re baggy. The next – taut at a drum. They must grow every night. Every hour. Every minute. But some nights, I swear, they grow more.

It’s lucky number seven for my girl, my Supergirl – the girl who rocks Christmas every year and rocks my world every day. She is the perfect antidote for my grumpiness, my cynicism. She’s intrepid, optimistic, irrepressible and happy. But she’s no Pollyanna, my Supergirl. She’s funny and mischievious and wise beyond her years. She is high energy, low maintenance, creative and busy. If you need someone to pull you out of a funk, she’s the man for the job.

For me, December was kind of gross this year. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t feeling it. I clomped around like a grinch and a scrooge and a bitch all wrapped up in one tawdry package. The cloying smell of cloves, cinnamon and allspice wafting around the stores was enough to make me wretch. Scented candles – barf. Potpourri – double barf. Christmas carols set my teeth on edge. Every gift I bought for the kids had me mentally calculating what was going to have to go in order to keep us from overcrowding and mahem. Every line I stood it, I’d sullenly survey the others wondering whether they needed all that stuff, whether they could afford all that stuff. And I wondered the same about myself. The excess, the forced merriment, the consumption, the waste – it was looming large for me and I knew I had but one choice – beat it down, overcome my angst, and get my game face on because of the four other cats in this house who happen to love Christmas and who happen to deserve Christmas.

As it turns out, this was the best Christmas in memory. We had tons of snow, tons of time together as a family, some delicious meals, and the best reason of all to celebrate on Christmas Day: Supergirl. Oh pishposh, I know Jesus was born too, but you know what? Right now, Jesus isn’t the one tagging every paper surface in the house with increasingly peculiar and witty drawings. He’s not the one who takes everything in stride in a family of moody bastards. He’s not the one who skips to do me favors. He’s not the one who makes me laugh every day. Supergirl is. 

Happy birthday, girl. Keep on doing all the things you do, exactly as you’re doing them. Keep on shining that light, baby. I love you.

I don’t know if you would find this surprising or completely predictable about me, but I’m a huge fan of the fat man. The reason I phrase it like this is because at Lady Doctah K’s holiday party, my ladies were shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that we have a fake tree. Oh, please, I can practically hear you gasping too. As if somehow, the persona I project out in the the world is someone who would sooner lay herself over the tracks of the Polar Express than forgo the bracing red-cheeked adventure, the spindly glamour, the bright piney smell of a real tree. Truth be told, I was thinking that our tree looks rather bushy compared to all my friends’ trees. And I think – well, I think I know – bushy ain’t good. Bushy ain’t good in any arena of life that I can think of, except for maybe squirrels tails and actual bushes (and I don’t mean the lady variety, so get your mind out of the gutter). My friends Rip Van Techno and Circus Lady always have a gorgeous tree – tall and leggy, like a supermodel to my hairy peasant. But in my defense (not that I’m defensive), I grew up in a stridently faux tree family, annually regaled with cautionary tales of fires, allergens, critters, and messy pine needles. As a girl, I would wrinkle my nose at the carcasses of natural trees, pathetically awaiting removal at the ends of driveways in January, thinking Hooo boy, that family dodged a bullet, they’re so lucky they aren’t dead. So it’s not surprising that the first year Doctor Dash and I were married, I went right out and bought a big beautiful fakey for our apartment in Boston. And now I’m kind of stuck with the bushy beast, unless I’m willing to step into multiple tree territory, which as of this date, I am not willing to do. But that’s not at all where this post was going.

I’m feeling the need to talk about Santa. We are on the eve of what is most likely the last time we will have a houseful of believers. Saint James is nine. I thought for sure it would be over for him this year, but he seems to be, as of yet, a true albeit muted, believer. We went to get the annual Santa picture taken yesterday and he waited in line in silence, as if weighing the evidence for and against, ticking through his Santa knowledge base: collected memories, words overheard, cookies vanished. He gamely sat next to Santa for a picture, smirked and when asked what he wanted for Christmas, answered: I don’t know. Now, I know he knows. What kid, in this day and age, with the material blessings he has, doesn’t know exactly, precisely what he wants? I think Saint James was trying to avoid bringing down this whole house of cards. He was trying to buy himself some more time. He was trying to avoid catching Santa, and all of us, in a great sad lie. I remember being crushed when I asked my mother about Santa and she told me the truth. I had been looking for affirmation, just a word to let me know that in the face of everything I was hearing at school, it was ok to keep believing – because I still wanted to believe. I remember flipping out and shrieking at my mother as I ran from the room: I don’t care what you say! I still believe in the Easter Bunny! Waah! Waahh. (Have a mentioned I was a rather melodramatic girl?) 

We go to extremes to keep the dream alive: stashing gifts at other people’s houses, buying and hiding different wrapping paper, eating cookies we’re not hungry for on Christmas Eve, keeping our antenae on the alert for those nasty third born children, wise and mouthy, threatening to ruin everything for our precious innocents. A few years ago, my son’s best friend started to mouth off about the mall Santas not being the real Santas. We had yet to cross that bridge as I had been careful to always take them back to the same guy at Southdale Mall. I’m not proud of this, but I smacked that boy down like an angry Grizzly sow. I summoned up all of my gigantic, prickly, legitimate adultness, locked eyes with him and cooly replied that WE SAW THE REAL SANTA. TOO BAD YOU MISSED IT. MAYBE NEXT YEAR. Oh, geez. Bad mama? Good mama? What the fuck? But look! It bought me a couple more years! Well worth it, I’d say.

I’ve heard talk of parents coming clean with their kids because in an era of truth-trumps-all, that’s what you’re supposed to do. This article in the New York Times has various experts weighing in on the Santa issue. It’s fascinating reading, especially for someone like me who is watching with alarm as the cobwebs lift from my son’s eyes by the minute. I like what Allison Gopnik has to say: “Why do children love imaginary figures like Santa Claus, then? Because they like to pretend. And when children pretend, they are exercising the evolutionarily crucial human ability to envision alternative ways the world could be. In adults that ability is at the core of our very real capacities for invention and innovation.” That’s a pretty snazzy rationalization for the big old guy – makes me puff up my chest like I’m doing something really good for my kid, for humanity even! 

But the whole Santa thing is so much simpler for me. None of these articles mentions the simple fact that it’s fun. It’s fun to believe. And as you grow, it’s fun to pretend. And when you’re grown it’s fun to knit together a world so your children can believe and pretend. The years where they’re old enough to understand about Santa and young enough to believe in Santa are breathtakingly few. They skip by as quickly as elves scattering out of sight. That kind of magic – it’s a big deal. I would hazard to guess that everyone remembers the moment they learned the truth: how they found out, who told them, the stash of gifts they discovered in the back of their parents’ closet. First teeth lost, first periods, first kisses, first bras, first drives, first jobs, first loves. These are the things we remember. They each represent stepping over one of the many shimmering lines between childhood and adulthood. Sometimes taking the step is messy, sometimes easy, sometimes painful, sometimes mind blowing and perfect, but always seemingly inevitable. And here, now, both feet firmly planted on the other side of the line, I can say:  Honeys, my loves, please believe me when I tell you this. Wait. Wait as long as you can. There’s no rush.

Merry Christmas my readers, my friends. May your holidays be simple and lovely, shiny and bright.

Supergirl is constantly writing. On everything. No surface is safe. She writes on her hands, feet and arms. She writes on her stomach. From afar she looks like a delicately hennaed girl, until you get close enough to see what she’s graffitied on herself – Peace Out, I love snow, Hey Hippie, HoHoHo, Rad Elf, Hippie Hobo. Her drawings turn her knees into wizened faces, her arms into long snakes. Trails of balloons, rainbows and skulls float up her legs. Last Thanksgiving she even colored Lil’ Salami’s nipples green as if to say “welcome to my wild-girl-running-around-shirtless-and-coloring-on-myself-tribe”. No Vogue magazine is ever safe. Before I know it she has scribbled mustaches, hairy warts, unibrows and blackened teeth on all the pretty ladies. Sometimes there are fangs and horns. Often there are boogers – or clouds of flatulence poofing out of the taught rumps of willowy models. She writes in my calendar, filling the ever decreasing white space with stick figures, smiley faces and exhortations to BUY WIP CREM! The top left corner of the month of December has the following ditty: My buns are brown, my teeth are white, my hair is rad and my clothes are outta sight. It’s penned in Doctor Dash’s hand, but Supergirl wrote her name below it. I keep forgetting to ask what that’s about.

And a melon lying around on the counter, minding its own business? She is swift, my mad scribbler.

And sometimes Supergirl scribbles in solidarity, in empathy. Relations with Devil Baby have been degrading over the past weeks. She’s been fighting me on absolutely everything, stubborn as all hell. At the end of a couple especially frustrating days, I found myself crying in the kitchen feeling like a bitch and failure, frantically searching through old emails for the family therapist contacts a couple of my book club ladies had shot my way back in August. I didn’t register whether Supergirl saw me in this state or not, but see me she did. And in her inimitable way, she reached out to me through pen and paper leaving this note on the laptop. Sweet and naughty, a tightrope Supergirl walks with ease, it broke my heart and made me laugh. What can I say? The girl has a way with words.The pink writing says p.s I hope you get a new kid and get rid of “M”.