peevish mama

Saint James sits at the laptop in the kitchen, scrolls through hundreds upon hundreds of songs, clicking – listening – clicking – listening. Perched like a gargoyle, he listens with his whole body. He listens with his ears, his eyes – his shoulders tensed up, his toes tightly curled around the rungs of the stool. When he finds a song he likes, he leaves it on and flips over to the internet to google cool soccer moves.

He’s been lingering in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, memorizing song titles and lyrics with that steel trap brain of his. The brain that memorizes multiplication tables I’ve long forgotten, legions of Pokemon and all their powers and evolutions, piano scales, the birthdays of his friends and teachers, the habitats and life cycles of obscure Australian rodents, the relationships and power struggles of countless clans of Warrior Cats, and myriad other boy esoterica. I am humbled by the power and elasticity of the young brain – and now, it seems, he is turning his attention to music, at the ripe old age of eight. What a lucky little dude.

Saint James: This is a really good section. It’s Dani California, then Snow, then Charlie. 

(Hmmm . . . so the lad likes Stadium Arcadium . . . good man.)

Me: Are those your favorites?

Saint James: I don’t know yet. (Scroll, click, scroll, click . . . measured, like his father . . . withholding judgment until he’s sure).

It’s equal parts heart-warming and heart-wrenching to watch this little development: the subtle spike in interest in music. He’s inching ever so slowly toward adolescence, when music and friendships will be everything. (Gus Van Sant said: “I think that when you are sixteen and seventeen years old, you’re making the most important connections with the world that you will probably ever make in your life. If you ask a seventy year old what his favorite song is, it’ll be a song he heard when he was sixteen.”) Saint James is shifting from responding to music like a child, by jumping around like a clumsy happy marionette, to being way more still and aware, to listening with care and curiosity, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of angst.

To me there is a correlation between starting to love music and starting to love. I’m not talking about the amorphous selfish fuzzy blanket love of a child. I’m talking about love love. Real love. Big love. Love that can take you over the moon. Love that can leave you dead in a ditch.

Saint James is still young – I don’t think girls are really on his radar screen yet. As far as I can tell, there are no snot addled crying into the pillow histrionics on the near horizon (or maybe that’s just a girl thing). But something IS happening. Movement, stirring – in that deep seated spot where soulfulness resides – in that space that exists between the guts and the heart that aches and throbs and churns when lyrics and melodies and bass lines just happen to coalesce in a certain way. Saint James might not yet understand that music can be a ticket to fantasy, to possibility, to shelter, succor and relief from heartache and loss. That it can be a way to celebrate, a way to mourn, a way to feel turned on, a way to feel understood, a way to pass the time because time moves so very slowly when we’re young. I think he’s just located that thick artery that runs between a good song and the soul. He’s gently probing it with his finger, starting to feel that pulse. He might not know it yet, but I’m watching it happen. Right here in my kitchen.

There’s a girl just down the aisle,

Oh, to turn and see her smile.

You can hear the words she wrote

As you read the hidden note . . .*

Oh, son, go, explore . . . just take care with that sweet heart of yours.

*From Sugar Mountain by the great Neil Young.

On Christmas Eve, six years ago, I had no earthly idea of what the night held in store for me.  What I did know was that Doctor Dash was on-call and that I would take Saint James to the children’s nativity mass.  I had been burning the midnight oil at work – it was the busiest I can remember being – and my huge belly with a January 10th expiration date was the last thing on my mind as I raced to get everything in order for the deals that had to close before the new year.  I was missing my little boy and I wanted nothing more than to just enjoy him for the next two days . . . to relish the unfolding of his two year old understanding of Christmas.  

The nativity mass was a zoo.  There was no where to sit, so I carefully picked my way to the front, brushing many a head with my stomach, and sat on the floor so that Saint James could watch the play. It didn’t occur to me that my front and center display of  gestational splendor might be stealing the thunder of the skinny eight year old playing Mary.  My neighbors, Pipes, Miss and their girls, took pity on me and scooched and scrunched me in with them and then invited Saint James and me to dinner.  I was touched by how seamlessly and generously they folded us into their night, their Christmas.  Saint James has always adored their girls, still does, in fact . . . and the roots of his affection stretch back to when he was a happily clueless baby . . . back to a time he cannot even remember.  

Later, after he was tucked in for the night, I started feeling funky.  With a sense of foreboding fluttering behind my ears, I called our friend Biker Brown just to make sure he’d be reachable to come stay with Saint James should the shit happen to hit the fan.  Biker Brown was on my doorstep with our friend Kim in about ten minutes flat.  As it turned out, the shit did indeed hit the fan and Biker Brown kept me company, made me laugh and patiently timed my contractions for the next five hours.  Doctor Dash was having one of those full moon nights of insanity and bizarre traumas at Hennepin County, the apex of which was when a man named Jesus was brought in with gunshot wounds.  He kept calling, breathless, checking in with me . . . is this for real?  he asked over and over.  I don’t know, I don’t know . . . We didn’t want to give in to a false alarm because his calling in his chief resident meant his chief missing Christmas morning with his kid.  And I certainly didn’t want to be the hysteric at the center of all this upheaval.  

In fact, I wanted nothing to do with a Christmas baby at all.   Being the peevish contrarian that I am, I was having none of it.  This is completely absurd!  We’re not Christmas baby kind of people! I shrieked at Biker Brown through clenched teeth in the grips of a contraction.  What if someone from the local news comes to interview me about my fucking Christmas miracle?!?!  In my overtired, irrational state, nothing seemed like more of a certainty and I was ready to punch any shellacked talking-head who even thought about crossing the threshold of my hospital room.  I closed my eyes and concentrated . . . told my uterus to stop this nonsense . . . at once . . . right now . . . I mean it . . . cut it out . . .

By about four a.m. I was feeling like a wrung out dishcloth and I knew I needed Doctor Dash by my side, baby or no baby, so I sounded the alarm and went to take a shower before heading into the hospital.  Dash was home within the hour and poor Biker Brown was asleep on the couch before we even waddled out the door, surely crushed by the relief of finally being able to pass the baton.  The shower had calmed my contractions, so I felt like a complete ass for having concocted this whole false labor scenario and blubbered and cried all the way to the hospital as poor Dash tried in vain to assure me that he could simply go back to work if nothing was going on.  

Supergirl was born at about eleven o’clock on Christmas morning . . . a dark haired beauty . . . enormous brown almond eyes . . . six pounds, fourteen ounces of vindication.  I was not a hysteric.  I did not inconvenience scores of people by having my baby on Christmas day.  She just couldn’t wait to bust into our world . . . and in keeping with who she is, she came without a lot of drama, without a lot of pain, without a lot of worries.  Aside from picking a hell of a birthday, she made it very easy for everyone. 

As we held her, marveling at this little person who moments before had been a stranger to us yet had already managed to stake an immutable claim to our hearts, I remember Dash saying something like . . . at least she’ll always be with people she loves on her birthday . . .

Supergirl loves her birthday.  She never complains, never feels sorry for herself.  She doesn’t count presents and wish for something more or different.  She is sweet and gracious and seems to understand, implicitly, that her birthday is special and that it suits her.  This year Doctor Dash was on-call again.  He was able to get coverage for a couple hours in the afternoon to come home for cake.  Supergirl and I put up streamers in the dining room and made lemonade.  Red Vogue and Salt and Pepper Polymath came over to help us love her up and celebrate.  A little cake, a little Wii, and a lot of love for Supergirl.

Later, after Dash returned to work with a reluctant heavy heart, we headed over to Nanook and Gear Daddy’s to reconnoiter with Crackerjack and Renaissance Man.  The boys played boot hockey outside and emerged in a blast of cold air – rosy cheeked and out of breath.  The girls romped around in the basement and emerged in a blast of hot air – rosy cheeked and in various stages of deshabille.  Nanook had kindly suggested I bring a cake for Supergirl and although we already had plans for afternoon cake, I thought, what the hell?  How many times do you turn six? And why pass up being sung to by her little peeps?  Nanook’s sweet kids made her a happy birthday sign.  Maybe it was all the champagne, maybe it was my constitutional weakness for children’s singing, but I was feeling the love for my girl as their little voices filled the house.  It was well after eleven o’clock before we peeled ourselves away from the revelry, feeling very very merry.

Dash and I don’t have family here in Minnesota, so we never know exactly what our Christmas is going to look like.  Sometimes we go to Florida, sometimes he’s working, sometimes we’re with friends, sometimes we hole up and enjoy it alone, en famille.  One thing is for certain, Supergirl always gives us a reason to celebrate . . . and Dash’s words on the day of her birth couldn’t be more true.  She is always with people she loves, and with people who love her.  Lucky girl.

Happy sixth birthday to my bright little star.  I love you more than you will ever know.

What kind of a person eats a fried chicken breast whilst driving her minivan down 50th?  Not a leg, mind you – a breast - which is a greasy two handed affair under the best of circumstances.  I can understand breaking into a bag of chips or sneaking a Christmas cookie after a trip to the supermarket, but I actually got out of the car and went to the back, rifled around in the bags until I located the chicken, liberated a piece from its plastic clamshell, and scurried back to the driver’s seat, steam pouring off my chicken breast as it cooled precipitously in our 6 degrees below zero day.  I can’t even begin to imagine what the fancy woman parked in the Range Rover next to me thought of my unsavory on the fly fried chicken consumption.  I caught eyes with her, a distasteful moue plastered on her face, after my first bite. You know, the bite that leaves you with half the skin hanging down your chin.  Mmmmm . . . Of course, the fact that I even bought a four-piece pack of fried chicken at Lunds this morning is proof positive of the fact that I broke the cardinal rule of supermarket shopping:  DON’T GO ON AN EMPTY STOMACH OR YOU WILL END UP WITH A CART FULL OF NONSENSE. 

I was famished, as I tend to get when I don’t have a chance to eat breakfast in the mad rush to get everyone out the door . . . and when I get this hungry, WATCH OUT!  I turn into a salivating, carnivorous She-wolf and there exists no earthly muffin that will do the trick.  I need fatty protein and I need it fast. 10:30 a.m. minivan fried chicken was a first for me I’ll admit . . . but see a gray blue Honda Odyssey driving erratically and chances are I’m at the wheel tucking into some variety of a delicious meat sandwich.  This felt particularly barbaric, however, and I half expected myself to throw the carcass out the window after I grunted and wiped my greasy mouth with my sleeve.  Instead, the tiny ribcage of this unfortunate fowl is sitting in my car garbage, acting as my very own chicken-scented Glade Plug-in Airfreshener every time I crank the heat.  I keep checking my rearview mirror to make sure it’s Devil Baby, not Colonel Sanders, strapped into the carseat behind me.

Is it any wonder my children are a tad rough around the edges with a mother like theirs?  Why should I be surprised that they stand on their chairs at dinner, proudly announce when they’ve farted or burped, shimmy up the woodwork, moon each other every chance they get, pick their noses, make up songs about diarrhea and generally act like a pack of wild juvenile chimps?  Supergirl is especially unruly and it has taken much browbeating to get her to stop trying to pick up food, silverware etc. with her toes.  I wonder if my Bonnie Consuelo obsession is something I might have passed on in utero . . . The other day I caught her full on spitting at Saint James.  Now I’ll admit spitting is quite a cinematic way to convey extreme disdain and hatred, crueler and more loaded than a good solid slap across the face, but I’m sorry, spitting is non-negotiable.  We do not spit in our family.  (Unless it’s watermelon seeds and we’re outside and no one else is around). So I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that spitting is rude and gross and unladylike and forbidden – to which she replied, her words laced with fiery vengeance: “Fine! Next time I’ll wipe my butt on his pillow!”  

Nice.

Tom Turkey isn’t as much of a bad ass motherfucker as we thought.  According to Saint James, his teacher misheard him when he was reading his story and Tom Turkey did not, in fact, kick the man in the nuts so much as peck the man in the nuts.  Everyone knows that’s a total pussy move for a turkey, although completely forgivable, given the incredible stress this time of year.  

What I wonder is – did Tom Turkey peck a man in the nuts or peck THE MAN in the nuts?  If he was sticking it to The Man by popping out of a toilet to peck him in the nuts, then I think we’ve got a ground breaking piece of social satire on our hands.  By censoring my little Upton Sinclair, his teacher is essentially perpetuating the oppression suffered by these big breasted fowl and silencing a brave new voice emerging on the side of the turkey.  Very uncool.  Imagine, for a moment, what it would feel like to be slaughtered, over-cooked, slathered in gravy and eaten on a mass scale by chubby Americans purportedly gathering to give thanks for their bounty.  Imagine your browned carcass ritualistically held aloft at tables rife with familial tensions, passive aggressive and regressive behaviors, and cringe-inducing verbal barbs by whoever has had too much wine.  It’s for the birds, I tell you.  Saint James is right on.  

Viva la Revolución!!!

Incidentally, I stopped by Saint James’ school last night to see if I could rescue the story from the trash, to no avail.  This makes me really sad.  I know men’s nuts and toilet humor aren’t appropriate for the classroom, but I also think a kid should never be shamed into throwing a three page carefully written piece of creative material into the garbage.  

This year I give thanks for the power and beauty of the written word, its ability to provoke, amuse, comfort, challenge, teach, evoke change, heal, maim -and for Saint James’ nascent understanding of this miracle

David & Gabriela-

I have asked Santi to make changes to his “Tom Turkey” story that he started to read to the class today.  It has a couple of inappropriate parts in it- one dealing with toilet humor and another where the turkey kicks the man “in the nuts”.

Just wanted you to know.

Thanks-

Becky

The people who read this blog are of the passionate voting ilk, so I needn’t give an earnest celebrity-esque nudge to anyone about voting.  Who am I to encourage people to get out there and vote, considering I am quaking in fear at the prospect of sweating through a serpentine long line with Devil Baby by my side?  I just hope whoever is behind me is willing to let me back in line a hundred times when I have to dart away to keep her from hightailing it out the door or behind the curtains and doesn’t mind a bit of two-year-old thrashing and screaming.  I’ve got my pockets filled with Smarties and Starbursts, Nerds and Tootsie Pops, but if I have to wait for more than half an hour, it’s gonna be a bloodbath.  Heavenly Father, if I do this, please don’t let it be all for naught.

And now a little excerpt from an essay about undecided voters by one of my heroes, David Sedaris.  This appeared in the November 4 New Yorker Issue.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

                                            Photo by Kathy Quirk-Syvertsen

Everyone has their sleep rituals – the little noises they make before they drift off, the way their bodies move as they slip into sleep.  Last night Devil Baby came to our bed in the middle of the night, which hasn’t happened in a while, and I became reacquainted with hers.  I’m not sure what time it was, but having turned in at nine, I had gotten my chunk of sleep and knew I wouldn’t fall asleep again.  Not that I could have with the foot frenzy that was happening next to me.  Devil Baby flutters her feet around like a pair of crazed seal flippers.  At first I thought she was messing around, but I realized she was trying to fall back asleep.  As her little feet ran up and down my body, probing every nook and cranny, I felt like I was being frisked by a saucy and opportunistic Italian policia.  I blearily thought - Jesus, she’s like Helen Keller over here.  Then I thought - No, wait, Helen Keller had arms . . . she’s like Bonnie . . . Bonnie Consuelo . . . 

For my old friends who read this blog, even though you didn’t actually know and even though I didn’t actually know, we both sort of knew on some unconscious level that it was only a matter of time before Bonnie Consuelo sashayed onto my little stage here.  In middle school religion class we were shown a movie about one feisty armless woman named Bonnie Consuelo.  She was a petite brunette with a feathered-hairdo.  And no arms.  Nevertheless, she was a mom and able to do all the things a mom needs to do.  She insisted on wearing sleeveless shirts (I suppose empty sleeves would have looked a bit lackluster and deflated), and she was able to drive and shop and cook and apparently, style her hair.  She could even put on a belt.  In the supermarket, she pushed her cart around with her waist and slipped her feet out of her white open toed wedges to squeeze melons (a discerning consumer, Bonnie was) and place them in her cart.  The movie was supposed to teach us valuable lessons about overcoming odds, perseverance, acceptance . . . blah blah blah. 

Obviously, when you serve Bonnie Consuelo up to a bunch of mean girls on a silver platter, the message is going to get lost.  We were horrified and hysterical.  We couldn’t get enough of Bonnie.  At one point in the movie, Bonnie is sitting on a stool at her kitchen counter, cutting tomatoes with her toes.  They are juicy and messy and she is wielding a knife like nobody’s business.  All of a sudden a fly starts buzzing around (and if this isn’t the kind of unscripted coup de chance that directors dream of, I don’t know what is). Bonnie puts down her knife and snags that fly right out of the air with her toes, Mr. Myagi-style, and throws it in the sink.  She then resumes her tomato slicing . . . without washing her feet hands!!!!  We were jumping out of our skin!  Gross!  we shrieked. That’s so foul! Nasty, Bonnie, nasty!!!  We jeered and heckled.  If we had had food, we would have thrown it at the screen.  Our poor teacher.  Talk about missing the point entirely.

No matter.  It has taken me all these years of hard won growth and maturity to appreciate Bonnie Consuelo. Who else but Bonnie would be able to provide a small chuckle in the middle of the night after twenty-five years? My teacher would be so proud.

Oh, look how darling! Supergirl’s kindergarten class has all its paintings hanging in the hallway. It looks like a sweet little gallery. You sure can tell they had fun! And their teacher wrote down each child’s explanation of his or her painting. Look at that. Just adorable. Oh here’s Supergirl’s! Wow!  What vivid use of color! And look how she fills the page! Such bold and confident strokes. I guess this explains all the paint on her clothes every day! And is that a little sun in the upper corner? Let’s see what she says . . . oh dear . . .

O.K., I’ll admit it.  I have an unhealthy attachment to Saint James’ hair.  To me, the unruly mop in this picture is perfection.  I have no trouble having my own hair cu, keeping Supergirl’s in a neat little pageboy, taking scissors to Devil Baby’s myself on occasion, but I feel like I die a little inside every time I take Saint James for a haircut.  I just love a boy with shaggy hair. Always have and always will. Goes for big boys too.  Every time Doctor Dash asks me to make a haircut appointment for him, I protest and pout and tell him it’s just starting to look perfect and who cares if he looks unprofessional, and maybe he could buy a short-haircut wig for when he has to see patients.  And then I try the flattery approach and tell him he’s got great hair and a lot of guys would kill for his hair and he shouldn’t just waste his hair by keeping it short and he rolls his eyes and makes his own appointment.  

Watching Saint James play soccer with his flippy pouf of hair makes my heart go pitter patter.  If I look away, I can spot him again in an instant by his dirty-blond halo.  It’s a beacon.  That’s my son, I think proudly to myself.  My beautiful boy.  

Today is D-day.  It sneaks up on me every year.  I look at the calendar and school pictures are in a few weeks and he needs a haircut because even though his hair is perfect today, it will look ridiculously long in three weeks and it needs time to grow in so he doesn’t look like a complete dork in his pictures.  This particular haircut is the most painful cut of the year because all the summer blond goes. The locks of cool chlorine and hot sun are lopped off, floating softly to the floor, making a blanket tinged in gold – the hair underneath left exposed, dark and unfamiliar.  And as he emerges from the chair my heart skips a beat. Suddenly, I can see his face again. I can see his eyes again. He looks so much older, his features thinning out. I search for signs of my baby and see none – just flickering shades of a handsome older boy, just down the road a stretch, but fast approaching.  

Is usually just trash.  Most of the stuff IN peoples’ houses is junk, so chances are extremely high that what they actually choose to throw out, deserves to be thrown out, and probably should have been thrown out a long time ago.  I’m the woman who’s always trying to get rid of things. Simplify. Good riddance. Which iswhy it was alarmingly out of character for me to blow by a little pile of curbside stuff with a cardboard sign labeled “FREE”, only to stop the minivan and actually back up on Penn Ave.  Supergirl was in the backseat and as I threw the car in reverse I muttered “Let’s just get a closer look at that painting . . . thing.”  

She sprung out of her seat, landed in a soft crouch, swiveling her head to and fro to make sure no one was going to move in on our find.  She was so excited she was panting.  I rolled down our windows simultaneously and I imagine that the sight of our mugs being slowly revealed was rather amusing if anyone happened to be watching from the house: Supergirl in her plaid jumper with a huge open expectant smile and bright eyes, me in big sunglasses covering my need for another cup of coffee, a look of mild distaste mingled with curiosity stamped on my tired face.  

“That’s so beautiful!” gushed Supergirl.  The die was cast.  The minivan door slid open and out she popped for her first dumpster diving expedition.  This pastoral Northwoods scene is painted on a piece of plywood, about 20” by 25” so she had to use all her muscle to hoist it into the car.  

It is so obviously the work of an amateur.  It is so obviously something that has moldered in the garage collecting grime and the occasional paint splatter for the past twenty years.  But something about it is compelling.  For one thing, it makes my daughter happy and I can’t help thinking that this two minute episode may end up being one of those salient moments that she remembers for the rest of her life – as opposed to the piles and piles of other moments when I’m being crabby and impatient and not my best self.  Maybe this will be the shiny pebble that she can clutch in her hand someday in the far distant future.

Moreover, it’s a reminder of that little sputtering light inside of us. The flicker that mostly gets tamped down, but sometimes, with a little luck or grace or a change in circumstance – with the stubborn set of a jaw or a deep breath or a rash move, gains a little strength and burns a little brighter and prods us to try something new, causes us to scratch the itch and venture outside our comfort zone, through our fear and do something that we may very well suck at. 

When I look at this painting, I imagine it was painted by a crotchety old guy, someone who worked the same job his entire life and didn’t go in for artsy fartsy stuff at all.  He probably loved being outdoors.  Maybe he had had a cabin somewhere.  Maybe he was retired and one morning as he stuffed his stiff feet into the slippers by his bedside he sighed, gingerly massaged his swollen knee and wondered why he should get up at all.  Maybe he stared down at his frayed moccasins for a while, turning it all over in his head.  What was the point?  Maybe he pulled his feet back out of his slippers and laid back down, closing his eyes and giving into the soft heavy blanket of depression.  Maybe his wife poked her head in and asked him if he was sick, retying her light blue chenille robe as she stood in the doorway with an impatient look on her face, her cheeks still shining from her night cream.  Maybe he said Joyce I’ll be down in a minute to get rid of her and let himself sink into his sheets, his blue-veined eyelids flickering as he marveled at the stubborness of breath. Coming and coming and coming, whether he willed it to or not.  Maybe he held his breath once, just to see if it would work, a tear streaming down his temple from the exertion.  Maybe when he was lying there, thinking of everything and nothing, he remembered that old piece of plywood in the garage. And that box of his daughter’s paints from college.

The painting is signed (on the left) by Savle.  Who is Savle?  Savle . . . Savle . . . Salve . . . Save.

Yesterday Supergirl bounded into her new life: that of an elementary school kid.  She’s now a full fledged kindergartner and never has there been a girl more ready to fly.  I keep watching for signs of insecurity, chinks in her armor.  I don’t want her to feel like she has to keep a stiff upper lip.  I want her to know it’s o.k. to be scared, o.k. to be nervous at least.  Despite my hovering and searching looks and leading questions, I just see a girl powering through, happy to be out there and ready for it all.  I’m not sure how she got to be this way.  I certainly wasn’t like that, which, I think, is why I have a hard time accepting that she’s just that confident.  

I was as anxious and butterfly-bellied as could be on the first day of school.  I had long, long hair which I wore in a barrette on the top of my head.  Only my mother could put the barrette in, or so I believed, because my hair was so thick and heavy and the barrette was too small.  I lived in fear that the barrette would spring open leaving me to survive the rest of my day as a little Latina Cousin It.  Tallish and knock-kneed,  I remember being afraid of the big kids, afraid of the special-ed kids, afraid of riding the bus, afraid of dropping my tray in the cafeteria.  I had a pair of light blue polyester slacks that had a gum stain on the butt and standing for the Pledge of Allegiance was a torture for me.  All for naught, it turns out because no one really picked on me.  I was more likely to be ignored than bullied.  

To this day, one of the most stressful experiences I can remember was spilling Love’s Baby Soft in my desk at Shroeder Elementary.  I remember taking off my socks to soak it up, but the smell, nothing could stop the smell. It was like I had released a genie shrouded in cloying pink fumes and I couldn’t get it back in the bottle.  I was in a cold sweat – my teeth literally chattering.  Mrs. Watson was my teacher and she never noticed – at least I don’t think she did.  Supergirl would never bother to take Love’s Baby Soft to school.  And if she did, and if it spilled, I think she would raise her hand and tell her teacher.  Simple as that.  What was Loves Baby Soft anyway?  A perfume?  Probably a body splash – those were big in those days.  Remember Jean Naté? Friction Pour le Bain!

Another mom sidled up to me after school yesterday with a concerned look on her face and told me that she had been at recess and Supergirl had had a moment of being a “little upset” and had told her she wanted to call me and come home.  I was surprised, but I was all over it, ready to listen, soothe and assuage like only a recovering Nervous-Nellie can.  Later, after the celebratory first day of school Dairy Queen stop, as I gently tried to prod some detail out of Supergirl, the only thing I got was her quick and snappy version of the story:

“I was bored because we couldn’t play on the monkey bars because it was the first graders’ turn, and we were only allowed to play on the driveway and that’s, like, sooooo boring, so I wanted to come home.”

Sounds about right.

Supergirl, may you always run faster than the worries and fretting and don’t turn around – take it from me, you’re better off without them. 

Saint James and Supergirl did us proud on swim team this year.  The first day of swim practice they both looked like they were going to drown trying to do freestyle.  This, after hundreds upon hundreds of dollars spent on swimming lessons at Foss Swim School.  Nothing can be learned in weekly half hour sessions.  But throw them in the pool every morning of the summer with a bunch of other kids in goggles and the sweetest, most encouraging swim coaches you’ve ever seen, and suddenly they’re tucking away five laps, ten laps, twenty laps.  At the end of the season, Saint James emerged from the pool, water streaming off his tan shoulders, and panted that he had swum forty-three laps in practice.  Man alive!  I couldn’t do that if I was being chased by a madman with flippers and a hatchet.  They learned to dive off the blocks and glide before busting into their approximation of whatever stroke they were supposed to be swimming.  They learned that they rock at breaststroke (it runs in my family).  They learned about heats and times and what DQ means (not Dairy Queen).  They learned to lose, they learned to win.

And then there are the things that can’t be learned: some things you just bring with you.  We went to the swim banquet last night, which was hilarious in that it ended with nearly a hundred little kids in a dancing frenzy. I am so hiring this DJ for somebody’s birthday party when the time is ripe.  I kissed a girl and I liked it . .  The taste of her cherry chapstick. . . I can’t get this song out of my head!  I think some mothers found this wildly inappropriate for a bunch of children (it’s a girl singing), but you won’t find me getting all Tipper Gore.  Music is never the real problem.  It was a blast.  

So we were all basking in the afterglow of the kids getting their trophies topped with the little gold man and woman in start position, when all of a sudden Supergirl gets called up to receive the Team Spirit Award!  The little monkey!  First summer out of the gate, she’s one of the youngest kids on the team, can barely make it across the pool herself at first, yet she manages to give enough encouragement to the other water sprites to merit an award.  I never actually saw her cheering anyone on – mostly I saw her either eating Cheetos or Skittles or a cheeseburger flipped upside-down with one bun off – then again, I wasn’t really paying attention when the other kids swam (no team spirit award for me).  But, we’ve got the plaque to prove it, baby! 

I’m always quite touched and gratified when my kids are nicer than me.  When Saint James’ preschool teacher told me that he was the kid who was friends with everyone and that he was especially kind to one little shy girl with glasses and actually got her talking about movies, I just clutched my heart and sniffed contentedly.  So he’s not going to be a cliquey bitch like me, I marveled.  I think I actually did get the school spirit award in high school, but I was more of a Tracy Flick from Election:  the girl who insisted on planning everything because she had control issues.  Scary peppy. We’re going to have fun, or else!

It tickles my cockles that Supergirl’s team spirit just came right out of her own little self – unfiltered, unpremeditated, unforced.  Just pure joy and enthusiasm.  If the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, it must roll a little.

One thing leads to another.  On Wednesday night, I was planning on throwing some pizzas on the grill topped with nothing more than a little olive oil, fresh tomato, mozzarella and kalamata olives . . . maybe a little torn basil from the pot of it that’s growing gangbusters on my front step . . . cheese and pepperoni for the kids.  I also pulled some boneless pork ribs from the freezer with the intention of marinating them on Thursday morning to grill Thursday night.  When Saint James found out we were having pizza, he uncharacteristically squeak-groaned that he felt like steak instead.  I cannot say no to this boy.  And, moreover, I really cannot say no to someone who is jonesing for meat.  I’m like the kindly, weathered nurse at  a methadone clinic, but instead of rubber gloves and little plastic cups, I deal in oven mitts and barbeque tongs.  Maybe it’s the Argentine in me, but I firmly believe that if someone is craving beef, it’s because their body is in need of iron, protein, fat – whatever.  When you need a steak, you need a steak.  My mother flew to Boston after Saint James was born and what was the first thing she cooked for me when I got home from the hospital?  You guessed it.  It’s our comfort food.  So off to Kowalski’s I went, to purchase the prettiest ribeyes I could find, so that my little guy could get a belly full of beef.

So then on Thursday, I remembered the pork patiently defrosting in the fridge . . .  sigh . . .  I  wasn’t in the mood for  more grilled meat.  Plus, Saint James claims that pork makes him throw up.  Too bad for him.  Pig is neck and neck with cow in my book. If I had to pick one to join me on a deserted island, I would be utterly stymied.  I actually think I’d pick a pig.  A pig is smart and would probably be much better company up until the time I turned him into bacon and sausage.  He might even help me find some truffles before I ate him.  

In any event, I decided I’d cut the pork up and make a stew.  I sauteed some onions and shallots and garlic, browned the cubed pork, added some white wine and a few bay leaves, remembered some Spanish chorizo I had in the fridge and added some thin slices of that too.  Since it was turning out to be a Spanish-ish stew, I added some smoked pimentón and chickpeas.  And then I added some reconstituted dried porcini mushrooms for no other reason than they add a dark and dusky undertaste that I love.  So this big pot of toothsome stew is bubbling away, and I can tell it’s going to be good and way too much for us, so I decide to see if our next door neighbors, Red Vogue and Salt and Pepper Polymath, are free for dinner.  I know they would be cool with a last minute invite.  I also happen to know they like chickpeas.  Happily, they accepted and I inadvertently found myself tying my metaphorical apron strings and taking up the role of hostess again.  We haven’t had people over in eons because of this whole house situation, and truth be told, I miss it.  

Supergirl and Saint James went on a hunt for centerpiece fixings and came back with some pretty leaves and pine cones.  I had a bouquet that was half dead  from our last showing, so I threw it on the lawn with a couple scissors and told them to have at it.  They filled two tiny cups and a vase with their booty and the brilliant results are pictured above.  They helped me set the table and I, for one, ended up with a butter knife and a tiny coffee spoon, but no matter.  Doctor Dash picked up some olives and Manchego cheese on his way home.  I threw together a little salad with strawberries, gorgonzola and toasted pepitas.  Red and Salt and Pepper brought over a crusty baguette and a beautiful little chocolate torte from Rustica (man, do we have an abundance of good bakeries here in Minneapolis).

It felt good to set the table, to pull out my little bread plates and votives, the tiny ice bucket my mother brought me from Italy.  What a treat to eat in the dining room again “en famille.”  Dinner was its typical happy chaos, with the kids in full show-off performance mode.  They’re like the Van Traps, but instead of singing for our guests in pretty dresses and lederhosen, they climb the molding, jump off the furniture, wrestle with each other and otherwise cause a ruckus.  We were even treated to a school uniform fashion show.  Dinner parties at our house are never very relaxing and I imagine Salt and Pepper and Red went home and put icepacks on their heads, but they were fun, mellow, gracious and sweetly attentive to our wild children – good sports, as always.  

I suppose this is how our kids will learn to behave at a dinner party.  More importantly, I’m hoping this is how our kids will learn to treasure breaking bread with friends and family.  The ritual and comfort of planning and cooking a meal, of preparing the table, and of luxuriating over conversation, crumbs and sputtering candles will hopefully work itself into their little psyches.  If somehow this can become part of who they are, the simple act of sharing food will become almost reflexive, in times of celebration, in times of strife.  It will become a way of finding home, regardless of where their lives take them.  

And if anyone needed a reminder, it was me.  Sitting down to dinner is so essential to our sense of well being.  When I think about it, every dinner party we have ever been to or hosted has always, always filled us with a sense of bonheur and grace, of feeling part of something special and important.  

Here’s to feasts with loved ones.  Chin chin!

On Saturday Saint James jacked his pinky playing soccer with some neighbors.  By the end of the day it was a swollen little sausage.  Yesterday Doctor Dash took him to get x-rayed and it was confirmed: a fracture.  Total nightmare for summer.  No swimming, no soccer, no piano, no tennis, no nothing.  My heart sank when I watched the little guy get out of the car with an enormous splint on his hand.  

So I did what any good mom would do.  I took him to a movie.  We were waiting in line for tickets to Wall-E with Supergirl and poor Saint James rested his splinted hand on my arm (it gets tiring to hold it up all the time).  His pinky and ring finger had been taped together, and I remarked that those guys were going to get to be really good buddies after this experience.  Saint James’ response slayed me.  “They’re already best friends.”  When I asked him why, he said, “They always move together . . . they like to stay near each other.”

Because talking to children is often like talking to a stoned person (in that you talk about really cool stuff, or really mundane stuff that seems really cool at the time, or you think about stuff in a really cool new way), the logical next step was to ask him about the relationships between his other fingers, since he has evidently given this some thought.  

Me:  So what about the thumb and pointer?  

Saint James:  They’re just good co-workers.

This morning Supergirl walked down the stairs resplendent in charcoal grey, grinning from ear to ear.  It’s June.  It’s sunny.  It’s hot.  Tis the season for sundresses and tank tops.  But not for Supergirl.  She was happily swathed in grey knickers and a grey skull t-shirt that she swashbuckled away from Saint James the second he decided it was too small for him.  From the look on her face, she was pleased as punch with her ensemble, feeling tough and sassy, at ease and ready to rumble.  She rooted around in the hall closet for her skull Vans and voila, she was good to go.

We’ve entered new terrain, Supergirl and I.  The terrain of mother-daughter sartorial angst.  I am extremely laissez-faire when it comes to her clothes and have allowed her to slowly and systematically reject anything “girlish” in her wardrobe, to opt instead for a steady stream of shapeless t-shirts from various locales visited by both sets of her peripatetic grandparents and a seemingly endless supply of tie dye shirts.  As our neighbor, Salt and Pepper Polymath, pointed out, she has an impressive collection of Ireland t-shirts.  Not really.  It’s just that she pilfered Devil Baby’s and Saint James’ before they even realized they had been given a souvenir.  

Cute little Splendid tanks I got on sale last summer?  Nope.  Winsome white jersey sundress with Chinoiserie florals and drop waist – super comfy, super cool and as un-girlie as a sundress can be?  Nope.  Myriad skorts, sporty yet feminine?  Nope.  Nope.  Double Nope.  I could go on and on – I have cornered the market on comfortable, adorable, tomboy-appropriate clothes, and for a while, it was working.  But now she’s pushing further and I find myself pushing back.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a girlie girl.  I’m pretty low maintenance and although I love clothes and shoes and most of all BOOTS, I tend to end up in a bit of a uniform:  tanks, skirts and flipflops for summer; jeans, thermals and boots for winter.  But I’m all about mixing it up.  High, low.  Girlie, butch.  Dressy, casual.  Ornate, simplistic.  Comfortable, but never too comfortable.  Like any Mama worth her beans, I am willing to suffer (a little bit) for beauty.  

This past spring on Supergirl’s picture day, I experienced the first gusts of these foul winds of change.  I was not attempting to put her into a frock of any sort (like all the other girls at her poshy posh preschool), in fact, I don’t like fancy frilly frivolous frocks.  My girls don’t even wear Easter dresses on Easter!  I was simply trying to get her out of her cargo pants for one day, so she wouldn’t look so danger-grrrrl – so street urchin chic in her picture.  All hell broke loose when I tried to cajole her into wearing a cute t-shirt and a comfy black Hardtail skirt.  This skirt is genius.  It’s tough looking and then it kicks it up with some ruffles . . . but tough ruffles.  She looked like herself – funky and unfussy, but she didn’t see it that way and ended up in a full fledged head under the pillow heavy drama weep fest.  I felt terrible, but it had gone too far for me to cave in.  Something had happened over the winter, right under my nose but unbeknownst to me:  Supergirl had gone uncontrovertably, irrevokably, tomboy on me.  Which is a nice way of saying that she’s dressing really really butch.  

Honestly, I love that she spends 30% of her day upside down and the other 70% swinging, biking, or kicking a soccer ball.  I love that she never went princessy on me.  That she scoffed at Barbie commercials and muttered: “that’s so lame” out of the side of her mouth with the disdainful nonchalance of a fourteen year old boy.  

Sure, part of me wants to yell (and did, in fact yell in a shamefully, hysterical falsetto): “you are so lucky you don’t have an Edina mom!  You are so lucky I don’t force you to wear dresses and ribbons everyday!”  Here’s the thing:  I feel like the leeway I give her to wear what she wants on a daily basis should be repaid with a reasonable degree of acquiescence when I do ask her to pull herself together in a different way.  Like on picture day.  

Or when our lovely neighbors, Red Vogue and Salt and Pepper Polymath, invited us over for dinner.  Supergirl is seriously like best friends with RV and SPP (together, the Onions, because the more you get to know them, the more there is to know, layers and layers of stories and talents, personality quirks and humor, easy, effortless kindness and deeply interesting loveliness.)  I simply wished to impart to Supergirl that it is common courtesy to make a bit of an effort when someone has been kind enough to welcome you into their home and cook for you with love.  That night was round two of our battle and I lost . . . big time.  Not only did she not wear a sundress (she was actually willing to miss out on root beer floats to prove her point), she went home and put on a pair of maple syrup stained mismatched boy pajamas half way through dinner.  Boy did she show me.  

And then I start to wonder: what is my problem with this?  Why do I care?  What does it say about me that this is even an issue?  Do I worry that how she dresses reflects on me?  Do I worry that this isn’t just a passing phase?  And what if it isn’t?  What’s wrong with dressing like a man?  Oh, who am I kidding????  A whole fucking hell of a lot!!!  Did I let this go too far?  Will she ever wear a skirt again?  And as with all my angst and worry, I quickly veer into crazy-talk quasi-prayer mode:  God, if she’s a lesbian, please let her be a lipstick lesbian so we can at least enjoy shopping together!!!

And then that little Frenchman with the butter soft leather kid gloves gives me a little slap slap slap and I come to my senses and realize this:  Supergirl is perfect the way she is and I would be infinitely more horrified if she wanted to teeter around in plastic platform Cinderella shoes.  She’s on the move and she runs with a pack of wild boys who have a few years on her.  She needs to be swift and cool to hang, or she will be left in the dust.  And so she has figured out what she needs for right now.  She plays up, she plays hard, and she plays to win.  If she needs armor for this, more power to her – at least she’s in the game. 

I just need to chill the hell out.

As for Devil Baby, you’ll be seeing her in nothing but skirts and sundresses every live long day until such time as she decides otherwise.  Maybe, just maybe, she’ll turn out to be my girlie girl.