Odd Duck

I came home today to find Lu wearing a dress with a bikini top over it and a striped visor on her head. She looked like an Alzheimer's patient on her way to a bridge game. Nini explained that it was what she'd wanted to wear. How can you argue with such a distinctive fashion sense?

I took her to a party on Friday where she acted pretty civilized — worshipfully following Jamie's nieces around, dancing and making friends. Then she discovered the dog cage...er, crate in the upstairs bedroom. She busily crawled in and out. And in and out. And in and out. She'd make a sidetrip to steal change from a dresser or strum the banjo in the corner, but she was, oddly, lured by the cage. Which made me wonder, could it be this simple? A cage?!

She's been singing weird songs, and the dressing in strange outfits, and you know, the fascination with the cage. I think maybe she is odd. I say that reverentially, if not a little fearfully. I am odd, and so is Jason, but only in the hidden, apologetic way of people who want others to like them. I was so odd as a fourth grader that I gravely told my only friend, a Vietnamese refugee named Thuy, that I was an alien, but not to worry, because I was a really nice one. She raised her hand and asked to be moved to a new chair — but she went on to be a cheerleader. I made her, really.

My oddness got better (or more discreet), and mostly I am only odd on the inside. I look for the hidden odd in other people. Odd is not be confused with eccentric or interesting (or arty or cool or affected) — those are totally at odds with odd. I could do a whole point/counterpoint list about what is and isn't odd, but it makes no sense. No one wants to be odd. You just are. Sadly.

And I think Lu might be. In which case, she will resent her parents less.

Too Many Syllables, Too Many Nice Things to Say

There are these women I know, and we had a get-together to celebrate and mourn the departure of Veedub. Yes, Veedub. Like the car. Only she is a Lady. Using the capital L seems serious, but Veedub is not. Her name is Virginia Welford Taylor — now Virginia Welford Taylor Miracle, married to a charming man with the very Old Testament name of Jedediah Miracle. He has not seen a burning bush that we know of, but I have not given up. Anyway, Veedub is not "Virginia," she is "Virginia Welford." I would no sooner call her "Virginia" than I would call my Aunt Mary Jane "Mary." I am not sure of the origins of "Veedub," but it has a locker room quality that is sweet and incongruous.

Despite the genteel inconvenience of having a five-syllable first name, she is an amazingly practical girl. She tells it mostly like it is: she's smart, decisive, compassionate and full of humor (when appropriate, which is almost always). The only clear betrayal of her Southern upbringing is...manners. She writes thank-you notes on embossed stationery. When you invite her to your quasi-adolescent holiday party year after year, she always brings a PRESENT. A good one. Not some dumb bottle of wine (which is always welcome here, by the way).

Veedub is a good woman, with good manners and an even better mind. I have decided that I might not pay for Lu's MBA, but I will pay for her to go wherever Veedub is and learn to be a marketing bad-ass. And more importantly, learn to be a good woman.

Tonight, some potential object lessons for womanhood emerged. Can Lu learn from MacKenzie how to overcome a shitty fashion moment and still be the toast of the fourth grade? Learn from Mary Ellen how to survive sex-starved prison thugs? Learn from Lauren how to persevere, even though an Ivy League education might be disappointing to certain parents? Learn from Abby how headphones — and an EYEPATCH — can manage unwanted social contact at the office? Learn from Wendy how to make a perfect (and EVIL, EVIL) brownie? Learn from Kelly how to live in 900 stylish, organized square feet?

These are good skills, and I hope Lu will learn them all. In the meantime, the very least she can do is write thank-you notes. They make everyone happy.

Curious

"What's this, Mama?" This question comes up all the time, because, you know, she is two and doesn't know what most things are. And when your answer doesn't make sense to her, she repeats and repeats and repeats the question. Sometimes I lie or grossly oversimplify just to make her stop asking. A backhoe is "a big truck that digs." The little cartoon jockeys printed on my blouse are "some guys with hats."

"Who's this, Mama?" She wants to know everyone. People in pictures, on TV, in the grocery store. For now, she seems satisfied with general labels like "a lady," "a man," "the cashier," "a family." I have not yet resorted to making up actual names for all these strangers.

"Where are we, Mama?" She asks this at odd moments. Like when we are at home. "What do you mean, where? Austin? Earth?" It strikes me as a strangely existential question.

For now, thankfully, she has not asked "why?" That's when the real lies start.

I Bow at the Altar of Anne Lamott

When I got pregnant with Lucy, I had doubts about my fitness as a mother. After what seemed like a long time to get pregnant, fickle creature that I am, I...wondered. Was this a good idea? Mothers are saints. Mothers are Good with capital G. Mothers don't lose their car keys at least once a day. I felt like I did when I got married, when I bought a house: "Don't they know I am incompetent?" I was afraid that all the weak, gross parts of my soul would be revealed.

And then I read this magic book: Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott. It is an honest account of this fabulous, crazy woman's first year as a mother. She describes in hilarious detail all of her feelings. She is no saint. She is a little scared and incompetent. And she is good with a little g. The kind of good that is the best we can hope to be as mothers.

I worship this woman, who both lowered and raised my expectations about motherhood. And tonight, Magpie and I went to hear her read from her latest book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. This one is about, well, faith. The only subject in which I am even less skilled than motherhood, besides maybe calculus. I am hoping Anne Lamott will sort this faith thing out for me too. After all, I have a husband, a house, and a baby. And I still spent 45 damn minutes looking for my car keys this morning. But maybe I am alright, even good.

Satan Has Ears

He's seven and a half feet tall. He wears a menacing, frozen grin with honed buck teeth. And the ears! Oh, the tall, pointy ears with their radar-keen ability to find children, hunt them down, and...give them candy.

Despite the fact that Lu missed the basic point about the candy (which she really knew nothing about until this weekend, thanks to all you well-meaning Easter present-givers), she recognized the basic evil of the Easter Bunny. WAY scarier than Santa. "He's too scared-y for me, Mama," she told me between heaving sobs, as she and Jason hid in a corner of the El Paso Country Club during the festive post-egg-hunt brunch. She has confused the words "scared" and "scary" in such a smart, efficient way that if you hear me talk about how scaredy something is, just deal with it — I am evolving the language along with Lu.

The whole morning was not scaredy. Just the pre-hunt part, where all the kids, divided by age, milled around waiting for things to get started, many of them looking like they wanted to puke. Lu was anxious. She was trying to find her A game. It was not unlike the start of a triathlon (if you think of Gu as candy).

Once the hunt/race was underway, Lu had a great time. She wasn't quite as fast as I'd hoped, but I could see her competitive spirit showing when she began to take eggs out of other kids' baskets. With the help of her cousin Alyssa, who has a multi-year track record as the winner of the Golden Egg (which yields some fantastic, cellophane-wrapped basket that I am glad not to have to take home), she made quite a haul.

During the post-hunt brunch, Evil Bunny loomed large. A big PR campaign of juggling, schmoozing, kissing babies. Lu could see right through him. She didn't even get to enjoy the kid buffet of chicken strips, macaroni, hot dogs and various other yellow-beige-brown foods. And sadly, neither did Jason, who would have enjoyed it more than most kids. They slunk in the shadows, while the rabbit ran the room.

Lu is not done with Evil Bunny. He may have won this round, but she is training, waiting for next year. And in the meantime, she has a chocolate voodoo rabbit she intends to punish. One ear at a time.

The Unfortunate Haircut

I have been contemplating cutting Lucy's hair for weeks now. It has begun to have the indecisive, fluffy quality of someone who is growing out a hairstyle. No blunt edges, tufts in sticking out in odd places. A little like when I had that bad Jennifer Aniston shag in 1995.

We are in El Paso for a long Easter weekend, and I decide that the only way I can cut her hair is with the magical help of Baga. As Baga distracts her with a doll, I wet a comb and cut. And cut. And cut.

Now, instead of having a vague non-hairstyle, she has the kind of haircut that makes you say, "Aw, does your mom cut your hair?" The kind of haircut I had until I was about nine (and partially blame for my lack of social life in elementary school). You know, bangs a little too short and too close to the ears?

She's a cute kid, so this haircut is not going to ruin her life. But if she had a beard she would look like an Amish farmer.

Lucy Lies

Lucy is sitting in her high chair in the kitchen, eating some salami. I am in the bedroom doing some important motherly task like folding laundry or applying self tanner. I hear her giggling. When I go back in the kitchen, her hand is outstretched to Ramona, who is licking her chops. The salami is gone, and Lucy looks guilty. She says, nodding her head, "I ate the salami. I put it in my mouth. Yep."

Yep.

The Expanding Universe

When I remember Lu's tiny babyhood, the recollections have a glow around them. Perhaps the glow of all the late-night television I watched while I nursed and paced and nursed and paced. Or the fog of not enough sleep. Whatever light I cast those memories in, they contain just the two of us: a newborn baby and newborn mama learning how to be in the world.

She is two now, and her world is way bigger than just me. She told me today in the car on the way to school, "I love my friends, Mama," then named all these strangers, the first of so many she will know and love beyond me. I had a sad, territorial feeling about it. The kind of feeling that makes mommies into weird and smothering creatures who need to be discussed in therapy.

The realization that she had "friends" was nothing compared to the total rejection I'd been experiencing over the past few weeks when she ONLY wanted Jason. I picked her up at school one day last week and she greeted me with, "I need my dad." She was not even content to let me make her cereal, the ingrateful little Electra. I pushed you out of my vagina...for this kind of treatment?

After a weekend away snowboarding, I am back in her favor. Me and broccoli. Last night, while Jason was working late, I fed her and got her ready for bed without so much as a mention of Dad. She snuggled onto my lap while we read Babar's Museum of Art, which has all these funny reproductions of major works of art featuring elephants instead of people. She pointed to the elephant version of Mary Cassatt's "Mother and Child" and said, "That's a baby and a mama." Then she lay her head on my chest and, thumb in mouth, said, "You're my mama." And the big cosmic view narrowed to our little world. A baby and a mama, if just for the moment.

"I want to wear a different shirt, Mama."

That is a complete sentence, uttered today. With a pronoun and an opinion. Her sentences are clear enough now that I can practically hear the punctuation.

For a while it was like the island of Elba at our house. This little Napoleon had come here to rule us, only we spoke mostly Italian and she spoke French. Lots of demanding, babyish French. We understood her tone and angry gesturing more than her actual words. And we did whatever she wanted because even though she was small, we were afraid of her. Like those poor people on the island of Elba.

And then, right around 15 months, her words became clear and her vocabulary large (mostly nouns and a few swear words). It was amazing. The list I was keeping topped out at about 225, and that was months ago. But, meh, just a list of words, right? Now we have...sentences. Logic. Memory. Concepts. Personhood! It is amazing what animals these babies remain to us until we can see the connections they are forming. As in recently when a stoplight changed, but I failed to notice because I was putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror. "Green means go, Mama." Backseat freaking driving means you are a PERSON.

The New New School

Did I mention that we had to change schools — again — because we found out that they were regularly letting the kids watch TV? Up to 40 minutes a day, to occupy them during transition times like going potty and making lunch. Which is not evil or anything, and is, in fact, exactly how we use television. But I am not a professional. I am a parent.

The Old New School neither hid nor volunteered this detail. And of course, I did not ask about because TV was such anathema to my idea of school (unless you count the obligatory after-school specials in health class and that one time we watched "Gandhi" in the fifth grade and I was the only kid who stayed awake to watch it. Just me and Mrs. Green, weeping at the end).

For those of you keeping track, the Old New School was the one we had originally rejected because we thought it was too rigid, and we'd heard a rumor they wouldn't let the kids watch any TV at home. Ha! Those kids probably know what languages they speak in Canada from watching reruns of "You Can't Do That on Television."

We'd only ended up there because they called us and had an earlier opening, and it was good timing and convenient, and ultimately...crappy. After much hysteria and contemplation (thank you to Mary Ellen and everyone else I called up to affirm my gut feeling), we decided to change Lu to yet another school — the Original New School, the kinder, gentler school — after only 10 days.

She might someday be talking to her shrink about those two worst weeks of her young life. But in the meantime she is in the New New Schoool, a very sweet little Montessori joint where she is learning a lot. Like how the sun is not a planet. And the days of the week in Spanish. And to stand in line with her hands clasped patiently behind her back (sounds fascist, but is cute, I swear). All without the help of TV.