Thirty seven doesn't sound as old to me as it used to. Yet it is a decidedly adult age. This birthday has brought a new awareness that people more less my age are running things, with no adult supervision. The president is a mere 12 years older than I am. Barack Obama is barely old enough to have been my babysitter? And he runs the country?
The founders of Google are a year younger than me. And they pretty much run everything else.
Again, trying not to panic.
I spent my birthday weekend at the Cleaves compound in Wimberley. On Saturday, we attended splendid Major family reunion put on by Peggy, probably the first time in 25 years all those Majors have gathered in one place. We lost the last of a generation when Aunt Patricia died in the spring, so it was amazing to see so many cousins together.
On Sunday, we had a quiet day at the creek. The only real excitement was when Ted seemed close to setting his arm on fire while cooking steaks over open flames, and Willow wailed over being separated from Lucy for the week before they go to camp. As the day wound down, Peggy and Ted left with Willow, leaving only our generation to cook, clean, organize and generally fend for ourselves (with help from Bonnie, a blessed token from the grandparent set).
My cousin Lauren made us dinner, while I half-helped but mostly just chatted and drank wine. Lauren: a cousin whom I hadn't seen in 20 years and last remembered as dark-haired cherub. She's now the mother of a dark-haired cherub of her own. I leaned against the pantry for a moment watching this girl-woman stir her gourmet chili, while David made an elaborate salad of his own garden tomatoes. It hit me: she is an adult, he is an adult, I am an adult. We are the grown-ups.
I decided not to panic.
Lucy has strep throat. I went to retrieve her today at Dougherty Arts Camp and found her in a little heap sucking her thumb, a collage clutched in her hand instead of Duck. She wanted to sit on my lap in the exam room at the doctor's office because she was cold. The doctor was running late, so we had plenty of time to sing songs about birds: Three Little Birds, Blackbird, Little Bird, Up in the Air Junior Birdmen (not strictly about birds, but hey).
Sickness sucks, but it does slow life down in a pretty special way. And a blueberry-peach-mango-yogurt-ice-cream smoothie certainly enhances the moment.
Lucy: Dad, can we watch The Aristocats? Jason: No, the rental expired.
Lucy: What?
Jason: We rented it. We paid money to borrow it. Like you borrow a book from the library.
Lucy: But what did we rent?
Jason: The movie.
Lucy: No, but when you go to the library, it's a book, there's a thing. There's no thing.
Jason: Well, there is a thing, but it's in iTunes.
Lucy: But where is it?
I had to stop listening. She really could have asked about God and Jason would have had an easier time explaining it to her.
Yes, I realize the little animal is now 9.5 months. What can I say about him, when I've already told you he's the best, sweetest, most charming baby ever? To help you get to know him better, here's a little questionnaire I filled out on his behalf: Vitals: 17 pounds (sadly, only 8th percentile, because apparently Mom has been giving my milk away. We're working on this), 26 inches, blonde hair (lots), 5 teeth. Hobbies: Eating mail. Banging blocks together. Finding electrical outlets and expensive technology. Shutting doors. Likes: Bananas, egg yolks, my older sister, Frog, anyone who smiles at me. Dislikes: The phrase "not for Milo." The carseat. Being ignored. Future plans: Translating my love of opening and closing doors into a career in architecture. Learning to scoot around the house while holding onto furniture. Oh, and I have another tooth coming in.
Lucy's summer schedule is a patchwork of different camps and trips. Right now she's at a nearby day camp, which she seems to be enjoying. I hesitated slightly before putting her into it, because Emily reminded me that in college and she our friend Tiffany were counselors there and they spent a lot of time "hungover and wishing for a cigarette." I have not inspected Lu's counselors terribly closely, but I do know a couple of things about them... 1) They are charming. Lu has a crush on a counselor named Matthew. For the third day in a row, she has written him a message on her lunchbag: "Mr. Matthew cannot touch because he's silly. P.S. I'm serees." See photo below.
2) They are enterprising. Last Thursday, one of the counselors had the bright idea that instead of water playtime, they should just have the campers wash her car. Which they did, and loved.
Hilarious? Alarming?
Her first year of school slipped away from me. I wish I could gather it back up to remember better. She had a great year, got everything she needed out of school, namely a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school.
She was lucky to have Ms. P this year, a teacher who really seemed to understand and appreciate Lu, despite the challenges she presented in the classroom (constant talking and singing, persistent pushing of her own agenda, disruption of others). We got her final report card, which said (brag warning): "The breadth and depth of Lucy's knowledge are remarkable. Couple that with her curiosity — great things lie ahead. Because she is a great reader and she picks up math concepts easily, I would focus on helping her develop her writing skills. I can see her writing plays and using her creativity to bring those plays into production with music, costumes, scenery...She will be a strong student in the first grade."
We can't make our children anyone other than who they are. Lu proves this to me every day. But "curious" and "creative" are the two qualities I would hand pick for any child of mine to have. Lucky us.
You would think, after having gone into a dumpster to look for Duck, I would know better than to give Milo a lovey. And yet, the sweetness of a baby's attachment to his transitional object. Sigh. I give him Frog and instinctively, he buries his face in it and starts to suck his thumb. He even twirls and waves it like a pizza when he's eating or trying to fall asleep (exactly like Lu). This time around, I'm wiser: he already has two of them, I can get more at Target and they've been around for a while (I believe this is the same model of Frog that our little friend Niall uses as his lovey and that he set on fire at Christmas).
Warning: corny. Fifteen years ago, I threw a surprise birthday/going-away party for Leslie, who was turning 22 and headed to London for the summer. I invited lots of people we knew, as well as some new friends she'd made during the semester I'd been in Costa Rica, plus her friends from various clubs, activities, associations and the like (Leslie was a "joiner" and is an amazing connector of people).
One of her "joiner" friends was none other than Jason Sugawa, whose name I had heard for years, such that it had begun to grate on my nerves like a badly tuned instrument. I remember saying to Leslie in the Cactus yearbook office (younger readers, I can dust off some old yearbooks to show you since I am told they don't make them anymore), "God, who is this Jason Sugawa? What's his deal? He's Japanese?" Leslie said, "No, I think he's Mexican. He's from El Paso. I don't know. Why?" "I don't know, he just sounds so annoying."
Throughout my senior year of college, his name was a sharp note, but I'd managed to avoid meeting him. So when I had the chance to invite him to Leslie's party, I was...intrigued? He came. We met. We had a rousing argument about the relative merits of Quark Xpress (me) over Pagemaker (him), waxed on about our favorite segments of All Things Considered and got to know each other in a dorky haze while the rest of the party faded away. I still have the notebook where I wrote down his phone number — on what pretense, I can't remember. Maybe paying off the bet about which would win — Quark or PageMaker? Jason was prescient (PageMaker = InDesign, m-effers!). I married him, so I guess he won.
Fifteen years ago, we had our first date, which wasn't even a date. It was a conversation. And it's one we're still having.
Thanks, Leslie. Happy birthday.
Coming home from the baseball game the other night, Jason and Lu were listening to "The Lucy Song" (Gracie by Ben Folds — we sing it with "Lucy" replacing "Gracie"). It is a sweet song about a little girl growing up, and in it there's this line: One day you're gonna want to go. Hope we taught you everything you need to know, Lucy girl.
Lu understood the line for the first time the other night, and it made her cry. She said she didn't want to leave home and not see us every day. And Jason explained that someday, maybe really soon, she would want to go, and that would be okay.
The song makes me cry every single time I hear it.
