Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank (7 page)

Or what about
Firebird,
another famous ballet, in which a guy named Ivan wanders into a “mysterious forest” inhabited by a magical firebird. Ivan cons the bird out of a “magic feather” that will keep him safe from the evil in the garden,
including spells by mad magicians and such. I know. I’ll bet you could’ve used a magic feather the last time you were “enchanted” by a mad magician, too, huh? Anyway, the fire-bird returns to help and lulls the forest monsters to sleep. In return, Ivan agrees to smash the magic egg that has cast a spell of evil over the forest forever. In the end, life gets really good in the forest, though there is no mention of cable.

All of this is fine if you’re into it, but I’d much rather watch Denzel in
Man on Fire
for like the bazillionth time. That part where he puts the explosives up the bad guy’s ass and then sets the timer and hands it to him? Now
that’s
entertainment!

The princess loves ballet, though, so I attempt to be supportive.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that there are two kinds of ballet moms at our school: First, there’s the kind that stays the whole hour watching anxiously through the cut-out window, enjoying every inch of little Cherish Rae’s progress while monitoring the student-teacher ratio in case she needs to complain to the director. Which she will.

And then, there’s the other kind, like me. We use that same hour to buy an entire week’s worth of groceries, careening back into the parking lot just as class ends and the kids are getting their hands stamped with cute little red-ink ballerina figures.

When she was really little, I used to try to con my kid. “You were great!” I gushed, trying desperately to hide the
eighteen bags of groceries that had magically overflowed into the backseat. Well. Her father believes there’s a grocery fairy—why can’t she?

There’s also the carpool fairy, which would be me, if you can envision any fairy being twenty pounds overweight and wearing a shirt her kid tie-dyed over UNC sweatpants.

I’ve chauffered my daughter all over town this summer, not just to ballet. I have to admit that I’m going to miss, sort of, the backseat chatter that has kept me amused and confused.

You see, little girls have a ginormous capacity to giggle at things that no one over ten would ever “get.” My personal least favorite is the game where one says, “I one an elevator,” and the next one says, “I two an elevator,” and, ohmigod, we can see where this is heading, eventually: “I eight (ate) an elevator.” Hilarity ensues. They never get tired of this game, even though the “joke” is pretty obvious after the first ten or twelve items.

This summer, much of the backseat banter has concerned teen idols, or as we like to call them in our household, Chad Michael Murray.

DAUGHTER SOPHIE
: Oh, Chad Michael Murray is
really
cool. A girl in my arts camp said she knows somebody whose cousin lives next door to him, and she can get his autograph for us!

FRIEND
: (Brain-piercing squeal)
Eeeeeeee!
That. Is. So. Totally. Cool.

SOPHIE
: That’s right, and guess what?

FRIEND
: What?

SOPHIE
: I forget!

FRIEND
: Yeah! Me, too!

(Loud, prolonged giggles for roughly eight minutes while you wonder if constant exposure to high-pitched noises can sever your brain stem. I do kno w for a fact that certain noises can make you nuts. A kindly woma n at church once gave m y daughter a “talking prayer bear” that recited the Lord’s Prayer. Sadly, it was with a thick Japanese accent. You haven’t really lived until you’ve tucked your baby into bed and heard her recite what sounds like a badly dubbed Jackie Chan movie ending with a karate-chop “Ahhh-men!” Back in the car, though.)

SOPHIE
: I like Bratz bu t no t Yasmin. Momm y says Yasmin looks too skanky.

FRIEND
: What’s skanky?

SOPHIE
: It means pretty. But in a grown-up way. Like Mommy’s kinda skanky, not young or anything.

FRIEND
: I get it. My mommy’s skanky, too!

SOPHIE
(pausing for effect):
Well, is she stanky, too?

FRIEND
:
Eeeeeeeeee!
(squealing and uncontrolled spewing of McDonald’s chocolate milk all over backseat of trusty Taurus)

And, while we’re on the subject, memo to Morgan Spurlock, who made the fabulous and shocking documentary
Super Size Me,
in which he almost dies after eating McD’s food
three times a day for a month. Dude—thanks for
ruining my life.
No more fast food after watching that one. Now I have to “plan menus” and “buy groceries” and, ohmigod again, “cook.”

It could be lots worse, I guess. At least I don’t stank.

Chauffeuring my kid around town has gotten harder now that there’s a new law requiring kids under eight to use booster car seats for safety’s sake.

Have you ever tried to tell a kid who’s been out of a car seat for more than a year that she must get back in one because it’s the law?

ME
: Honey, remember that car seat that you were so happy to get out of when you were six? The one that your eight-year-old friend used to laugh at?

SEVEN-YEAR-OLD
(warily):
Yeeessss?

ME
(very quickly):
Well, they changed the law, and now you’re going to have to get back on that booster seat until you weigh eighty pounds, so if you don’t like the idea, you better start eating a
lot
of macaroni and cheese really quick.

KID
: So let me get this straight. Fat kids don’t have to use a booster seat?

ME
: Honey, Jit is a very negative word. In the South, we prefer to use words and phrases such as
big-boned,
or
prosperous,
but never fat. It’s quite rude.”

KID
: Are you serious? I have to ride in a car seat again?
Like a baby?
Why don’t you just rent me some Wiggles videos and make my humiliation complete?

ME
: Hon, all your friends will be in booster seats, too. Well, I mean, except for the fat ones. Oh, sorry! And look, it’s not like the car seat really little kids use, the one with the vomity-smelling padded bar in front and all those dried Cheerios in the cushions. It’s just the booster seat. No one will even know you’re sitting on it.

KID
: How long do I have to do this?

ME
: Well, like I said, you have to hit eighty pounds or until you’re eight years old.

KID
: My life is over.

ME
: Oh, honey, don’t be so dramatic. It’s for your own good.

KID
: Can’t we just say that I’m eight years old in case you get pulled over?

ME
: That’s lying!

KID
: What about the time we went to the circus and you said I was five when I was really six so you could save five bucks on admission?

ME
: Well, that’s different. You were acting five that day.

KID
: It’s not fair. How can they change the rules?

ME
: Dunno, sweetie. You got two choices. Suck it up for a few months or gain twenty-three pounds by January first.

KID
: Was that a Krispy Kreme we just passed?

Getting out of the car seat is a rite of passage that’s right up there with losing a tooth.

It means that your baby’s growing up. I’ll never forget
when my daughter, then five, held her fist out to me, then opened it slowly.

There, in the palm, was one perfect, pearly tooth that had inexplicably escaped its rightful home in her mouth.

“The Tooth Fairy’s gonna come tonight!” Sophie squealed and danced around the kitchen clutching the tiny tooth while pointing to the hole where it used to be, bottom front and center.

“Swell,” I said, finishing my coffee and dabbing my eyes. This was more in-your-face proof that my baby was growing up. I launched into a pathetic recitation of all the wonderful meals that little tooth had chomped on, the zillions of chicken nuggets, the pizzas, the broccoli and carrots. Yeah, okay, I made up those last two.

Then it dawned on me. Trying to be cagey, I said, “Hmmm, by the way, how much does the Tooth Fairy pay for teeth these days, do you know?”

“Well, Lucy got
seventy dollars.”

Lucy’s my daughter’s rich friend. Every kid should have one. Lucy’s mother would never shriek, “I told you we ain’t paying for that shit” if she gave away all her Lifetouch school pictures, including the “Bonus Little Patriot” flag-embossed keychain before she even got home like my kid did.

This was a Teachable Moment, though. It was time, once again, for a reminder of How Things Used to Be.

“Darling, when Mommy was a little girl, I got a shiny quarter from the Tooth Fairy, right under my pillow.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Well, back in Mommy’s day, that was about half of what you’d need to buy the latest forty-five from Creedence Clearwater Revival.”

“Huh?”

“CCR. You know, ‘Bad Moon Rising’?”

“Were they better than Maroon Five?”

“Uh. Well, actually, no.”

Later that day, I decided to poll the mommies on how much the Tooth Fairy brings.

Most said between five and ten bucks for a first tooth. I decided the tooth fairy would bring five dollars and a disclaimer that all future teeth would bring one dollar.

“What’s a disclaimer?” my daughter asked, reading the letter the next morning.

“Well, it’s like those things at the bottom of ads for prescription drugs that tell you in little print that there’s a halfway decent chance that if you take the pill, it’ll cure you but you’ll also get excessive ear hair and a craving to eat dirt.”

“Oh.”

Later, I discovered there’s no pleasing the mommies. One said five bucks was ridiculously high; another said she wouldn’t consider giving less than twenty dollars for a First Tooth. But she’s the one who dressed as the fairy and made little fairy dust footprints on her daughter’s carpet so we all know she’s a nut job, right?

Having an only child means that we get only one chance to do it right. There isn’t going to be a do-over, and there’s always some well-meaning person to point that out.

The perky hostess at the family-friendly restaurant looked at our little party of three, still wearing church clothes and thinking only of cinnamon pancakes.

“Just one child?” she asked, digging into a basket for crayons and a kiddie menu containing enough activities for a cross-country drive.

“Well, yes,” said my husband, a trifle defensively. “Of course, there are days when she
seems
like more than one, but, no, it’s just one. I mean we were kind of late getting started, if you know what I mean, and we’re not getting any younger and so we just decided—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up,” I hissed. “She just wants to know how many kid menus to grab.”

“Oh.”

As parents of an only child, we’re used to the “just one child” comment. There’s never any malice in it; at least I don’t think there is.

Occasionally, well-meaning friends will beam and say things like, “I know
she’s
not spoiled!”

Well, of course she is. And if I’d thrown a litter like some of them did, they’d all be spoiled, too. What’s your point?

Very occasionally, someone will tsk-tsk and say things like “I bet you want a little brother or sister” to our daughter, and my jaw just drops.

“I’m forty-six years old! “I
want to scream at them. I mean, sure, I don’t look it. . . . Anyway, where am I supposed to get one of those? It’s not like they’re hanging out on an end cap at Target, and I don’t want to be one of those freaks you read about in the
Enquirer
that had a kid with “borreyed” eggs at age eighty-six or some such.

Besides, there are plenty of folks who should have stopped at one kid. Or none. Like Michael Jackson, who, when he’s not fighting child molestation charges busies himself playing with the Elephant Man’s pelvis.

Frankly, I don’t have the patience for more than one kid. I have plenty of mom-friends who smile dreamily and Madonna-like as their many children crawl on them, draw on the walls, and throw up on the carpet.

Still, it’s surprising when strangers take it upon themselves to comment on the sad state of the only child.

“I had a friend who was an only child,” the lady in line at the drugstore volunteered. “She used to spend all her time talking to her imaginary brothers and sisters, poor little thing.”

Save your pity, toots. One is only the loneliest number in bad Three Dog Night songs. Believe it.

My daughter says that what she really wants for Christmas is an American Girl doll named Nellie. Sophie even circled the picture in the catalog and scribbled
Please!!!
in blue Magic Marker.

For those who don’t know, every American Girl doll represents a specific time in our nation’s history. Nellie, it turns out, is the cute-but-economically disadvantaged waif friend of rich American Girl doll Samantha. She costs $108.

Some waif.

The American Girl catalog is beautifully photographed. Heck, by the time I finished looking at it, I could barely stifle an urge to order Kit, Molly, and especially the plucky Josefina complete with her authentic reproduction New Mexico sleigh bed.

Thank heavens I was reminded by the big, bold letters of the catalog’s very first page: “True friendship is the greatest gift.”