what do you buy a girl turning four? and how I worked that out, with some goodies for me and parenting philosophy on the side
I know what I want to give my child, when she turns four in March.
But what for the little girls in her classroom who are turning four and giving parties this week?
The ridiculous and ugly stuff marketed to little girls these days reinforces so many things I don’t want to encourage– traditional female roles, consumer culture, ugly plastic aesthetic, low to fleeting imagination or creativity value… but I can’t impose my snobberies on others’ children. And I can’t afford Magic Cabin for everyone. I can’t even afford it for her. And plus it’s too late to order Magic Cabin.
I know if I called these parents they would say please don’t bring anything, just come. I know that’s what I would say. And I would mean it, too. But I have a feeling it would be a serious violation of Expensive Montessori School Social Code not to bring something. You play, you pay. One little girl is my child’s especial playmate, and I would really like to get to know the other’s mom…
[The next day]
I enlisted the help of my mom’s group friends, who had wonderful helpful ideas… and then wouldn’t you know, I had a Barnes and Noble gift card to spend on myself and my husband, so I walked into the book store and did the librarian birthday gift after all.
I purchased a Moongirl DVD/Book set for each girl. Ah, now it is done! But of course I don’t have any wrapping paper except Christmas. Too bad. I guess I better hit the Dollar General. Anyhoo, this is a wonderful story, with wonderful edgy art and a fabulous soundtrack for the DVD featuring the ever versatile and hardworking They Might Be Giants.
At first I wanted to give Robert Sabuda’s popup Alice in Wonderland, which is a truly complex and beautiful work of art. But there were two copies of Moongirl, and only one copy of the Sabuda… so guess who gets the Sabuda? That’s right. Moi.
I am a Tenniel Snob. Two brown ‘leather’ bound volumes, dated 1974 inside the front cover in my father’s handwriting, containing the entire unabridged stories and the original Tenniel illustrations, still sit on my shelf. They may be the two most important works to my inner and imaginative landscape, as well as my literary aesthetic, of my entire childhood. I remember being about four and having a pair of brown wing tipped mary janes (oh to have those shoes again, some for me and some for my girls!) that I called my Alice in Wonderland shoes.
I have raised my little girl to be sort of a rough-and-tumble consumer of all media, pedestrian and ugly as well as beautiful and original. Our home is a far cry from the dark, quiet, rarefied, nearly tv free space that characterized my childhood. Sometimes I wish I’d been more careful with her, but… ever since she walked at nine months I have sort of thrown my hands up regarding forcing her to conform to my expectations and decided to pick my battles and let her make (the less harmful of) her own choices. I scour my friends’ libraries for truly beautiful and rich works of art for kids– M and W have put me on to the awesome Miyazaki anime films, for example, although I am disappointed that I get them dubbed in English rather than in the original Japanese– and hope that I am giving her a balanced smorgasbord of choices of theme, culture, and artistic style.
But I digress.
Every once in a while I run across a work of children’s literature that restores my faith in the children’s publishing industry and in the media world’s power in general to produce something truly beautiful and worthwhile.
The Sabuda is sort of the Tenniel work on acid (as if the original Tenniel illustrations weren’t acidic enough!!). [And let me clarify that I have never done acid. Never. I did chew up a tiny shroom one time but it did nothing for me and it was too nasty to attempt to eat any more. But I think I know it, or what our society characterizes as it, when I see it.] The 3-dimensional popups are huge, intricately detailed, beautifully colored, and give delightful views for the story from many angles– look down the accordion-pleated rabbit hole, or through cellophane windows into the house where the giant Alice is trapped! I haven’t read it through, so I’ll weigh in on how well the abridgment of the story works soon. But since it makes me so happy artistically, I’ll love it no matter what. I’m such a hoarder I believe I may purchase another copy or two today off of Amazon…
along with a copy of Skinny Bitch. The title and cover illustration are a clever marketing trick which, I am ashamed to say, worked on me, but I cracked it and read a few pages in the store, and just now read the customer reviews on Amazon. You know I just quit eating meat (except last night I had a few bites of delectable lasagne that I made myself, with meat, because we forgot to make me a little meat free one on the side), and I gather this book gives a lot of information about nutrition and the food industry that everyone needs to make informed choices about what we eat. If it’s in a no holds barred, listen here girlfriend while I tell you straight so you can take responsibility and live a happier healthier life format, so much the better.
We just lost power here for several minutes. Our infrastructure in this community is such that the slightest variation in weather– today, heavy but not exactly monsoon rain– throws our power grid into a tizzy. Anyway, I adore wordpress.com because it saves posts constantly. I lost very little work.
So. It’s New Year’s Eve.
I have lots to do including all my housecleaning so that I don’t have to wash my good luck away tomorrow, soaking black eyed peas and cooking sweet potatoes for sweet potato pie, taking shaky baby to that party at about 12.30 which involves getting us both showered and dressed, and taking a fearless and searching inventory (to quote Lindsay Lohan) of last year’s accomplishments and my hopes for next year. I’d better run along.
wait, did I mention
That the Susan Bristol crushed cranberry velour flatteringly constructed yet slinky enough for workout wear or pj’s was originally $300? And I got it for $45?
As the Appalachian husband of the Appalachian wife of 35 years and twin daughters of 35 years old said to the wife and daughters… you got a good buy! Wait… maybe he only said that when they came back from Dollar Gen’l.
ten meeeleeeon dolars
okay, so it was only one THOUSAND dollars. Only.
(remember that home warranty we didn’t buy? and my husband said the only thing he could forsee being a problem was the hot water heater?)
our hot water heater started gushing Thursday morning.
the repair guy took all day to show up and say, yep, its the hot water heater, a’ight. Don’t think ah kin get one tonaht.
I couldn’t help myself. I said, if we’d known this earlier we could have already got one, huh?
Then in a strange series of events someone actually did show up to replace it. I don’t know how that happened because I was sulking in the back room from the fight we’d had the day before, which morphed into almost a week of solid, destructive nastiness.
I don’t know how long we’re going to be broke because of it. It’s my dangold birthday, and I love to celebrate this time of year, right through Epiphany, and I have all this work travel to do… eek.
But it will be okay. I’m just thankful I have a job to help us cover something like this. Maybe it will come back to us on our taxes? And warm showers are a damn good thing.
Bold Mary
Today this lady was at a little local craft festival with her wares. I thought they were fabulous, but because I am broke I was immune to her charms until shaky baby tried on the crown. Then it was all over. I bought a skirt, this one in fact, a crown, and a cape. The cape was black velour with dark red, gold, and green floral shapes on it… very winter holiday. Shaky baby walked all over the festival wearing all her completely unmatched finery and she was the cutest thing I’ve seen in quite a while. She was so proud. She may be bigger than a four year old and kinda scrappy with her friends some times but she is still all girl.
I need you to tell me the truth
As my friend.
I am counting on you girls.
[Dear W, and any other shadowy males reading, I always want you to read this blog, and I hope I don't run you off by talking about really gritty things. Please come back, please stay, don't be run off. ]
May Deane has heard a version of this train of thought– I hesitated to bring it out into the open, until now.
You see… I have finally decided to use non-aluminum (al-you-minnie-um?) underarm deodorant. I have decided that I sweat so f*cking much– it is truly embarassing. I know no-one– I mean, no one– sweats like I do. I need to check in either with my healing school folks about what the deep spiritual implications of such must be– what on earth could they be?— or check on getting some underarm botox injections– whoops, not only is that even scarier than al-you-minnie-um, it’s also against the feminist manifesto and way too expensive– anyhoo, I sweat so much that the scary aluminium stuff isn’t helping anyway. So why not attempt to bypass breast cancer and alzheimers and move on to tea tree oil and enzymes?
Or… patchouli, or sandalwood, both of which I actually adore but haven’t used because I don’t want what happened to my sister in law to happen to me…
This is too good a story, I have to tell it even if it isn’t mine.
She was going to a NAFTA protest or some such thing, what was after NAFTA, the global thing? and on the way in, she had to go through some kind of checkpoint. Or maybe it was a routine traffic stop, I don’t know. Anyway. The cop took care of the official business and looked her over and said, dead serious… ‘Got any… *granola* in that bag?’
Ahahahahaha!
This is a true saying, as they say in church. Or this is a true, something. Anyway.
[Oct. 15, 2006-- my SIL reminds me that not only did the cop ask her if she had any granola... she had, not one, but *two* boxes of granola in there!!!! Ahahahahaha!]
Some things could only happen to her.
I’m going to give it a shot. Natural deodorants that is. Never mind that they cost three times as much– I was revolted to find that they in fact cost six or seven bucks at the Wild Oats in Nashville. But I’m a suburban mommy and I have the luxury of such things. I’ve come a long way from my hardscrabble Appalachian mental health case manager days, I know.
After all, my health is really more important than placating my fellow human being… isn’t it???
Honestly… I’m not sure. But I’m going to give it a try.
So. Momma, I’m depending on you, to tell me the truth.
Should I begin to stink, would you let me know? Posthaste? I mean it!
misc
Randomly:
I am off for two work days on the road and then healing school Friday night and Saturday morning. I have so much I want to write, namely a long one on the nature of friendship in general and the loss (through fighting and falling out) of one’s closest friend. It, that is, writing about it, will have to wait. It has waited a year, it can wait several more weeks or even another year.
Thank goodness Gymboree has nothing I want in terms of Halloween costumes, so I don’t have to spend a hundred bucks on that, at least.
Since our dustup last week, my husband has been really working to pull his weight in terms of dishes, cooking, household labor. I *think* he even cleaned a toilet for, like, the second time ever since we moved here.
Is he okay with that? Or is he doing it to spite me or worse to avoid what he perceives as my nagging and my view of ‘deficiencies in his character’? I’ve also been thinking a lot about the nature of intimacy, honesty, and accountability in intimate relationships. I’d like to write about that, too, in general terms of course, not in terms that would violate our privacy too much, but in my head, my worries and what I view as my shortcomings or my tasks as I grow into myself.
I read Deborah Wiles’ Each Little Bird that Sings last night. She notes in her foreword that she wrote this book after enduring way too many losses in her family in a way too short amount of time, so I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that I snuffled and bawled and squalled as the book came to its close.
The book has won many awards, and I guess, rightfully so. In my lowly opinion, especially lowly since I’ve never even written a book, children’s or otherwise, it’s not exactly great literature… and I am not one of those who thinks children’s literature should be held to a different standard than adult literature. Great writing is great writing, and I hate for it to be dumbed down. On the other hand, I absolutely love Wiles’ evocation of quirky southern life– yes, southern life can indeed be that quirky, even if the quirks are not layered on quite that thick in real life. And I do think it’s a wonderful book about handling grief. Sort of. If you’re really in the mood to handle grief, and Lord, who is???? I know, I know… it’s a reality, but… Anyhoo, the author does a wonderful job of creating a heartbreaking but still manageable (just barely) growth opportunity for little Comfort Snowberger, whose narrative voice is really too cute.
I’d love to hear what others think about this one. I am so impressed with Wiles. She’s won all these prizes, and I don’t think she started writing, or at least getting published, until she was in her forties. As always when I hear of such a thing, I think, hallelujah! There’s hope!
All right, dear reader (My friend M is the only one reading this, right? and maybe her husband???). I must jump up and get ready to hit the road. Talk to you soon.
pandora and hanna
I know, I know. It’s ridiculous. It’s completely against my policy, which is to never, ever pay retail. Ever. Buy on sale at least, preferably secondhand/aftermarket. But… I can’t help it. And of course I’m in no danger of being able to afford either of these any time soon.
With bracelets starting at around forty bucks, and charms at 16.50 apiece… but they’re so dang cool. I had just been thinking it was time to get a charm bracelet started for my little girls, and then why not one for me? And for my mom, and grandmother? How about for my sister in law, and my other sister in law? Sigh. This is Italian charm bracelets pumped up with a vengeance. (And no, I don’t like Brighton.)
Now the Stories from Sweden dress, from Hanna Andersson, may not look *that* expensive, on its surface. But once you get the tights and the brown girls clog boots (click at the bottom of the Stories from Sweden dress page, your wallet is screwed. And then of course I have to have one for each girl, so double it. Where am I going to get 400 dollars for exactly two outfits, one per girl? Sigh.
See? With all my purported social consciousness, I also long for items priced so high they could feed many hungry people for a month (but it’s an *heirloom*, don’t you see, and let my child watch TV all morning so I can clean my house and blog about longing for said items. It brings to mind the careful balance needed between doing the right thing and giving back, and simply enjoying one’s blessings because the idea that one doesn’t deserve them is unhealthy.
Sigh.
