Who is that white man in the chimney? Fantasy Bias towards the null...

Sigh. So, I won’t start with the trite “it’s that time of year” opening I was planning on getting this party started with. The reality is, the time of year really matters little. Yes, there are lights. My daughter is very intrigued. She gets all stuttery when we drive past the way-way-wayindeer. All can we have some Mummah and whatnot. Glitter and gum-droppy when we see all the Christmas toys on display, seemingly everywhere: on TV, at the malls we rarely go to, in the doorbusters ads of the Sunday papers. She swoons sheepishly when we talk about one particular character: Saint Friggin Nick.

As former (but forever) New Yorker I’m not talking about the cross road to 1-2-5th, But Claus himself. Sinter. Noel. Yeah, him. I’m not nearly as Grinchy as I likely sound. I like fun, bells, holidays (mine is Valentines day, if you need know). I even go hard for the tree, its smell, my cats covered up to their whiskers in fir quills . It's very outside meets inside, which is nearly smutty. What I have a problem with is the fantasy of it all, the fantasy of him. I'm finding problems with the Santa clause.

Now ain’t that some shit? I am all about fantasy. Case in point:
*I have a masters in fantasy (i.e. poetry)
*I think disparate health outcomes (the difference in disease rates in brown people versues everyone else) can be not just reduced but eliminated by 2020.
*I heart Disney World so much I CRY at the end of every Disney movie.
*I have a favorite Disney princess
*I named my child after a folklorist with a pearl handled gun and a inclination to fib about her age...(Ding-ding-ding)

I shan’t go on.

The issue isn’t Christmas. The risen Christ. The cherubs and spiked cocoa. The tinsel, Rudolph, misfit toys or the doorbusters. It’s Santa.


Perhaps it goes back to my up-from-the-bootstraps belief system. You want something, you get it yourself. Earn it. I mean can you earn something by being good, or by going to work? Is it truly your ethic if you’re doing so for the once-a-year reward? Pfft.

Perhaps it has more to do with God. I once mistakenly prayed to both Santa and Jesus for my Cookie Monster clock to run without batteries at age 4. It didn’t work and me and Jesus Claus were at odds until I figured out one of ‘em wasn’t real.

Perhaps it’s my racial and/or ethnic bias meter… I mean, honestly, the idea of a red suited heavy white man essentially breaking into my house to give my child toys of unknown origin “If she good” is a freakish, hellish, and disturbing thought. #Barfwothy even.

And then there is the highly principled part of me: I travel 54 miles rountrip daily to pay for her childcare. Brian works 7 days a week as well to ensure we’re housed, roofed, and can easily order gourmet Chinese. That said, the gifts didn’t come from ole homeboy SC, but from Mummah and Daddy with the grit of the commuter rail, and the sweat of the dining hall on our hands and in our hearts.

So, I did it. I told her Santa was fake. I said something like... Babygirl, you know he's for pretend right. Wide eyed, she said, Huh? Uhhh, yeah. We moved on. I did anyway.

And on Xmas eve when that first gift is in her beautiful brown baby hands, sweet surgar pie dumplin girl will know this:

I bought Barbie. ME.

Merry Xmas,

Diane

Vulnerable (strength).

I had a conversation with a friend today; a good friend, a noble friend. She like me has a family, a small one, a miniature-mirror in her child. They argue, fret. Mostly in unison, definitely in awe of the other. I do that. I understood.

I told her a story about my three year old; spirited in her freshness, vulnerable—she once cried (ok, thrice) when a cockroach was left behind by his master returning to outer-space, in some movie. And again, when she watched me nearly retch over an argument with a loved one. Put those tears away Mummah. The sun is out, my baby girl once said. And I love her for that and/but you know what:

My child makes me nuts. I have a nutty if her Kelsey Kounters are strewn across the floor. If she refuses to pay attention when she’s making the letter Z with too many arms, or if she forgets her name ends in A and not her favorite letter of the week. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as authoritative. I want to throw that damn book in the trash.

My child makes me proud. I’ve grown to not give a complete shit if people don’t want to hear how she speaks with the level intonation of a learned adult, that she recognizes the varying hue ethnic difference can and does lend to people, that she knows Santa is fake and God is as real as she is. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as supportive. I want to throw that damn book in the trash and write my own.

So, conversation with friend had me thinking. And a lot of times we start with us; as in, I can hear what she’s saying, what reality does this spin for me? How can I draw from what I know (about me) to share with her? And I realized, in the advice I attempted to share with her, I needed to press my ears to my own palms; to make sense out of the own song of my faintly thumping heartbeat.

I told her to be kind to herself, to understand that vulnerability is too, it’s own kind of strength, that good intentions most definitely do count. And, to recognize that you get what you get because you’re supposed to and can handle it. And, perhaps somewhat less tritely, that she is good, great and doing right by her kid.

Sometimes, we have to listen to the advice we give others, give it to ourselves. Remind ourselves of how hard and hearty our lives can be, at 7 AM, on the way to the school dance, making sandwiches for a play school lunch, declining ice-cream for breakfast.

And I hope that makes sense, and perhaps more than that, I hope she/we realize how much right we do, when we intend to.

I'm thinking, at least, I have some work to do.

So, if you see me doing said work with my hands pressed to my ears, I'm likely finding my own rhythm in the drumming song between palm and a pulsating inner ear/heatbeat. Though this is a blog about mental health, so, you know, don’t rule anything out.

D- for Effort. Mine and Hers.

Case scenario: Brilliant child. 2 going on 3. Goes to an awesome (if expensive) school. Great parents. Perhaps they're having a bad week. Perhaps brilliant child watched too much tv while parents spoke, hushedly, some feet away. But still, away.


Mother, a loving one. Me, even. Picks up scenario-ed child from school. Day two, she won't eat my food. I don't curse, I coddle (this time). "Baby girl, we can go to the grocery, with the mini-carts, and pick out the food you'd like to each for lunch" She's nearly willing. I nearly win.


Moments away, Baby-girl kicks off her shoes. Demands I put them back on. Real-me-Mama (in my mind) is like, Oh Hell No. This time I'm curt. No to yelling, but base is reintroduced in my voice: "Get up. Get the shoes ON. Walk your body to the door. Say goodbye to your friends". Near compliance.

Near.

Shoes, again are kicked off. I threaten to let her walk to the grocery in one shoed foot, one socked one. She laughes at the idea.

Moments later Baby-girl is pushing the cart through the over-priced-organic grocer. She's temporarily one inch taller on her left side than her right. The padding of that same foot looks from afar like a kitten paw, perhaps a large puppy's mitt. It ain't. It's a wet, and likely cold, socked foot, paired with a princess sneaker on it's partner.

Yesterday, a small child learned: Mummah loves me, but she might could be crazy.

Moral of story: Baby-girl and Mummah were both pushing it. Keep your MF shoes on.


And... just in case you were wondering, she yelled at me in the car too.
Bed began PROMPTLY at 8.


xo