Nine

The spawn are on vacation this week. They're overbearing. Like the smell of lobsters boiling.

Claire turned 9 on Sunday. She was born 2/20/02 at 2 p.m. ringing in at 20 inches long. Don't know what kind of stars had to align for that to happen and whether or not that means that she's destined to be greater than the sum of her parents. We'll find out.

She didn't get to decide what to do for her birthday. Mostly because her controlling mother didn't want to throw her a birthday party. Mostly because her fretful mother worried that if she had a birthday party over the vacation no one would show up and then there would follow a fit of self despair like none we've ever seen before. Mostly because I (her controlling mother) thought that a little quality time with just me and her father would be the best birthday present. So we drove South. To my parent's place.



And gramma, being the best gramma there is, baked her a cake. And gramma, being the best gramma there is, provided us with tickets to see Mary Poppins at the Boston Opera House. And Pop-Pop, being the best Pop-Pop there is, told us which bus to take and where to go when we got off that said bus. And Pop-Pop, being the best Pop-Pop there is, watched two rambunctious boys for 24 hours.




And so on this said bus, we didn't talk about issues with school work and math. We learned to knit.



And so in this crazy city, we didn't talk about how to deal with friends and gossip and the no-nos of talking behind backs. We got a first time ever manicure.



We didn't talk about how (maybe) we could (maybe) be a little (sorta) nicer to our brothers. No, we wore new birthday clothes and leather pouches full of dreams.




We didn't broach puberty.



Nope, we rode the subway for the first time.



We didn't tackle responsibilities around the house.




We ate Chinese in Chinatown with the Chinamen and Chinawomen.




We didn't tell her there wasn't a Santa.




Nope. We made deposits in the bank. For later.




I don't think she was mad that I made these plans. That this all happened instead of a bowling party.



I liked that it was us. We. Before them. Again. For her to remember what that felt like.

I think she liked it too.