I wrote this yesterday evening. Love my girl child. :)
I have created a monster. I’m not talking about the day I conceived either one of my children; I am talking about Miss Makayla who has become obsessed with the Mario Brothers. Months ago, when I discovered Matt’s Wii had the original Mario Brothers game on it, I was thrilled. Sadly, Matt would rather play darts or something manly than play my favorite game in the world with me so I forgot about it. Mario is not fun to play alone in my opinion. When Makayla came home, I introduced her to the game, assuming she would think it was dumb. Makayla is much more of a “let’s paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about art” type of kid. From the very first game of Mario, she was hooked. It didn’t take her long to master level one of world one and then she mastered level two of world one. She and I sat on the couch as I showed her where all the hidden loot was, showed her how to run and jump, and educated her on being a Mario Brothers professional scientist. What a fun time. I had just as much fun as she did and we spent WAY too much time playing Mario Brothers together. Sometimes we got really excited about stuff and I’d catch us shrieking and laughing and I decided not to feel guilty that one day we played for five straight hours. So what? We’re bonding. It’s kind of odd having a nearly seven year old. I remember so well her being two and three and so small and full of cuteness. Now that she’s nearly seven, I’m able to see her very own personality much better and I like who she is. She’s very logical and literal and has a great sense of humor. She’s also soft hearted, gets her feelings hurt easily, compassionate, empathetic, and curious. She loves to read and play games and play with animals. She still comes up with cute things to say, though not as much as she did when she was two and three. The other day she asked Matt,
“I like grilled cheese but I am confused because it’s grilled cheese and boys still eat it. How can boys eat grilled cheese?”
She was saying it “girled cheese.” And she asked where she was born and I told her I bought her at a flea market for a nickel and she said,
“You did not. I’m not falling for that.”
“Actually,” I said, “they were selling you for a dime but I talked them down to a nickel. I got a great deal.”
“You did not buy me for a nickel,” Makayla said, clearly irritated, “and I did not live with fleas. That’s gross.”
“A flea market is like a garage sale,” I told her.
“You didn’t buy me at a garage sale. That’s just silly.”
“Ok then,” I told her, “believe what you want.”
“Why are you being so mean to me?” she asked, tears welling up in her eyes, “you shouldn’t lie to little kids and you did not buy me for a nickel.”
“You were born in Austin,” I told her, thinking if Grandpa messed with her the way he messed with me when I was little, she’d be destroyed.
Matt and I devised a hilarious prank this morning. He went into the huge walk in closet he built, closed the door, and hid behind the clothes. I told Makayla that he could go in the closet, shut the door, and go anywhere he wanted to go.
“He’s probably with unicorns,” I said.
“I already told you that unicorns aren’t real,” she said, “and he’s in the closet and you’re being silly.”
“Go look for yourself,” I told her.
She opened the door and looked wide eyed at me.
“Where is he, Mommy?” she asked.
“I dunno, somewhere awesome. The closet is a magic portal that can take you anywhere you want to go.”
“I’m going to try it,” she said and proceeded to shut herself in the closet.
“Oh no,” I told her, “You’re too young to go by yourself. We’ll have to do it together.”
“Where is Matt?” Makayla asked, looking around the closet, “is this real? Can he really go somewhere else?”
“Yup,” I said, “he’ll be back soon.”
We went into the living room and she said, “What if he gets lost? Are you just kidding with me?”
“He won’t get lost,” I told her, “we travel through the closet all the time.”
“Mommy, you better not be tricking me! I don’t like that closet. That’s scary and I want Matt to come back. You’re tricking me aren’t you?”
“Matt went in and closed the door and now he’s not in there. Where else could he have gone?”
She started crying, very horrified that Matt was lost somewhere and convinced that traveling through a closet was “not right.” I had to tell her the truth. She was not amused.
“I knew it wasn’t true and I knew you were just being mean to me,” she said, “you said you would never lie to me and you did!”
Crap. “It wasn’t a lie; we were just joking,” I told her, “I wouldn’t really lie to you.”
“You said Matt traveled through the closet and he did not and that is a lie. And you told me you rode a unicorn to school when you were little and you did not and that is a lie too. And you said you bought me at a garage sale and you said that you hatched out of an egg when you were born. And you said that you had a pet dragon that lit your fireplace when he breathed fire and you were lying about all of that stuff.”
“Those are silly jokes, not lies. Paw Paw told me when I was little that if I kissed my elbow I’d turn into a boy and that the moon is made out of green cheese and that he saw a ground hog sitting on a log smoking a pipe, reading a newspaper. It was fun.”
“He lied to you like you lie to me,” Makayla said, “I don’t like things that aren’t true. It isn’t nice to lie to your children.”
“I would never lie to you about something real Makayla, I’m just joking with you.”
“I don’t like those jokes. They’re mean.”
Blast. Caleb is much more fun about things like that. When I told him I used to have a pet dragon he said,
“Really? Did he eat you?”
“Nope,” I said, “he was sweet. His name was Brandon.”
“Can I have a dragon too?”
“He is the only one in the whole universe and he had to go back to the moon where he lives.”
“We’ll have to drive up there and see him then, Mommy,” Caleb said, grinning. When I told him I hatched out of an egg when I was born, he said,
“I will scramble you and eat you up!”
When I told him I used to ride in the pouch of a Kangaroo before I had a car, he said, “did you ever fall out?” I had a blast with that one. I tried the whole kissing your elbow thing to morph into the opposite sex with Makayla and she looked me in the eye and said,
“That is silly. Why would anyone want to be a boy anyway?”
Miss Makayla is horrified by my “lies.” It’s like the time when she was two and I told her I pulled her nose off and ate it and she cried and said, “why would you do that to me?” When I did the trick with Caleb, he laughed and started pulling off my eyes and nose and ears and pretended to gobble them up.
“Did you really eat my nose, Mommy?” he asked, grinning.
“I did. It was delicious.”
“Are you going to give it back?”
“I don’t know. Do you want it?”
“You can keep it,” he said and ran off to terrorize his sister.
“Mommy didn’t really eat your nose, Bubba,” Makayla told him, “she’s just mean like that. You still have your nose.”
They both glared at me and Makayla held him as if she were protecting him from my evil self.
Makayla asked the other day, “how old do I have to be to drive a car?”
“Sixteen,” I said, “but you won’t drive a car. You’ll have a pogo stick because they don’t need gas.”
She was furious. When we were talking about her future, I told her, “let me tell you something about when you grow up. You can’t live here. You have to go get your own house and not ask me for money.”
“I’m going to live with you forever and I will always ask you for money,” she said seriously.
“You’ll have to get your own money,” I told her.
“How?”
“Plant a money tree and hope it grows.”
“No. I’ll have to get a job like you and Matt. And I have to go to college so I won’t be poor.”
“And so you can take care of me when I’m old.”
“You’re already old.”
She asked me the other day when she would get boobs.
“Do you want boobs?” I asked her.
“No. They’re weird looking.”
“You’ll probably get boobs when you’re twelve or thirteen. Sorry. Every girl has to get them. I didn’t like mine either but you learn to live with it.”
“Then why did you get fake ones in there?” she asked, poking one of my boobs.
“Because you and your brother destroyed them with all your breastfeeding. I wanted them to look more like they did before I had you guys.”
“They’re just boobs, Mom,” she said rolling her eyes at me, “I’m not getting boobs. Ever.”
Ok then.
Earlier today, after the whole closet fiasco, I was looking for Makayla and couldn’t find her. I called for her and looked all over the house and was becoming alarmed that she had escaped or something when I found her sitting in her closet.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
She looked embarrassed and said, “I don’t want to say.”
“Are you pretending to go somewhere?” I asked her.
“I thought maybe my closet would really work,” she said.
“Where are you trying to go?”
“To Heaven to see Uncle Shonie. I miss him and want to give him another penny.” When uncle Shonie was on the ventilator and Mom and Makayla were on their way from Utah, Makayla told me, “I found a lucky penny for Uncle Shonie and I’m going to give it to him when I see him.” She didn’t make it on time to give it to him and my grandparents helped her place her penny under his hand at his viewing.
“I was just kidding when I said we could really go places through the closet,” I told her as I entered the closet with her and sat down, slightly worried that a spider might be lurking around somewhere, “but we can close our eyes and use our imagination and go anywhere we want. We can go together.”
We held hands and closed our eyes and she pretended to go see her Uncle Shonie.
“He is playing football right now,” she said, “We’ll have to wait until he’s done. We can maybe eat ice cream while we wait.”
I wondered if it was wrong to pretend to be in Heaven but I shrugged it off. Uncle Shonie loved football and when Makayla asked me what Heaven was like, I said, “I think Heaven is a place where everyone gets to do all the things they love and anything they can ever imagine.”
“Then Uncle Shonie is playing football with the angels and flying,” she had told me.
After she decided Uncle Shonie was done playing football, she said, “Hello Uncle Shonie! I have another penny for you. I love you and miss you.” She chatted and then said that we would be going to ride a roller coaster. I suggested Six Flags but she shot me down and said we’d be going to Disney World. We swayed and she shrieked while we pretended to ride roller coasters and then she decided we would fly. We defied gravity for a while and she asked to play Mario Brothers.
“For real or in our imagination?” I asked like a moron.
“For real, Mom. It’s hot in here.”
I set it up for her and got to work writing this. As she played her game, when Mario climbed up a beanstalk to go get coins in the clouds, she said, “You’re in Heaven now, Mario. Go say hi to Uncle Shonie.”
I have kept a very close eye on how Makayla has coped with the death of Uncle Shonie. She draws lots of pictures of him in Heaven and draws pictures of him playing football. She has become attached to a pillow pet he gave her for Christmas and cuddles with it a lot. Yesterday, while I helped Grandma with her thank you letters, Grandma was talking about the pallbearers. Makayla wanted to know what pallbearers are and we explained that they were the people who carried Uncle Shonie’s casket. She drew a picture of the pallbearers carrying the casket and drew Uncle Shonie in his casket and showed us where she had drawn the penny in her picture. Grandma and Grandpa and Matt and I let her know it was a lovely picture and told her she did a great job. I am very proud of her and who she is and she inspires me with her spirit and natural cheerfulness. I like how curious she is and even though I am very much a silly goon and she is very much a logical, literal, serious type of person, I wouldn’t change a single thing about her.
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