mater facit

I have a headache. I took Kya swimming yesterday. I’m feeling lazy. I have exactly two weeks until I visit Aughra. I’m doing more Obama campaign work this weekend. I’m having dinner with two friends tomorrow evening. I made a payment on my credit card today. I’m glad the Premier League football season will be starting back up very soon. I wish I had more time to read books. I have a lot of friends named Sarah. I would do anything for a cold Hershey’s Bar with almonds, but I wouldn’t do shit for a Klondike bar.

Four years ago today, I was giving birth. To a future Gene Simmons impersonator.

Dear Kya,

Today, at 12:23 pm, you will officially be four years old. I will tell you now that it has been simultaneously the longest and shortest four years of my life.

I can see you really starting to “grow up” right about now - you’re very independent, as you’ve always been, and you’re trying to figure out what you can get away with. You definitely test my patience, a lot, every day, but that’s okay because it’s balanced out by the fact that you’re a really cool kid. Like last night, we watched old episodes of The Simpsons, and then you insisted on watching only the “Symphony No. 6″ segment of Fantasia (the one with the centaurs and Bacchus) three times. But only that segment. And you drew me a scary pumpkin at preschool yesterday - you couldn’t wait to show it to me. You like to dance and make up songs about me ( “Mommmm-eeeee, I loooooove yooooou, I don’t haaaaaaate yoooooou…”) and tell epic, ridiculous stories spanning everything from squirrels to zombies. You are very, very entertaining.

You are also trying to figure out exactly where you are between a baby and a big kid. You still like to be held and sang to and catered to - and I understand, though it’s not always easy because you are really tall and gangly. But you’re getting to be quite adamant about doing things on your own, your own way. Like zipping things up and brushing your teeth and putting straws in juice boxes and brushing your hair and holding Katie Hamster. Last week, though, you decided you wanted to go up the stairs to your room at preschool by yourself, and I got a little verklempt. I guess I’m not entirely ready to give up babying you yet, either.

I imagine often what you’ll be like as you get older. I look for signs that might indicate more about Future You. You keep rhythm really well, maybe you’ll be a drummer? You really like books, maybe you’ll be a librarian? You cry because I won’t let you look at the dead bird in the driveway, maybe you’ll be a coroner? You check in between your toes for fuzz and only want to wear skirts, maybe you’ll be obsessive-compulsive? The most important thing to me, though, is that you have a happy, secure childhood and are surrounded by people who love and nurture you. I have fond memories and fuzzy feelings about my childhood, and that will always stick with me. I know people who don’t, and it has, in one way or another, affected who they are as an adult. I want you to have the warm and fuzzy instead.

Happy Birthday, Kyabug. Thanks for being awesome. I love you.

Okay, here goes… (deep breath) I don’t really care about the new Harry Potter book.

Really. Not at all. I will more than likely never read it, just like I’ve not read any of the others after the second book. I don’t care about how it ends, although Scott has already told me. I loved the first book. I loved the first movie. I don’t remember how I felt about the second book, but I did read it.

It isn’t that I’m against the world of Harry Potter, and I have nothing against all of you who are reading it - don’t get me wrong. I guess what it boils down to is the hype. I don’t like the hype and the frenzy. I find it to be, quite frankly, kind of silly. I guess it’s just a glimmer of the remains of my rebellion against most things popular.