The Stranger Things That Have Happened

Posted September 07, 2007

1 |

I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

^{New feature: Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like?
Listen to her read this blog entry.}

Birdy is so stubborn that I am constantly filled with love, grabbing her and squeezing her and kissing her pinkly stubborn cheeks. This is not really an appropriate response to stubbornness -- the same way that my grinning and grinning at Michael is not an appropriate response to his twice-yearly bouts of mild anger. "What?" he says, mildly angry, and I say, trying not to grin but grinning anyway, "Nothing." When he sighs and walks away, I tackle him.

But Birdy. Birdy. Sometimes it's exasperating, her fierce belligerence, but yet so delicious in its strange way. Kind of like anchovies, if you like anchovies, which I do. Like this conversation that we had in the car about the famously controversial topic of macaroni:

Birdy: "Did I used to call it macker cheese?"

Mama: "You used to call it macky cheese."

Birdy: "But it's really mac in cheese."

Mama: "That's right. Mac and cheese -- but we say it mac 'n' cheese."

Birdy: "No, it's mac in cheese."

Mama: "You can say it that way if you like."

Birdy: "It is. It's mac in cheese."

Mama: "Okay, Birdy."

Birdy: "Really Mama. Mac in cheese."

Birdy: "Mac in cheese."

Birdy: "Really. Mac in cheese. Really."

Birdy: "Really."

As one might expect, Ben is not a fan of her stuck-record style of cantankerousness. I walked in on them arguing about Star Wars, just as Birdy was insisting, "It's life saver Ben. Not life tater." Ben had groaned. "Birdy, it's light saber," he corrected, and Birdy said, "Then why did you say life tater?"

Which is a long way of telling you that Ben seems to have kissed the Star Wars Blarney stone. I'm not sure I would have predicted this particular passion, and it's not just that Star Wars is so beige and black when Ben's favorite color is still bright pink. It's that his heart is a tea cozy crocheted out of tenderness. When I pictured him watching, I worried about the suspense and violence of it all: about Luke's family being killed, about the anaconda-infested trash compactor, and Darth Vader's phone-sex style of breathing. But then Ben was unflinching. I'll admit that the movie was way more Atari than I had remembered -- more like a 1975 pip-pock game of Pong than lifelike 2007 intergalactic warfare. And the jokes are so wry, Harrison Ford so young, Princess Leia's hair-do so cream-cheese-Danish. But when I asked Ben why he thought the movie didn't scare him, he shrugged and said, "I guess because there's no suspense with animals."

And this may be exactly true. Earlier that very day, Ben had said, in the voice of the little stuffed beaver he was holding, "Oooh, I'm too chilly! I need cuddles." And then his eyes had filled with tears. You could drop a baby on its head right next to him, and he'd carry on with his finger knitting, humming Yankee Doodle Dandy; he'd sooner soak a doll with kerosene, set it to blazes, and swallow the ashes than kiss its rubbery cheek. But then he once choked up and said "Don't!" to me because I had nuzzled a miniature stegosaurus's nose against his neck and complained, in its croaky old voice, "Benny, I'm extinct!" Even during a Winnie the Pooh movie, he will still squirm and panic if the animals get separated from each other for even a minute or two.

This is exactly how I was as a child: dolls, shmolls -- bring me the animals. And it doesn't describe Birdy at all -- Birdy, whose fierce passion for babies and dolls is a thing to behold; Birdy, who lines all her dollies up in a sleeping row and then shushes us for the tedious long hours of their nap. Birdy, who said to us recently, "When I grow up I just want to be a mama." "Well, you could be a mama and something," we reminded her. "A scuba diver, or a doctor ..." I said. "An astronaut or a dentist!" Ben piped in. And Birdy had thought for a minute, literally scratching her head, and then announced in her stubborn and growly voice, "Then I'm going to be a mama and a stranger."

Member Comments On...

The Stranger Things That Have Happened

Family

Account Warning

Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

The Stranger Things That Have Happened

Member Comments On...