Birthdays n' Such Redux: Part II

As I mentioned in my last post, there is a large difference between the girls and their maturity level, despite their closeness in age.  Shay is happy to remain the baby, while Mo strives to be much older than she actually is.  This isn’t to say that Shay still only speaks in baby-talk, she just continues to embrace the things which she enjoyed when she was younger and has little sense of urgency to move on.  Mo, on the other hand, fights these “childish” urges and tries desperately to grasp the nuances of being older.  While this can be extremely distressing as a father, it’s also hilarious to see her dip a toe into a pool of maturity that is much too deep for her, especially since she really wants to go back to the shallow end of the kiddie pool with her sister.  Maybe I’m wrong, but this duality doesn’t seem entirely unnatural for a third grade girl.  It is this age that boys are still very, very much little boys, and girls begin to sprout in all directions, both physically and mentally. 

This was painfully clear when I was at that age as well. 

Every summer, between the ages of six and eighteen, I swam competitively (using a very loose definition of “competitively” here) for the Leawood Country Club Swim Team.  It was a little summer league that had practices weekday mornings beneath the humid haze of a heavy, orange Midwestern sky, and every sweltering Thursday evening, we’d have meets against another local team.  I remember hoping that on these meet nights, the rumblings in the darkening steel gray sky would coalesce above the pool, cancelling the dreaded 50 yard butterfly event for which I was miserably warming up.  It seemed the weather gods were never on my side, however, and that they took great joy in witnessing a self-conscious fat kid in a Speedo flail away to the point of laughable premature exhaustion.  These fickle gods would then cruelly decide to let loose their pent up energy just as that half dead chubster pulled himself from the pool, searching frantically for a towel with which to cover up before anyone could see him spilling from the top of his swim suit.  For those lucky enough to be entered in a backstroke event later in that crackling night, their events would be called off due to lightning just as the June bugs were committing mass suicide upon the surface of the pool.

In this summer swim league, there were two levels of competition, Novice and Level II.  These levels were set for certain age groups.  It was always a good year when you were at the upper end of your age group, and it was always shitty when you had to move up a group.  When a kid had to move up a group, he or she spent the entire summer trying to make his or her new Level II times. 

Well, I spent those first summers in a new age group doing this.

Most of my friends just jumped in the pool that first meet and crushed their Level II times, and for the rest of the summer, got to compete against other kids who were as good as they were.

I spent most of the summer swimming against kids who were new to the sport or were incomprehensibly un-athletic.  I distinctly remember looking over at a kid before the start of a race who was crying because he couldn’t figure out how to put on his goggles.   

That kid beat me by the way.

It was like I was some kind of gatekeeper to competence.  “If you can beat that fat kid, then you can swim with your friends.”  Kids got on the block next to me absolutely determined to beat me, because God damn it, they weren’t going to lose to this guy.

Regardless, I remember that around the third grade, the Level II times for girls were harder to achieve than they were for the boys.  In other words, the girls were maturing and swimming a lot faster than we were.  The most epic race I ever had was a “combined heat,” with a ten year old girl mounting the block next to me.  “Don’t worry,” my coach said.  “She’s just in this heat because there aren’t any girls on the other team to swim the butterfly.  You aren’t competing against her.”

Yeah.  BULL.  SHIT.

As I watched her little sinewy body whip her arms around, stretch, hop, and splash water on herself in some kind of cruel game of intimidation, I thought I was going to puke.  I had bigger boobs than she did for God’s sake. 

The starter told us to get on the blocks.  I looked over and she was still doing her little show. 

That’s when I told myself that I would either beat this girl or die. 

We took our marks, and my whole body was shuddering with nerves.  I probably looked like a water bed in an earthquake crouching there, but I didn’t care. 

The gun went off, and I never swam as hard as I did that night.  My coach later joked that she should put a girl next to me every time.  I ended up beating her and getting my coveted Level II time.  I reacted as if I had won gold at the Olympics. 

That girl was not impressed with my peacocking.

In any event, I got to compete and continuously get the shit kicked out of me by my friends the rest of the summer.  But damn it, at least it was Level II, and I didn’t have to swim against any more girls.

I guess my point is that girls at that age are light years ahead of boys, and our Mo is meeting that standard.  She’s getting taller every day, she already wears the same sized shoe as Amy, and is beginning to dwarf her sister in more ways than just stature. 

Last time I described Shay’s birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese’s.  This party stands in stark contrast to Mo’s birthday sleepover.

For weeks and weeks prior to her party, Mo made lists of those girlfriends who would be invited to her sleepover.  We had told her she could only invite “a few friends,” which she took to mean that she had to choose between her friends who would be invited.  Amy was alarmed to discovered a piece of paper with a bunch of names written down, complete with cross-outs, re-circles, double cross-outs, etc., as she agonized over which select girls would make the party cut.  Then we told Mo that she absolutely could not leave anyone out or make it some kind of popularity contest.  She could not hold the invitation over anyone’s head, nor could she take back an invitation already given.  We told her how unfair it was to do this, and that people who do such a thing ultimately end up with no friends.  Mo, being a smart girl, understood this, and promised not to be a jerk about it.  “But, that means then, I’ll have to invite more than ‘a few’ people.”

Hmm.  Did she leave this paper for us to find?  Did she anticipate our reaction to such activities?  My God, was she…working me?  Probably.  But she had us in a corner, so we agreed to let her invite up to ten girls.

Ten.  Girls.

If you’ve read last year’s account, you’d probably think that I’d learned my lesson.  But I hadn’t.  This kid has me wrapped around her little finger, and it freaks me out.  My daughters can work me like Einstein could work a physics problem.  The difference is that physics is no father.  Unlike physics, I’m fully aware of my manipulator, this child with her big doe eyes and her demure nature.  But that’s only half the time, because she’s testing the waters of growing up.  Every so often she’ll come into a room with the meekness of a child.  And every so often she’ll come into a room with the swagger of a teenager. 

I don’t like it when she comes into a room as a teenager.  Usually it pisses me off.  I don’t know what to do with a teenage girl (much like my cluelessness in high school).  I have absolutely zero ability to understand the life and death urgency of every single transient idea or need that passes through her brain.  She’ll walk into a room and say, “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Um, can I, um, (insert something asinine here)?”

“Why do you need (some asinine thing)?”

“Because, um, there’s this girl who, um…”

And now I’m zoned out.  It’s like all of a sudden she’s speaking Chinese.  Her mouth keeps moving, her hand motions convey the importance of what she desires, but I have absolutely no way of understanding what the hell is going on.  Shay doesn’t do this yet.  I mean, sometimes she’ll be talking and I zone out simply because she’s making noise just to make noise.  Half the time it’s about a Basset hound she saw on TV or a bird’s nest she saw at school. 

“…so can I?”

“…can you…what?”

“Uuuuuugh!  Daaaaad!  Weren’t you listening to me?”

“No.”

“Well, I wanted to know if I can invite Jenny and Kaylee!”

“Why couldn’t you?”

“Daaaad!  Because you said I could only invite ten girls, and now Kaylee wants to come because she and Sandra got mad at each other and now Jenny and me, we’re friends with Kaylee now, and…”

“Aaaah!  Okay!  Jesus!  Man I don’t care about the back story.  Figure it out, invite her, don’t invite her, whatever.  Okay?”

“Huuuugh.  Fiiiiine.”

And so the list grew to eleven girls.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to a half hour before girls are supposed to start showing up.  Amy had spent the better part of the day hanging paper decorations, and, believe it or not, getting a fondue pot ready.

Mo said she absolutely had to do fondue at her party.  What?  Was this a key party in 1974?  Whatever.  I mean, a pot of molten chocolate at the center of a table with eleven little girls jabbing at it all at once with sharp sticks?  What could go wrong?

As Amy was setting all this up, I walk into the living room and see Mo sitting at the coffee table diligently making some kind of list.

“What’re you doing?”

“Making a schedule.”

“A schedule?  For what?”

“Uuuugh!  Daaaad!  For the party!”

“Okay, but, what all are you scheduling?  I mean, we have food, cake, presents, movies, fon-damned-due…”

“Yeah, but, I need to put it in order.”

“Oh, okay.  Can I see the list?”

Without looking at me she shot her arm out and grudgingly extended the paper.  I looked at it and began to laugh.

She scoffed, making a sound like dog hacking up a gut full of grass.  “What are you laughing about, Dad?”

“Mo.  Seriously.  Look at this.  I think you’re over-thinking this whole thing.”

The list was as follows:

5-6:  Friends get here / resepshun!

6-7:  Hang out!

7-8:  Eat pizza!

8-8:15 : Sing happy birthday to me! (I guess she wanted a really, really long birthday song)

8:15-9 : Eat cake and open presents!

9-9:30:  Fondoo!

9:30-10: Kerryokey in mom’s room!

10-11:  Dance party / fashin show!

11-12: Movies!

12-1:  Talk about boys!!! (But NOT JORDAN)

She was still thinking about what to do after the scheduled boy talk.  “What do you mean I’m over-thinking it?”

“Well, honey, what if your friends don’t want to do things in that order?  What if they want to talk about, ugh, boys, earlier than that?  I understand having a loose schedule for a party, but you’re going to tell your guests what to talk about and when?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s my party!”

“Oh, honey, you don’t have a party for yourself.  A person has a party for their friends, even if the occasion is something for you.  In other words, it’s your job to make sure they’re having a good time at your birthday party, not the other way around.  Do you understand?”

She stared at me as I’m sure I must have stared at her a hundred times.  Like I was some foreign, ridiculous clown of a man that had just told the world’s worst joke in Portuguese. 

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to be in here all night, or are you going to, like, go somewhere else for the party?”

Now, I had had every intention of hiding away in the garage until Amy needed help with something, but her little pre-pre-teen oh-so-much-cooler-than-my-dad attitude got me all riled up.

“No, I’m staying here in the house.  With you girls.  All night.  Because I really, really want to talk about how cute Jordan is.”

“Blllaaaaaahh!  Daaaaaad!  How do you know who Jordan is?”

“Because he was on your weird little fascist party schedule.”

“Huh?!?”

“Nothing.  Never mind.  No, I’m not going to be with you girls when you’re having your giggle party.  I’m going to be in the garage, so don’t worry.”

“What a relief,” she muttered, but of course loud enough to be sure I had heard it.

“Hey.  Mo.  Watch that attitude garbage.  It isn’t too late to call this shin dig off.  Got me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good.  Now, I’m out of here before my head explodes.  You’re Mom’s problem now.  Have fun!”

“We will.”

Right at the start of the party, Amy had to go off to Walgreens or some other errand, so I took over the meeting of parents and collecting contact information duties.  Much like last year, parents were quick to drop their kids off and run away to their idling cars with glee. 

Last year I didn’t understand it.  This year I do.

And much like last year, there was a problem girl.  Now, I am proud that Mo doesn’t seem to pick sides in these little third grade political conflicts between groups of friends.  We had told her earlier to invite people she wanted to be there, even if they weren’t getting along with someone else.  “But what if they get mad at me?” she had asked.

“Then tell them that you have invited all your friends and want her to be there, but if she can’t manage to get along with everyone then she probably shouldn’t come.  Leave it to her to decide.  It isn’t your job to make the peace.  This isn’t Camp David and you aren’t Jimmy Carter.”

“Okay.”

Well, of course, one little girl showed up and was shocked to hear that Mo had invited, let’s say, Stacy.  I heard this little girl say, “Oh, Mo, I can’t be here if Stacy is here.  We don’t get along.”  Mo glanced up at me and then said,

“Well, if you have to go, then I guess you can go, but I wish you would just stay and have fun.”

Good.  Job.

So the girl agreed to give it a try, and soon thereafter Stacy came blowing in like a whirlwind of attitude.  Her mother had simply dropped her off and then zoomed away before I had a chance to introduce myself. 

I guess she wasn’t too concerned.

For the majority of the night, from the garage I could hear screaming, laughing, doors slamming, music playing, Amy admonishing and calmly correcting (I could hear the annoyance edging in her voice just below the surface, but she kept it together extremely well), shrieking, singing, stomping, knocking, banging, crashing (followed by a series of muffled and urgent questions from Amy), and many, many other inexplicable noises.

But I kept to myself in the garage, letting it all play out.

That is, until I went inside for something and I heard my friend Stacy telling a weepy Shay that “she didn’t’ play with babies” and that Shay should just go in the other room and watch a “baby movie.” 

Now, Mo hadn’t noticed this exchange, otherwise I’m pretty sure Mo would have at least said something.  Mo isn’t the most protective person of her sister, but their bond is still pretty tight, especially due to their previous circumstances.  I know Mo gets annoyed with her sister, but it was a testament to her maturity on the matter when Shay asked Mo if she could go to her party and Mo said, “Of course you can, sissy! (this is what they call each other, short for sister, not to mock one another)”  Anyway, seeing as Shay was on the verge of tears, I stepped in and told Stacy that if I heard her leaving anyone out again, I’d call her mom and have her take her home.  The girl just kind of stared blankly at me for a moment, then turned around and started talking to someone else. 

I did not like this kid.

The little girl who at the beginning of the party had said she didn’t want to stay if Stacy was going to be here gave me a little knowing look of “I told you so,” and I smirked, rolled my eyes and nodded, the universal sign for “okay, okay, you were right.”   The little girl grinned widely at me and went back to talking to her friend.    

As the night dragged on, the noise began to subside.  I looked at my watch and saw that it was only around eleven o’clock, which was far earlier than I had expected kids to start winding down.  I snuck inside and found that a weird little division had occurred amongst the ranks, and upon closer inspection I found that there was a definite “cool kids” room and a room for those who had not made the cut. 

Shay was in the left out room, alongside a few other awkward girls who were smaller, meeker, and obviously not as advanced as the other girls.

Mo was in the cool kids’ room.

And guess who had the proverbial keys to the kingdom of cool?  Ah, you guessed it.  Stacy.

I opened the door to the popular room and saw the girls sitting in a circle, absolutely rapt with whatever Stacy was telling them.  I sure as hell didn’t like where this was going. 

“Mo?” I called from the doorway.

All the girls spun around, looking somewhat surprised and slightly embarrassed at what was going on, perhaps knowing that they had left people out simply to please this Stacy girl.  All seemed embarrassed except, of course, Stacy, who shot me a nasty look.

How dare I interrupt her?

I nearly came unhinged at that point, but kept cool under Stacy’s icy (and somewhat bemused, which somehow pissed me off even more) gaze. 

“Yes?” answered Mo.

“Why are you all separated?  Why are your sister and some of her friends in one room while the rest of you are in here?  Are you talking about Jordan?” 

This was a bit of a misstep, because the onslaught of protests and moans of disgust rose up like the din of the dying from a spent battlefield. 

“No, Dad!  We’re not talking about Jordan!”

My God?  Who is this Jordan kid?  Either he’s the ugliest kid on earth or just the opposite.  It’s hard to know.

“Fine, fine.  But why…”

Stacy piped up.  “Because they’re babies and we don’t hang out with babies.”

Fire fire fire fire fire….

“Stacy, I think it’s time for you to go home.  Come on.  We’re going to call your mom.”

She just sat there staring at me, her eyes now wide.  Something had changed when I mentioned her mother coming to get her.  Her whole house of flimsy cards was crumbling.  The rest of the kids just stared at me with open mouths.

“Now, Stacy.  Right now.  Let’s go.”

Mo started to protest.  “Dad, but, I…”

“I’m really, really sorry Mo.  Seriously.  But we can’t have this.”

Stacy slowly rose to her feet, and as we exited the hallway, I asked if she knew her mother’s number (remember, this was the person who hadn’t bothered to check in and meet me, so I didn’t have her information).  She said she did, but began to ask me if I would please, please not call her mom and have her come get her, that she’d be good.

Something in this girl’s tone got to me and ratcheted down my anger.  Amy and I have been trained to recognize troubled kids, and while this girl didn’t really exhibit all the signs, she certainly had some.  Mainly anxiety about her parents.  I mean, we all have (or had) anxiety about our parents when we were kids, and if a parent ever called my mother in the middle of the night to have her come get me because I was being uncooperative, I’d have gotten my ass beat.  But something…well, I relented.

“Seriously Stacy, no more of this stuff.  This is our house and you are a guest.  You will follow our rules or you won’t be invited back again.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Go on.  Send Mo out.”

Stacy went to get Mo, who finally emerged looking so meek that my heart nearly broke.

“I’m really sorry Mo.  I hope that didn’t ruin your night.  But there are just some things…”

“I know Dad, it’s fine.”

“Okay.  Good.  Thank you.  Now, why don’t you go in to the other room with your sister and tell them to come into your room.  I’m counting on you to take charge of this party now.  Don’t let anyone tell you how this is going to go.  It’s your party, not Stacy’s.”

A twinkle came to her eye, and I knew she had me on something.  “I thought you said I was supposed to do whatever my guests wanted.”

“You’re right, I did.  But you can be a leader without being a dictator.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it.  You’ll learn.  Now go on.”

The rest of the night went on pretty much quietly after that.  All the girls played together, no one was left out, and before bed they were all in a circle talking. 

Stacy was quiet.

I poked my head in to tell them it was time to get under one of the probably twelve blankets and comforters strewn about and go to bed.  “I think you girls can talk more about Jordan later.”

Again came the cries, and I laughed.  Man, I really need to find out about this poor kid.

In the morning, all the parents showed up promptly at nine to retrieve their kids.  They all asked how it had gone, and I told them it all went fine.

All the parents came on time except one.  Stacy’s.

At ten thirty, Stacy was still sitting on our couch quietly watching television.  It turned out that Amy had Stacy’s mother’s number all along and she decided to text her to see why she was now an hour and a half late.  The woman replied that she had “just woke up” and that she would be there soon.

At eleven Amy’s phone chimed with a text, and it was Stacy’s mother.  “It’s freezing. Can you just send her out?”

Amy nearly lost her shit at that point, but I convinced her to stay behind because I was sure she was going to have it out with this woman (who, perhaps not all that surprisingly, had failed to even provide Stacy with birthday present to bring.  Stacy told Mo that she had bought her a tablet but that someone had stolen it before she could give it to her.  This kinda broke my heart).  I walked out with Stacy, opened the car door for her and peered in at this woman.  She was smoking with the car windows up, looked hung over, and just gazed at me with glassy eyes. 

Stacy’s mom did not have it going on.

“Thanks for having her,” she muttered.

“Sure,” I said, glaring at her.  I barely had Stacy’s door closed when the woman sped off.

I guess all this struck home because Stacy is most likely an “at risk” child.  Perhaps not physically, or maybe not even financially (she was driving a pretty nice car, but that can be deceiving), but most likely there’s some form of deep dysfunction there.  And I can’t help wondering what would have happened to Mo and Shay had the state never gotten wind of their situation.  Maybe they’d be the difficult children at a birthday party.  Maybe they’d be the ones who would have to lie about how the present they had bought was stolen and that’s why they had shown up empty handed.  I mean, we’re not perfect, but at least the girls know we’ll be there to pick them up.  Always. 

Well.

So ends the Tale of Two Birthdays.  Both had a ton of fun in the end, and despite my endless bitching on the subject, it was so good to see the girls laugh and dance and have friends. 

And GROW. 

My God, these kids are growing fast.  Last year at this time Shay just had these little stumpy toddler legs.  Now she’s almost as tall as her sister and is actually running faster than Mo.  And Mo…I mean, as crazy as it makes me, is just getting older and trying so hard to navigate her wants, needs, emotions, hormones, ambitions, social connections…so much is on her mind it is startling.  The questions she asks oscillate between the absurdly childish to the shockingly adult.  What a time.  But how to help her through it?  Is it something that requires a great deal of guidance, or is it like that tired old story about the moth that has to fight its way out of its chrysalis in order to force the blood to its wings, and to help it is to doom it to a flightless life?  Where’s that balance?

Man.  No wonder I’m going gray.