Jan
06

Seasonal, Belated.

The holidays were lovely, here. I mean, it doesn’t get much better than a baby in fake hair, does it?
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I had Christmas Eve pasta at my brother’s/mother’s house, alternately gazing up at the giant tree festooned with familiar ornaments and watching my daughter discover our old wind-up toys beneath the branches. Simone developed a bizarre obsession with Ray Charles, and worked on her dancing (adding a slow, deliberate twirl.)

Having remembered a tearful and unattractively petulant pre-Christmas screed about how there wasn’t ANYTHING I wanted except more time in the day and a fluffy, welcoming king-sized bed (neither of which I could HAVE, woe unto ME), my mother surprised me with a certificate for the latter. I had a sort of shopping-related seizure at IKEA yesterday, wherein I bought not only the bed and a mattress and bedding but also a dresser and laundry hampers and bookcases to replace our VERY child-unfriendly tottering shelves, all despite the fact that our current furniture is still…here. This will presumably be worked out this weekend by fate, my husband, myself, and Craigslist. I’ve undertaken a massive apartment overhaul, which, while ill-timed, makes me happy. Being under crushing quantities of stress is more difficult when the place where you are supposed to relax is not relaxing. (I’ll post some before and after pictures, once there is an after.)

I wrote through the holidays, while it snowed and snowed. Though my overstimulated toddler required much tiresome wrangling at the family festivities, Schmutzli spared her a beating. I even gave her some presents, most notably a chair and a doll.
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Finding the doll was quite an adventure. Simone is in an affectionate, doll/animal/anything-with-a-face -loving phase, and I wanted to get her something nicer than the tiny “baby” from Target that she carries about, the one with TWO LEFT ARMS, poor unfortunate thing. I thought a doll with hair might appeal to her follicular obsession, and also, yes, give her hair to pull at night besides my own. I like Corolle dolls quite a lot: they are well-made, BPA-free, machine-washable, come in many sizes, and have expressions that are neither creepy nor inappropriately blow-up-doll-esque (I’m looking at YOU, Baby Alive). But have you noticed how many baby dolls have blonde hair and blue eyes?
I have nothing against blonde hair and blue eyes—I have both, myself. But, for whatever reason, it seemed important to me that Simone have a doll that looked like HER, especially given the seeming omnipresence of blue-eyed toys. I know, I know: it’s silly, and even Simone had blue eyes when she was a baby, as most light-skinned newborns do. If I hadn’t been looking at BABY dolls, with hair, there would have been a greater variety, instead of the current triumvirate of Blonde/Blue Eyed Paleface Doll, Black Doll, and Asian Doll. Options were also limited because I wanted the doll to be small enough for her to manage, and thought short hair would be best, to reduce the odds of it becoming a vast synthetic dreadlock. I finally managed to find a discontinued model that was at least Simone-esque (brown eyes, where hers are olive; red hair, where hers is indeterminately colored), though I was given the impression that it is “supposed” to be a boy.

Simone was pleased with my selection. She kisses her baby, and picks at its eyes with affection.
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In fact, Simone was delighted by everything this holiday season—from Duplos to her discovery of apples—the one fly in her ointment being the glasses she refuses to wear. She has an eye appointment next week, so let’s hope it shows that her reluctance is due to improving eyesight rather than rapidly escalating TWO-ness. Her birthday, after all, is next month.
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I find it hard to believe that it has been a decade since 2000, but on the other hand, it seems impossible that I fit so much—my best of times, my worst of times—into only ten slim years. In January of 2000, I was a 20-year-old virgin, home from my first semester of college. I was very certain (and very, very wrong) about what lay ahead for me. It’s so startling when things don’t go at all how you’d planned, and yet manage to turn out better than you’d expected.

I hope you ALL had a happy start to your new year, and that only the very best things follow you through it.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |