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Yesterday, I popped over to our neighborhood high school to finish the registration process for Sam. As I parked, I realized how different it felt to do it for the third time. When I registered Aidan, I literally felt nauseated as I walked to the building, noting boys with beards and F-bombs flying. How would my firstborn survive four years in such a scary place, with tall hormonal people? The building symbolized the last stop before flying the nest and I was about to willingly sign papers stating I wanted her there, to do just that.
I wasn’t ready for her to be in high school because she had just completed Pre-K at Kids of the Kingdom Preschool, like, two days before.
And although it feels like Sam just completed Pre-K at Kids of the Kingdom Preschool, high school feels much less like a daunting, frightening stew of fuzzy faces, college nights, bad drivers, and hormones. I didn’t feel nervous. I’m over it because I have seen it isn’t as bad as I feared. He didn’t have school, so he went with me. I asked if he was nervous and he looked at me like I was nuts. No way. It’s just a school.
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Later in the morning, we went to the zoo. The older kids weren’t thrilled about going. I told them how when I was a kid, we went once every two or three years and it was a highlight of our visits to Denver. Maybe it was special because we hardly went? Now, it’s not any more exotic than going to a grocery store in a different neighborhood. It’s the same place, but has a slightly different floor plan. You don’t get all excited because the bread is along the right wall instead of the left. It’s the same zoo, but today, the polar bear is sleeping behind a different rock.
I knew they would have fun once we got there, and they did. It was chilly, so the animals were more active than usual. We went into Bird World and Tropical Discovery. One of the best things is watching my little guys watching animals. Ollie shrieked at little black monkeys with long tails. He pointed and talked to colorful fish and swimming turtles. Teddy exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!” when he spotted a sea anemone in a tank, smothered in a dozen clownfish. These are things we don’t see in Colorado.
But we see squirrels, daily. Hourly. You can’t look outside without spotting the fabulously-tailed rats scampering along our back fence or in a tree, teasing our dogs. They are about as uniquely special as a Big Mac.
But that didn’t stop Teddy from becoming fired up at the sight of squirrels bounding all over zoo grounds. He pointed them out as if they were as wondrous as an elephant, as majestic as a lion. In fact, we were in the giraffe house only feet away from four towering monoliths of spotted hair and dinner plate-sized eyes when he wandered away. He stood at a long, narrow window and looked outside onto the south lawn. “A squirrel!” he screamed.
My husband and I looked at each other and at the giraffes, amazed. It seems like there should be some sort of idiom about not seeing the giraffes because of the squirrels.
Maybe we need to move to a place where giraffes forage in our backyard and have showdowns with our dogs. They’d eat our Christmas lights and plums. And when we visit the zoo, we will lose our minds when we see them.
Like most children of the 70s and 80s, my siblings and I had a subscription to Highlights for Children. It’s quite possible my mom still gets it because unsubscribing from Highlights would be like punching Mr. Rogers. It’s untouchable wholesomeness is unparalleled. Even the most hardened criminal in the state pen knows it’s better to be Gallant than Goofus. I wonder if moms of that era felt intense pressure to subscribe as a Good Mom thing? Nothing changes.
One particular Highlights issue stood above all the others. I know it was October. I can’t remember if it was 1980 or 1981. I read it over and over again because of a story that terrified me. Usually, Highlights stories are about how kids band together to help Grandpa clean up the park as he tells them about Flag Day. This story was different.
The heroine’s name was Penelope. I read it as “Pen-lope” though, so there was a period of my life when I thought about naming my future baby girl Penlope. You are welcome, Aidan and Beatrix. Penelope’s saga gripped me because I had the crookedest teeth this side of the North Pole. My upper teeth came in behind my baby teeth, so when I lost them my bite was completely jacked up. I had teeth coming in sideways. I had one buried under bone. It was as if someone told me to open my mouth, then they shook up a box and poured teeth in. Where they landed was what I had to work with. Braces were in my future and the idea made my blood run cold.
They looked painful, like bear traps fashioned out of barbed wire. Teenaged babysitters and older siblings of friends made them sound like pure hell on earth. Why would anyone willingly spring-load a tender pink mouth? Crooked teeth had character. Laura Ingalls probably had crooked teeth, and if it was good enough for her, it should be good enough for all.
Penelope had terrible teeth, too. Her story was about the day she got braces. It went well, but her mouth was sore after. So very sore! She had pointy bits of wire she had to put wax on to stop the pain. She couldn’t eat normal foods. Her parents sold her little brother to pay for them. That part may not have happened, but the rest of the story gripped me. I read it over and over, trying to pull some kind of hope, determination, or information out of a two-page story, with illustrations.
I was only about ten when I read the story. By the time I got my braces—at age fourteen—I was much less afraid and much more vain. I always remembered Penelope and her braces, though.
Yesterday, Joel, our ten-year-old, got braces. Poor guy is the apple to my tree and he fell close enough for me to pick it up and hurl it at Dorothy. He didn’t have Penelope to guide him. When asked how he felt about them, he’d say, “Nervous-cited!” Nervous and excited! He only has them on the top, for now, to correct his own crazy bite issues.
Like Penelope, me, and everyone who has ever had braces, he’s in pain today. I dosed him with some ibuprofen before school and hope it’s lasting the day for him. He has a little red box of wax. He’s eating softer foods. He still has all of his little brothers.
But most of all, he was brave. My ten-year-old stacked up against ten-year-old me was much more composed and assured about this milestone. I was and am impressed by his ability to take it all in stride.
I’m pretty sure he’s Gallant.
There are eleven people living here. Two dogs. One Roborovski hamster, aka Phodopus roborovskii. She’s new around here and her name is Doris Day. The name struck me when I looked at her face and coloring. Blonde, with big eyes and a big smile. The shopping montage from That Touch of Mink popped in my head. Twinsies. So far, she is called Doris Day, Doris, Dori, and The Hamster. We are trying to leave her alone for a bit so she can acclimate to her new surroundings. Her cage is set up on Beatrix’s dresser. It’s colorful and Doris seems to be settling in okay. I just checked on her. She’s burrowed next to her little food bowl, which would be like me unfurling a sleeping bag next to the refrigerator. Handy.
I spent this morning watching several YouTube videos on caring for and taming “Robo” hamsters. Several commenters were predictably sad they are not, indeed, robot hamsters. They are the smallest of the dwarf hamsters, which describe their size, not their proclivity toward mining, battling Orcs, or sharing homes with strange runaway girls. Robos are quick, agile, intelligent, and love to dig. Robo hamsters are also harder to tame than other hamsters.
Last night, Beatrix and I stood and watched Doris run in her big plastic green wheel. Her legs moved so quickly, you couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Then, Doris jumped off and ran to every corner, through her food bowl, and used the nozzle on her water bottle to try to scale the outside of the wheel.
“Doris Day is a ninja.” Beatrix whispered.
It was one of those moments where you know that sentence has never, ever been said in human history.
It was also one of those moments mental pictures spring to mind. I thought of Miss Day, wrapped in mink, bringing a gang of miscreants to their knees with stealthy moves. They fall in a circle around the hem of her shimmering evening wear. She takes Cary Grant’s arm and they jet to Bermuda.
Eventually, I convinced Beatrix it was time to sleep. I warned her how Doris might be up during the night, playing and eating because she doesn’t share our sensible affinity for daytime partying and nighttime snoozing. “Hamsters are nocturnal.”
“It’s funny that she’s named Doris Day, then.”
I agreed. It’s just funny, all around. When Beatrix woke up that morning, she had no idea she’d be happily sharing her room with anyone. Especially a ninja.
 You will never see her coming…
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