Rites of Passage

The Poo looks up at me, hazel eyes glinting in the rosy glow of her bedside lamp.

“Mom,” she says. She pauses, blinks.

“Mom,” she begins again, haltingly. “Why are some kids mean?”

My heart sinks; I know what’s coming. There is a girl at school who figures largely in my daughter’s tales from the playground.

She pushed me today. She said I’m not cool. I’m not lucky because I don’t have sparkly boots like she does.

The child is an equal-opportunity bully. She picks on other children, as well. This I know.

I also know that while I have compassion for those other children, their trials don’t cut me to the core as do the big, sad eyes of my baby girl.

She is so earnest, so literal. It is impossible to explain the intricacies of the social habits of girls. I barely understand the rituals myself, at the wise old age of 38. I am just now beginning to grasp the delicate dance that is female friendship.

How can I explain to my daughter that some girls are just mean?

I skirt the issue.

“Sometimes people are mean because they don’t feel good about themselves inside,” I tell her, smoothing back a rebellious curl. “They say mean things to make themselves feel better about themselves.”

The Poo wrinkles her nose, smelling a load of horseshit. I try again.

“Sometimes people feel sad, and so it helps them feel better if they say mean things,” I say, knowing before the words leave my lips that they ring false.

I sigh, pull her in close for a kiss on the mouth.

“Sugar plum, I don’t have a good answer,” I admit. “What I do know is that you are a sweet, kind and generous friend and I love you. I know you would never hurt anyone’s feelings like that.”

I take a breath, and leap.

“You wouldn’t do that, Poo, would you?” I wait for her reply.

“Sometimes, Mama, I am gloomy in the mornings and so I’m not always friendly,” she says, a shadow passing over her face.

My shoulders relax, I smile. “Baby girl, that makes two of us.”

I hand her her books, her ladybug flashlight. I tuck her in and give her kisses. On my way out the door, I stop.

I go back to her, smother her with kisses and squeeze her a little too tightly. I whisper into her neck.

“I love you, baby, and I am so sorry that someone hurt your feelings,” I tell her. “Next time that girl is mean to you, you tell her she’s not the boss of you.”

****

Saturday dawned cold, hard sunlight signaling the change in seasons before we ever stepped foot outside. The Babyman woke with the sunrise, his insistent bleats rousing me from my warm cocoon of sleep and duvet.

I fetched him, the girl followed shortly.

Their father was up and out early for manly things like barbers and football stadiums, leaving me behind to manage soccer practice—and The Babyman’s first haircut.

I fretted, having put this ritual off for as long as possible. I pictured his wild body thrashing in the chair, scissors whisking too close to an ear or a tender cheek.

I rushed the children out of the house, late, always late. We wore jackets over our long sleeves, our breath just barely showing up as a puff on the morning air.

Grimly I carried him to the high, black chair. The stylist, a friend, smiled confidently.

“He is the cutest child I’ve ever seen!” she exclaimed, peeling off her own corduroy blazer. We were the first clients of the day.

The Babyman sat on my lap and leaned back into me. Transfixed, perhaps, by the mirrors and the high drone of the hairdryers, there he rested, quietly, until the first of his babylocks lay at my feet.

Suddenly there emerged a face: blue eyes, thick black lashes. A small but determined chin and a wee, flirtatious dimple in a boyish cheek.

I could see the ghost of the baby I held in my arms just 14 short months ago as the shadow of the boy he will be played tricks on my eyes.

My heart, so full and aching, beat painfully in my chest as I pressed him close to me, whispering.

“My sweet baby, my boy,” I said. “You are such a handsome, handsome man.”