"I think I'll make my Mother's Day gifts ahead of time!" India announced merrily one afternoon a few weeks ago, laying her containers of Model Magic out on the table.
[An aside: That is how you can tell she is Warren's child. She is a capital-P Planner. I, on the other hand, am guaranteed to forget Mother's Day unless I happen to pop into the drugstore beforehand for some Tums and then am confronted by the card display rack when OH HOLY CRAPBALLS IT'S MOTHER'S DAY dammitdammitdammit will the cards make it on time if I buy the cards and mail them RIGHT friggin' NOW?!?][Actually, I did send mine this year, thank you very much.] [But only because I had to go to the drugstore for something else anyway and then I remembered.]
[Another aside: I hereby nominate the inventor of Model Magic for canonization, or at least a Nobel Peace Prize, that peace being within the walls of my happy home. Oooh, I loves me some Model Magic: So clean! So non-crumbly! So easy to take out and put away!!! The inventor of Play-Doh is going to have to be satisfied with a century or two in Purgatory, while I will gladly stoke the flames of whatever eternal fires roast the bones of the creator of Moon Sand. Why? It's in the very name: Moon SAND. Who...WHO thought it would be a good idea to create a toy that mimics the texture AND scattering capacity of damp sand??? Did someone go for a stroll along a beach and think, "Hey, you know what people really like? They really like walking across the floor and getting sand all over their feet!" Because that person? Would be identically WRONG. When the girls were little, they couldn't have Moon Sand because the baby would eat it, and when the girls got older, they couldn't have Moon Sand because it wound up in every crack and crevice in the floor before transferring to the bottoms of my feet, upon which point I stuck it on top of the fridge way in the back where they couldn't see it until they forgot about it and I could throw it out. So you're welcome, American Psychiatric Association, for the future therapy sessions my girls will no doubt require to get over being deprived of developmentally appropriate play materials because their mother can't stand the feeling of grit on her feet.]
Anyway, I digress. Soon Celeste joined in the fun, and at the end of one of the pleasanter pre-dinner-hours we've spent together, they presented me with their magnum opi. (Sorry. I can't even think about typing "magnum opuses". My high school Latin teacher would hunt me down and kill me, and even though she's a retired nun who stands about four-foot-ten, I'm still terrified of her.) Here is India's:
No, I don't know why the picture insists on turning sideways. Damn you, Picasa! And curse you, Warren, for downloading Picasa, which won't let me use our old and perfectly fine photo software!
Does this not just scream "first born child"? There is nothing - nothing - out of the box with my elder girl, who is, for all intents and purposes, a very conventional child. Who is this for? MOM. What is the appropriate emotion? LOVE. The applicable symbolism? A HEART. Done and DONE.
Then Celeste proferred her wares.
Here is gift #1:
I would give you some kind of noun, proper or not, to describe this, but I'm sadly bereft of words. Is it a polka dot? A mushroom cap? A genetic sport of a ladybug, sans wings? I dunno. But wait! There's more!
Gift #2:
Again with the sideways. Sorry, folks.
"Here you go, Mommy!" Cici chirped, placing the above... object in my hand and running off. Let's look at it again:
It's some kind of ...oblong... thing. With one big - what? eyeball? - on its... head? arse?
Wait, let's take one more look:
Then it struck me. My daughter, in celebration of Mother's Day, made me, with her very own hands.....
...........wait for it..............
.....a one-eyed trouser snake.
Because nothing says "I love you" on Mother's Day quite like a Freudian gesture.