8 posts tagged “juju”
Cassandre lost a tooth at fish camp and came home with it in her pocket. Juju lost her second tooth today. Which makes it a busy week for the tooth fairy and it's costing me a bundle.
I have a checkered career as a tooth fairy. I don't make a very good Easter Bunny or Valentine, either. Thankfully I'm not a bad Santa Claus or there'd be no good holiday around here. It's not hard to be a good Santa as long as you bring presents. While the job sometimes requires assembly, it also requires cookies and milk. It's hard to complain about cookies and milk even at 2am on Christmas Eve.
But to be a tooth fairy requires skill.
The first is memory, something that fades over time, just when you need it the most. Not only do you have to remember that there is a tooth under a pillow somewhere, but you have to remember it during the day so you are sure to have $5 in hand for later. Then you have to remember again that night, after the little children and your obligations have you exhausted and wishing only for sleep. Finally you have to remember which child actually lost the tooth.
You need cat-like stealth. Children who have lost a tooth do not sleep soundly. They are determined to catch the tooth fairy in the act and make sure that, contrary to what their friends have said, the tooth fairy is not you. Any movement, like say a hand sweeping under their pillow looking for a tooth or leaving money, is likely to rouse them from a dead sleep.
Which leads to stamina. In order not to be caught you will have to stay up late, because little children who have lost a tooth cannot be trusted to sleep, even when they look like they're sleeping. They close their eyes and fake it so they can finally witness the magical exchange of teeth for money.
You need to be creative in order to answer questions like "Why does the tooth fairy want MY teeth anyway? What does she DO with them?" Later the questions get tougher: "Why do you have teeth in your jewelry box? Whose tooth IS that? IS IT MINE?" That's right, little children love to snoop and little girl children love nothing more than to snoop in their mama's jewelry box.
Last night's tooth fairy mission was a total FAIL. Cassandre put her tooth under her pillow and the tooth fairy forgot to come. Cassandre woke up, grabbed the tooth, wiggled it at me and announced with a big smile "You owe me five bucks." Underneath that statement was the understanding that Juju could never find out the truth. I say when you're old enough to blackmail the tooth fairy you're old enough to do laundry and get a real job.
Tonight the stakes are even higher than usual. First because of the previous night's failure, and also because Juju did a test run with the tooth fairy last night in the form of a written tattle. She left a note for the tooth fairy letting her know that her friend Midori left a paper cutout of a tooth under her pillow and the tooth fairy left money for her the next morning. This has offended Juju's sense of right and wrong and her note said:
Dear Tooth Fairy,
Do you know that Midori tricked you?
From Juliette
This morning Juju awoke to a note from the tooth fairy effectively telling her (nicely) to mind her own business. This afternoon the tooth that's been dangling from her gum finally fell out.
Wish me luck.
Scene: Juju and I, waiting for Cassandre to get her rubber bands replaced at the orthodontist.
Juju "What number am I thinking of?"
Me, looking at her fingers "Four."
Juju "Grrrr! Okay what color am I thinking of?"
Me, remembering the red shirt she just brought home from camp today "Red."
Juju, scowling "Huh! What letter am I thinking of?"
Me "L!" (for letter, of course)
Juju, with a big, confused scowl on her face, "How did you KNOW that? What am thinking of NOW?"
Me "You're thinking about what you can think about that I won't know."
Juju "YES!"
Juju, as you may have realized, is somewhat of a daredevil. She loves to slide down banisters, jump speed bumps on her scooter and is trying her best to climb trees. It won't be long before she's tall enough to reach those lower branches herself, in the meantime she's trying to convince all of us to lift her up on our backs. Ow.
Her Kryptonite is water. When she was three or four years old, she was actively ignoring my demand for her to wear her floaty and to stop jumping on the pool steps. She was so stubborn, she refused to believe anything bad could happen. Sooner or later our pool experience was bound to end badly. In fact the odds of it ending badly were so high no bookie on earth would have taken them. Toddler + pool + can't swim x no sense of fear = disaster. Always.
I decided to let it end badly in a way I could control. I stood next to her and watch her jump on the stairs in water she knew was over her head. She didn't mean to go under water of course, she had simply misjudged her ability, and she slipped and ended up on the lowest step. I grabbed her up instantly and she spent less than a second actually under water. I hoped this would give her some common sense but no, to this day she refers to the event as "The Day Mama Let Me Drown."
Since then she's been very reluctant to go in the water with anyone other than me and she still hates her floaty. So we stopped going to the pool. The fight over the floaty and learning how to swim had simply became more trouble than it's worth. But she's six now. It's well past time for her to know how to save her own life, and it's officially time for some summer water fun.
I signed her up for weekly swimming lessons at my gym. When I first called about lessons I didn't know if she should be in level one or level two. The woman on the phone said helpfully, "Well, in level one the kids spend most of their time crying..."
Sold. Level Two.
Juju thought about crying in the car on the way over to the first lesson and she held my hand tightly as we walked to the pool. Right away I could tell that she liked her instructor, Katie, who is blond, cute and a very friendly teenager. A Big Girl. A Very Pretty Big Girl. A Very Pretty Very Big Girl Who is Being Paid to Pay Attention to Juju. Win!
Except for the actually going into the water part.
Me: "Juju, you have to take your shoes off. No really, honey. You can't go in the pool with your shoes on. Even though they're waterproof. Come on baby, let's take them off now."
Juju: silence.
Very slowly she takes off her shoes, but she does not let go of her towel, which she is wearing as a cape.
Me: "Now let go of the towel, baby. You can't go swimming with a towel, right? You can leave that with me, I'll keep it for you." Pause. "Come on Juju, let go. Give me the towel baby, it's time to get in the water. You'll see, it will be warmer in the water than it is on the side of the pool." Longer, more pointed pause. "Okay Juju, really. Katie is waiting for you. Do you want a time out? Juju? We're here for a swimming lesson. Katie wants to play with you and teach you how to swim, this is going to be fun! Okay ONE. Now TWO..." We almost never get to "three" in the timeout countdown these days, but we always get to "two." Testing.
She drops the towel, looks at me and takes Katie's hand. They step into the water together and I sit quietly on the sidelines. I try to make myself invisible without actually being gone. I want to watch, but I don't want to distract her.
It took Cassandre several weeks to put her face in the water when she was starting out (she had a rough time learning to swim too), so I didn't hold much hope that Juju would do it any faster.
Wrong. Juju the Daredevil did it within 10 minutes of entering the pool.
So here at the fly shop we get to see all kinds of interesting and pretty things beyond rods and reels and the kids really love it when the boxes of new stuff come in. They can see the inventory before it goes on the shelves. The fly tying stuff is the best, with its brightly-colored spools of thread, yarn and feathers.
The fly tying area is, in effect, the craft area for the guys (but don't call it that). Instead of scrap booking materials we have vices, thread, tools, feathers and um, a very small amount of animal fur - rabbit to be specific.
While all the fishing we do is catch and release and the flies we use are artificial, we do use real materials - like feathers - in the construction of the flies. Most of these materials are foraged, or are by-products of other commercial activities. Rarely is something ever killed in the name of fly fishing.
Yesterday Juju was in the store, "helping" the staff unpack a box of fly-tying materials when one of the staff members, Ange, decided to play a joke on her. She picked up a rabbit skin and put it in front of her face "Look, Juju! I'm two faced!"
Juju was very confused and her face showed it. She held out her hands to receive the rabbit skin, which, since it was a face, came complete with ears and whiskers. The fact that it didn't have eyes made it even more freaky, if you can imagine that. With eyes it almost could have been some kind of weird, pre-stuffed animal (we've been to Build-a-Bear, we know that some animals need stuffing). But there were no eyes.
Juju looked at the face, then looked at Ange, then back to the face. Finally, she spoke, and with all the disgusted, outraged bewilderment her six-year old voice could muster, she said "Who ARE you people?"
Indeed.
P.s., Thanks for the title Austin! ;-)
As soon as she can read and write (and type), this is going to be great!
When I was pregnant and dreaming of my girl I made little lists in my head of the things I wanted her to inherit from me, along with the things I hoped she wouldn't get.
The list of "good" things was not very long but I did hope she would get my green eyes. These eyes are also my mother's eyes and my sister's eyes and I liked the idea of passing them on. I like that our eye color is so changeable. Sometimes they're blue, other times bright green - especially if we've been crying.
Of course genetics don't listen to wishes and my girl's eyes came out the most beautiful shade of brown, just like her father's.
One thing on my list not to pass along was my extreme reaction to physical trauma - especially if it involves blood. I've had this problem all of my life and it is out of character with the rest of my take-no prisoners personality. Despite lots of internal pep talks, the net result of many minor to moderate injuries has been me fainting. One time a nurse was taking my blood and not only did I pass out, but as a bonus I went into convulsions.
That is not to say that I'm not good in an emergency, I am. During the time of the emergency, when every thing/one is chaotic and panicking, I shine. If no one is taking charge, I take charge. If someone has taken charge I ask them for orders or start taking on jobs. I'm good this way. If you need a ride to the hospital, or a tourniquet, ask me.
The problem comes after the adrenaline has worn off. Once the emergency is over, when everyone is safe and sound, the realization of what I have just seen or done kicks in and I pass out.
Once Xav decided to prune our palm tree with a machete. Before I knew it, he'd put a nine inch palm frond through his finger next to the bone. I wrapped up his hand, drove him to the hospital and took care of everything. I waited until he was admitted and in good hands. I sat on the floor under his gurney listening to the scrape, scrape scrape of scalpel against bone.
And then the bees came.
The bees are my early warning system that I am going away for a while. They start faintly in the background and as they get louder my vision turns to tunnel and before you know it, I'm out. I know the symptoms well enough now to sit down ahead of time, but by the time I can hear the bees I've usually lost the ability to speak. Sometimes I can whisper something lame like "I'm going to..." but not always.
This is not a quality I wanted to pass to my kids.
The other day Cassandre and Juju were rough housing (as usual) when Juju played too hard (as usual) and jumped up and hit her really hard head under Cassandre's chin. Bam! Cassandre bit her tongue and started crying (as usual).
She came into my room and at first I didn't take her seriously. Crying is a tactic of hers to both get attention for herself and to get her sister into trouble and I've learned to take her tears with a grain (or a handful) of salt.
I advised her to calm down, to take a drink of water and to show me her injury. Her tongue was bleeding and there was a visible booboo, but she wasn't able to spit enough blood (despite lots of trying) to make me worry. I informed her with a smile that the tongue heals faster than any other part of the body and that by tomorrow she'll hardly notice a thing.
She looked at herself in the mirror and stuck her tongue out to examine her injury. The next thing I knew she had dropped my ceramic cup into the sink with a loud clang. I started to scold her for being careless when I realized that the rest of her body was crumbling in front of me.
I caught her just before she hit the sink.
I called Xav for help and together we carried her back to our bed. We raised her feet on pillows and put a cool cloth on her forehead. She started mumbling like she was waking up and slowly came to. We made her stay on the bed for a few more minutes but soon she was able to get up and walk around. She was hungry and wanted breakfast. By the time we were finished eating she was completely back to normal so we got in the car and I drove her to school.
On the ride to school I asked her what she felt/saw/heard as she was passing out and she told me about hearing the buzzing.
The bees came for her too.
Our sushi man has quite the creative streak.
This is his version of Mickey Mouse:
I'm not sure which was more interesting, watching him carve every piece and put it all together, or watching Juju take it all apart to figure out how it was made.
::hidingtoasters:::
