My ten year old, E, is a few weeks away from her eleventh birthday, and she is very busy preparing for the big day. She has created a whole series of lists which she has conveniently left in the middle of the kitchen counter because God forbid she put anything away. The guest list for her birthday party. The list for the theme and party favors. The menu for the picnic. The games she wants to play. Never mind that she isn’t supposed to have big birthday parties anymore. When she turned ten, the big party extravaganzas were to give way to a more subdued and mature celebration of either a few friends going out for dinner and a movie, or maybe one or two girls for a sleepover. I guess I was so distracted by her wish list that I forgot to remind her that the next big birthday party won’t be until her bat mitzvah, and until then, birthdays are meant to be understated affair.
Back to that birthday gift list. When she first started making her list, mere days after her tenth birthday, her wish list was reasonable. She wanted a Timex sports watch, a Razor scooter, and some clothes. I had no problem with the list, except for the fact that she had to wait over three hundred days to get any of it.
Since then, she has morphed into a tween, so her needs and wants have changed. The new number one must have item became a cell phone. I used to tell her, “Who are you gonna call? Me?” but apparently the entire fifth grade, except for E, has one. I am standing by my no. She doesn’t need to text “LOL” to the girl next to her; she can just actually laugh out loud. At least a laugh can’t be taken away by her teacher.
So she changed her list again. This time she wanted a bike. Now, this one I am almost okay with. She got a bike for sixth birthday, and she has kind of outgrown it over the past five years. Of course, she didn’t learn to ride it until about a month ago at ten and a half. Her knees hit her throat with every rotation of the pedals, which made it challenging for her to really ride effectively. My husband was the one who balked at the bike. He doesn’t want to sink the money into something she won’t use, since we have already done that. She won’t get any better at riding, though, with a too small bike. That only works well for Shriners with fezzes. And I insist my kids wear helmets, without tassels.
Next she decided on cash. “For what?” I asked. “For things I need,” she told me. “This isn’t college,” I pointed out. “I buy you the things you need. I am not giving you money to blow on crap.” That didn’t go over well with E. She hates it when we sat her things are crap. But seriously, I am her mom, not her grandmother. I am not cutting her a check for a couple of hundred bucks so she can buy stuff I normally wouldn’t let her. The same goes for gift cards to her favorite stores. I am not giving in that easily.
She moved on to wanting her bedroom redecorated. She went through the Pottery Barn Kids catalog and selected a loft style bed nicer than anyone could make in a college dorm and a matching desk. The loft cost almost two thousand dollars, also more than anyone would spend on a loft for their dorm. I told her that it just wasn’t happening. We moved in our house three years ago, and redecorated her room then, from the cute ladybugs she adored in her old room to the horses she was too scared to ride but loved. My sister even came and painted a horse mural on one wall to match the overpriced bedding and accessories I got her, since she loved horses. Now, three years later, she could care less about horses. She wants a loft bed, and a sitting area, and nothing to do with horses.
I told her, emphatically, that we are not redecorating her room this year, and even if we were, we would not be buying all new furniture. Period. No discussion. If she wants to sit in a sitting area, she has a choice between the bonus room, the living room, or the den. If she wants to sit in her room, I recommend the bed or the floor. And seriously, she is scared of heights. I don’t see her climbing up a ladder every night to go to sleep. I see her, instead, curled up in the fetal position on the floor under her loft, wishing her bed wasn’t so far from the floor.
Now that the big day is drawing closer, however, she has dropped all of that because she has finally decided on what she wants more than anything in all the world. The one thing that she absolutely, positively can’t live without is a dog. She doesn’t want just any dog; she wants a pug, one of those flat faced, curly-tailed, asthmatic, bug-eyed creatures that is kind of like the platypus of the canine world. I do like pugs from the front, with their so ugly they’re cute good looks, but from the back, they have the butthole of a much larger breed, made visible because that curly piggy tail doesn’t cover it. I don’t like to look at an anus and have it look back at me.
E, though, seems okay with a pug butt, although she would prefer I not discuss it. She has even selected the name for this alleged dog, Nubs. Well, Nubs is its nickname. Its full name is Stubby Nubs. Since she dreamed up this vision of the perfect dog, and hence, the perfect birthday gift, Stubby Nubs is all she can think about. She has borrowed my friends’ dogs so she can practice dog care. She is scooping kitty litter to demonstrate her responsibility. She is also driving me bat-shit crazy about this dog, moaning its name at the breakfast table and in the car pool line. I hate Stubby Nubs, and I don’t even know him.
Hate is a strong emotion though, and really not necessary, because E is not getting a dog either. I have offered a Fur Real Friends dog, a Build-A-Bear dog, and a dog video game, but we are not getting a living, breathing, eating and shitting dog, no matter how bulgy its eyes, wheezy its breathing, or rank nasty its breath. It’s not because my other daughter is scared of dogs, and it’s not because of the two cats that no one but me feeds. It’s because I am not picking up one more piece of poop for one more creature. I am at my poop, vomit, and urine capacity. I don’t want to have land mines in the back yard. I don’t want to have little gifts waiting for me if I am too long with the running of the errands. At least the cats shit in a box; I don’t have to go searching for it by following the smell or discovering it on the bottom of my shoe. No matter how much she wants or begs for a dog, all it will take is one good turd on the floor of her bedroom to end that love affair. And then I will be the primary shit scooper for the next twelve years. No, thank you.
So, with a few weeks to go, E has exhausted all ideas for what she wants. She is now going with nothing, which she tells us in as dramatic a fashion as possible, since she is not allowed to have anything she really wants. All because I am so mean, not allowing her Nubs, a cell phone, or a brand new room. If she keeps this up, all she will be getting is the opportunity to live to see her eleventh birthday, which will be a truly generous gift. Happy birthday, E, be thankful I didn’t kill you. Here are some socks. Now eat your cake and stop crying.
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