The Loss of Sleepy Monkey

Oh Willow...
Today was a warm, early fall day.  We were driving around with the windows down, and you were happily playing with sleepy monkey in the back seat.  Sleepy monkey has been on a LOT of adventures with both you and Guin.  He's a little pink beanie baby monkey who has little pink eyelids that come about halfway down over his black beady eyes (which is why Guin dubbed him sleepy monkey.)  I don't recall where or who he came from, but for some reason he was one of the only toys that either of you were consistently attached to as small babies, and he's been through several wash cycles.  I commented last weekend that once you were done playing with him, he was going to have to go in my cedar chest to save for you guys.  Sleepy monkey earned a lot of love. 

Today as we pulled up to an intersection, I saw a dirty pink floppy thing fly past my rear view mirror.  I realized that you'd thrown sleepy monkey out the car window.  I don't know if you did it on purpose, maybe you were testing the boundaries, trying to see what would happen.  Maybe you were just swinging him around by his tail and he just slipped.  All I know is that I looked at that pink, floppy monkey sitting on the black asphalt and I froze.  I had time to get out of the car and rescue him before the light turned green.  But I didn't. 

Maybe I wanted to teach you a lesson... you can't just throw your toys out the car window and expect me to be able to get them for you.  You've been told a million times to be careful and keep your toys in the car.  But as the light turned green, I watched in the mirror as sleepy monkey got left behind, and the cars behind us respectfully swerved as to not run him over.  It wasn't until the car started moving that you realized Sleepy Monkey wasn't coming back.  And you wept.  There was a sadness like I've never heard in your little cry before.  You cried yourself to sleep as we drove home, and to be honest, I teared up too.  I think I've probably watched Toy Story twelve too many times, but I keep thinking about that sad little monkey face - loved as much as a toy can be loved one moment, and the next completely neglected in the middle of the road as we drove away because mom didn't get out and save him.  I feel horrible. 

If it had been any other toy, I would have shrugged it off and said "oh well, don't throw your toys out the window next time"... but here I sit, browsing Amazon and ebay, looking for someone who will sell me a pink monkey beanie baby.  Is it bad of me to replace the toy you threw out the car window?  Probably.  But it's Sleepy Monkey....  I have to.  I guess it's my way of saying sorry for making the decision to leave him behind. 

So for Sleepy Monkey's sake, DON'T throw your toys out the window anymore!!!

Love,
Mom

Pretty

Guin and Willow,

This will not be the last letter I write to you about how the world perceives beauty and how I know you will struggle with the ideal of being "pretty" as you grow up.  Every girl questions her beauty, at least every girl I know, and those who say they haven't are probably lying. 

I discovered this today and it spoke volumes of how I feel about it.  Especially the end. 

Katie Makkai "Pretty"

Pretty by Katie Makkai

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? What comes next? Oh right, will I be rich?” Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers' hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry.

“Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?” But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dryad: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother.

“How could this happen? You'll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb. That's why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were 6. Otherwise your nose would have been just fine!

“Don't worry. We'll get it fixed!” She would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way and that, as if it were a cabbage she might buy.

But this is not about her. Not her fault. She, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs. Laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand new nose the surgeon had carved.

Belly gorged on 2 pints of my blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you!”

All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Like my mother, unwrapping the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty? Pretty.”

And now, I have not seen my own face for 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me.

This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven't a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.

About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.

This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters.

“You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely 'pretty'.”

Willow's first day of preschool

Little Willow,

For the past two years, you've been watching Guin go off to preschool and it's been all I can do to keep you from following her into the classroom.  You have been ready for play, discovery and learning for a long time now, and it was so exciting today to finally take you to your first day of preschool.

We stood outside the classroom waiting for your other classmates to get there.  You towered over the rest of the two and three year old kids as they arrived, I don't know if any of them realized you were in their class because you look older.  When Miss Nichole opened the door to let you in, you bee lined to the toys before I could make my way to the door.  The other kids were so hesitant to come in, they were shy and clinging to their parents.  You walked in with determined and excited eyes and you knew exactly what to do.  You played with dolls and trucks, in your dinosaur shirt and pigtails you weren't about to fall into any stereotype. 

You walked up to the table with nametags and to your teachers' surprise you selected the one that started with W - the one that had your name on it.  You are already sprinting where most kids your age are crawling.  But that's always been how you've done things.

So here's to your newest adventure, your first year of preschool.  I'm excited to watch you learn and grow!

Love, Mom