InsaneJournal

I'm late. Those are the same two words I typed this morning, before a power outage killed lunch, the television, and my ability to update. Tardiness, I've learned, can be a virtue.

As a couple of great men once sang, You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. Vanessa went back to sleep, after a long night with mini Jack's recent discovery of allergies. (There are better hobbies, kid.) It was 1am, she told me, and she didn't wake me up. When the munchkins were tinier than they are now, we didn't take "turns." When they needed us at night, I went after them. During the day, they were stitched to their mother's hip, so I might as well. If it was food they wanted, I brought them to her. If it was company, we had a nice walk around the house. Some of the best conversations of my life, I've had in the company of infant silence.

She told me last night was a return of the favour. I let her sleep all afternoon, while the allergy-monger lolled across my lap and listened to his sister play Shakespeare. When Jack finally fell asleep, she asked me to teach her a new play. She doesn't understand the vernacular, yet, but she likes Shakespeare better than fairy tales. We tell her the stories a few times, and she casts her dolls in the roles, and acts out her own rendition. We watch the stories evolve, and it's amazing, all this ever-changing ingenuity from a girl that small.

So, I taught her A Midsummer Night's Dream. She asked me, halfway through my version, if her name was a fairy name, like Peaseblossom. "It is," I told her. And Jack's is a pirate name?, she wanted to know. "Jack's is a pumpkin name," I said, and after her giggle, there was talk of Halloween.

Halloween in France hasn't always been similar to Halloween in America. No offense to America, but the United States is a country of commercial holidays. Halloween, like anything else, is a way to make money. It's all shitty plastic masks with hollow eyes, sold for thirty dollars more than it's worth, with a jumpsuit made out of something that doesn't even feel like fabric. You don't get that so much, here. French parents aren't afraid to dress their kids up in the traditional "scary" costumes. That's a good thing. Kids have crazy, irrational fears. Teaching them to have fun with fear is valuable. If you can calmly face a neighbour in a rubber mask, you can learn to laugh the mask right off the kids who give you shit. To quote someone equally wise, There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

But this year, Lily Rose wants to be a Shakespearean fairy. I asked her what the difference between a Shakespearean fairy, and your run-of-the-mill fairy was, and she went to get her notebook (yes, the poetry notebook some of you have been hearing about), to draw me an incredibly meticulous illustration, with Jack's crayons. (Jack the Runny-Nosed Monster, then drooling on my collar.)

In the end, I still had no idea what the difference between the fairies was. The Shakespearean fairy looked like any fairy I've ever seen - but then, I confess I wasn't looking too close. The way the light hits Lily's hair is more fascinating; the sound Jack makes when he breathes is more compelling; how quiet the house is, aside from Lily Rose's story, is more amazing.

A friend of mine said, not too long ago, that if his wife ever left him, he'd be devastated, but he wouldn't worry, because he could see her in everything, right down to his daughter's toenails. But the great thing about these kids is, they don't just carry me and Vanessa everywhere; they've got sun, and rain, and dirt under their fingernails, and the whole world in their heads. Fuck vacations. My children are my travels.

And they, Ms. Kate Mulgrew, are the reason why I am no longer Naughty.