Fairy Notes

In late August, shortly after our move, Blitzen stopped making fairy houses and stopped writing notes to “her” fairies.  They didn’t come up in conversation for two months.

When Carrie went on her trip at the end of October, Blitzen renewed her interest in fairies.  She wrote a note to the fairies every evening sharing the events and anxieties of the day, with a little groveling for mermaid tails thrown in:

Every morning of Carrie’s trip, Blitzen awoke to the comfort of a cheery note from Aretha, Edda and Sparkler.  When Carrie returned home, fairy notes stopped.  Until last night, after an anxious, post-family visit squabble with Carrie:

Remember how mad Blitzen was when therapist #2 told her she was living a fairy lie?  Turns out, Blitzen knows exactly when and how to make fairy correspondence work for her.

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Dear Fairies

‘Would you please bring me a mermaid tail?  I am so sad, really sad.  I had a fight with my mom and I just couldn’t help it.  I just act up when I am sad.’

And there was more, which I can’t quite remember.  I meant to scan a copy of this note this morning because it is all the more heartbreaking and adorable when you see it, written on the little pieces of scrap notepaper, full of phonetic spellings and sloppy 9 year old handwriting.

Blitzen got angry with me the other evening  – I know, you are shocked! – and I said, ‘Blitzen, I just don’t want to fight so I am going to bed.’  And I did.  A little while later, I heard her asking Andrew to verify the spelling ‘tail’ and then ‘fight’.  Soon after, she came up to my room to show me the note that she had written all by herself to the fairies.

‘Usually, I ask you to help me but I wrote it by myself,’ Blitzen said as she showed it to me.  Indeed, she had done it all by herself.

You will not be surprised to find out that the fairies wrote back and let Blitzen know that it is ok to feel sad and mad and even have fights sometimes because Carrie and Andrew love her no matter what.  The fairies also said that writing down your feelings is a really good way to express yourself and they look forward to more notes.

They did not bring a mermaid tail but they did leave a small bottle of glittery nail polish.

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Halloween

We had one heck of a Halloween celebration on Saturday before I left town.

First, the agency threw a party and it was mostly great.  They had a haunted house which was not great.  I really don’t know what they were thinking – oh let’s put a bunch of traumatized kids in a room with weird noises and creepy people in costumes that jump out at you as you walk by.  Needless to say, we didn’t stay in the haunted house until the end although we attempted to do it 3 times.  I’ll say this for Blitzen, the kid is not a quitter!  There were many fun, not scary things too - pumpkin decorating (Dasher named her pumpkin Curly Shirley for reasons none of us can fathom and carried it around lovingly all day), cupcake decorating, a little costume parade, spooky stories that were not too spooky, and trick or treating.  All good.

Second, we hosted a Halloween party at our house immediately following the agency party.  I really don’t know what I was thinking.  It was scarier than the haunted house.  But in the end, it was a success.  Both of Blitzen’s sisters came over and 2 of her brothers.  Now interacting with the brothers outside of an agency supervised environment had never happened before. I think all the kids enjoyed it.  We added a couple of Blitzen’s school friends into the mix to keep things lively.  And lively it was – the neighbor came up to complain about the noise twice. Thank goodness for the backyard or he might of called the cops.

Blitzen dressed up a greek goddess (Athena, I think) and added her own accessory – a platinum blonde wig a la Lady Gaga.  It was quite the outfit.  She went around telling people that she was a professional greek goddess. As opposed to an amateur, I suppose.  Originally, she was going to be a mummy but the mummy outfit that we purchased was too itchy, she claimed.  Or perhaps too boring after 2 weeks of wearing it around the house.  So we allowed to her use her own funds to purchase costume number 2.  Andrew explained that it would take an awful lot of guinea pig cage cleaning to earn that money back but she was insistent.  She had to get  a new get-up.  Dasher created her own outfit – a gangster fairy.  Apparently she thought this up all on her own and it was really quite cute – fairy outfit with a little pink biker jacket.  And Dancer was Beyoncé, of course.  The girls all looked great and seemed to have a (mostly – only 2 bouts of crying) relaxed and fun day.

I am sad to be missing the trick or treating fun tonight.  I am glad that not-really-a-hurricane-Sandy didn’t ruin the big, candy filled day.

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The First Day of School

Nobody cried.  Good start.

Drop off was kind of crazy, as I guess it probably always is on the first day of school.  Blitzen was looking really nervous, like it she might get all melty.  But she held it together and from all reports, she jumped right in and had a great day.

In the morning, when we were getting ready to leave the house, Blitzen packed 3 necklaces.  I asked why and she said, ‘For my friends, in case I make some.’  I convinced her to leave the necklaces at home and told her that we should focus our gift giving on special occassions and definitely not at school.

She decided to take her box of fairy dust  to school instead.  I thought that would be ok.  She later reported that, ‘Most of the kids were kind of interested in my fairy dust.’  Not surprising, Blitzen, you and your fairy dust are kind of interesting.

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Fairy Houses, the new xanax

Blitzen is really anxious about our move.  Wednesday is the big day.  There have been so many interesting moments leading up the move, it is hard to remember it all.

First, it was the box delivery.  She was obsessed with it, didn’t want to go to bed until the boxes arrived, woke up early to inspect them and insisted on starting to fill them right away.  And so we started with items like books.  It has been a little hard to convince her that we shouldn’t pack everything until the night before we move because we still need to live and some things, like underpants, will come in handy over the next few days.

We went through her books this weekend and convinced her to discard or donate a few items.  The child has a hording tendency which is absolutely understandable but she was reluctant to part with anything.  And I have the opposite  tendencies and I am like, get rid of it, get rid of it, it is clutter, ugh!

She continues to have lots of questions about what we are taking and what we are leaving behind.  We had originally told her that we were taking everything but she is clever and precise — are you taking the sink, the dishwasher???  Well, no.  So now we are careful as we discuss the items to go and those to stay.

But Blitzen has really channeled her considerable fear and trepidation into her fantasy life, reinvigorating an old creative outlet – the fairy house.  While we were packing up books, we uncovered a really lovely book of photographs of fairy houses.  Very elaborate constructions, a book of inspiration to Blitzen during the height of her fairy house building craze this spring.  So we carry the book around the house, consulting it often, and adding to the long list of construction materials and amenities necessary to build the best fairy house ever.  We’ve also started writing to our fairies again.  This, I am sure, was partially inspired by a skype conversation last week with our niece, K, who now has fairies of her own and had recieved a locket with fairy dust in it. So, we got a locket, and it was left out overnight and magically it was filled with fairy dust.  FYI – sea salt, blue decorating sugar and a few crystals that look like diamonds is a great fairy dust recipe.

In our notes to our fairies (we have 3 new ones, by the way – ocean fairies named Ripple, Waverly, Stella Sea because we not only love fairies, we love the sea and mermaids so….) we told them everything that they need to know.  We were sure to give our fairies our new address.  We described the new fairy house that we will be building for them and assured them how wonderful it will be, better even, than our current home.  The notes are almost mantra like in their intensity, a little girl’s whisper – it will be ok, it will be ok, it will be ok.

And, of course, it will be ok.  But I expect it will be a bumpy and stressful week.  Thank goodness for our fairy friends.

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Fairies, RIP

Andrew was at the new therapist with Blitzen. Our email exchange:

Subject: Fascinating shit going down

Therapist V started by calling fairies fake.    Blitzen is furious at me.   ”Everything I believe in is a fairy tale!   Is that right?!”

Love,

A

>>Subject: RE: Fascinating shit going down

How helpful of Therapist V.

Carrie

>>> Subject: Re: Fascinating shit going down

I kind of like it.   She calls her on everything.   But man, B is pissed  about the fairies.   Clearly I was getting something out of the fairy fantasy — I miss  them already.

B  hasn’t stormed out in 10 minutes, which seems like progress

Love,

A

>>>> Subject: Re: Fascinating shit going down

Yeah, I was getting something out of it too.  Now there is no one that Blitzen trusts as an unbiased source to communicate with about stuff.  Those fairies were fucking useful.  I am feeling quite sad for Blitzen – she loved her fairies.

That’s ok though, Blitzen hasn’t experienced any loss in a while so now is a great time to start stripping away her childhood fantasies and squashing her imagination.  At bedtime playtime we can go straight to  the calculus worksheets, no more of this imaginative play foolishness.

Carrie

>>>>>Subject: Re: Fascinating shit going down

Yeah, that’s a beautiful description of the fairies’ value: “An unbiased source to communicate with.”  Like writing in a journal.I join your mourning — I miss them too.

Fairies came up because B eagerly brought both mermaid tails to show Therapist V.   V asked where she got the pink one, and B shyly said “from my fairies.” She told V their names, explained the fairy house, etc.

Mostly, I feel overwhelmingly, irrationally fond of Blitzen.

They’re still chatting.

>>>>>>Subject: Re: Fascinating shit going down

Well, we maybe are a little attached to that kid.  I’m fond of her too.

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the tooth fairie

At the dinner table, Blitzen shared that a friend at school lost a tooth.  Apparently it was a very exciting moment for the entire 3rd grade.

Then she says, ‘My friends say that parents give you the money, not the tooth fairie.’  She has a funny look on her face, eyebrows arched, curious and skeptical all at the same time.

Andrew says, ‘What you do think?’

Blitzen thinks for several moments, ‘Well, fairies are mad little.  How would they lift my head and put money under the pillow?  Plus, when I was sleeping, I am pretty sure that I saw someone’s hand.’

I nod and say, ‘Do you think parents might help out by distributing the money?’

Blitzen considers this as well, ‘Yes, that must be it. No fairie could do that.’

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fairies and mermaid worlds collide

Blitzen asked this morning if we could write a note to the mermaids and ask the fairies to deliver it.  Hilarious.

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Fairie house building in the great outdoors

Central Park Fairie House

Blitzen, Andrew and our friends J and D built an awesome fairie house in Central Park.  When asked what the fairies do at this natural oasis, Blitzen replied ‘They sit on the bench and do nothing but watch the sunset…..’

Sounds good to me!

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Mermaids

Flipper unfortunately cut off but as Blitzen will tell you, it is the most important part

Suddenly, over the weekend, Blitzen became completely obsessed with mermaids.  As you may have noted from a few of the posts on this blog, Blitzen is an extraordinarily imaginative and creative kid.  She is also a wee bit obsessive.  So once a new object of fascination takes hold, it is usually 2 to 3 weeks (occassionally longer) of non-stop whatever (guinea pigs, fairies, ice skating, now mermaids).  Then she moves on to the next thing.  She is still interested in the old things but they no longer consume all of her mental and play energy.

Upon deciding that she really really needed to be a mermaid, Blitzen looked up mermaid tails on the internet with Andrew – you can buy them, apparently, and it is a thing.  An expensive thing, actually.  There are also many videos illustrating how to make your own mermaid tail.  We compromised, bought some bathing suit fabric online and will attempt to create our own mermaid tail.  We already traced ourselves to create a pattern.  See picture.  Now there are a couple of flaws here and I know it – 1) I don’t sew but our babysitter does and I am hoping that she will help 2) we have no where to use our mermaid tail — but we will move forward and hopefully this will be a fun project.

Because of our new interest in mermaids, we’ve been thinking and talking about them a lot.

Blitzen, to me, while she is in the shower, “If you were a mermaid living under the deep blue sea, would you get married?”  Me, “Um, yeah, I think if I met a nice merman and fell in love, I might get married.”

Blitzen, to me, during dinner, “Won’t you please, please, please just think about getting a mermaid tail too?” Me, “Um, honey, I just really don’t think I want one and we’re going to be very busy making your tail but if it is really easy and I can find some cheap fabric, I’ll think about it.”

Needless to say, Blitzen was pretty crestfallen when she learned that her mermaid tail would not be suitable attire for swim lessons at the Y.  She cheered herself up by deciding it would still be fun in the bathtub.

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