Spiky Bugger
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2014
- Messages
- 6,208
I bought some Halloween-themed cookies (undecorated bats, pumpkins and ghosts), plates, napkins and some store-bought frosting and assorted sprinkles. Then I invited my 9-year old friend, B, and the neighbor kids from each side: Poor L. He’s 8 and the only boy and arrived with his sister, S1, who is 10. They came on Sunday. They decorated. We vacuumed sprinkles off the floor. All was fine.
But today? K1, age 10, and her sister K2 who is 8 showed up with their mom. We were ready for those three kids...B, K1 and K2. MrSue went to school to get B, but he came home with B and S2. He figured I forgot to tell him about S2. But I didn’t tell him because no one told me. There we sat...with S2, whom B introduced as her new BFF. We didn’t know her last name, how to reach her parents, if they had any idea where their kid was, where she needed to go after the decorating or if MrSue was about to get busted for kidnapping.
So first, I put on my cranky face and told B that it is WAY not cool to invite people to someone else’s house if the someone else doesn’t know about it. Then, I invited S2 to hang around for cookie fun, but let’s call her mom and make sure it was okay. Of course S2 didn’t know her phone number...because she has her own cell phone and nobody needs to memorize numbers anymore. But...she forgot her phone at home this morning. And she left her planner, which also had her phone number on it, at school.
Who IS this child and are we going to get arrested?
I called B’s dad. He knew the child and where she lives, as B had been to a party there. But he had to ask MiniSue for the phone number. She finally responded. I called. Voice Mail.
I got creative and called the school. The goofy old woman my age who is some kind of volunteer community liaison answered. I explained our situation. I told her the phone number I had. She probably broke several rules and gave me a phone number for what was probably the step-dad. I called, he was way cool considering how bad my Spanish is. And didn’t seem the least concerned that the child had wandered off with a strange man.
Decorating ended. B’s dad took B and S2 home. Rehashing the events of the day w/MiniSue, I told her I hadn’t been upset, just concerned. Because I realized that I just wanted this precious, beautiful child’s grown-ups to give a shit.
MiniSue said, “yes...they are a large, extended, laid-back family with five kids and lots of cousins and a grandma or two. This is why I’ve told them that S2 is welcome here any time. But I haven’t told them that I’m never sending B to S2’s house.”
The UN part? The ethnic breakdown in the home of this Mexican-American/Sicilian-American and my husband, the Heinz 57 White Dude from flyover country was:
two Chinese-American kids;
one blue-eyed quarter-Mexican/quarter European Jew - other half freckled Irish-American kid;
two half Chinese-American, half Korean-American kids; and,
one very curly-haired, bilingual English-Spanish kid with (as in the Eydie Gormè song “Piel Canela” in which the refrain means “black eyes cinnamon skin” and whose last name was something like Smith or Davis.
But it didn’t happen because...no pics.
[BTW, way off topic, K2 is a PAINFULLY shy little girl, 8 years old, who turns away, from both kids and adults, to avoid interacting or even eye contact. Mom says she goes to therapy once a week, but it is sad to see how very much she needs to avoid others. Academically, she’s doing well. She was light years ahead of the other kids in creative cookie decorating...I hope she finds comfort.]
But today? K1, age 10, and her sister K2 who is 8 showed up with their mom. We were ready for those three kids...B, K1 and K2. MrSue went to school to get B, but he came home with B and S2. He figured I forgot to tell him about S2. But I didn’t tell him because no one told me. There we sat...with S2, whom B introduced as her new BFF. We didn’t know her last name, how to reach her parents, if they had any idea where their kid was, where she needed to go after the decorating or if MrSue was about to get busted for kidnapping.
So first, I put on my cranky face and told B that it is WAY not cool to invite people to someone else’s house if the someone else doesn’t know about it. Then, I invited S2 to hang around for cookie fun, but let’s call her mom and make sure it was okay. Of course S2 didn’t know her phone number...because she has her own cell phone and nobody needs to memorize numbers anymore. But...she forgot her phone at home this morning. And she left her planner, which also had her phone number on it, at school.
Who IS this child and are we going to get arrested?
I called B’s dad. He knew the child and where she lives, as B had been to a party there. But he had to ask MiniSue for the phone number. She finally responded. I called. Voice Mail.
I got creative and called the school. The goofy old woman my age who is some kind of volunteer community liaison answered. I explained our situation. I told her the phone number I had. She probably broke several rules and gave me a phone number for what was probably the step-dad. I called, he was way cool considering how bad my Spanish is. And didn’t seem the least concerned that the child had wandered off with a strange man.
Decorating ended. B’s dad took B and S2 home. Rehashing the events of the day w/MiniSue, I told her I hadn’t been upset, just concerned. Because I realized that I just wanted this precious, beautiful child’s grown-ups to give a shit.
MiniSue said, “yes...they are a large, extended, laid-back family with five kids and lots of cousins and a grandma or two. This is why I’ve told them that S2 is welcome here any time. But I haven’t told them that I’m never sending B to S2’s house.”
The UN part? The ethnic breakdown in the home of this Mexican-American/Sicilian-American and my husband, the Heinz 57 White Dude from flyover country was:
two Chinese-American kids;
one blue-eyed quarter-Mexican/quarter European Jew - other half freckled Irish-American kid;
two half Chinese-American, half Korean-American kids; and,
one very curly-haired, bilingual English-Spanish kid with (as in the Eydie Gormè song “Piel Canela” in which the refrain means “black eyes cinnamon skin” and whose last name was something like Smith or Davis.
But it didn’t happen because...no pics.
[BTW, way off topic, K2 is a PAINFULLY shy little girl, 8 years old, who turns away, from both kids and adults, to avoid interacting or even eye contact. Mom says she goes to therapy once a week, but it is sad to see how very much she needs to avoid others. Academically, she’s doing well. She was light years ahead of the other kids in creative cookie decorating...I hope she finds comfort.]
