Month 22

Dear Sha-Sha,

This past month has been pretty intense. For one, we hauled you half-way around the earth to a land of slides, strollers, trains, and pigeons. You are a great traveller, mostly because you are still managing to exist purely in the moment without looking forward or backwards. You don't get upset when the plane is late, or when the park is closed, or when we run out of money.

However, you do get upset about other things. Just in time for Halloween you have learned about "scary". So far you think two things are scary. 1) Bats. 2) Cat Statues.

Your fear of bats is really all my fault, and I've already embarked you on a bat desensitization program. See, it all started one late night when we were eating dinner outside on the terrace in the medieval town of Beynac. You had lasted through a 2+ hour dinner of Perigord specialties like duck kidneys and fig jam. A bat was flitting about near a street light and you asked if it was a bird. Maybe because I had too much wine, or maybe because I'm a bad mother, I replied, "No, it's a bat. Don't go out there, because the bat might bite you on the neck and suck out your blood".

You screamed and said "Pick me up!", hugged my neck, then yelled "Bats! Scary!".

I don't know what I was thinking. Of course you understand everything I tell you, even more. I explained that, in fact, we really like bats. Bats are like flying mice and they're very very soft and beautiful. We've been drawing bats and looking at pictures, and I think your anxiety is finally subsiding.

As for the cat statue. I've been searching for you a nice gentle night light. I finally found one, an orange glowing life size cat with a lightbulb on the inside. Gorgeous! Except for that it makes you cry to be alone in a room with it, and you refer to it as "scary kitty cat statue". Oops.

What you don't think is scary is skulls. You like them. I even tried to explain to you that skulls are like heads with the skin peeled off, and you just nodded like you already knew that. Today on our way to school you sang about "Skulls! Rainbows! Skulls! Rainbows!".

I think your most brilliant moment this last month is when you had the dreaded sickness we all managed to have when we got home from Paris. After you woke up early in the morning and tried so hard to throw up (only to choke and cough) you said to me "Mama, throw up...mouth poop". Yes, I suppose throwing up is a lot like mouth poop. Only slightly more disgusting.

Love,

Rachel Mama