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June 12, 2006

joy in repetition

Back in the 70’s, my mom had both a kiln and a wild hair to redecorate my bedroom. I was not a super femme girl but nor was I a tomboy. I think if she had covered my room in sticks and stacked piles of books against the walls, I would have been pretty happy. But she decided I needed a more fitting environment for a blossoming young lady, which in her mind meant a ceramic lamp in the shape of Becky from Tom Sawyer cradling a puppy on her pinafored lap*. The lamp was to match my new canopy bed, pink rose wallpaper and other girly-swirly puffery. I felt largely ambiguous about the redecoration project, but I did have one small request: that Becky's puppy be brown with blue eyes. You would have thought I’d asked for a meth lab filled with hookers the way my mom reacted. “No way,” she said in her most conversation-ending voice, “dogs don’t have blue eyes.” I insisted that some of them did, I had seen them in books! But my mother stuck by her brown-eyes-only canine theory and, since she was the one with the kiln, Becky clutched a brown-eyed pup when she emerged glazed from the fires. Girl and dog stared at me forlornly for a number of years, until I was able to pawn the thing off on my sis as part of her initiation into All Things Pink and Wonderful.

I was recently reminded of the dog lamp when I was planning the Bean’s new “big boy” room.
“We’re painting your room!” I told him a few days before the big event.
“Oh! Green, my favorite color?” he gasped, eyes widening in surprise and excitement.
“Um, no, blue actually! My favorite color!” My smile faltered a bit. Crap. Why wasn’t I painting the room his favorite color? He can’t even say the word green without following it up with the phrase “my favorite color”. But I pressed on, painting the room two lovely shades of blue. I then hung up pictures from the chosen big boy room “theme”, which was…outer space! That meant spaceships and robots! Lots and lots of shiny robots with round robot heads and stretchy robot arms and metallic robot bodies clinking along on robotic wheels. I made a grand to-do about the robot lamp and paintings and aren’t robots cool etc etc. A few nights later, a sobbing Bean recounted his first Bad Dream, a dream filled with the only thing he’s decided he’s afraid of: robots. Down came the paintings, away went the comforter, so long to the futuristic lamps.

Then the other day, the Bean and I were at Michael’s picking out materials for his invitations to Spring Fling 2006. We had already talked about what he wanted on the invitations, which was frogs (because they are green, his favorite color.) As we cruised the stamp aisle, my wandering eye fell upon little birdie stamps of all shapes and sizes.
“Oh look! How cute! Birds!” exclaimed the crazy birds-on-stuff lady.
“I want dolphins,” replied the Bean, spying the Ocean Creatures stamp section.
“But look how cute these guys are! Look at the robin!” I held one up.
“I like a whale.” He reached towards a giant sperm whale stamp. “I wanna whale on der!” As a compromise, I bought him a rubber whale and secretly tossed a couple of stamps in the cart when he wasn’t looking. I’ve been working on the invitations the past few nights, after he’s in bed. So, ahem and ta-da!

Somewhere, a blue-eyed dog is howling.

* For the first time in recorded history, the Internet has let me down. No combination of becky lamp ceramic or puppy could find the lamp of my pre-pubescence. Maybe it wasn't actually Becky, but I just thought of her as such? I used to pretend my Madame Alexander dolls** were the back-up singers for Air Supply, so crazier things have happened. Also, I did stumble across this lamptastic bargain.

** Feck, I kind of want this one now! What the hell is wrong with me?

Posted by Max at June 12, 2006 11:00 PM

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Posted by: katie at June 16, 2006 10:40 PM

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