Big drama with Zoe this morning. She’s on American Airlines flight 244 right now, enroute to Orlando, FL where she’s spending a week visiting her bubbe. Getting her on that flight, though, now that’s the story.

First, she left for the airport yesterday morning with Beth. They got up at 4:30 a.m. and headed for LAX in plenty of time for Zoe’s 7:15 a.m. flight. I didn’t go with them because I was teaching a class downtown at 8:00 and I couldn’t do the airport and still get to work in time to set up for the class. So amid much tears of sadness that I wouldn’t be there to say goodbye to her, Zoe went to the airport with Beth but without me. And then when they tried to check in, Beth realized an error had been made “by someone” — Zoe’s flight was for today, not yesterday. So Zoe didn’t go to Florida yesterday after all.

4:30 a.m. this morning, it was me getting up with Zoe, because this time it was Beth who couldn’t accompany her to the aiport because of work. So Zoe and I got to the airport and got her checked in (on the right day this time) and then I walked her down to her gate and we said our goodbyes.

Traveling as an unaccompanied minor, the procedure was this:

1. I went with her to the gate where the flight boards, where we checked her in with the gate agents.
2. We said goodbye, and then a gate agent walked her onto the plane and introduced/turned her over to a flight attendant.
3. Plane takes off, flies to Orlando.
4. At Orlando, the flight attendant walks her off the plane and turns her over to a gate agent, who then checks Bubbe’s ID and turns Zoe over to her.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to happen. We got as far as step two.

So I’m sitting there at the gate, waiting for her flight to push back and wondering how Zoe’s doing and kind of missing her already and wishing we had had a few more minutes of quiet time together before she got on the plane, when a stewardess gets off and start searching the crowd at the gate for … someone. For me.

On board, Zoe was apparently freaking out. Not fully flipping her lid screaming freaking out, but definitely crying and hyperventilating and “I want my daddy” freaking out. So the stewardess comes to me with her cell phone and suggests that maybe she can go back to Zoe with her phone and call mine and maybe I can try to talk her down. So I gave her my cell phone number and she went back on the plane and I waited for a call.

When my phone rang, it was Beth calling from home. Zoe had apparently used the stewardess’ cell to call home instead of me, and now Beth was calling me to tell me that (duh) Zoe was freaking out and wanted off the plane. Then Zoe called and I talked to her for awhile and tried to calm her down and basically told her she had to be a big girl and stay on the plane. We ended the conversation with her agreeing that she was staying on the plane but really not at all happy about it.

So I hung out in the gate area, waiting for the plane to push back. And about 10 minutes later, another stewardess got off and came looking for me. Zoe was still freaking out, really wanted off the plane, and the stewardess wanted to see how I felt about it. They were clearly concerned about Zoe and were just waiting for me to say “Okay” to take her off the flight. And as this is going on, the flight’s captain comes over and suggests that I come on the plane and talk to her and try to calm her down there.

So I went on the plane, where the captain suggested that we bring Zoe up to the cockpit and show it to her and try to calm her down there. So now I’m sitting up in the freaking cockpit of the plane, talking to Zoe and the captain, holding up the entire flight, flight attendants and the rest of the flight crew clustered around the cockpit door, everyone concerned for Zoe and feeling bad for her, a plane full of people watching all this activity going on in the cockpit and wondering what the hell was going on, with an undercurrent of “we gotta get going” adding a little more adrenaline to an already nerve-wracking situation.

Fun.

And me, I couldn’t decide what to do. On the one hand, I knew I had to make her stay on the flight and suck it up and be a big girl and do the right thing. On the other hand, I had the superstitious voice in the back of my head saying “It’s a sign! It’s a sign! It’s a sign! It’s a sign! You’d better take her off, it’s a sign! The plane’s gonna crash, it’s a sign!” And on the third hand I really kinda just didn’t want her to go because I was missing her already even though she was right there in front of me.

And so I did my waffle impression: “You can get off if you really want to. But I think you should stay. No, you’re staying. Unless you really, really want to get off. But you’re going. You really wanted to go and now you’re here so you’re going. Unless you really want to get off. No, you’re going. Unless…”

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, the flight crew is watching me, the passengers are watching me, and Zoe — tears streaming down her face moaning “Daddy, I really don’t want to go, I really want to stay home with you guys!” — is watching me.

Fun.

But… Well, like I said, she’s on flight 244 right now, on her way to Orlando. Scarred for life, probably, but she’s on the plane.

And me? I’m sitting here obsessively tracking her flight on FlyteComm, reloading the page over and over again, watching her make her way across the country. She’s just about over Dallas right now, flying 555 mph at 35,000 feet, with 1:50 left to go in the flight.

I think I’ll stop holding my breath when it lands safely. And I’ll start breathing again when she’s back home 10 days from now.

Zoe vehemently stakes her claim to her doggy bag — with her heart on her sleeve.

Zoe’s food from Don Cuco.
I (heart) my parents.
P.S. and Dylan
Don’t touch
or else

Zoe’s bedtime is 8:00 pm. That doesn’t mean she’s sleeping in there, however. Tonight’s non-sleep activity: Left-Coast Liberal Artwork. Beth found this on her pillow as she went to turn in tonight.

We’re so proud.

We’re having a bit of tension here at Chez Atkins tonight. I’m mad at Zoe and on a bit of a rampage about it and Beth thinks I’m being unreasonable. So basically: same thing, only different.

This battle was triggered by the book A Wrinkle in Time. I read it when I was a kid — I don’t remember how old I was — and I absolutely loved it. I loved it so much that even now, 30-some years later, I have a vague warm fuzzy feeling when I think about it. I don’t remember much about the story, I don’t remember any of the characters, I don’t remember how it ends or even what it’s about, really. The one thing I do remember quite clearly is what a “wrinkle in time” is in the book’s world. And, most importantly, I remember that I absolutely loved this book. I think it may have been my introduction to science fiction, and I turned out to be a big ol’ science fiction geek. So when Zoe and I were at the library the other day and I stumbled across A Wrinkle in Time on the shelf, I immediately wanted to share it with her.

I was a voracious reader when I was a kid. I read anything and everything everywhere and anywhere, any time. I used to get in trouble for reading in class — I’d prop a library book up behind my schoolbook and read instead of doing the classwork. I remember the librarian saying to me when I was in fifth grade (at good old Palm View Elementary in Palmetto, Fla) that I had read nearly every book in the school library. I remember spending hours up in the mango tree in our back yard there in Florida, reading the weekends away. I loved to read.

Zoe, however, does not. And it is a source of huge frustration for me.

Every parent wants their kid to be brilliant, to be a genius, to be a prodigy. I’m no different. And for the most part I’ve gotten that — Zoe is a beautiful, smart, funny, remarkably well-adjusted, good hearted kid. But her resistance to reading triggers something negative in me, a prejudice against non-readers as being … well, not so smart. And I want my kid to be smart. I want my kid to read at the same elevated level and with the same eager hunger that I did, and the fact that she doesn’t makes a part of me paint her with a black brush.

I’ve tried to be gentle and encouraging about it with her. I’ve tried to make it fun. I’ve tried to awaken her to the joy and wonder books can bring. I’ve tried to frame it in terms relevant to her (“It’s like TV in your head!”). I’ve even tried bribing her: five bucks, cash, for every book she finishes. And her response has not exactly been what I was looking for.

Zoe will read, yes. But she won’t like it. And she won’t do much of it. And she wants it to be easy. When I’ve taken her to the bookstore to find books that will appeal to her, she goes for books for much younger children — not because that’s what her reading level is, but because they’re smaller. They’re shorter. They’re easier. And I’m afraid that I get angry about that.

When we want her to read, she resists us. She bargains to get out of it or delay it. She negotiates rewards for minimal page counts. She acts put upon. She sulks. She occasionally cries. And then when she finally does get down to reading she does the bare minimum. She reads one short chapter and stops. Or she finishes the chapter she didn’t finish last time and stops. She reads three pages and stops. She stops. She comes out after half an hour and announces that she read four pages — as if that were a substantial accomplishment. And I get angry about that.

I remember how when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to get back to whatever book I was reading. I remember reading in bed at night, under the covers with a flashlight. I remember flipping pages feverishly, rushing to read as much as I could before I had to do something else. I remember not wanting to stop. Ever.

That’s what I want for Zoe and it makes me angry that she very clearly doesn’t want that for herself. And when I’m angry, everybody knows about it. Which is where we are tonight: me storming because Zoe complained about being asked to read some more of A Wrinkle in Time, Zoe in tears because I’m angry at her, Beth angry at me because I’m angry at Zoe.

And me angry at me because I’m being a dick.

I need to remember that I have a good kid. No, a great kid. And while it kills me that she’s clearly one more kid in a generation that doesn’t read, I need to remember that it doesn’t mean she’s…

Well, fuck, I can’t even finish that sentence. Dumb, that’s the word I keep wanting to use, but it’s not the word that fits. I do ascribe intelligence to people who read, but I don’t think she’s not because she doesn’t.

I think that what I really am right now is sad. I loved that stupid book so much, and I wanted her to love it too. I wanted to be able to share it with her, to introduce it into her world, for her to feel that same excitement about it that I felt. I wanted something that meant so much to me to mean just as much to her. I wanted us to share it, I wanted it to be a touchstone between us.

But Zoe doesn’t like to read.

The sight of blood has never really bothered me until last night. That’s when Zoe decided to pull one of her teeth that was loose, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t quite ready to come out yet.

She’s kind of a freak about losing her baby teeth, actually. Maybe it’s a sign of growing up for her, I don’t know, but if there’s a loose tooth in her head she is absolutely obsessed with getting it out. She asks for apples in her lunch because biting into them makes the loose tooth move, she wiggles it constantly, she worries over it like a mother hen — everything revolves around getting that tooth out of her mouth. You’d have to admire the dedication if it wasn’t so dental.

Anyway, last night she finally vanquished the latest poor loose tooth. I found her in the kitchen bent over the sink, paper towel in hand to help get a grip on the tooth, and spitting blood like a skewered teen in a Halloween movie. There was so much blood in the sink and it was so crimson against the white porcelain that it actually gave my stomach a little lurch. And because I’m a giver, I took pictures for you.

Preparing to spit even more blood.

Bloody towel and tooth.

The gap-tooth smile.

My kid has a bright future ahead of her, as either a dentist or surgeon … or vampire.

I took Zoe and her grandma (my mom) to the beach yesterday and while we were there I snapped the following picture of Zoe with my phone-cam and sent it to my moblog.

Now, you all know she’s the editor’s pick over here, seeing as how I’m the editor and all. I’ll even cop to just a smidge of nepotism in the matter. But they don’t know her from Adam over at textamerica and she’s also an Editor’s Pick there, and they’re featuring her beach picture on their front page.

Cool!

And since I didn’t have room for an adequate caption on the moblog, here are what I think are critical details on the picture:

1. The hat: Mine, from the Las Vegas’ finest casino, the Barbary Coast. Cheap rooms, old-time Vegas atmosphere, cheapest and best prime rib on the strip. What’s not to love? I make it a point to personally finance the #3 craps table whenever I’m in town.
2. The Ramone’s T-shirt: Yeah, my kid’s got style and taste.
3. The checkered Vans sneakers: Again, style and taste. They’re tie-died. I have no idea how she did that.

Zoe turned nine yesterday. When the hell that happened, I don’t know, but somehow nine years stuttered by when I wasn’t looking.

By the time this happens again she’ll be 18, “legal,” and handcuffed to a railing on the wall of her highly fortified cell inside our impregnable underground compound protected by retinal-scan security measures, sniffer dogs, laser “meatcutter” grids, plasma cannons, and roving biomech hunter/killer teams that home in on the scent of Clearasil.

Boys, you know. They’ll be sniffing about by age 18 and they’re hard to stop. I know, I used to be one.

I wasn’t around for most of what happened during yesterday’s girl-centric birthday festivities — I’m male and was not welcome at the estrogen fest (“Festrogen,” I called it) (and why can’t this anti-boy attitude last???) but Beth summed up all the girlie activities over in her blog.

Grandpa supplied the images below: a retrospective of Zoe’s life, one picture from each year starting when she was about an hour old. Seeing it all collected like that… Wow. And whoa. And… I don’t know, just… That’s my heart there.

As stated before, Zoe is pretty close to being hip to the whole Santa thing. Tonight, she took a big swing at his Spring-time partner in crime, the Easter Bunny. And missed.

Zoe called me into her room after being tucked into bed to ask me a question, and she insisted on getting a “for real, serious, not kidding answer.” Those are in short supply around here but I told her I’d try. Her question: “Is Mom the Easter Bunny?” I ducked it: “Um… I dunno. Why?”

Zoe proceeded to tell me that she’s sure Beth is the Easter Bunny because last Easter, after she had gotten her Easter basket and found all the eggs and candy that had been hidden, she went into Beth’s office to get something, and in Beth’s trash she found the wrappers from all the candy and toys in her basket. So she put two and two together and decided it was obvious that Mom is the Easter Bunny. Which means that Mom dresses up in a bunny suit on Easter morning and goes around putting Easter baskets on people’s front porches and hiding eggs and candy for their kids to find.

She was so so close to figuring it out … and then she lost her mind.

We went over to Beth’s dad’s house tonight for dinner and gift exchange. Beth’s dad was very generous and gave Zoe the Ipod she’s been dying for ever since her best friend showed up at school with one. She was thrilled to get it, but it also presented a problem: she’s pretty sure Santa Claus knows she wanted one. So when we got home, she sat down to write a letter to him.

This is Santa’s last hurrah in this household, I think. Zoe is eight now and we think she halfway knows already that he’s not real but is holding onto the illusion so as to hold onto her childhood. I know she’s conflicted about it still, because she’s told me very matter of factly a few times that “Santa’s not real,” but on the other hand she’s been very concerned in recent weeks about being on Santa’s Good list. She knows, but she doesn’t know.

So tonight we went through what will probably be the last observance of our Christmas Eve Santa ritual: putting out carrots for the reindeer and milk and cookies for Santa. And as I said, Zoe wrote him this note too.

I’m going to miss the Santa illusion. Reading this note and knowing it’s his last Christmas makes me a little sad.

Bye, Santa. Thanks for everything.

I had me a little car accident today, little in the sense that I hit a little car with my big truck.

Zoe and I were tooling down the street on our way home and this stupid little white Honda CRX kept getting in my way. You know how traffic sort of has a flow to it, with everyone going pretty much the same speed and holding that speed until there’s a reason to either speed up or slow down? You can turn to look at your passenger, say, and your Driving Brain sort of keeps track of where the cars around you are moving even as you’re not looking at them, and when you turn back to the road, voila, they’re all right where they’re supposed to be? Well, this stupid nipplehead in the CRX kept being in the wrong place.

Motherfucker was driving slow, and for no apparent reason, and with no apparent pattern. Once she was three car lengths ahead of me in the lane to my left and I went to change lanes and slide in behind her. I hit my turn signal, checked my side mirror, looked over my left shoulder, and started my drift over in behind her — and the dumb bitch was suddenly right where I was trying to be! She slowed down for no apparent reason — the car in front of her kept moving along just as it should have — and as a result I damn near changed lanes into her. I have no idea what she was doing but in the span of time it took to take my eyes off her to check my blind spot — BAM, she was right fucking there! I remember I even said something to Zoe about it, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t use Kids Are Around language.

So I finally managed to slide safely in behind her and we’re tooling along and Zoe and I are talking about whatever and I looked over to the left at a store across the street–

And when I looked back front again this stupid cow was stopped dead right in front of me. The car in front of her had his brakes on but hadn’t stopped, and there were probably four car lengths between her and him — car lengths I really wish she had filled with, oh, maybe her own fucking car.

I slammed on the brakes and braced the wheel and just held on. I wasn’t going very fast, maybe only 35 or 40, but it was plenty fast when the car I was barreling down on wasn’t moving at all. I remember thinking I should be pumping my brakes and then thinking I didn’t freakin’ have time to pump my brakes because I needed every little bit of braking I could get before I hit her. And then I started thinking I was going to make it, it was going to be reallyreally close but I was going to make it. And then the wheels locked up and I started skidding and I knew I wasn’t going to make it.

And WHAM! I hit her.

I looked over at Zoe. She looked over at me, wide-eyed but okay. Okay, I thought, we’re okay. But that little toy car I just hit, that can’t be okay.

I got out expecting to see an accordion, with the rear end of the car folded up around its hood. Surprisingly, it looked okay. No visible damage at all, really, just a small 2-inch crease on the bumper on either side of the license plate. I was shocked.

The woman driving it was shocked too. She was frozen behind the wheel, shaking, hyperventilating. I bit back the urge to rip her a new one for stopping for no fucking apparent fucking reason and instead tried to be Solicitous Mr. Nice Guy. I mean, hey, I hit her, even if it was her fault it’s really my fault, and besides, being a dick would pretty much guarantee an insurance claim. Plus, she needed a shave — she had the beginnings of a beard under her chin like a billy-goat and it freaked me out.

So I played nice guy. I pointed out where she could pull her car to the curb and blocked traffic so she could get over there. I helped her out of her car, urged her to “just breathe, take it easy, it’s going to be okay” and suggested maybe she should sit on the curb until she calmed down a little, I wrote down my info for her, I reassured her, I tried to make her feel better. I treated her like I’d want someone to treat Beth if she were in an accident.

Bottom line: she seemed to be okay, she said nothing hurt and she said she felt fine. Of course, you don’t feel whiplash or find expensive body damage or whatever until the next day when you’ve verified the other person’s insurance, but her car looked okay and she seemed okay and maybe this will go away without insurance getting involved. We’ll see. The car is 14 years old, so it was probably totalled just by her turning the ignition, so if anything it’ll be a medical claim. I just hope she’s cool about it and keeps feeling healthy.

On our end Zoe’s fine, I’m fine, the truck’s fine, everything’s fine. The only hint that we had an accident is a scuff of white paint on my front bumper from her car. But why would I expect anything more? I drive a Toyota Land Cruiser FJ60 and I hit a Honda CRX Matchbox toy. I’m surprised the CRX survived at all.

As I told Zoe when we got back in the truck to leave, “That’s why we drive a Land Cruiser: so if we have an accident, we’re the ones who walk away.”