Nevergirl’s

Meet Fargo and some of the cousins who came to visit on New Year’s. Fargo is the horse that Santa left six-year-old Alex on Christmas day. He’s a year and six months old.

Alex has declared that from this year on, Fargo shall celebrate his birthday every 8th of July.

I’ll post photos of Alex and Fargo once the saddle gets here (all the way from sunny Florida because Aunt Jo has been shopping for two little girls’ cowgirl shoes, outfits, and saddles with grim determination of a general gearing up for war hahaha!)—or gets done since we also commissioned a local craftsman to make the girls one, but it’s taking him forever to finish.

Alex spends afternoons talking to Fargo and riding him bareback, and they look oh so cute together. Thankfully, space isn’t a problem even though we live right in the center of town because the family has this huge, empty lot across the street where the man’s old grade school still stands. The school has been abandoned, the lot unused; but the big yard at the back is perfect for Alex’s new friend. Fargo can run free and graze on all the grass he wants.

Incidentally, Fargo’s turning into a little celebrity of sorts; we’ve had people dropping in on us just to pet Fargo or ask for a ride. Alex acts all protective every time, and tells visitors Fargo is a baby and shouldn’t be made to carry anyone heavy. On New Year’s eve, she worried herself sick that the fireworks might scare her pony. Today, she told us she’ll skip the family trip this weekend unless the guy we hired to take care of the pony promises to care for Fargo devotedly. I’m glad the parakeet did not die in vain, and that Alex learned that for every pet she asks for and gets, she becomes responsible for a life. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the cat who, to date, hasn’t shown any remorse whatsoever for eating poor Chowder! That cat has all the conscience of a strong fat burner! Tsk, tsk!

You’d think that because we live where we do, getting a customized saddle made would be easy as pie. NOT at all! The man’s driven to three different towns and talked to countless craftsmen, but not one of them can hammer out a customized saddle for a six-year-old days before Christmas. Clearly, getting a cute little saddle made is no horsing business, and no one will take the job on on such short notice.

I’m not sure how we can get that pink little saddle made at this point. We’re considering buying one off eBay, but shipping’s bound to cost way more than the saddle’s going price of $86. Courier cost’s bound to be obscene, given how heavy the saddle is and the time of the year that we need it here.

What were we thinking buying a pony without buying a saddle first? No, scratch that. What were we thinking buying a pony in the first place?

A horse does not one easy-peasy present make, even if you have all the space for one. Aside from being expensive, it requires too much work. We had to pay for transport—that’s unanticipated expense no. 1. Then, we had to have a stall built—that’s unanticipated expense no. 2. Then, we had to ask a vet over to check on the horse, as well as show us how to feed, groom, and care for it. Finally (and this is really what rankles the most), we had to take on an extra hand because someone has to take care of Alex’s horse until she’s old enough to do it herself. Obviously, getting this pony for Alex makes as much sense as giving her a molotov cocktail, with directions to go bomb Russia. To make matters worse, Charlie will most likely take one look at the pony, and ask that we get her one, too.

I have no doubt that in the days to come, I will look back to this Christmas and question my sanity. That, or feel compelled to file a leave of absence from parenthood. For now, I take consuelo de bobo comfort in the fact that this pony will—much more than desktops, toys, or any other present–restore our six-year-old’s faith that Santa exists, and that that fat, lovable loon from the North Pole gives the best presents to those who drop him letters inside a huge red sock.

A few weeks back, Alex came up to me today, looking stricken. “Teacher said Santa does not exist, mom. She says he’s not real because he’s not in the bible. My classmates say he’s not real, too.”

I almost choked on my cereal. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. An entire school populated with skeptics? How did that come to pass? Alex goes to a baptist school because it’s the only private school hereabouts; but surely baptist parents do not find it necessary to disabuse their children of the North Pole magic?

My daughter is six years old. She believes in Santa Claus and in his elves, in Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, in our faucet’s ability to replace chimneys and allow good ‘ol overweight Santa to slither through. She worries that the Grinch might try to steal Christmas. She wishes for a unicorn on her birthday, for the past four birthdays. She trusts the North Pole’s postal system; she has been writing Santa letters since she was three years old and dropping it off inside The Huge Red Sock By The Door. She searches the sky for a blue moon. She wishes on fallen eyelashes.

I find it sad that people find it necessary to tell my daughter the things she believes in are not true. Sure, she believes in leprechauns, in pots of gold sitting at the end of rainbows; but do not take it to mean my daughter’s head is filled with cotton. Her favorite National Geographic series are Taboo and How It’s Made, and yes, she knows how a lot of things are made. She knows how babies are made, for example; she’s known about sperm-egg fertilization since she was three. She knows Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. She knows that some tribes perform scarification. She understands the basics of social justice. The last three questions she asked me that cracked me up so much were these:

“Am I a communist?”

“Do diet pills work?”

“What is sex?” (more…)

If there’s anything being mom to two girls has made me, it’s stalwart. Nothing ever surprised me anymore, not the fact that on my bookmarks you will find alongside sites on insurance advertising and whatnot kiddie staples like Nickjr.com and Y8.com. Or the fact that I’m almost always jolted awake at 4am by a 5-year-old who has nightmares in English. Or that I watch what my 5-year-old watches – under duress most of the time, I tell you – and actually enjoy it!

I’m sure motherhood has changed me in a lot of ways.

On Friday nights, I put on a floppy hat, grab a tote, and spend an hour or so marching about the living room, singing a Peter Pan track, “Following the Leader”.

On weekends, I resign myself to eating whatever the 5-year-old whips up as she “cooks” beside the hub. Thank goodness for my tum, she hasn’t come up with anything poisonous yet.

Every day, I fully expect to find toys in the bathroom sink, Play-doh in the laundry basket, and plastic dinner stoves and plates under the pillows.

So yes, stalwart would have to be the best adjective for the person motherhood has turned me into. I can clean up after poop, change nappies, endure tantrums, and stop my two daughters from killing each other without batting an eyelash.

If you ask me to come up with titles to describe just what it is I do at home, it would have to be these, in the following order: maid, nurse, barber, entertainer, jury, judge, personal shopper, executioner, referee, and warden.