Rituals

My Cookie has grown so big, and I haven’t written anything here in such a long time. She can now read some words (like stop, no, mana, etc.) and she can do simple math. Sometimes I look at her and she’s so adult-like that it scares me. She’s five. Her notions of fairness and consistency are impeccable.

For a while we’ve had a ritual. We used to quantify our love for each other, and we’d say “I love you as big as the ocean”, or “as big as the freeway”, and we’d compete to see who loved the other more. Silly, but it brought warmth to my heart. Then I told her we should find a simpler pattern, where one person would say “I love you”, the other would answer “I love you more”, and the first one would finalize with “I love you most”. Nowadays Cookie just jumps to “I love you most” whenever she remembers it, and we’ve included “you’re most beautiful, most smart, most fashion”, and her latest addition, “most cutie”.

I think the idea originated from a book we read sometimes called “How Do I Love You?” which quantifies and qualifies a person’s love for another (presumably the mom’s love for her daughter). Then I guess we just got creative.

Another ritual of ours is that every night, just before one of us falls asleep, we say “good night, sleep with God and dream of little angels”. The other says “Amen”, and repeats the same wishes back. Now mom (the tag-along that she is) has joined in too.

It’s incredible how simple rituals can be rewarding.

p.s. Mana loves you, Cookie. ;)

Halloween and the Size of the Candy

This Halloween Cookie dressed as a candy corn. Mom bought the costume thinking it was a princess, and I told her no, it was a witch (because it had a pointy hat). Only when I sent pictures of Cookie’s school Halloween party did someone text me back saying “Oh, she’s a candy corn!”

Embarrassments aside, we went out trick or treating. Cookie, her Godmother, Uncle R, and I. She was always one to get excited at the sight of so much candy, and would always grab the first one she saw, which was often the little tootsies or the sour ones she doesn’t eat. So tired of throwing candy away after hours of collecting them, I instructed her to get ones that she liked. When she said she liked all of them, I said “well, then get the big ones” which were chocolates and would most certainly be eaten in a matter of days. So there she went collecting her candy, until she turned to me (the street was full of little monsters and their moms) and yelled “Mana, is this big enough?”

I wanted to die. Every single mom looked at me condemning me for my shameful conduct of teaching my five-year-old sister to be greedy and selfish. Her Godmother was glad to be wearing a monster mask. After a while she just said “I can get whatever candy I want!” and considering it was the only night of the year when she could go to strangers’ houses asking for candy, I thought it was fair for her to pick and choose the ones she wanted—even if that meant throwing it all away later.

After our basket was full, the other adults wanted to go home. So I did what any responsible sister would do— we left the boring people at home and went back for more candy. We stopped only when Cookie herself gave up (and when she could no longer carry the basket).

As I discovered after disposing of all the candy (even the “big” ones), Halloween for Cookie (and for all kids I guess) isn’t about getting good candy, or even eating it. It’s about collecting it, about the fun of going from door to door as if it were a mission, having strangers comment on how nice her costume is. But most importantly, it’s about doing all those things with her loved adult (me!) and testing to see how far you can push her patience. I believe it’s about feeling loved.

At the end of our journey, I asked Cookie if she was happy with all the candy we’d collected. She answered “Yeah, it was fun.” And that, simply put, is worth all the good candy in the world.