“Let it all hang out.” – Van Morrison

I often open my computer to write a blog post, and then become distracted by every other possibility that my computer provides. Maybe I should FaceTime people. Perhaps it is imperative that I complete a New York Times crossword puzzle. Seth Meyers clips? Look up words I think I should know, but don’t? Order things?

Because all of those options seem pretty attractive right now, this is me confessing that I am ripping this post out of myself, and I’m not sure where we’re going to end up.

Scarlett has been particularly amusing lately, in a cheeky, tweeny sort of way. She starts a lot of sentences with the phrase “Just to tell you.”

Here is a recent example: “Just to tell you, Otto was having sex with his new stuffed animal yesterday.”

To which I responded with a denial so swift it seemed Freudian, “No he wasn’t. That’s his baby.”

She gave me a look like I was a little bit slow in the head. “Well… He was having it.”

This automatically makes her far more advanced than I was at her age, mainly because I called it “making sex” and I had absolutely zero idea of what it meant.

“My parents wished for me,” I told my older friend Callie, and because she was a nice and mature person, she did not correct me.

“Yeah,” she said carefully. “That might work, too.”

I now think I was uninformed about sex because I didn’t have a dog. Side note: why don’t dogs wear pants? This is not the beginning of a joke, it’s an actual question. I do understand the concept of animals pooping freely, but explaining to a child the difference between humping and having sex makes me really wish my dog wore pants. Or at least boxers. Maybe a fig leaf? On the other hand, we do live in San Francisco, where even some of the adult human joggers don’t wear pants.

So yes, Otto turned three this month and received a lambchop doll and a personalized cake, both selected and paid for by Scarlett, because the dog bakery is up a flight of stairs. When he isn’t violating his stuffed animal, he is tearing the cotton stuffing out of it, so that it presently resembles a carcass that he drags around constantly to display his doggy dominance over all lesser beings. It really was the perfect gift.

I am open with Scarlett about nearly everything. That includes ALS, death, sex, puberty, and my thoughts on politics and religion (when she asks). I do draw the line at sharing the details of school shootings and similar horrific events. I want her to be ready for the world, but not terrified of it.

Still, sometimes she seems like such a little girl to me. The other night she came out of her room while Rob and I were watching TV.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, rubbing her nose into my cheek. I wanted to scoop her up and swallow her. Instead I reminded her that when Otto was a baby, he slept with one of my sweaters so he could feel close to me.

“Do you want to sleep with one of my sweaters?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said and wandered into my room to pick one out. In 13 seconds she was back and fully transformed from cuddly cherub into sass monster.

“I found this and I’m sleeping with it,” she announced, hauling one of my bras over her shoulders and sauntering off. We didn’t see her again that night.

This is the line we are currently navigating as parents. Do we have a sweet and sensitive eight-year-old who needs buckets of attention and affection? Or do we have a preadolescent storm trooper who needs autonomy and privacy while she makes life-threatening potions in the garage?

The answer, I think, is yes.

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