Little Cheeks, Little Teeth

Somewhere along the way, after the note at right, I began addressing all my letters to Aunt Mary Ann as Mary Anne which totally puzzled me.

I realize only now why I did this.

She started me on reading the Anne of Green Gables series.  Every year for Christmas I received the next book in the series. 

Anne Shirley who had a thing about ‘e’s.

ANNE: Cordelia is a perfectly elegant name.
MARILLA: What is your name child, and no more nonsense?
ANNE: Anne Shirley.  Plain, old, unromantic Anne Shirley.
MARILLA: Anne Shirley is a fine and sensible name, and hardly one to be ashamed of.
ANNE: Oh, I'm not ashamed, but if you are going to call me Anne, would you please be sure to spell it with an "e".
MARILLA: What difference does it make how it is spelled?
ANNE: It makes a lot of difference.  Print out "A-n-n" and it looks absolutely dreadful, but Anne with an "e" is quite distinguished. So if you'll only call me Anne with an "e", I'll try and reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.
MARILLA: Very well then, Anne, with an "e", how is it that you happened to be brought and not a boy?

So, you see, I blame her for the extra ‘e’ bias.

Mary Ann always said ‘girls are better.’ Mind you, in mixed company, (i.e, anyone more than just she and me) she’d say this with an aren’t-I-being-the-cutest-old-Auntie smirk. And she was.

Mary Ann meant it though and I was madly in love with her for it.

You see, I was supposed to have been born a boy and my mother NEVER let me forget that I was one wee todger short of being lovable. Mind you, we all have our leanings but mia madre was fairly obnoxious about my thoughtless state of female-itude.

I never understood -- your child is magnificent no matter what gender. Until they’re old enough to be total, utter fuck ups, I guess.

Like Mary Ann, I’ve a preference for girl type kids. Having said that, I was wild about the young Green Miles.

We would spend evenings drawing cartoons on large newspaper endrolls while watching the Sox. There were Saturday afternoons with toy cars, blocks and legos with the Creature Double Feature on TV in the background. We’d go sledding in winter, getting utterly frozen and soaked. We went ice skating -- each of us spending more time with our butts on the ice versus our skates. We’d go to silly movies together.

Madison's LARGE toy rat that she kept setting RIGHT next to me

Not a girl but what’s not to love?

Back to this past Hoosick Falls weekend though -- Madison was having her eighth birthday party and Julianna was being baptised. Big events. The girl’s cousins Vanessa, Brianna and Alicia (with parents, Julie and Todd) all came up to help celebrate.

The house on Main Street was jam packed with electric girl pizzazz. At one point, over breakfast, the girls started showing me their gymnastic moves.

Wow and TOO awesome! The old house hasn’t seen this amount of kinetic animation in a very long time. It was beautiful.

Exhausting but tremendous.
Little Girls from Annie performed by the most fabulous Carol Burnett.