Happy Half Birthday to Yoooooooooooooooooou.

The half birthday thing has hit. Hard. Sophie’s been talking about it for weeks.

And planning her birthday party for months. Oddly she’s not as interested in Christmas and Hanukkah — even though her birthday’s not til May. (She did inform me several times this weekend that I am on the Naughty List.)

I think the lure of a day all to herself is too great.

So what they heck — I figured I’d work my way off the Naughty List by doing up the half birthday in style. I found a gift I’d purchased for Sophie’s birthday and misplaced. Done. And I couldn’t resist stopping for cupcakes on the way home.

Unfortunately, they did not have any purple cupcakes at the bakery, but Sophie was very gracious. Maybe she’s growing up.

I took Sophie to the mall the other night.

To be honest, I really didn’t want to. It wasn’t a particularly entertaining errand — one of the nose pieces on her glasses snapped in half and cut her nose before we realized what was going on — and I figured it wouldn’t be much fun to sit around LensCrafters with an antsy, tired 8-year-old. I figured I could dispense quickly with the chore and maybe even have time to pop by Ikea for some (more) storage bins.

But Ray pushed us both out the door. “You’ll have fun!” he said.

I hate love it when he’s right.

It wasn’t a particularly meaningful trip — and yet it was.

The mall was Monday-night-and-it’s-recession-in-a-crappy-part-of-town deserted. I hadn’t been to Fiesta Mall (a great name for what was never a very good shopping center, even at its height) in a while, and most of the businesses, including one major department store, have been shuttered, all under glaring fluorescent light. Depressing. But the clerk at LensCrafters was incredibly nice, as was the young assistant manager at Claire’s, who insisted on giving Sophie a makeup kit for half price when I forbade my kid from buying anything that wasn’t on the clearance shelf (simply because we have a dozen untouched makeup kits already, bought only for the makeup brushes, which also abound at our house). It paid off for Claire’s; guilt motivated the purchase of earrings and hair accessories — which we also don’t need.

But the best part of the mall trip was dinner in the form of some really old Chinese food purchased at Panda Express, enjoyed in the creepy food court (Chick-fil-A is gone, but there’s now a dim sum place selling chicken feet, something I’ve never seen in a food court outside Little Saigon in Orange County).

I was reminded that eating out with your kid — particularly in a deserted food court — can be the best time to catch some quality one-on-one.

My chicken and string bean dish was so inedible that I absentmindedly (because no human should injest Panda Express’ orange chicken, particularly no adult) reached for a bite of Sophie’s orange chicken. Her face lit up. “Let’s share!” she said, bending the cardboard and turning the dish to face me, happily gobbling lo mein and chattering about her day. I sucked down some Diet Pepsi, determined to catch her second wind.

At the end of the meal, I ripped the plastic from each of our fortune cookies.

Sophie’s: SHARE YOUR HAPPINESS WITH OTHERS TODAY

Mine: YOU WILL FIND HIDDEN TREASURE WHERE LEAST EXPECTED

Some anniversaries you’d rather not remember.

I know Sophie’s second heart surgery was sometime in early November — right around now, in fact — but I don’t recall the exact date. I don’t think about it much, even when I see the several-inch-long “zipper” on her chest, but for some reason, almost every time I pass through our dining-room-turned-playroom I’m reminded of a morning four years ago when I sat with Sophie on the playroom floor and poured olive oil on her hair as I struggled with a week’s worth of hospital bedhead. The rest is foggy. A coping mechanism, I’m sure.

We are reminded in great detail of Sophie’s heart surgery once a year when we take her to the pediatric cardiologist for a check-up. (Last year we graduated from every six months to once a year — a big milestone.) Each fall, I make an appointment; each winter, Ray (usually, he’s the gutsy one) takes her to see the doctor. And he comes home laughing about how the cardiologist always gives the same speech about how “these kids come in here so scrawny!” and reports Sophie’s good health. (Except for the one visit that led to her second surgery; that visit sucked.)

I remember worrying before that second surgery that at 4 years instead of 4 months, Sophie would be aware of what was happening. Not really. Actually, not at all. In fact, until this weekend, I realize now, I’ve never heard her express concern or a real understanding of the whole heart thing, even though she often grabs my hand and places it carefully over the bump where the bones knit back together.

Sunday night, Ray and I were going over the week’s school schedule, and I also mentioned some upcoming appointments and obligations.

“Oh, and the cardiologist,” I said. “Sophie has an appointment Jaunary 4 with Dr. Worsham.”

It was then I noticed that Sophie had walked into the kitchen, and was listening.

“Where do I have to go?” she asked.

“I’ll take you to the heart doctor like I always do,” Ray said, picking her up for a cuddle. “Just so they can check you out and see how you’re doing.”

Sophie stuck her thumb in her mouth.

“I don’t want to go,” she whined, and then she sounded scared. “I don’t want to have heart surgery again.”

I couldn’t meet Ray’s eye. We can’t promise it will never happen again. It might.

And I can’t stack a broken promise on top of a faulty heart.

What would you do?

We changed the subject.

The other day Ray came home from Walgreen’s all excited. With a remote control helicopter.

“For indoor use!” he told me.

“Great,” I thought. “Something’s gonna get broken, for sure.”

For once, I kept my mouth shut and smiled.

So far, we’ve all survived, except for the first helicopter. Ray’s already been back for another, after a bad crash landing. But it was worth the investment (both times) to see the look on his face. So happy. Poor Ray. Most days he does just fine in a house full of girls (plus a large boy dog). And he has been able to coax our kids to do some “Ray” things — rock climb, hike, watch Star Trek. Still. There’s a whole lot of fashion show watching, ballet dancing and nail painting going on around here, round the clock.

I know, I know. It’s 2011 and we’re not supposed to assign gender to activities. Yeah, right.

Apparently helicopters are gender neutral around here.

Annabelle adapted the whole thing to suit her needs, naming the helicopter Patrick and sitting on the floor with Ray to Magic Marker an intricate heli-pad set up.

“Look!” Ray said, beaming, when I walked into the kitchen. “Project Runway!”

Awesome.

Ray took me to lunch last week.

“Here’s the thing,” he said, by way of apologizing for getting snippy with me the day before. “It’s just that when you are rushing around doing all that holiday stuff, you look so miserable.”

My jaw dropped, then my lips pursed.

“I’M FESTIVE!” I announced, shocked that anyone could challenge my holiday cheer — be it for a birthday, Halloween or my favorite avalanche of joy, Christmas.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” he said, sighing. “You’re festive, all right. But you just don’t look happy.”

I flashed back to the scene last Sunday, the day before Halloween – me racing around like a crazy woman, looking everywhere for my black and white oilcloth tableclothes, rinsing pumpkin seeds, baking cookies, making soup, clearing real cobwebs and hanging fake ones, all while trying desperately to clear the piles that crop up on every empty surface in our house as soon as I turn my back. And not being very nice about any of it.

I hate it when Ray’s right. It’s true. I’m festive — with a vengeance.

“OK, I’ll try to look like this throughout the holiday season,” I said, flashing my biggest, fakest courtesy smile.

“That’s better,” Ray replied weakly.

I do know what he means; I’ve been thinking about it, even before that little intervention. I need to cut back on the holiday cheer. And so there will be no “Homemade Fucking Christmas” this year (which involved the goal of making every single gift I gave, then beating myself up when I failed); no push to create a half-dozen varieties of fruit-infused vodka and tequila (though I did just come into a box of grapefruit, so maybe one batch); and I promise not to try to make my own latkes.

OK, who am I fooling? I do have plans for a tamale day, a full-sized Christmas tree and my first attempt at a Hanukkah brisket. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

I do promise to do it all with a giant smile on my face.

“I’m praying for her,” the Cake Walk Lady stage-whispered as she dropped Sophie’s ticket in a big barrel and motioned for her to join the circle.

Twenty, 30, 40 times? I lost count. We must have been at the Cake Walk a full hour by then, almost half the time allotted for the school’s fall festival. Other people had started to notice Sophie’s terrible luck.

I blame myself. For a person who doesn’t consider herself religious I’m hyper-superstitious and as I watched Sophie scoot around the circle to “I’ve Got a Feeling” by the Black-Eyed Peas, then rush to take her place on a number, lips pressed together to contain the excitement of what she just knew was an imminent win — only to hear someone else’s number called again — I couldn’t help but think that no amount of prayer was going to help in this case.

Nothing was going to help.

Sophie was doomed. And it was all my fault.

Three days earlier (with the blessings of the festival chairperson, but still) I’d backed out of my obligation to plan the little kids’ haunted house at the fall festival. It’s a long, boring story (trust me, you don’t want to know) that involves $50 worth of glow-in-the-dark crap purchased from the Oriental Trading Company and a large pile of cardboard from Ikea (anyone want any?) and ended with me arriving at the festival guilt-ridden and obligation-free.

And having completely forgotten I’d promised to bake a cake for the cake walk. The least I could have done.

What’s the karmic revenge for that kind of indiscretion? I can tell you. Your kid will never, ever win a cake at the fall festival cake walk.

It’s not like we needed a cake at home or even as though Sophie would have eaten it (she’s an ice cream girl) but with ever fiber of her being, she wanted to WIN.

After a couple dozen determined turns, I think even Sophie realized it wasn’t meant to be. We stood next to the circle and her lip quivered. I offered a hot dog, the bouncy house, face painting. A donut eating contest.

“I want to go home,” she said, eyes welling up.

In the end, we didn’t go home. But we did give up on the cake walk. Sophie wound up having a good time. In fact, it was the best fall festival I’ve ever been to at the school.

As we were leaving, we passed the PTA president, a friend of mine. “Great festival!” I said.

“Ah shucks,” he demured. “I didn’t have a thing to do with it!”

No, I thought to myself, that was me.

On my “to do” list: write the PTA a check. How much do you think a karma scrub will cost?

There’s a video news clip making the rounds on Facebook this week — I’m not sure why it’s popped up now, but it’s your typical feel-good story that everyone always seems eager to share so I guess it’s not too surprising. The lull between Halloween and Thanksgiving, maybe. Some group called Success Nation is passing it around. 

This morning when I signed onto Facebook, eight of my friends were recommending it, so I clicked. And, as they predicted, I cried.

Because that video didn’t make me feel good at all.

I looked it up on YouTube and the original videos about Jason McElwain’s amazing basketball preformance have millions of hits; the story dates back to 2006. I don’t recall it, but it’s the kind you see from time to time about a special needs kid who gets his shot in the final few minutes of a sports game — and makes good. In this case, the kid made exceptionally good; he scored 20 points in the final four minutes of his high school basketball team’s last game of his final season with the team.

The coach is interviewed explaining that after years of toweling sweat off other players, he wanted Jason (who is autistic, high functioning) to have a chance to feel what it’s like to wear that jersey.

I don’t know much about basketball, but I watched the video (I posted a similar one here) and wondered why the hell no one thought to have the kid play earlier? No one noticed he was pretty good at shooting baskets? If not for the kid’s sake, how about for the team?

It was one of the most condescending things I’ve ever seen. Maybe my hopes for Sophie are just too high, but I’m determined to see her play in more of the game than the last four minutes.

I suppose Jason McElwain got the last laugh. They made a Gatorade commercial about him, I learned during my YouTube search, and he appeared on the Today Show. Etc. He even got to meet then-President George W. Bush.

I wonder if he would have rather played the whole season. Now that would have been a tear-jerking story.

Turns out, it was the year of the unrecognized costume.

Ray got home late tonight. “Hey, get your fox costume on!” I said. I was already in my Felicity Fox get-up.

“Oh, I thought I’d wear the Spiderman costume from last year,” Ray said. “The Fantastic Mr. Fox shirt is in the laundry.”

“No unitard!” Annabelle commanded. That was that. The shirt appeared, the fox mask went on. I don’t think Ray was worried so much about wearing a dirty shirt as not being recognized. We all had that problem this year.

Annabelle’s devil costume was easy to get, but did you notice from the photo she’s actually a hippie devil? I’m not sure where that came from.

And Sophie. Sophie’s costume was the piece de resistance — we came up with the idea months ago, loved it for its simplicity and perfection. Fit her to a t. Except no one knew what she was. Can you tell?

A paintbrush.

I never dress up at Halloween. Never.

I think the last time I dressed up for Halloween I was in the fourth grade. But this year I couldn’t resist — I got the idea to be Felicity Fox from Fantastic Mr. Fox a couple months ago, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I even convinced Ray to abandon last year’s Spiderman one-piece and be my Fantastic Mr. Fox.

It wasn’t a tough sell. The  movie’s a big favorite in our house (rare that all four of us agree on anything beyond Disneyland and the Beatles) and lately, we’ve had a Fox Thing in our neighborhood.

Turns out, our super-urban (well, not as urban as yours, if you live in a Big City, but pretty citified for metro Phoenix) ‘hood is home to an unknown number of foxes. I like to think there are just two — one red, the other silver. There might be more.

I’ve caught glimpses of a red fox a couple times during the day, but the best sightings are of the silver fox, which tends to cross the street at night, fur glinting in your headlights.  At first it looks like just another neighborhood cat, then you notice the big, crazy tail and realize what it is — and then it’s gone.

A sparkly creature, so extra-special you wonder if you saw it at all.

Ray drew the line at the tail — which, if you’ve seen the movie, you know is cool. We stuck a couple Band Aids on his butt. Annabelle even designed me a copy of the brooch Felicity wears and I stuffed my pockets with paintbrushes, which made Sophie very happy.

Speaking of paintbrushes, wait til you see Sophie’s Halloween costume…. Stay tuned.

So cool.

Typically in our family, we reserve our “Things We Love” lists for Big Birthdays, so I figured our beloved friend and sitter Courtney would get hers next year when she turns 25.

Sophie had other plans.

She just dictated her list of 24 things she loves about Courtney. I was asked to insert a few, as well, so I did — I could easily go to 100.

“Send it to her — she will laugh,” Sophie said. So here you go, Courtney. Happy birthday!

24 Things We Love About Courtney

1. Courtney is nice.
2. Courtney has a good sense of style.
3. Courtney is a good fashion model.
4. Courtney is a good person.
5. Courtney is the best person I ever had.
6. Courtney is the fabulous person I ever seen.
7. Courtney is a good person.
8. Courtney likes to play hide and seek.
9. Courtney loves her daughter Sophie. (“Mom, just write!”)
10. Courtney is the best person.
11. Courtney is a human being.
12. Courtney is a good sense of human being.
13. Courtney is good with a glue gun.
14. Courtney is good to glue bottle caps on my swim suit.
15. Courtney loves Sophie.
16. Courtney is the best daughter.
17. Courtney keeps her cool.
18. Courtney is a good sister to Julie Funk.
19. Courtney is the best person.
20. I love her.
21. So much.
22. That I can’t believe.
23. Courtney is the best thing.
24. Courtney is good at going to Pump It Up.