I Like You: Here's Why.

Freya and I took a bath together tonight. Well, it was my bath originally, which is not important except that I like to put oil in my baths, so it was slippery and also very, very hot.

Freya was standing, holding the bar on the side of the tub and sliding down into a split, over and over and over...

Idly, I held her other hand and read aloud to her from a short story by Jorge Luis Borges - with feeling! - "...theological and metaphysical arguments, all clearly stated, coherent, without any apparent dogmatic intention or parodic undertones. The eleventh volume of which I speak refers--"

One of her splits turned unexpectedly into a pirouette.

"Careful, Frey," I said, "I don't want you to die, I like you."

"I love you, too," she said, intent on returning to sliding splits.

"I didn't say I love you," I corrected, "I said I like you. I mean, I love you too, but, it's different. Do you know what the difference between liking someone and loving someone is?"

Blank look - well deserved.

"Well," I persisted, "what does it meant to like someone?"

"People are not stupid," she offered.

"Debatable, but not the point. What does it mean when you love someone?"

She looked thoughtful for a minute, "You don't call them stupid or idiot."

"Well, yeah, you're nice to them, right? Because you care about them. So what does it mean if you like someone?"

"You give them stuff," she paused, "stuff you don't want anymore."

At this point we were interrupted, which is almost definitely to the good. When we returned to the question I took a more concrete approach: "Who do you love?"

"Um, Aurora, and Oscar and Kehr," she paused, "and Riva. I love you and Daddy and Matilda, too, but not as much as Riva. She took me to a museum."

Not sure where to go from here, I made an executive decision and ended the conversation.

Clearly Freya is not quite ready philosophical conversations about the nature of love and while I wait, I should maybe take her to some museums.

What Kind of Frame?

Today I downloaded the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog soundtrack and was listening to the second song, which is the one where he meets Penny in the laundromat (and really, if you haven't watched it yet, please, just go do that and then come back, I mean otherwise we won't even be on the same page, let alone in the same frame, which is important, you'll see why in a minute) and Matilda walked into my room and stopped for a second.

She looked at me, and put her head to one side, wrinkled up her freckled nose and said, "Is this Dr. Horrible?"

My heart swelled with pride and then I had a vision of her ten years from now:

Matilda is sixteen. She has a streak of pink in her hair (okay, so there's a lot of me in her, accept it, that's how this vision works) and she's lying on her bed, her polished toes dipping back and forth behind her. Her two best friends are there, strewn about the room in a carelessly choreographed fashion.

Some as-yet-unimagined music/noise is playing on an invisible pod that plugs into her bed frame. The three of them are applying mood sensitive nail polish and talking about boys and the latest internet shows. One of the lyrics in the song goes 'it's better the second time' and suddenly Matilda says, "Hey, you guys remember Dr. Horrible?"

Her friends give her that exaggerated - as only 16-year-olds can truly exaggerate - look that says, what the fuck are you talking about?

She elaborates: "You know, that internet TV thing that came out when we were kids. The one with the evil super villain who falls for the red-headed social worker? Captain Hammer? 'These are not the hammer'? Come on... you know, Dr. Horrible."

Still she is met with blank stares. She stops. Assesses the situation.

"Um, you guys want some popcorn?"

Here's my fear: I am creating a girl whose childhood will be full of references that none of her friends get. (She also watches Free to Be You and Me. And episodes of Sesame Street that haven't aired since 1979.)

So is this bad? Should I be making some kind of effort to ensure that my children are capable of discussing the things that I spent my early adolescence not being able to discuss (in my case 90210, I still have never seen a single episode, but I did manage to smile and nod my way semi-convincingly (I think) though most of ninth grade)? Am I over thinking this? I do have a tendency to do that.

Or, alternatively, will she roll her eyes whenever I ask - incessantly perhaps - if she remembers Dr. Horrible.

"Mom, you asked me that last night, God!" Roll of the eyes, sympathy from her friend waiting in the wings. The two of them disappear into her bedroom with their popcorn and close the door.

I take my glass of wine into my room and find the Dr. Horrible soundtrack in my iTunes (now totally archaic) and listen to it, singing along, maybe even dancing, arms over my head, not caring that I'm so ten years ago.