The little angel wanted us to tape the royal wedding. So we did. When I came downstairs this morning, she was already dressed and glued to the set.

"Did you watch Princess Diana's wedding?" she asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Well, it was on at like four in the morning. And I really didn't care."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge if I was joking.

Just then, Meredith Viera (wearing a ridiculous hat that appeared to be free-climbing the side of her head), mentioned "Princess Katherine."

So now she's gone from Kate to Katherine?

Just like Katie Holmes went from Katie to Kate when she married Tom Cruise?

As though maybe they weren't good enough the way they were?

It's one thing when you change your own name. It's a completely different thing when someone else changes your name for you.

Good luck, Princess Kate. You're going to need it.

Remember when I wrote about the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy mess?

After the Easter weekend, I went into the little angel's playroom. Ma had drawn a picture of a bunny on the little angel's white board when she left. The next day, Ma's bunny was replaced with a headline, "Things I Believe In," and three pictures: Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

We've talked about whether or not she should believe in them several times since the kids at school told her they weren't real, and both Beloved and I keep turning the conversation into a question for her -- what do you think? Neither of us wants to lie to her, but neither of us sees the harm in a little magic in childhood.

But this picture -- this picture made me sad, a little. The clinging, the need to write it out, to validate something I know won't last much longer. Often I'm shocked that she's seven. Birth to three seemed to take ten years, but three to seven shot by in an instant. I just taught her about Santa, didn't I? Is it really time to let it go already? We were just getting good at it!

It may seem contradictory that I'm writing about letting it all go as she's drawing pictures of it on her white board, but I see the pictures as evidence of her internal struggle. Are they real? Aren't they real? Should I believe the other kids? Why are my parents being so wishy-washy about this?

And there's a big part of me that just wants to get it over, to tell her it's a lovely fairy tale, that yes, it's us, it's always been us. Who could love you more than us? Who takes more satisfaction in your joy than us?

But that's another message that loses its magic if you shoot it straight. She needs to figure it out on her own.

This morning, I went to take a picture of the white board. Three dirty tissues lay on the floor, and it was all wiped away.

I opened the door to see a slight man standing on my front step. "I was driving by," he said, gesturing to his truck, "and I noticed your trees could use thinning."

I stepped outside, noting the woodchipper hitched to the back, the phone number on the side. "How much?"

He threw out a number, too high. I called Beloved, master negotiator. A few minutes later, my husband sent me to the ATM for the final amount. "Hurry," he said. "It'll go faster than you think."

I laughed. Surely they couldn't trim three trees that fast? But when I looked outside, the man on the doorstep was already 20 feet in the air. Three huge limbs lay on the ground. I thought about how long it would take Beloved and I to cut down such limbs, to drag them away. They must've weighed as much as a man.

I got in the car.

By the time I got back, the little man had moved to the front. "How much off this one?" he asked.

"As much as you can," I said. "I keep worrying that one's going to smash my car."

My sister and the little angel and I went on an errand. We were gone maybe twenty minutes, and when I returned, the man and his truck were gone, the trees transformed -- gone were the tributaries of tiny branches and left were the strongest limbs.

I pulled up to the house and sat there, staring at the tree, thinking how much I longed to trim my life like that, strip it to its skeleton, slash and burn the dead branches that come crashing down every time it rains.

With all the clutter gone, I could finally see my house.

Yesterday, some kids told my daughter that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are all frauds. She asked the lunch lady, and the lunch lady told her that her sons still believed.

The little angel cried a little bit and decided she didn't want to play with those friends just then.

My husband told me this story after our girl went to bed. I asked him what he said. He had told her that people believe all kinds of different things, from religion to politics to bunnies. You can still like other people even if they didn't believe the same as you do. I thought this a brilliant response.

I personally can't stand the Easter Bunny because Easter is the most important Christian holiday -- there is no Passover Chick, and I don't see why we need a bunny. I've never really leaned on the bunny and would be relieved to just tell her it's us, man, it's us. We know you like chocolate.

So she still believes. For now.

When I graduated from high school, my parents took me to Target and bought me things I'd need for college. As the cart filled with the bare essentials -- towels, shampoo, shower caddy, sheets, toothpaste -- I remember being shocked at how much it cost to live alone. It hadn't dawned on me before then that I couldn't just take everything out of my parent's house -- that I would, in fact, have to duplicate these essentials to live on my own.

What happens when there are no parents? Or when the parents can't provide?

A friend of mine recently forwarded me information about Give What You Got, an organization that helps Kansas City kids who are in foster care, residential treatment facilities, transitional/independent living programs and in at-risk households with supplies they need to transition into whatever world they are emptying out into. It's graduation time, and if you want to help, it's very easy.

I get a lot of review items, and I'm sending a bunch of cookbooks over to help a graduate out. Others are donating money to buy a microwave or pots and pans -- things to help ease the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Congratulations, graduates. Safe travels.

---

Read my review of The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

She was wearing a white skirt. The bus seemed to take forever. So I handed her a badminton racket and a birdie. She frowned at me.

"What do I do with this?"

"Throw it up in the air and hit it."

She threw it wildly to the right, snapping at it with her right hand.

"You're left-handed. Put the racket in your left hand."

"Why?"

Why indeed.

"Always use your strong side in sports."

We practiced her throwing the birdie in the air until she could hit it. I told her not to worry about aiming right now, just hit the birdie. At first she held the racket and swiped laterally without connecting the flat part to the birdie at all. She is my daughter -- unpossessing of sports common sense.

"Just bounce it on your racket and get used to how that feels."

She smiled as it started to pop up and down without falling off.

"You're a natural, honey."

"Yeah, I'm a natural!"

Now, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I've never played badminton competitively in my entire life. I'm not good at ping pong, I don't know how to play tennis or golf. I never played basketball and don't know the rules to volleyball. I lasted two seasons in softball Little League playing right field when nobody could hit past third base.

There is nobody more unqualified than me to teach a kid any sport at all, whatsoever.

And I taught my little girl to hit the birdie yesterday.

Damn, I did it!

So there I was, standing in the courtyard of the Ritz Carlton at Mom 2.0, talking to Jenijen, Karen and Polly. "Hey!" I said. "I never remember to take pictures. Let's take a picture!"

I looked at the phone. "Damn! It's too close. I wish Bossy were here. Her arms are longer than mine."

And then, poof! The door opened.

 

Like magic, I tell you.

Cat yowling.

Pry eyes open.

Feed cat.

Stumble upstairs.

Brush teeth.

Notice suitcase on floor.

Realize leaving for Mom 2.0 in less than twelve hours.

Wonder where business cards are.

Wonder where chargers are.

Realize father has been reading from shared Kindle account on his Droid. Every time I turn on my Kindle, he's on a different page. Bizarre. Didn't know that happened. Maybe should warn him I'm going to hijack The Running Man this weekend with Super Sad True Love Story.

Where were business cards again? At Blissdom didn't bring enough business cards, bah.

Goddamn, so tired.

More coffee. Don't usually mainline coffee.

Stumble outside with bedhead to see little angel off on the bus. She demands I read a chapter book about pony-obsessed princesses while we wait.

Cry a little as the bus pulls away.

Hope nothing bad happens on flight.

Hope nothing bad happens to little angel and Beloved while I'm gone, as though my mere presence impacts possibility that bad things will happen.

Stumble back inside.

Business cards on the stairs. Hope I will remember to actually grab them.

Huzzah! New Orleans! See you tonight, baby!

I spend a lot of time saying "you can't have that" to my daughter. That she asks for everything is a function of being seven, of being a kid, of not quite understanding the boundaries yet, how money works, how time works, how practicing works. That she's starting to get it sometimes breaks my heart.

The other day she said she wanted a cookie, but she knew she couldn't have one until after dinner. As she stared longingly at the cookies made by her grandmother and trucked 500 miles across Iowa, I realized that I could probably leave them out and leave the house and she still wouldn't eat one, because she is starting to get it.

Yesterday she brought home a baseball card she'd made for herself at school.

I thought about what it means to want anything, to wish for a magic genie to grant your heart's desires. I remember wishing for that, hell, I still wish for that. It's not even about money, it's also about accomplishments or love or friendship.

It stuck in my head, and as I went to bed last night I thought there are junctures in life where you probably could have anything, but to get to what you want, you sacrifice other things. You sacrifice time for money, money for time, family for career, career for family, dreams for peace, peace for dreams, relationships for autonomy, autonomy for relationships. It's all a trade-off. But you probably could have anything if you single-mindedly went through life focusing only on that one thing. I have a quote that I often read that says something like "the reason more people fail instead of succeed is because they sacrifice what they want for what they want right now." And what I want right now is usually a nap or a big Kindle download.

I've started saying more often to her, "You can't have that right now." That toy she wants? She might get it for Christmas or with her allowance or piggy bank money. That cookie will be hers in a few hours. That perfect turn-out might come with years of practice. It all boils down to what makes sense right now, in this moment, and maybe the key to happiness is accepting that.

So perhaps it's not "you can't have that," but "you can't have that right now." Or "consider what you'd give up to have that and decide if that's what you really want."

I can teach her to eat healthy food before she eats a cookie, but I can't teach her what her heart desires most. Only she can answer that for herself.