My Witch Baby

My eldest daughter is fifteen. She is the queen of our family. She makes healthy choices. She gets all A's in all Honors and Advanced Placement classes. She cooks for us, takes care of her little sister. She takes care of everything. She is careful about the things she does and says. She knows how to have fun, but she's definitely an eat-your-broccoli-before-your-ice-cream kind of person. I wish I was more like her.

My youngest is a different kind of girl. She is still smart, studious, polite to strangers, helpful, kind, irreverent and silly, all just like her sister. But not just like her sister.

I call my youngest Witch Baby because she reminds me of Francesca Lia Block's character Witch Baby in the Love is a Dangerous Angel series. Her hair is crazy. She makes it crazy. She slept last night with a tiny wet ponytail in her bangs so she could wake up with a cowlick. It gets so tangled in the back that wild faeries could be living in it and you would never know.

Witch Baby is seven. On a drive today her sister tried to discourage us from going to McDonald's for dinner. Witchy ripped the headrest off the top of her seat.

"You don't deserve a headrest," the Baby said. "You're not the boss."

"Your sister is the queen of the family," I said.

"She is not. Nobody is the queen of the family. Well, maybe Daddy is," the Baby said.

After dropping off her sister, Witch Baby climbed into the front. When Gimme Shelter came on the stereo I explained about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. I thought it worth noting that Kieth Richards and I have the same birthday.

"Are you the same age as Keith Richards?" she asked.

"No, he's about twenty five years older than me," I said.

"Woah," the Baby said. "So he's ninety?"

I changed the song. We sang at the top of our lungs all the way home. The Beekeeper. Tiny Dancer. Ring of Fire. Witch Baby knows all the words.

Flo rida's song came on. You know the one. "Oh hot damn / this is my jam."

"Woah," the Baby said. "This song requires lipstick."

She went into my purse and took out a shimmery pink. She applied it in a mirror. Someone swerved in front of us on the freeway.

"Christ," I said.

"Don't use the Lord's name in vain Mommy," the Baby said.

"I can if I want. I'm grown."

"No you can't," the Baby said. "That's like saying a person you really really love's name in a really mad way. It's not nice."

She's right about that of course. I turned up the music so we could sing along. It warms up our voices so that we can sing in church tomorrow.