Extending Family

THE WORLD'S TINIEST JEDI

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Happy Halloweiners, everybody!

I spent the holiday afternoon handing out candy at a cable station's haunted house, an experience that beautifully showcased the axiom: The smaller the person, the automatically cuter the costume.

*infant monkey
*infant pumpkin
*infant tomato

There were also Star Wars-garbed toddlers walking around - no Princess Leias in chains, but all kinds of Ewoks, a Darth Vader who got up in my face and told me very seriously I'M DARRRRTH VAAAAADER!!!! (I peed a little), and, as mentioned above, the world's itty-bittiest Jedi. *melt*

The best part though was a kindergartener Deceptacon wailing his head off because he was scared of the black light graveyard that ended with a dude jumping out and yelling at people. NOT SO TOUGH NOW, EH, MEGATRON? He may have been too big to be adorable by the above principle, but he did scientifically prove that ridiculous costume + small child sobbing = instant hilarity AND total preciousness.

I am at home now and Vin is already wearing his own Darth Vader ensemble. Guess I am going to have to go dress up the cats.

Ground control to Major Ari

The Short Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:55:00 +0000

So our household received this O HAI I'M SKIPPING OUT ON UR LIVES BUT LIKE I TOTALLY CARE ABOUT U phone call a week ago, while Lucy and I were hosting her brother and frantically preparing to leave for Chicago and fly Vin to his grandma's elsewhere in the wee hours of the following morning. Actually, only Lucy received the call. Her ex, who is (or was) a pretty integral part of our family setup, called to announce that he had been fired from his job a week earlier and was moving to the Bay Area to live with his family...the next day. Oh yeah, though, he could still pick up Vin at the airport on Monday. If we needed him to. Maybe. If we really needed him to. Well, he thought he could, but he needed a minute to think about it. Why was Lucy being so mean and not-understanding about him and his needs? He had to go! Like, now! But he knew that, like, she needed him, and so...IF she really needed him...etc.

So I did what any normal auntie would do. I called him and gave him a piece of my fucking mind. Was he just not going to tell me he was moving 400 miles away?? I told him that I understood that he had to do what he (thought he) had to do, but that I was really upset that he had referred to us as "family" for a solid year and then sat on this kind of information for as long as he had without telling us - his "family," right? - what was going on. And that Vin is fucking SIX YEARS OLD AND HAS ALREADY HAD A FATHER LEAVE WITHOUT WARNING, AND THAT HIS ACTIONS ARE JACKED-UP, SHITTY, HURTFUL, AND JUST WRONG. And he was all, "I have no choice...I have to move..." and I could hear in his voice that he was just fucking yes-ma'aming me so I would get off the phone. Having said what I had to say, I did.

And then I thought about it a while longer. And I remembered all the times I skipped out of town, literally and metaphorically. Granted, I was in my early/mid-20s and effectively raised by wolves, which doesn't excuse my behavior, but I realized that I couldn't judge him without judging myself, and I couldn't forgive myself without forgiving him. And in a wave of compassion tempered still with the anger, I wrote him an email saying as much, expressing that I hope he gets what he really needs, and that I hope he learns how to make transitions with as much grace and integrity as possible so he doesn't keep fucking people over.

I still feel that way - although since I rarely experience anger as something that segues neatly into another feeling and stays that way, I am angry all over again writing this. Immediately after Lucy as gently as possible imparted the news, Vin started hitting things, being ugly, and otherwise acting out. He's got a lot of hurt and anger to deal with from this and from the original pain of his father leaving. She and I are doing our best to encourage him to express his feelings - including his hurt and anger - respectfully. It's challenging. Nobody ever taught US how to do this as kids. Nobody really sat us down and taught us how to do it, period - we each came to the conclusion as adults that we were unhappy, that things weren't working, that we had to ask people to help us figure out some other way to live. The last thing this world needs is one more person walking around as an adult zombie with the emotional capacity of that six-year-old child whose father, and then the closest thing he's had since then, have both left.

And now I'm not angry, I'm sad. That abandonment leads people to and through the most hollow, death-seeking self-rejection. The ex's own father left him, and he does not appear to be doing very well for himself at the moment.

I am choosing to end this entry with a picture of a pug in a bee suit. If you've read this far you probably need it as much as I do.

...Love...

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:59:00 +0000

"I love you more than a thousand cats in a thousand pairs of fabulous dancing pants," I told Vin when I tucked him in tonight. We had just read the Shel Silverstein fabulous dancing pants poem after doing imitations of all four of our cats. I kissed his forehead and his cheeks and pulled up the blanket.

"That's a lot of poop right there," he responded, and paused, and continued: "I love YOU more than a thousand cat poops and pukes."

It's always good to know where you stand, right?

We were reading out of the copy of Where The Sidewalk Ends friends of my parents gave me when I was five, a little younger than he is now. The cover is slightly gnawed, and some of the pages are stained because I never learned not to eat while reading. He asked for some of my favorites, including "Sick," which always reminds me of a friend I had growing up who died when we were in middle school. Hope Platshorn. One of the sixth grade classes had had to memorize that poem. Our yearbook reprinted the poem under this photo of her that...was just so entirely her. Eyes open, laughing, loving, arms stretched wide, wearing one of those polyester vests that was the cutting edge of fashion in 1985 and that is actually back in style again now (at least according to certain offshoots of certain hipster clothing companies run by gropy lechers here in Los Angeles hipsterville). I can't hear or read that poem without thinking of her. For Hopey and for Vin, I gave it my all.

Merge

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:19:00 +0000

So it looks like Lucy and I are turning into each other. Originally we were all worried that our styles would clash and none of our furniture would go together, but not only have we found some happy medium with a weird but fabulous living room palette of teal (her), olive (me), mustard (both of us), and leopard print (both of us), but our clothing tastes are morphing as well. Lucy is now prancing around in flats and cap-sleeve dresses with demure little A-line skirts while I am scribbling my face with heavy black eyeliner, ripping up tank tops for maximum boobage exposure, and buying as many pairs of 5" heels as I can afford.

The stripper pole has been mounted. That is a PROFESHUNUL term. Sadly, one of the cats fled through a broken window and is now living a life of tease and denial in the parrot people's yard. I can't blame him; they have a hot tub and totally amazing landscaping. And, also, a lot of delicious looking tropical birds. There is a dishearteningly long list of things that need to be repaired around here; thankfully, the landlords are responsive. We are all still trying to figure out various standards and protocols for sharing living space as a family. While there is a lot of chaos, it is made sweet by Lucy's and my commitment to really working together. I won't lie, it's hard, there have been issues and tissues, and there will undoubtedly be more. But it's working. It definitely helps that we are both clear communicators and that we wear the same clothing and shoe size.

Parallel Living

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:37:00 +0000

I am sooooooo caffeinated right now so apologies in advance for upcoming run-on sentence time, but hey, THE MOVE IS OVER, we are installed in Glitter Palace with our four cats and 50,000 pairs of shoes and are currently in the process of discovering some not-so-awesome surprises, like the low hot water pressure and the yelly parrot next door, but the landlords care and are reponsive, and we can teach the parrot some Mozart or, like, the soothing sound of a mellow ocean breeze, right?

So we spent the afternoon of our first full day at the new house in a certain place...the name of which should strike fear into your heart - it does ours, ever since Vin had the epic meltdown of all time there last summer. Four little letters, Scandinavian design. It's unclear what we were thinking beyond "Gotta get some Malm and lingonberry, pronto," but we went and there were a bunch of day players dressed as Vikings (?) outside with some rather effective-looking swords. Guess that's what they do with the disruptive customers...lucky the Vikings weren't there the last time we were there because we would have all been chopped up and flattened into particle board.

So we were dissatisfiedly browsing the mug selection (why are they all so small?) when I heard a male voice pipe over the display: "Hey, Chai, you need anything else?" WHO THE FUCK ELSE HERE HAS MY NAME??? I had to know, and peeked around the corner to see an Orthodox couple pushing a cart - they were a collection of toddler, tzitzit, and some awfully cute modest lady clothing. They were good decade younger than I am, and suddenly I was conscious of my belly bared beneath my cropped cleavagey shirt, my rack popping out of my push-up bra, the Hebrew tattooed on my arm, the choices I have made, the ease with which I could have fallen into an obsessive observance of the 613 as opposed to looking within and finding that religion doesn't really work for me (and I'm not saying these people are obsessive, I'm saying I have problems with my own tendencies toward compulsion and would have ended up, like, toiveling everything that touches my body including bus seats and movie tickets), and most of all my joy in my own weird patchwork Jewish expression that will set our table tomorrow night with roast chicken, gluten-free challah, and arroz con gandules made con tocino. The same expression that next weekend will have us reclining and yapping about identity, social ills, and tikkun olam with an orange on the seder plate for women and a lemon or whatever we can find for queers. A cow femur that I keep on my shelf year-round for the paschal offering. And probably some more salt-porky arroz con b'tayavon. Perhaps not traditional, but tradition.

!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:50:00 +0000

We found a place! It is awesome! It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, and three other kids Vin's age on the property! Lucy's ex suckered himself into adopting the fifth cat! We are moving very soon!

HEY! This is a FAMILY blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Lucy and I like The Office. A lot. We constantly quote the dip-it-in-water-to-make-it-slide-down-your-gullet-easier line, and because we are teenage boys at heart, we riff on this one particular callback until we are both completely sick of it but can't help ourselves. So it should not have been any surprise when planning some event or another, we asked another friend if she were coming -- and from the other room Vin yelled, "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!" There was a long pause while Lucy and I looked at each other, brows raised. And then we totally lost it, silently, as he concluded, "...or he said."

There's been a lot of that going on around here. Lucy has commented how weird it is to hear her words coming from the mouth of a six-year-old: "It really puts things in a whole different light!" It is odd, but admittedly hilarious, to watch him get frustrated with one of his Transformers and sputter, "OH, for GOD'S SAKE!" The best, though, is when he flips his hair around, rolls his eyes, stamps his foot, and yells at Lucy, "YOU'RE BEING DRAMATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Because, you know, that's what she said. Or something.

Plans and worries, worries and plans

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:45:00 +0000

It may seem as though all has been dormant here at Extendingfamily but oh no, there is much afoot. Team Glitter has been discussing cohabitation and its ramifications, logistically and otherwise. Logistically, I am pretty confident we can pull this off rather seamlessly. Moving sucks, but there is no way two expert project managers who shine at 3D Tetris can do much wrong. We're looking at spring - the end of Lucy's current lease, and the start of her new life as a B.A. (Applause! Confetti!) My lease is month-to-month, and while I may have had childhood dreams of being a Ph.D, I also had childhood dreams of being a princess, so whatever, what I'm saying here is that spring looks good. We are pretty sure that depending on the next phase of her education, she, Vin, and their three kitties will be joining me up here in Los Angeles.

Oh, did I mention that I have two cats? They are all going to freaking hate us and kill us in our sleep. This is the part of the move that I completely fail to conceptualize. Do you have any idea how much poop five felines can generate? Me either, but you can bet I will be blogging about it right here when the time comes. When I abruptly quit posting you will know they have sought and achieved their revenge.

Anyway, the worries that go with the plans are more along the lines of how the dynamics will change between all of us. I'm not all that concerned about Lucy and me; we've road-tripped together a few times, have had a few conflicts, and are pretty good about talking everything out. I'm more concerned about the kiddle. Right now I'm MEGA-EXCITING AUNTIE CHAIA!!!!!!!!!! and the mere hint of my presence can inspire excellent behavior in Baby Basilisk. A few weeks ago I took him out for dinner-and-a-movie - California Pizza Kitchen and Mr. Magorium, another magical man-child, though somewhat less creepy than Mr. Bean - and it was like the highlight of his week. I aspire to date grown women who feel similarly and who are also not creepy. While I defer all child discipline to Lucy and follow her parenting style, Vin generally naturally heeds my authority because he thinks I'm so incredibly great. He's even been talking about how terrific it would be if we all lived together. I know things will change with a shared household, and I worry that I'll suddenly become just another boring, dour grown-up to him, just someone else who's constantly nagging him to hurry up and get his shoes on, or reminding him to put away the Legos, or making him restrict his bedtime reading to three pages only. Actually, I already do all those things; my real worry is that I'll run out of creative ideas to help keep him on track and he'll hate it. Already I can see the day where a challenge to a "quiet contest" will go unheeded. (Mother of god, I cannot believe that one actually works.) The other day he called me an "old lady" as a pejorative rather than a descriptive, and I had to tell him that that was disrespectful, not to mention inaccurate. And then how will he feel about his mama having chosen to share a home with me? What will he be telling his therapist about us in 15 years? Should we just start giving him our old Smiths albums now? Would he eschew them in favor of something even more emo? Mazzy Star? Slayer? I don't even know what the emo kids are listening to these days. This is where we take things one day at a time, right?

In other news, happy belated Genocide Day, people! We followed the dictates of our respective heritages in cooking enormous vats of food and then shoveling it all down the gullets of ourselves and our loved ones while harshly disparaging the dominant paradigm...and we hope you enjoyed the same.

A B C, O M G

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:57:00 +0000

So where were we? Oh yeah, Vin is now a robot with the super fast running powers of a basilisk on water, and he shoots web out of his wrists in response to perceived attack. Also, he is now reading. READING! It all started a few weeks ago when Lucy was napping, I was about to nap, Vin was prepping to get into some sort of nonsense or another, and I whispered something to Lucy about setting up the kiddle with an M-O-V-I-E on the I-P-O-D. He was engrossed with an action figure, so I lay down to close my eyes. Almost immediately, he popped into my face with a, "Hey! I thought you were going to set me up with a MOVIE on the IPOD!" When I told Lucy about it later we were both like, whoa...days are numbered.

Fast forward to this past Saturday afternoon, when Vin brought some books into Lucy's room, snuggled under my arm, and announced that he was going to read to me. And he did! At the end of a few sentences about - what else - dinosaurs, he was so excited, he squirmed around, threw his hands in the air, and yelled YES!!!!!! I'M READING!!!!!!

I had this huge grin on my face and I was totally filling up and spilling over. He looked up at me, observing: "Your eyes are watering."

"You're making me cry, you're doing so well at reading," I told him, knowing I was sending mixed messages to his kindergartener brain, but unable to stop myself. Sure enough, he was confused. "We're really proud of you," Lucy added. "Yeah," I parroted her, my language skills still stuck on the Holy Crap setting, "We're really proud of you."

I would say I remember when I learned to read, but the truth is that I can't remember a time when I didn't know how. I don't think I've ever loved anything or anyone more than the written word, and I doubt I ever will. Lucy is the same way - she says as soon as she learned to read, she didn't want to do anything else with her time. Vin clearly has additional interests, chief among them building spaceships from Legos, krumping, and evading bedtime, but I can't see how he could be Lucy's child and not want to glue his nose in a book. Especially when he's already so completely thrilled to bits - there was more than just that one YES!!!!! (complete with fist pump) uttered during yesterday's reading session. I'm verklempt again just remembering it. Also, I'm thinking that in order to buy ourselves some time for the discussion of activities like eating cookies and playing ball at the park, es necesito D-E-L-E-T-R-E-A-R E-N E-S-P-A-G-N-O-L, A-S-A-P.

In which I almost have six heart attacks and a few seizures besides

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:48:00 +0000

Last weekend I took Vin to the movies so his mama could have some Quality Grownup Time with her New Friend (ahem) (yes, I am a wonderful auntie, I know). I was extremely psyched to see Ratatouille, but I was informed in the car on the way over that it was "not that good." Ooooohkay, pint-sized Ebert. I said we'd see what else was playing when we got to the theater, then, and made a mental backup plan to take him to the nearest chain bookstore to peruse the dinosaur section if it was all going to be NC-17.

"I'll look at the posters and tell you what we should see," he instructed me upon arrival, and lo and behold, what should meet his satisfaction but the latest Mr. Bean film. Though I was unfamiliar with the Mr. Bean catalogue, my friend Richard had once told me that Rowan Atkinson is brilliant at physical comedy, so I thought, okay, fine, I personally would rather see Ratatouille, but Bean it is. "I LOVE THE PART WHERE HE SPILLS COFFEE ON HIS COMPUTER AND THEN LICKS IT UP!!!!!!" Vin howled and squirmed with pure glee in the parking lot...and at the ticket booth...and the concession stand...and in the bathroom, where I parked him by the sink and instructed him not to move while I did my business.

"What's this?" I heard him ask, half to himself, half to me, and then: "It's liquid candy!" "DO NOT EAT IT," sez I, unable to move, and already too late. "It's just CANDY," he told me when I exited the stall and told him not to eat strange things that are lying around, "It might not have been just candy and you just don't know so don't do it." He looked at me like I was the fool. I was already totally worried that I would kill him in a car wreck or get him abducted from the butter machine (which, by the way: add your own butter? rad) and also we were missing the previews for this movie I didn't even really want to see, but the lateness added an extra twist to my gut.

So it was in this super not relaxed mood that we hunkered down. And another by the way, don't let kindergarteners choose the seats or you will end up all the way on the side aisle in the second row. I'm sending him my chiropractor bill.

Anyway, Mr. Bean. Essentially it was about this incoherent man-child supposedly livening up the world with his harmless quirks, and it only served to highlight the amazing amount of real-life danger afoot. I have always been one to envision poisoned candy everywhere anyway, so to see Mr. Bean's antics result in preventing a father from getting on the train where his preadolescent son was waiting...and then getting the cops after him for suspected kidnapping of said child...and his inability or refusal to verbally or otherwise communicate with those around him (and here I cut him a sliver of a break, since he is English and the story is set in France, but still)...and his being painted as a "good guy" for chasing a leering drunkard away from the child...doing all these "harmless" things while emanating his own creepy vibe...and then everyone sings together on the beach at the end...let's just say that it did not make up for the otherwise quite brilliant payoff of these two subplots involving his video camera and Willem Dafoe as a pretentious Hollywood windbag. (Vin: "What's Dr. Osborn doing in this movie?") In fact, the film really unsettled me. Vin was oblivious, loving the broad physical comedy (at which, yes, Atkinson excels) and intermittently suggesting I buy him Icees.

I had trouble sleeping that night. I'd asked my brother when I was visiting in July how he didn't, like, freak the fuck out at all the responsibility of caring for this itty bitty totally dependent being, and he smiled a little and said in his gentle way, "Well...I just take it one thing at a time." So when I told Lucy about the candy episode, she gave Vin the Serious Mama Talk about how there are a lot of good people in the world, but there are a lot of bad people, too, who like to hurt others just because they can, and that he has to listen to the folks who take care of him because we KNOW...bad things have happened to us. Have they ever. He was kind of like, whatever, there she goes again and I could tell he didn't really get why we were so upset.

I remember being his age and feeling like I was in control - I remember thinking that if the Nazis came for me, I would just hide from them, which is a horrible but apt example - and there is just so much he doesn't know about, and how do you teach a kid to be careful without showing them exactly how terrible humans can be to each other? I asked Lucy, how do you get through a day without holding his hand the entire time?

And she told me something similar to what my brother had said, that she'd had nightmares about everything at first, but now she takes it situation by situation, and that the alternative is worrying herself into the grave. And that children don't get it unless and until something bad happens to them. That knowledge is agonizing. I can't believe I was so unaware of the gravity of child-rearing even as I babysat my way through high school. What was I thinking?

p.s. L'shanah tovah, yo

A Thorough Shalom

noreply@blogger.com (Chaia Milstein) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 06:04:00 +0000

I feel like I should start this blog with some grand, sweeping statement of purpose, or at least a general intro to The Family Of Me. I guess I should also say that I have come to believe that family is a state that is created or destroyed over time. I grew up in a pretty alienating environment, one in which the people who cared for me materially simultaneously put down and ignored my humanity. I want to make it clear that I deeply appreciate all that material provision - my parents always fed and clothed me, and sent me to a top-notch and very expensive college without expecting recompense - but that with the belittling tones of voices and the constant grounding and the occasional smack on the face and backing me into a wall and/or threat thereof, it all added up to a growing conviction that these were not my people, that love should not be conditional, that I should not be told, as a young adult, when and how it was "appropriate" to do everyday things...that I should not have my interests disregarded or dismissed. Almost 13 years ago, when I was 22, I decided to cut off contact with my parents, and while I have experienced a lot of grief about that over the years, it's been more about my own loneliness and less about the intense pain of feeling my sense of self squashed on a moment-by-moment basis. I am still in touch with my younger brother (who had an entirely different growing-up experience), my maternal grandmother, my erstwhile godmother, and various aunts, uncles, and cousins; though, as you may imagine, my estrangement from my parents has at various times strained those relationships as well.

Thank the sweet lord for therapy, that's all I have to say.

For years, even with all the couch time, I felt removed from any concept of family or group or pack, and my feelings of separation grew as my peers, my friends, my baby bro started having kids. From my late 20s to early/mid 30s, I was in a long-term relationship with a man, and while it was loving, it wasn't quite right. We had a dog, and that was enough. When we broke up after four-and-a-half years, I finally accepted that if and when I engage in another serious relationship, the face I want to see on the pillow next to mine is another lady face - and then I really started having the wonderments. I couldn't figure out whether or not I wanted to raise a child. First I didn't. Definitely not. Then I did, but I didn't want to be the one to pop it out. Then I thought I could give birth, I just didn't want to parent alone. Maybe. But then maybe I just wanted to keep flying solo with my incredibly single, no-one-to-take-care-of-but-me life. Or did I? Or could I? I mean, some days I consider successful just because I manage to dress myself in not-pajamas before leaving for work.

So I read a lot about lesbian parenting and adopted a couple of cats, questions about dyke-style nuclear family structures fomenting in my head. Even if I could meet Ms. Right, did I want to go that whole two-mama route? It seemed kind of limiting. I was raised partially in the suburbs. I considered automatic garage door openers and single-family pre-fab housing. I considered my intense need for 24-hour deli and my equally intense need to live among a mishmash of different kinds of people doing random stuff in a busy, bustly city. What about that village that it takes to blah blah etc.? I had issues. I started to itch. I stayed single.

Then in the summer of 2006 I met Lucy. Lucy has since become my platonic BFF, and her five-year-old son Vin, my nephew. It's like Kate & Allie, but all homo and Boricua/Jewish style. Even with the amazing transitions we have thus far seen each other through - relationships/breakups/job schmeh (both me and Lucy), deadbeat dadness/several moves involving entirely too many stairs (Lucy and Vin), new molars/kindergarten (Vin), horrifying Ikea trips (ugggggh...all of us together) - I didn't realize that we had actually become family to each other until we were discussing in detail her plans to move to New York for grad school. I need to be in Los Angeles to make my career happen and plan on staying here for the duration. I said something about how my parents would get together with their friends every New Year's Eve, and that we should do something like that. I was surprised at how rock-solid, how much of a given my commitment felt. And then I realized how much of our time we spend together, how many hours I log driving from Los Angeles to Long Beach, and vice versa. How most of my monthly T-Mobile call records feature her number. How much easier and at least marginally more fun it is to share together the burden of the aforementioned Swedish furniture mega-mart (imagine me totally spitting three times to evade the Evil Eye). It felt new, but familiar, and in that moment immediately after the surprise I felt such a huge joy at how incredibly sweet it is to suddenly notice that I am part of a team of people looking out for each other's welfare on such close and frequently mundane levels. As soon as Lucy shouted, "Yeah! July Fourth!" I thought, of course July Fourth - our friendiversary - and of course our little group of peeps, this unconventional family that formed itself without me noticing. What better way to stick it to the man on National Genocide Day than by celebrating the thriving of the queer, weird, and unconventional?

I still feel the pull to make a home that includes a child, and I don't know how that will play out, but I am totally digging the Auntie Chaia role. And I know things will change once they move, in ways that I can't even begin to anticipate. But for now it just feels so damn good to know that next year, I will be budgeting for NYC trips and buying extra sleeping bags with which to be a better hostess. I take my job as Auntie Chaia very seriously, so you know the bigger sleeping bag will be hot pink with leopard print for Lucy, and the smaller sleeping bag will have to be Spider-Man themed for Vin, unless Spider-Man becomes totally passe by that time, in which case I guess I will be on notice for the schooling of the cool. Stay tuned.