9

This Sunday is Schuyler's ninth birthday. Yeah, that's right. Nine. I'm not sure how that happened. I still remember her as a little baby, all fat and hairy and weird. At some point, someone replaced her with a little girl. I'd like an explanation for that, because it has left me feeling quite befuddled.

Anyway, instead of more deep dark scary talk about the monster, I thought I'd share some random observations about Schuyler, in no particular order and not of any earth-shattering importance. Really, I just like thinking about all the weird little things she does. She's a weird kid, "my weird and wondrous monster-slayer", as I call her in the dedication of my book.

So, some quick facts about Schuyler, at nine:

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Schuyler still loves fairies and dinosaurs and mermaids. She likes princesses, but her favorite book right now is about princesses who kick ass in various nontraditional ways, so I'm not too worried.

Schuyler's brief interest in Hannah Montana appears to be over.

Schuyler's Martian is becoming easier to understand, and yet, there are still intriguing gaps. When she sees a Mini Cooper, for example, she gets excited (she got accustomed to watching for them back when I was going to get one over the summer), and she points and says "Mini!" But it doesn't sound like "mini", not even close. It's a word that she gets the vowels wrong on, too. Martian is a more complicated language than I thought, apparently.

Schuyler can go on a six hour car ride with me, and the return ride a few days later, without a word of complaint. As long as I play my cool "Atomo Mix" in the car, she's all good. But only if I start with the Ali Dee and The Deekompressors version of the Speed Racer theme.

Schuyler is now 4 feet, five inches tall. When the nurse told us that, I thought it had to be a mistake. Babies aren't that tall. I am clearly not dealing well with the passage of time.

For all her height, Schuyler only weighs sixty-eight pounds. She is all arms, legs, ears and front teeth. And giant hypnotic eyes. She's like an anime character.

Schuyler's lost glasses mysteriously appeared in the teacher's lounge at her school a few weeks after they vanished.  They were even still in the case.  Not sure what to make of that.  We decided just to accept it as a gift from the universe and move on.

Schuyler's love of Chuck Taylors has not abated at all.

Schuyler is now wearing women's size six shoes. She is one shoe size behind her mother now. Adult sized Chuck Taylors are twice as expensive as the identical kid sizes.

Schuyler makes up names for her toy friends, names that are strange and kind of wonderful. Her new triceratops from the Field Museum, for example, is named Yliksa. At first I thought she was just randomly stringing letters together, but no. When quizzed about it repeatedly, she always gets the spelling the same, and gets upset if we get it wrong. I sometimes wonder if these are popular names on Mars.

Schuyler loves soccer and baseball, but hates football so much that she boos when she sees it on tv or being played by other kids. I'm pretty sure she does that for my benefit. She is truly a coach's grand-daughter.

Schuyler met a friend of mine via videoconferencing a few weeks ago, and now refers to my "friend in the computer". She's going to lose her mind when they meet in person in a few weeks.

When she signs books now, Schuyler has taken to writing things like "Love, Schuyler!" (Always with the exclamation point.) It slows down the line at book signings, but I don't think anyone minds.

If you can catch her without her noticing, Schuyler is an amazing and beautiful photographic subject. If you ask her to smile, however, she will squint and make what she thinks is a smile but which looks more like a pained grimace. It looks more like a painful pooping face than a smile. For two years in a row, the school photographer has apparently told her to smile.

Schuyler still spots police cars for me. "The fuzz! The fuzz!"

If Schuyler turns out to be having seizures, we'll have to get rid of her cool loft bed. It would be far too difficult for one of us to get up to her if she had a seizure up there. I'm not sure why, but lately, this is the thing that has been making me the saddest about the possibility of seizures.

Schuyler will try any food, and she's not afraid of spicy things.

Schuyler is transfixed by ballet. She was watching the San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker on tv, and you would have thought there were dinosaurs, eating princesses and chocolate ice cream at the Purple Cow. She was mesmerized. Afterwards, she danced around on her toes for the rest of the night.

Schuyler lost that little kid belly that she always had when she was young, the one that all little kids have. She is tall and slender and has an actual girl butt. I find this to be very troubling, and it only gets worse from here on out.

Schuyler did a paper on leopards this semester. She presented it while wearing a leopard print skirt that she picked out herself for the occasion.

Schuyler picks almost all her own clothes. She puts the outfits together, too, although we exercise veto rights. Well, you would, too.

Schuyler and my mother have a very close and sort of wordless bond that is unlike any other in her life. It's hard to describe, but it makes me happy.

When Schuyler looks sad, she looks like my grandmother, who has the saddest story in all my family. But she doesn't look sad very often.

Schuyler loves babies. She would have been an amazing big sister.

Schuyler is my best friend and the finest daughter a father could ever dream of having. I'm not sure where she comes from and what that other world is like, the one that she visits us from, but I'm inexpressibly happy that she spends time in my world, too.

Happy birthday, Chubbin.