the good old days

I always found Friday the 13th to be so seriously underwhelming. “OOOOOOH, you don’t want to do THAT!” my friends would squeal about anything totally random. “It’s FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH! It’ll go wrong!”

Today, June 13th, is my son’s birthday, and it is going to go beautifully. Babies are great: everything is so totally extreme to them. He will smear cake all over himself and think that is the Best Thing Ever. His older sister will open presents for him and he will think that is the Best Thing Ever. He will be bounced and cuddled and cooed over and he will think that is the Best Thing Ever. He will probably fall and bonk his head and that is the Worst Thing Ever, but then he gets picked up and comforted which is the Best Thing Ever. And that stacking shape toy thing that’s his present… you guessed it, Best Thing Ever.

I am immune to friggatriskaidekaphobia because I have a frigging awesome baby party to attend. Booyah. I don’t even care about the forecast of rain, because even if it comes true, Baby Boy has taught me that rain can be the Best Thing Ever.

So thanks, Frigg, if you’re actually responsible for fertility, because the kids are loads of fun and very educational.

It started out rather innocently. One day there was a huge rumble of thunder, the normal ramp-up of a thunderstorm echoing around the hills of southern Indiana. My two-year-old comes running in, crying, “There’s a bear outside!” I laugh, and tell her, “No, sweetie, that’s thunder.”

“Ohhhhh,” she says, eyes growing wide. “Thunder Bear!”

And the myth grew from there. Whenever Thunder Bear growled, my daughter shrieked in half-real fear. Eventually, she decided he must ride a motorcycle around the sky — a Midwest thunderstorm can be quite loud and persistent, exhausting the vocalizing power of even the most persistent of angry ursines. If it started raining while we were in the car, she declared Thunder Bear was riding along with us on the roof. At times, she would feed him, tossing pretend food through a pretend roof hole.

Now, two years later, she has decided that Thunder Bear is a god and told us so at a recent Shabbat meal. While we’re hardly the most observant of Jews, it did seem a little inappropriate. To abide by the first commandment, though, we made sure she understood that G-d is number one and there are no others before him — they’re welcome to hang out after him. But I fear it’s only a matter of time before we’re starting to leave out sacrificial bowls of honey to propitiate Thunder Bear (or attract him, since the Midlands of South Carolina seem to be drought-prone).

I can’t wait to introduce her to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster