If I had to guess it started around the dinner table – where many good stories start. Perhaps we were talking about where babies come from or maybe it was around Rafa’s birthday which would answer why Santi was wondering where we “got him”. There was something silly and charming about the way he asked, like he was looking for a joke. So we gave him one and it’s become his favorite joke.
“We got you at Oxxo*,” we said smiling playfully.
“OXXO?!” he laughed-yelled.
“Yep. Mami, papa, and Rafa walked into Oxxo for ice cream and chips and there you were. There was only one and you were so cute and we just had to have you. So we asked the clerk, ‘How much for that cute Santi?’ And then we put you in the car and brought you home with us.
He was wild about this story and, every so often, he talks about how we got him at Oxxo. I half-cringe every time I imagine him telling this joke-story to his school friends’ parents. But, hey, it’s become our joke; one we might laugh about when he’s an adult, so I’ll take a judgy, slant-eye any day for a story my kid delights in.
Last night, after throwing him a little birthday celebration, I sat on the edge of his bed and lifted his tiny, slender frame into my lap and held him like a cuddly baby bug and said, “You’re my baby and my baby is turning 5 tomorrow?”
He loves being fawned over so he smiled at me sweetly and batted his long lashes and said, “Remember when you got me at Oxxo? And you said, ‘We want to take that cute Santi home?'”
I giggled but reminded him that he, in fact, did cook in my body for 9 months before they took him out. I showed him my scar which of course he thought was equal parts gross and cool, so in boy-talk it was awesome. And then, with a good-natured eye roll and a yeah-yeah toss of his hand, he returned to the Oxxo story.
I know he knows he was born in Santo Domingo, at Abel y Gonzalez en la Lincoln, in the same hospital his sister was born. He knows the same doctors that delivered her, delivered him. And that in the process, I lost more blood than I should have, which, meant I’d need a blood transfusion. But clearly, for now, he prefers the Oxxo story over the one where his mom was a warrior. Go figure.
So I let him have the Oxxo story but I reminded him of this one simple yet über important truth that threads itself into either story and I say:
Ok. Well, whether we got you from Oxxo or from my belly, what is always the same is that we wanted you. You were always meant to be ours.
And it seemed he was happy with this compromise. So he smiled at me sweetly and batted his long lashes and then rolled over and went to sleep.
H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y to one of the happiest and sweetest kids I’ve ever known. I’m glad you’re ours.
P.S. Teaching my kids to blaze like a mother**cker and an under the sea birthday party.
Notes:
*Oxxo is Mexico’s version of 7-11 — although they have 7-11 here too). There’s an Oxxo on every corner and you can’t go more than 5 minutes without seeing one. There are so many that we’ve turned it into a car game — one point for Oxxo you spot. Needless to say, our kids love Oxxo.)
