We were all gathered in Scarlett’s room Sunday afternoon before dinner. She had been in there for the better part of the day, per usual for a 12-year-old girl. Only this time, instead of being horizontal on her bed watching TikTok’s or sitting at her vanity applying skincare and makeup for eternity, she was cleaning, making her bed, and decorating her walls. Despite her two completed projects from the Kid’s Workshop at Home Depot, she still isn’t permitted to use a hammer and nails to hang things up. So, she opted for push pins to hang the items she pulled out from her memory box.
I was laying on her bed, relieving the pressure of my pregnant belly from the rest of my body. Feeling ew in my skin but grateful to not be moving for the moment. Evie was messing around with Scarlett’s memory box items that were on the floor; becoming interested in Scar’s mini-France umbrella she got from her first trip to Disney when she was three. I realized our next trip to Epcot now involves an umbrella purchase since Scarlett and Gianna both had one of these.
A few minutes go by, and Gianna and Vince join us, having just arrived back home. G had worked that day and Vince used some unicorn free time to finally make it back to the gym.
They joined me on the bed and Scar asked them both how they liked her room. Scarlett has turned into the neat one in the past two years. She will clean her room without me asking. Her floor is usually clear of clutter. It’s a room you really aren’t ever afraid to walk in and lose your shit. Still, it took them both a second to realize she was asking about her new decorations that were hanging and not the fact that the room was in its normal state of clean.
They both admired her wall and complimented her work. Gianna’s eyes, however, lingered for a moment on the two sets of rosaries that were draped over the push pins on the top right. One light pink, one red. She had just purchased a light pink set at St Peter’s Basilica this summer. Scarlett, known for taking Gianna’s stuff without asking, could have possibly taken Gianna’s rosaries as her own and draped them on her wall, hoping to get away with it.
Knowing this, Gianna said: “Hey, where did you get those?”
Scarlett, not sure exactly what G was referring to, looked mentally prepared for a moment to give a tour of her wall, listing each item and its origin story. I had just received monologue moments ago, even though I’ve been her mother all her life and know where most items have come from.
Instead of the tour, Scarlett decided to get specific and asked, “Get what?”
Gianna pointed to the wall and said “the….” and then she paused for a brief second, “the rosemaries.”
Oh. My. God. The rosemaries??!!
I immediately busted out laughing, my belly shaking like Santa Claus. Up to this point, I had had a bad afternoon. I am at the point in my pregnancy where I’m ready to be done. I had been feeling ick for hours that day. But as soon as Gianna said “rosemaries” I felt my mood shift.
Vince, having attended Catholic School for almost a decade and who literally has the Last Supper, Virgin Mary, and Jesus hanging on the cross all tattooed on his back, said in disbelief “the what?! What did you call them?!”
“She said ROSEMARIES! Our kid is going to hell!!” I said trying to catch my breath around the laughter and the infant foot kicking my lungs from the inside.
Gianna is our only child to have received two of the Catholic sacraments, so I think we envision her being more “in tune” with that religion. At least, I think we expected her to know names of core religious objects from that faith. Plus, she just got back from Italy, for the love of God. Yet there she sat, pointing to the wall and calling a set of rosaries an herb instead of its proper name.
The family all laughed together there in Scarlett’s room. All of us, save for Evie. Who was in the middle of the floor, pissed at being ignored, and yelling for someone to take her on the jumpy pit with Scarlett’s mini-umbrella so she could pretend to be Mary Poppins.