Monday, January 01, 2007

Yessir, I'm Your Baby


The first New Year's Eve I can remember, I was 5 years old. I had begged my parents to let me stay up until midnight, but they said I was too young. They invited several other couples over to celebrate with them, and everyone knows you can lead a child to bed, but you can't make her sleep. No self-respecting child would sleep through an adult party, anyway. Didn't they understand that I needed to be there?

Somehow I got the idea of dressing up as the New Year's baby. I cut up a bed sheet to make a banner, and scrawled the year on it with Magic Marker. In the interest of authenticity, I took off all my clothes and draped myself in the banner from one shoulder across my chest to the other hip, where I pinned it closed with a diaper pin. I thought I looked adorable.

Convinced that I would be the hit of my parent's party, I tiptoed downstairs and strolled through the living room. You could have heard a diaper pin drop on the thick green carpet. All the adults put down their drinks in unison and stared, speechless, at me.

My parents noticed immediately that I was naked. I was snatched up and carried back to my room by my father, who could move pretty fast for an old guy.

Nobody complimented me on livening up their party in my fine outfit. They went back to clinking glasses and picking dainty snacks off trays as if nothing had happened. I was not offered any pigs in blankets, caviar on Ritz crackers, or even chunks of ice to chew on. I was 86'd from my own living room for violating a dress code I didn't know existed. As it turned out, I was dressed perfectly for a spanking. No flowered Lollipop underpants to remove, just my little pink butt, completely unprotected, asking for it. I guess you could say that I WAS the hit of the party.

37 comments:

Odat said...

Awww...come on now...I want one story with a happy ending!!!!
;-(

LOL...anyway I bet you looked cute!

Happy and healthy new year...(did you show up naked lately???)

Peace

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Odat,

I'm trying to quit. I've made a resolution to stop going to parties naked. It won't be easy.

Anonymous said...

Now that is a funny story! :)


Peace,

~Chani

Nicole said...

Aww. And you were trying so hard to fit in. Don't you know that never works!! Funny story.

djn said...

Only new parents (or parents having a party) don't know that you can't make a child sleep. I'm sure there were some adults at your parent's party who wished you could have hung out to liven up their boring little gathering...

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Chani,

That was the end of my days as a party girl.

Nicole,

So I misjudged what to wear. It could happen to anyone.

Djn,

Yeah! What kind of dolts throw out the star of the event?

Open Grove Claudia said...

I bet you were adorable! I am sorry your parents had no sense of humor! I am amazed that at 5 years old you KNEW what the new years baby even was!

WOW! Again you amaze me.

Liz Dwyer said...

That is too funny! I can truly picture you slinking down the stairs, full of excitement. Obviously your baby new year get-up was merely one sign of the beginning of a true artistic nature.

Law Fairy said...

Oh my god how ADORABLE.

Your parents and your friends sound boring (no offense). Very very few of my friends are parents, but I have a hard time thinking of any of my friends who would not bust out laughing at the sight of an honest-to-god New Year's baby.

I'm impressed that you had that kind of creativity and ingenuity so young! Go you!

Maria said...

Awww... you were a genius as a baby! What do parents know? Happy New Year! Just hope your still not dressing like the New Year's baby! lol ~M

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Claudia,

Not so amazing, but thanks. I must have heard about it somewhere.

Liz,

I did think I was an artist. A few years later, I invited my parents to an art show. I had splatter-painted several masterpieces entitled such things as "After the lobster thermidor" and "Too much charlotte russe," and scotch taped them around the toilet bowl. I thought it was hysterical. They walked out of the bathroom shaking their heads.

Law Fairy,

My own children were always quite creative and never boring. They still make me laugh easily.

My heart,

No, I'm in a 12-Step program now for nudists. Since it's winter, we're making progress.

mist1 said...

I wore the exact same thing last night. Sadly, no one even offered to spank me.

thethinker said...

Haha, that was hilarious. Sometimes, parents just don't understand.

Nihilistic said...

I'm impressed that at that age you even knew about the New Years Baby and what the attire was!

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Mist,

I'm so sorry. How can I help?

Thinker,

Very true. And they're so hard to educate by then.

Nihilistic,

I have a great sense of style.

meno said...

I think you showed a fashion sense way ahead of your years. i don't even know if i knew what New Years was when i was 5.
I wish there were pictures.

Marie-Hélène Raletz said...

Where's parental sense of humour?
After all, no diapers were hurt in the process (OK, a bed sheet maybe)

What does 86 mean?

Marie

Anonymous said...

"Youth is where you are allowed to stay up on New Year's Eve...middle age is where you have to stay up."
My comment for this post is on the previous post...
Happy New Year ! Have a healthy, happy, and safe 2007.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Meno,

Pictures, you say. Oh, my, no. My parents were not going to preserve the memory any longer than they had to.

Thank you for coming by!

Marie,

Definitely no diapers. I was FIVE. (And terribly mature, or at least, housebroken.)

86'd is a Greenwich Village bar term for cutting off someone's liquor when the bartender thinks he's had enough. If he persists, he's evicted. I never go to bars so I don't know if it's common parlance or not.

Swampwitch,

That's a great quote. I guess old age is when you can do whatever you damn well please.

A happy and healthy New Year to you and your family, too. I loved the bridal pictures on your blog!

Michael C said...

At least you tried to liven it up. I try and I just end up making bad jokes.

I remember being in grade school when I actually stopped to look at the world around me and realized that the calendar year was different from the traditional school year. Truthfully, prior to that I never knew why New Year's was such a big deal. Wow, looking back that explains a lot now ;-)

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Michael,

I didn't know any jokes. but I WAS a joke. Does that count?

I love the concept of a new year. and I think of birthdays as ones personal new year in which new starts can be made and all is forgiven. (Well, maybe not ALL.)

Unknown said...

That is the cutest thing I have ever heard. Again, I'm sorry your sense of humor wasn't shared. I would have died laughing if I were your mom (or dad).

You're making me rethink my aversion to 5 year olds.

You must have been a fun mommy!

Pendullum said...

I am such a baaaad parent...
My daughter stayed up til 2:30am with her galpals at my 'adult'(I still think I am playing dressup) party...
Mind you they were not naked... and they are nine...
And they slept until 11am the following day...
Leaving us 'adults' to regroup the following day...

Polyman3 said...

Now that's creative! They should have at least thrown you a pig in a blanket for that stunt.
(Hey it could have been worse- remember The exorcist girl?)

Well, Happy New Year baby.

katrice said...

I'm sorry. If either of my kids had done that, I'd have rolled on the floor at the sheer genius, at least, if not the sight. Unless I was mad about my sheet.

I got sent to bed during the parties too. I don't remember ever going to sleep.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Lex,

I had (and have) really fun kids!

Pendullum,

You're giving your daughter great memories. amd that's always good.

I still feel like an imposter in the adult world, too. And it's not as if I haven't had ample time to get used to the idea.

Polyman,

Well, that's the thing. The pigs wore blankets, I didn't.

If Linda Blair is YOUR thing, her picture is on my post of a few days earlier, Exorcism For Dummies.

Katrice,

Oh, the sheet. Everything was art materials to me then. I was an early performance artist.

We could have had fun eavesdropping on the stairs together, hoping to learn the secret of life.

furiousBall said...

that is so weird, I was wearing flowered lollipop underpants this year to avoid any would-be spankers

urban-urchin said...

I too am pretty impressed you knew what the new year's baby was at 5. I bet you were absolutely adorable.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Furious ball,

Did it work?

Urchin,

Apparently I was the only one who thought so at the time.

Anonymous said...

Ha...hilarious!

Great story!

I do imagine you were a great hit...just the next day when they retold the story.

Bird on a Wire said...

You were a clever 5 year old! Depending on how wild the party is, maybe next New Year's Eve I'll do the same thing.

If only I'd thought of that!

Dan said...

If only you had peed on the floor! That would have been the best! ;)

Happy New Year Heart! Hugs and kisses.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Slick,

If they retold the story, it was only to each other, along the lines of "What are we going to do about Heart?"

Bird,

I'd like to know how that works out for you.

Dan,

If only I'd thought of it, though it might have confirmed that I wasn't old enough to stay up until midnight.

Happy hugs and kisses back.

velvet said...

I would have thought the idea was brilliant if I had been one of the adults at the party. Perhaps it's just that times have changed or your parents' friends were very much like your parents.

Too bad to waste all that genius on the wrong people.

Happy New Year!

-velvet

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Velvet,

Yeah, well I think my parents adhered to the old precept that little girls should be UNseen and not heard, either.

I was often described as "a handful" and "a great trial" to them.

It was a rough job, but somebody had to do it.

Crankster said...

A brilliant move. I can't believe they didn't give you points for creativity!

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Crankster,

Me, too!! Maybe George will get the same idea in a few years and you can test your theory.