As explained by Lu to Baga, who told Nini, who told me:

“Tinkerbell, Santa Claus and God all live far away.

Tinkerbell isn’t that far — she just lives at Disneyland.

Santa Claus is really far, because he lives at the North Pole.

And God, he lives (gesturing wide with her arms) WAY, WAY far away in heaven. BUT (pointing to her heart) he is always in here.”

Her theory sounds like it’s only missing the part about how they all three walk into a bar. I have no idea where she comes up with this stuff. All I know is I have talked to her far more about Santa Claus than I have either Tinkerbell or God. She does seem to have them vaguely in the right order, if power is measured by distance. Or something.

Last night, Jason and Lucy made these fruit stoplight sculptures, and I offered to make Lucy fruit salad with the rest of the fruit. As I tried to explain about the really delicious honey, lime and ginger dressing I’d put on it and she said, “Ew, no thanks.”

Jason said, “I know, Lu, ask Mom to make some of her very special FRUIT MIX?!”

“Fruit mix?! Yum! Mom, will you make your special fruit mix?” Lucy replied.

“Ah yes, fruit mix,” I said, “With honey, lime and ginger.”

“Now ask your mom if she works in advertising.”

Today, we had a conference with Lucy’s new teacher, Ms. Aycock. Ms. Robinson moved up to the kindergarten classroom, and although we were sad about that, we think Ms. Aycock is sweet. What is not so sweet: the classroom’s social dynamic. There are 12 girls and 2 boys in the class, and the result of all that girl power is something pretty ugly. We have discovered over the course of the last month or so that we’ve basically got a preschool version of Heathers going on.

Lucy has talked about being excluded and ignored, having certain girls say mean things to her. Ms. Aycock confirmed all this, making it clear that Lucy is the victim, not the aggressor (which both relieved and saddened me). Ms. Aycock and school staffers are actively trying to correct this unfortunate queen bee dynamic. Jason didn’t seem as disturbed as I was by this situation — clearly he’s never been on the receiving end of girly cruelty. My own experience with it in middle school was pretty traumatic, but I came through it a kinder person.

As hard as I try to imagine what the four-year-old version looks like, I can only picture some tiny version of uniform-clad Upper East Side girls, and it isn’t pretty:

Last night, I was doing stuff around the house, watching the red carpet coverage of the Golden Globes. At some point, I realized Lucy is on the couch watching as well. I wondered if this was a good idea, but thought, are glamour and celebrity a bad thing to expose her to?

As Blake Lively was interviewed on the red carpet, Lucy came into the kitchen and asked, pointing to her boobs, “Mom, when you wear a dress that doesn’t have any straps, and it just covers your boobs, how does it stay up so your boobs don’t show?”

As for Miss Lively (insert obligatory “golden globe” joke here ), the dress really wasn’t staying all that…up. And the extent to which it did stay up was through some marvelous combination of engineering and very young (or possibly fake) boobs.

I said, “Um, you have to make sure you are very careful, and the dress fits very tightly, and you have to pull it up a lot.”

“Do you have dresses like that? “

“Yes, a few, but not exactly like that.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Yes, pretty much.” I decline to explain gravity, foundation garments and my strong preference for more forgiving silhouettes.

“Can I see you wear one?”

“Not tonight, babe.”

I often listen to the business show “Marketplace” on NPR and always appreciate how they distill complex business and economic issues. Last night I was moved by a brief interview with Charles Handy, founder of the London Business School. After discussing banks and the societal pitfalls of making money from money, he summed up by saying:

We may get back to a saner kind of world…where we don’t all sort of spend our life trying to make money, to buy things we don’t really need to impress the neighbors, and so on. Where we actually do work — not 60 hours a week, but 40 hours a week. Where we actually do take holidays. Where we actually get to know our kids again. Where it actually becomes smart to have a tiny car, to walk and bicycle and these sorts of things. And we may find we enjoy it actually just as much as the hectic pace that we’ve seen in recent years. I’ve often said that capitalism, particularly in America, is a very exhausting business. It tires people out.

“…that no matter where I ever go or who I am ever with, that I always take a some of your love with me?”

— Lucy Sugawa, age 4.75, future author of inspirational calendars and novelty books

We spent a low-key evening with some of our favorite people (tres elegant dinner — thanks, BC and MEW). Lu and Laney managed to stay up till somewhere around 11. The grownups made it till 1. It was a perfect way to ring in 2009.

Blogger has been giving us trouble, but more posts coming soon. Happy New Year!