How To Become A Small (But Cute) Tyrant

A tongue-in-cheek guide to being small, adorable, and edifying.

I was challenged this week to write a how-to guide for something I alone know how to do. And, I thought it would be way more exciting—and pertinent—to write a how-to from the perspective of my baby-turned-toddler, because unlike adults, she alone knows how to live a life unfettered. Forever unfolding, evolving, and defying stasis, she has taught me so much about my “perceived” chaos—the messy house, the messy closets, the messy kitchen I continuously fret over. What I mean is she has challenged me to re-see my home’s perceived order—the stacked books, the organized fridge, the “made” bed—as solely that: perceived, imagined, something completely arbitrary.

And, so, constructs and conventions be damned(!), here is a very tongue-in-cheek guide to being small, adorable, edifying, and ANTI-ORDER.

HOW TO BECOME A SMALL (BUT CUTE) TYRANT

Make Haste, And Noise (!) 

In the morning, stomp through the hall like a titan freshly awakened by Zeus, your legs so far apart they could split but don't, the weight of your thighs pleating at your knees like that of an outsized elephant's—making you look sturdy, though, sturdy you are not. Stop by Mama’s office to see Mama working, slamming your walker against the door saddle between the hall and her office, because the door saddle should not be there, never was there, is imaginary. When Mama lifts up your pink walker to help you cross the threshold, saying up, up, up—a language you do not understand, make a run for her blue chair and spin it round and round and round so that it looks like a delphinium-turned-flying saucer, then topple all her poetry books only to steal the Dara’s Extremely Expensive Mystical Experiences for Astronauts, biting the book’s edge like a feral animal. Finally, tug at the black steel accordion that Mama pulls like a dog by its tail from room to room to room, saying brrrr, saying it’s freezing, saying it's so cold, saying I hate this this.

Hate, you think, must be nice. The black accordioned dog resting so very close to her feet.

Gather For Winter—or Capitalism, For Winter Is Coming (and Capitalism Is Here) 

Pretend you are a learned consumer, with exceptional tastes. Use your tiny Melissa & Doug wooden shopping cart and stuff it with what look like wood balls but are really shapeless pretend wood vegetables. An ochre ball for an orange, a misshapen white for a turnip, an oddly red wheel of cheese. Start with “sense,” then move on from there. As the saying goes, The only way is down! Next, collect Mama's Peloton shoes, Daddy's running sneakers, Pandie who now bears two band-aids—pulling at his poor white fur. Gather a lone green cup, a piece of lint, a yellow string from your balding fairy's head. In fact, to be safe, pick up Mama's copy of The Malady of the Century, rip out a page and stuff it in with the others. This is your witch's brew and this page is your the incantation, if only you could read: Kelly Devanathan is very provocative when she aims her ass into the sky. It is very white. She is wearing spotted shoes by Christian Dior again. Above her is a lion with his tongue out. The whole picture is risky and fun. Oh, so fun. 

Test The Boundary of Real, Really

When you are done with the simple pleasure of attaining, my little consumer-in-training abandon the cart, the earthly things and crawl to the swinging doors that divide the original home’s bones from its twentieth century addition. Here, pick up doorstops and make a feast. Black and rubber and ruddy, put them in your mouth. Circle your tongue over strands of fallen hair, mouth the dirt and grass and dust from the floors. When you are tired of attempting to taste and tasting nothing, climb foot to knee, knee to foot—standing before the finger-smeared door. Now: a thin veil exists between you and The Ones Who Chase. To prove the veil is a veil—an illusion crafted by the limitations of perception, requiring conscious minds to render the intangible into the graspable, that matter's existence hinges on interaction, collapsing superposition into certainty under the watchful gaze of an observer—press your face against the glass until your nose turns fleshy. Breathe the breath of a dragon awakened from a cave, until the veil that is possibly a veil and possibly an illusion becomes frosted with heat, fogged with living. If gone undetected long enough, stick out your tongue and smear the white you have created across it like you would morning dew. Lick and smudge, smudge and rub until The Ones Who Chase You you notice, laugh, smile. You are a really a success. A giant among giants. A titan of industriousness. The embodiment of every god that ever lived and died and was reborn. Jesus or Athena or Joan of Arc reincarnated. 

Slap Da Bass

At diaper change time, grab at your belly like it is the soundhold of a guitar, especially on the changing table. Kick up both your legs and then slam them both hard on the cushioned table over and over, while slapping the bag, I mean bass, I mean guitar, I mean soundhold, I mean belly. Kick and slap, kick, and slap, kick and slap. Then stick out your two bottom teeth and growl-smile like an imp. 

If you can't bear to be lying down, cry until someone gives you the square that plays the dancing fruits, and if the dancing fruits are just not doing it for you–especially the lone strawberry with her pathetic solo you abhor, use your pincer grasp to go through Mama's phone till you Facebook phone one of her old high school friends. Better yet, press purchase on something very, very expensive to surprise her. Mama will love it, because Mama loves surprises. 

Go Full on Pooh 

When it's time to eat, get naked. Or, let The Ones Who Chase You strip you down to your skivvies because naked eating is better than fully clothed eating. When given vegetable nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, bite the heads tenderly, make an awful face, then throw them onto the floor. Why are you eating them, you think? They died 66,000 years ago for good reason. When given slow-cooked Korean beef Mama hovered over for eight hours, pick apart the strings of beef like Mama's hair, then ball up the pieces— squeezing the soy-sugar-apple sauce-ginger marmalade of all life, and throw the tiny balls on the floor in an act of love. Do this until The Ones Who Chase You have had too much, and the jar of golden goop comes out from the top shelf. Smirk naughtily, then eat 400 calories of cashew butter in a single setting. A Pooh Bear and his honey. 

WORK, Cover Girl 

Now, Splashsplash is reserved for evenings, and while Splashsplash involves an Olympic-sized pool and others of your size being dipped up and down, pulled belly forward by The Ones Who Chase You, simply ignore the rules. Suck on your $50 hermit-crab swimsuit through, because chlorine is just the tastiest, then let The Ones Who Chase You (and You specifically) drag you the length of the pool over and over as you wave at the pretty young lifeguard and the loving grandparents watching in the stands. Once past them, drop your smile and become listless, sucking on your sleeve. When back in front of them again, put it back on—your biggest smile—and serve them The Show. This is like Sea World-meets-Paris Fashion Week, and they have come to see you and you alone. No, you, my dear, have no time for the Little People (a.k.a. the other babies). No, you, my dear, are an aspiring model and this is your runway. You are Barbara Palvin Sprouse, Karlie Kloss, Bella Hadid. Your hermit crab swimsuit isn't meant to reconcile dichotomies but celebrate them. It is giving cutout maillots and 80s swish and midcentury Provencal town and effortless polish. You are on every Editor's Wish List. You are Aoife Key. 

Kick Up—Or Off—Your Heels

When The Ones Who Chase You put your sparkly star high-tops on, stand like a a dying Mastiff in dog booties, an adolescent giraffe on speed skates. Shoes, shoes, shoes. What can you really say? They're ultimate death trap, and the first of all awful human constructs. The embodiment of the boundaries society draws around our freedom. Not merely objects but utterances of a cultural script. This is your first taste of conformity and you know you can finally put up your first fight. The rawness of the ground no longer raw, the liberty your tiny toes once knew intimately long gone. And, now, REBELLION never tasted so sweet. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left, say The Ones Who Chase You–egg you on, but you decide do the opposite. You slam your elephantine legs on the ground, rip at the velcro straps, cry and scream, and roll endlessly around, for you have realized that The Ones Who Chase You And Egg You On are slapping around the ground with mere pieces held together by Y-shaped tethers, the tethers neither fully attached or detached from said "shoes”/supposed "shoes”/Shoe Imposters. Their feet open to the air, their toes wiggling.

You: now questioning this thing called Conformity.

You: seeing how easy it is to let the rules slide.

LIVE LIKE TIME IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME

When Mama reads books to you, do your one job and do it quickly and well. What is the song Mama sings? To everything turn, turn, turn/There is a season turn, turn, turn/And a time to every purpose under heaven. Your every purpose under heaven: to get to the next page as quickly as possible. Brown Bear, Red Bird, Yellow Duck, Blue Horse, Green Frog, White Dog, Black Sheep. It's not what lives singly on the page you know, but what comes next—with one exception. When Mama reads you You’re My Little Cuddle Bug, you need to at least touch the torn/eaten cheeks of the cardboard ladybug so she knows you're semi-listening and semi-love her. You decide, she deserves at least that much. Then, after your sweet gesture, you can and MUST go back to turning because there is a time to every purpose and time is of the essence and also there is always better luck next time when all time is borrowed time and everything is just a matter of time. Time: flying. 

In short, YOLO. 

Let Chaos Prevail 

Everyday waking up is like Christmas morning: all cups stacked, all donut holes slung like horseshoes around their poles, all wooden food pieces put away in their cabinets, all saltwater animal balls--whale, crab, jellyfish--tucked into your whale slides's mouth like mini Jonahs, all the pots and pans and spatulas hanging tightly above your kitchenette. When you rise and see the Order in all its glory, you but think: The nerve! The ignorance! The gall!

WHAT.

FOOLS.

And, like a little elvin creature you are, you get down to work. The milk carton promptly placed in the pan, for cooking. The burner turned on and your beloved Minnie set atop it for much-needed warmth. The plastic knife banged on everything that cannot be cut, while the cuttable magnetic carrots are ripped into thirds, the thirds rolled under the couches, ottomans, wooden side tables. The plastic boats unstacked and placed rightly with the aluminum foil, parchment paper, and discarded flyers in the sole accessible cabinet. At last, the tiny orange stacking cup is bathed in in the plastic wave that sits on the whale slide, until you realize, by its vary nature, the whale slide does not really need the plastic wave either, at which time the plastic wave is ripped from the slide, chewed on, and thrown—orange cup be damned!

Here, the terms are there are no terms. Here, the conditions are there are no conditions. Here, chaos MUST prevail. From entropy, a becoming. From disorder, a life.