1 Mother 2 Another

I do believe I’ve done a pretty good
job of making a sick day relatively boring, without crossing the
line into comatose.


And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy.

Well, the sky is blue and the grass is
green, so that must mean it’s time for Cora to get strep
throat again.


The girls and I have had allergies for a few weeks now, showing
mostly in an annoying post-nasal drip and a lovely cough morning
and night. Totally livable, though, so we’ve done nothing
about it until Cora had an especially sleepless night Sunday night
(and that’s saying a LOT) and woke up Monday morning saying
her ear hurt. Professional mommy that I am, I deduced she had an
ear infection from all the drainage of the past few weeks and took
her in to the doctor.


Nice clear ears, not even a red throat; but on a hunch, the doc
(knowing Cora’s propensity for strep) took a swab and it was
nearly instantaneous in its reading. Defeated, I scheduled Maddie
for later in the day, and hers came back positive as well.

Wait a minute - I have to do the
kindergarten thing all over again this week?


I don't think I can take this any more. I'm exhausted and worn
out, and it's only the second week.


Maddie had a colossal meltdown Friday night, with the stress of the
entire week finally catching up with her. She lost it on something
totally unrelated, screamed for about ten minutes, and then out of
the blue said, "I hate kindergarten and I'm not going back any
more!" I held her, sobbing, for half an hour, simply rocking her
and stroking her hair, before she calmed down. She said
kindergarten was too hard, and she wanted it to be like preschool
was, and preschool is plenty of school for Madeleine. Exhausted,
she crawled into bed without brushing her teeth and promptly
crashed.


Saturday morning she slept an extra hour, then proceeded to tear
the house apart. Within thirty minutes of her waking, every single
toy was out and played with. Maddie reveled in her freedom,
wallowing in the unstructuredness of her time. The house looked
like a Toys R Us exploded, and my wild child would not be stopped.
We spent the entire day doing whatever she wanted - ice skating,
sandwiches, hanging around the house, and going out for a salad for
dinner. I found myself clutching her to me on the flimsiest excuse,
stroking her hair when I didn't think she was looking.


Sunday night I realized my vacation was at an end - time to pack
snacks and lunches and make sure forms were signed and school
picture money in the folder. We picked out school outfits for
Monday AND Tuesday (school picture day - have to be ready in plenty
of time!) and discussed Maddie's motivation for going to school
tomorrow: to hold the hand of a friend who specifically asked
Maddie to walk in with her, since she's still nervous. I'm hoping
it'll be enough to get her to school tomorrow.


Seriously - when's Thanksgiving break?

Maddie has entered the school by herself.
And she has survived.


Yesterday, as I mentioned, was the first day parents were not
allowed to walk children to their classroom. Instead, we got to
hover around the front door while our babies walked in unescorted,
dwarfed by their backpacks too big for their slender shoulders,
marching off to seven hours of hard labor – that is, of
course, unless they got permanently lost on the way to the
classroom, or kidnapped by a hidden child molester in B hall.


Ok, so I had a few concerns.

Yesterday morning I went in at 6:30 to
wake Maddie for school. She blinked in the light, rolled over, and
said, “But it’s so EARLY!”


The kindergarten honeymoon is over.

Ok, so I said yesterday that the first day
of school went MOSTLY well, with one notable exception.


Here’s the exception.


Cora and I hit the pool after dropping Maddie off, which is just a
block or two away from the school. We swam for quite a while,
enjoying ourselves and the empty pool for much of the morning. When
we finally left, it was 11 a.m. and as I looked casually towards
the school, I saw that there were children playing at recess on the
playground. I knew they were too old to be Maddie’s class,
but it got me thinking.

Well, the big day finally came, and as the
days counted down towards yesterday I began to yearn for someone to
simply rip the band-aid off for me and start the school year,
already. The anticipation, the wallowing, just became harder and
harder to bear as the day drew closer.


I really didn’t think it would be so hard for me, but there
it was. I’ve spent Maddie’s whole life protecting her,
and yesterday morning I purposefully sent her out into the world of
bullies and disappointments and Columbine massacres, and called it
“for her own good”. And that’s just hard.


But I’m not here to wallow – I know I’ve done
that in spades. Here, then, is how the morning really went:

During the gold rush in Colorado, miners
there would head out feverishly trying to strike a vein - literally
hitting the mountain with their pick over and over again in random
places, hoping to knock something pretty and shiny loose. Hence the
term "strike it rich". Anyway, once they found a good vein they'd
work it straight down into the mountain, and lots of men spent
their entire lives digging deeper, hoping the vein continued,
praying just a little more gold would show its head. Working that
far down and in such confined spaces required nerves of steel, but
the men persevered, knowing the potential results would be worth
it, even though sometimes a man would find just a few nuggets here
and there, barely enough to pay for his equipment.


After a while, though, a man might tire of the nerve-racking work,
the black lung, the long hours with sometimes no payoff, and he'd
realize he'd had enough. At this point, they'd walk away and
declare "Deep enough". Men around him knew the nerves were shot,
the exhaustion had set in, and the man had nothing more to run on.
"Deep enough" became a general phrase for the community, a way of
saying someone was throwing in the towel, himself wrung out and
surrendering.


I went to kindergarten orientation last night, came home, and
poured a nice tall glass of something. And drank it all.


I really thought I was fine with this, and though I've joked with
friends the whole path of this journey about "my baby! Oh, no, I
can't believe it!" I've known it's an awesome step for my girl,
and I've been so happy for her. I adored school and can't wait
for her to have that experience, and I've spent the past several
months putting a positive aspect on every part of Maddie's
schooling - being away from us, having to deal with bullies, all of
it spun like a late-night mix-master.


But last night was just too hard. My baby's going to be gone seven
hours a day - the equivalent of a full-time job. I will become a
piece of her life, a slice of it, rather than the center of her
universe. Not so long from now, she'll have a Facebook page -
perhaps two, setting up a decoy page to trick her gullible parents
with. She'll think of me fleetingly, as a spectator in her life or
an annoyance to be appeased. But mostly, I'm just starting to lose
my baby girl.


We have a tradition in our family that I started when Maddie was
born. I bought each girl a charm bracelet, and every time a big
event occurs we add to it - a sort of 3-D diary. I sat down last
night to sort through the possibilities for school charms and could
not make a choice. Lots of cute charms, and I know I'll pick one
of them and look back at it sentimentally ten years from now. But
picking out that charm kind of seals the deal for me, and I'm just
not there.


I'm sure I'll soon pick myself back out of my rabbit hole and
smile and gush, but right now this girl is mined out.


I'm declaring deep enough.

For the past two years, Cora has stood at
the doorway and watched Maddie take ballet class: first, as a
beginner three-year-old in the pink leotard, and then as a
four-year-old in her lavender leotards. Every week, Cora would
bring her own shoes and give herself a class in the empty studio,
waiting longingly for the day she’d be old enough to take a
real class.


Last Tuesday was the day.

My whole life, I’ve been a night
person. People knew that to call me before 10 a.m. meant to risk
disinheritance – or even dismemberment. When I became a mom,
I didn’t understand why everyone got up so early in the
morning with kids. I swore I wouldn’t be that way, and put
Maddie to bed at 9 p.m. from infancy. When Cora was born and Maddie
was two, Maddie was still sleeping until 9 or 10 a.m. every
morning.


Cora, of course, is the Incredible Non-Sleeping Girl, but while
she’s kept me up many nights, she still had the decency to
not get up as early as some of my friends’ kids (5:30. In the
morning.) With Cora, I crabbed if she got up at 7:30, and when
Maddie started preschool and had to get up at 7:45 to be at school
at 9, I thought the world had turned inside out. Where was every
shred of human civility?

My baby's starting kindergarten next
Monday, and I can't believe it. How is that I've spent the last
several months anticipating this moment, and yet I feel so
dreadfully under-prepared?


I mean, we've got the back pack. We've got the lunch box - the
same one Maddie used last year. When I told her we needed to go buy
a lunch box she said blankly, "But I've already got one!" I'm so
happy she hasn't hit that must-be-new state yet. But I digress.


As I was saying, we've bought all the "stuff". Maddie went
clothing shopping and bought her first day of school outfit - more
on that later. Suffice it to say it's done and she's excited.
She's been wearing her new shoes, to make sure they don't give
her blisters. She's opening the countdown calendar the school gave
her. School supplies are purchased and already at the school. I've
combed the internet and found some really great lunchbox
alternatives that are eco-friendly - but more on that later, too.


In short, we're ready. But I'm looking at this week and freaking
out. What to do??? One last trip to the mall for a carousel ride?
One last time around the ice-skating rink? Every time we go to the
pool I worry it could be our last time.


Stupid, I know. Especially given how excited she is about next
week. But I don't want to waste these last few days.

When we hit Colorado for our big family
vacation, we were determined to do all things Coloradian
(Coloradious?). We hiked the Garden of the Gods, we fished in
hard-to-reach canyons, we rode the train up Pike’s Peak. And,
oh yes, we met horses.


At ages 3 and 5, the girls are both too young to do any sort of
trail ride, which is hard for me since horseback riding is one of
my favorite things to do, and one of the best ways to explore an
area on vacation. But the girls had heard a lot about Colorado
ranches and riding a horse was one of the two things Maddie HAD to
do (the other? Fishing) so I cast about until I found a place that
offered pony rides. The rides were contingent upon there being a
gentle horse left after all the tourists had headed out on trail
rides, so it was a sort of “show up and hope” kinda
thing. They advertised the rides were available between 10 and 2,
so we showed up at 9:45, hoping the early bird catches the worm. I
mean, horse.

I had a truly fantastic time on our
vacation last week, and was loathe to come home for many reasons.
But I can say that on one front, I breathed a sigh of relief when
we walked back through our own door –


The bathroom front.


Let’s start with Cora.

Before we headed out on our summer
vacation, Brian came to me requesting a serious conversation.
Concerned, I sat down with him apprehensively.


“Listen, we’re about to head out for a week of
fun,” he started, clearly nervous. “And I was wondering
– and I know this is your area and I’m not trying to
undermine it – but I thought maybe you’d consider
relaxing their dietary restrictions.”


I was indignant. “I can loosen up for vacation! I’ve
already packed Annie’s Organic Cocoa Bunnies cereal, and some
organic fruit-flavored Cheerios.”


Brian looked at me. “Jen, just let them eat Fruit Loops
already.”

Many of you know that our recent trip to
Colorado was our first family car trip, and I was a bit nervous
about it, to say the least. I’m a pretty good packer, having
spent much of my adulthood traveling from city to city, so the
vacation portion didn’t worry me too much. But being ready
for the fourteen hours in the car – that was another story.


I did my research. I road-tested stuff. I polled other moms. And I
finally compiled several lines of defense to stave off boredom and
squabbles during our enforced family intimacy time.


And, I must confess, had a little freak out.

Yes, we've been gone on vacation, having
a fantastic time in Colorado and generating lots of material for
future blogs. We arrived back home around 5:30 p.m. Sunday night,
and the girls were so relieved to be back in familiar surroundings
that they promptly went into "check-out" mode and began playing
elaborate games by themselves, each in her own little corner. Life
is good.


As for me, I went crazy and unpacked the entire family, even
putting the suitcases away, last night. I couldn't bear the
thought of collapsing into bed and waking up to a messy house with
a list of chores waiting for me. Well, a longer list of chores,
anyway - today is all about grocery shopping and putting on my "get
my baby ready for school" hat.


I took notes all last week, don't worry - you'll hear plenty of
stories about the time we saw a mama bear and her bear cubs, five
feet from our bedroom window. Or about the time Cora danced around
on the peak of a 14,000-foot mountain with a lightening storm
rolling quickly in, singing at the top of her lungs: "I like to
move it move it!"


Many good stories, I promise. But right now, I gotta go get milk
for our cereal.