1 Mother 2 Another

Wait, what day is today?


Seriously?


How is it that it felt like Thanksgiving was waaaaaaay too early,
so we had aaaaaaaaall this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas,
and now it's Christma ALREADY? The kids just got out of school
-aren't there three or four days of running around and getting
errands done before Christmas?


I gotta go. Too much to do.

Maddie and Cora are in quite the feisty
stage right now, and I’m dangerously close to opening up a
can of whoop-ass on both of them sometimes.


I do not, do NOT understand why they are so mean to each other, yet
so different with their friends. What is this natural antagonism,
this inbred animosity?


I fret that I have instilled some sort of insecurity in each girl:
that each is mean to her sister out of some fear of being
less-well-loved by Mommy. I worry that I have made each girl feel
not as good as her sister. Or even that I walk around trashing my
own family members, setting a bad example.


Then I just watch them and realize nope, this is just contempt bred
by familiarity at its absolute finest.

Just href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/12/the-truth-about-sandy-hook-where-is-god-when-bad-things-happen/"
target="_blank">read this.


Thank you, Ann Voskamp, for this beautiful essay that gives us hope
in these days.

We’re all still reeling from the
Connecticut tragedy, I know. And I have nothing new to say –
and nothing that hasn’t been said better, by smarter people
– on the subject. We live in a fallen world, and as one local
official remarked on Friday, evil did indeed visit that town.


If you’re like me, you’re walking around on a knife
edge, one sappy Christmas commercial away from sobbing
uncontrollably. I know my children are tired of being squeezed
relentlessly, snuggled unashamedly, clutched ridiculously tightly.
I am unwilling to let them out of my sight, reluctant to stand even
a few feet away in a room of strangers. School today will be a
strange thing indeed.


Brian and I wrestled Friday evening with whether or not we should
tell the girls what had happened: on the one hand, they have little
to no exposure to the news or social media, and with Maddie’s
tendency to worry about EVERYTHING we could see her getting
incredibly wound up about this if we told her. On the other hand,
if we kept this from them and they heard about it at school –
we didn’t even want to think about the state they’d be
in by pick-up time.


So we decided to tell them.

Cora is, for whatever reason, in love with
the act of measuring things. She keeps a small tape measure –
an automatic roll-up one like people use sewing – in her
bedroom, and when we’ve finished with books and prayers for
the night she gets out her measuring tape and happily measures,
well, all the stuff in her room. She’s said it makes her feel
like part of the Cyberchase gang, a math-based cartoon on PBS.


So whenever I get out my industrial metal tap measure – you
know, the 25-footer – Cora’s eyes light up and she begs
to use it. I pretty much always acquiesce, always reminding her to
watch the automatic retraction – it’ll snap your eye
out – and leave her to whatever story she’s got going
on in her head.


I’ve been working on getting ready for Christmas, and Monday
I had my tape measure out preparing boxes for shipping. I left it
on a counter and didn’t think anything more about it. But
when I went to use it Tuesday to measure out pine garland for our
stairs, the tape measure seemed, well, sick.

Yesterday morning I went in to wake up
Maddie for school. She’s usually the harder one to wake up,
and she’ll often begin to stir in a very, um, crabby fashion,
so I usually approach her bed gently, like nearing a wild animal.


But when I gently touched her and lovingly said, “Maddie,
it’s time to wake up now!” she opened her eyes wide,
gave a huge grin, and stretched happily.

A good friend of ours came into town this
week to run the marathon; he’d originally been scheduled to
run the New York marathon, which was canceled at the last minute
due to Hurricane Sandy. He’d been one of our really good
friends in New York, so we were thrilled to have any excuse to see
him.


Now, I am not a runner. At ALL. I have several friends who run, and
I truly don’t get it. But I hear that it’s lovely if
you can withstand the pain and there’s nothing quite like a
marathon. I’ve also heard that having a cheering squad is
invaluable along the way; having friends to scream and jump and
encourage you along the route makes you feel a bit less alone, a
bit less like giving up.


So I hear.

Maddie is usually the most difficult
member of the household to wake up. On school days Cora and I end
up in Maddie’s room, snuggled in her bed for a few moments
before we get up and get moving. Once Cora’s up she’s
up and moving and she’ll be dressed and downstairs in two
minutes; Maddie takes exponentially longer and will often come
sliding into her seat with sixty seconds to gulp down oatmeal
before we leave.


Sometimes, though, she wakes up for whatever reason, and
occasionally she’s startled me when I’m downstairs
thinking I’m the only one in the house awake; I’ll be
doing my devotional or packing lunches and Maddie will pad silently
up to me, fully clothed and smiling with pride. These are the
mornings I live for.


Yesterday was such a morning.

Yes, Daddy is home.


And all is right with the world.


Although Cora said something disrespectful and snappy at bedtime
last night after we'd brought Daddy home from the airport, and I
corrected her, and she said with a sniff, "Well, I AM still sad
that Daddy left, you know . . ."


Yeah, that won't fly any more, kid.

My family has been incredibly fortunate in
that Brian’s job requires almost zero travel for work; in
addition, he works less than two miles from our house and so is
often home for lunch, can have lunch with the girls at school, and
can slip out of work to see a school play or something.


In short, the girls see their daddy a LOT. And are quite used to
it.


So when Brian told the girls he had to make a three-day trip this
week, they seemed unfazed at the announcement. But in retrospect, I
think they simply didn’t understand. He traveled once (ONCE!)
last year and we survived pretty well, so I figured we’d have
a few “I miss Daddy!” at bedtime but would otherwise
soldier on. Brian gave each girl a hug and kiss Monday morning and
sent them off to school, not to be seen again until LATE tonight.


When I picked Cora up after school Monday, she seemed distracted
and out of sorts. I began questioning her gently, trying to see
what went wrong with her day, but everything sounded like it went
“great” or was “a lot of fun”. Finally,
Cora turned to me impatiently.


“If you’re wondering why I’m having a hard
time,” she said astutely, “it’s because I really
thought I’d see Daddy one more time! I really need to give
him one last snuggle!”


And she burst into tears.

We started our Matthew 25/Good Deeds jars
over the weekend: every day in December the girls draw a slip of
paper from their own jar, and they do whatever that piece of paper
instructs for the day. It’ll be something like “write a
thank-you note to your teacher” or “tell a friend what
you like about her” – simple stuff, but all things that
encourage you to love on someone else. At the end of the day each
girl will put her piece of paper in a box wrapped like a Christmas
present with an opening at the top, and at the end of December we
put the box under our tree as our gift to Jesus – all the
ways we’ve loved him by loving others this month. The girls
look forward to it every year and I confess I enjoy it too.


So on Sunday Cora drew “pray for a stranger” and her
brow wrinkled up. “Mommy, how can I pray for someone if I
don’t even know them? How do I know what to say?”

Maddie’s had several loose teeth for
many months now, but after losing one tooth last year the rest have
stubbornly insisted on hanging in there ad infinitum. Three or four
seem to be hanging by a thread, but have hung there, waving in the
wind and taunting us, seemingly untouchable.


It’s gotten so that Maddie has trouble eating most foods; if
we get her a taco I have to tear it up into tiny bits because
biting into anything is too painful. Maddie occasionally takes a
stab at trying to pull one, but for the most part suffers along in
relative silence.


Until Wednesday night.

I am a creature of habit. I delight in
things being the same; I find comfort in knowing what’s
coming up next, in wrapping familiarity around myself in a new
situation. I know this is not unique to me, but it is somewhat
unique for someone who spent most of her pre-kids life living the
life of a gypsy, moving from town to town and show to show.


And I loved moving on as much as I loved my traditions: moving on
always afforded me a fresh start, both literally – if you
move every six weeks, you never need to deep-clean your apartment
– and figuratively – get in a fight with your neighbor?
Wait a few weeks, then put them in your rear-view mirror and
don’t look back!


But one thing that moving around a lot forced me to do was take a
long hard look at my “traditions” – the supposed
deal-breakers I needed for any major holiday or celebration. I
remember well the first Easter I was away from my family: I was
nineteen, and when I walked into the theatre the Friday before and
a well-meaning Jewish friend called out cheerily, “Happy Good
Friday!” I burst into tears.

Sunday night Cora came downstairs after
bedtime complaining, “Mommy, I can’t get to
sleep!”


I was expecting this a bit; after a week off school, Cora’s
mornings weren’t starting quite so early any more, and Sunday
morning she’d slept until I woke her up at 9 a.m. to go to
church. So I wasn’t surprised that at 7:30 p.m., her
school-night bedtime, she wasn’t quite sleepy.


“Head on back upstairs and I’ll be up in a minute to
give you another snuggle,” I said, sending her on her way.
Often the girls will need one last cuddle from me, and when they
hear they’ll get it they relax so much in their beds they
fall asleep. Cora scampered happily up the stairs and I delayed
following her for fifteen minutes while I finished watching my
recorded show.


When I finally made it to Cora’s room, she was so silent I
felt sure she’d fallen asleep. I slid into her bed and
snuggled smugly against her, breathing in her baby-ness that I can
still faintly smell.

Every year Christmas seems to get here
sooner, and my lists seem to get longer: my to-do list, my shopping
list, my list of gift recipients, are joined this year by my list
of Things to Do for the School Winter Party list, to name just one.
The holidays start sooner, but are on us before we know it.


And I am in quite a dilemma every year: one of my love languages is
Gifts, so Christmas for me is license to give a ton of gifts to
people without seeming over the top or excessive. On the other
hand, I’m uncomfortable with what Christmas has become around
here, and I keep wanting to dig down through the wrapping paper and
tinsel and myriad of children’s shows about Christmas that
spend an entire half-hour celebrating Christmas without once
mentioning Jesus, and find the heart of Christmas again.

My newest niece Julia was born this
weekend! Less than two days old right now, and she's already a
heartbreaker.


Congratulations, my friends! I am so excited. Julia, you've got
your whole life ahead of you, and it will be amazing.


Julia's parents, your life will never be the same. In a good way,
I promise.

It's officially Pajama Day. The day we
live for at our house.


Don't take off your pjs, lie on blankets on the floor all day, eat
cookie dough and watch movies in your pajams, play out side in your
pajamas, play Twister in your pajamas, you get the idea.


Favorite time of our staycations. Always.

Ok, I have nothing nearly as funny as this
to show you, so you need to click on the link below. It’s to
a buzzfeed article – “Kids Who Are Too Clever For Their
Own Good”. I particularly love the one that rants against
bagels trying to pass as donuts, the girl who writes a series of
threatening letters to the tooth fairy, and the kid who wrote, in
response to the question, “I think my mom should do less of
this . . .” the simple “Drink wine” with an
accompanying picture of Mommy with a glass of cabernet in her hand.


Kids say the darndest things, eh?


Seriously, check href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/kids-who-are-too-clever-for-their-own-good"
target="_blank">this out.

Last week I volunteered in Maddie’s
class to talk about art; it’s a monthly district-wide
program, and I very much look forward to it each time. In both
Cora’s class and Maddie’s class, we have the most
interesting discussions. I love seeing how children look at art.


And we have the most, um, enlightening discussions.

I love to bake. I confess it. When I was
working in theatre, I’d bake furiously on Monday (my day
off), then return to the green room Tuesday night with a tray of
brownies/cupcakes/cookies/whatever, just to get them out of the
house. Even now, when I don’t eat sweets (yes, it’s
true. I mean, really, really true) I still love to bake.


So calling this the Most Wonderful Time of the Year would be an
understatement for me. When the holidays arrive I’m in a
tizzy; it’s as if I’ve been given complete license to
go crazy and use fourteen sticks of butter in one session. Which I
have done before.


Early November I get out my Hospitality spiral (don’t judge)
and flip to a fresh, clean page. There I make a list of
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the foods I’m going to make this holiday
season, followed by a nifty little spread sheet of baking items
– butter, chocolate, eggs, etc. – so I know how much
I’ll need total. Then around Thanksgiving I get to baking:
just a bit at a time, the recipes are done and pans of brownies or
trays of cookies are in the freezer. Everything comes out in early
December when I assemble long-distance Christmas boxes for friends
and family, which breaks the floodgates and we begin consuming.
Heartily.


So that’s my holiday baking ritual – but wait. I left
out one essential step.


Ordering from the King Arthur Flour catalog.

Cora has done a fantastic job adjusting to
kindergarten, but the plain truth is that it’s just darn
hard. Seven hours a day can wear an adult down, but throw a
five-year-old in that situation and make her navigate new
friendships and scary bigger kids at the same time, and it’s
a miracle all kindergarteners aren’t in therapy.


So most days I can tell how Cora’s doing just by how she
hangs out with me as we wait for second grade to be dismissed from
school: she’ll often run and fling herself at me, and then
happily let me sweep her up in my arms and snuggle, and if she
clings extra hard, burrows extra deep, or begins burying her face
in my hair then I know it’s been a darn hard day.


Yesterday was such a day, and we only avoided an entire afternoon
of tears because of Maddie’s generous sacrifice.


I’ll explain.

Every Saturday Maddie goes to horseback
riding lessons, and the countryside commute before and after has
become one of my favorite times of the week. As we drive out to the
stable Maddie visibly relaxes, and the country air and quiet roads
are almost a truth serum for the girl; a couple miles into the
drive she starts talking and usually doesn’t stop until
we’re there. The topic’s never the same – just
whatever’s on her heart.


This past Saturday Maddie seemed to be thinking a lot about the
future.


“Mom,” she began, “I’m not sure I know what
I want to be when I grow up. Is that bad?”


This from a seven-year-old.

Yesterday morning the girls scootered to
school and after parking their rides at the bike rack, walked to
the school door hand in hand, smiling and chatting with each other
about the upcoming day. A teacher passing by looked at them in
disbelief and said, "Wow! They how sweet! They look like they
actually like each other!"


I smiled smugly and walked my perfect children into school.


After school the girls were models of familial harmony, playing
together amicably on the blacktop, scootering side by side all the
way home, compromising on every big decision: Who gets to step into
the street first to cross it? Which piece of candy from whose candy
jar for a treat? And as I watched them, I began to form my next
blog in my head, about what a sweet spot we're in right now and
how well they get along.


And then we fell apart.

Yes, I know "domestify" is not a real
word. Just seemed right.


Yesterday I finally started to get my domestic feet back under me
after a couple weeks of nursing kids and being sick myself. I spent
the whole morning trying to wade through family paperwork,
balancing checkbooks and cleaning up old documents to be filled out
and such.


After lunch I hit the kitchen, baking a couple plates of cookies
for some upcoming events for the girls. Then I took apart a whole
roasted chicken (full disclosure – bought it pre-cooked from
Whole Foods Market. But listen, $8.99 for an organic, free-range,
fully cooked bird is a steal in my book). I used almost all the
chicken for a casserole I made, doubling the recipe so we’d
have one to eat last night and one for the freezer for another
time. I set aside just enough chicken for chicken salad for school
lunches tomorrow, then set the bones in the crockpot for several
hours with some veggies to make homemade chicken stock for future
recipes.


And yes, I cleaned the whole disaster zone of a kitchen up before
bedtime.


So this morning I’ve got the cookies for Friday night’s
event done, an extra meal in the freezer, and dinner tonight is
leftovers. Yes, I am feeling reasonably on top of things.


And yes, I know that the holidays are coming. Hence the edge of
panic to my domesticity.

Maddie came home from school a little
upset yesterday. Apparently some of her classmates asked her who
she wanted to win the election, and when she told them,
“almost all” her friends proceeded to tell her how bad
her choice was, and what a terrible person he is, and how bad
(BAD!) she is to like him.


When the election first started cranking up in August, we had a
long talk with Maddie – that she instigated - and let her
know what was going on and how things would work. We made it very
clear that everyone has a right to an opinion, and we will not make
people feel bad if their opinions don’t line up with ours. We
also said in no uncertain terms that anyone running for president
deserves respect, and we have to trust that they are honestly doing
what they think is best. Likewise, anyone who IS president deserves
respect – respect for the office, if not for his ideas and
policies.


The way Maddie’s classmates responded to her is not something
they just made up: it was learned, either at home or out in the
world. And while I appreciate this opportunity for some hard but
necessary teaching, I am glad that this thing is winding up.


Time to start healing.

A few weeks ago the girls were bored on a
glorious sunny day. I could see their need to be outside, so I told
them I’d give them each a dollar if they would wash the
family mini-van.


My kids will do a lot for a dollar.


The girls were quite excited, and looking at the three cars in our
garage or driveway, they sensed a bit more cash to be had. So they
wrote up an ad and set it outside in the alley for passersby to
see. When this produced no new clients, they went straight for a
sure thing: grandma.


The girls offered to wash my mom’s car, and she kindly agreed
and dug eight quarters out of her bag. After an afternoon of elbow
grease and soapy buckets and bickering and fun, the girls each had
two dollars in quarters to show for their efforts.


Which is when the real work began.

With Maddie entering her third year in
public school, our family has seen its fair share of school field
trips. Accepting the fact that my child would be hurtling down the
highway at around 70 miles an hour without a seatbelt was difficult
when she was in kindergarten, but I have grown to understand that I
cannot control everything and must just let. Some. Things. Go.


That’s not to say I haven’t been along on those field
trips – I’ve followed behind the buses and spent the
day hanging out with my child and her classmates at the
zoo/arboretum/pumpkin patch many times. Over the course of the past
two years I’ve been asked to be an official chaperone, but
was never able to because Cora wasn’t in school and children
not enrolled at the school couldn’t ride the bus. So Cora and
I would follow along, have a great time at the
zoo/arboretum/pumpkin patch, then happily get in our quiet car at
the end of the day and putter contentedly home.


But now Cora’s in kindergarten.

2 Kids + 2 sugar hangovers = one very
loooooong morning.


Oy vey.

Sometimes, you go through a hard emotional
growth spurt with your kids. You have days when they seem to jump
from disobedient act to intentional meanness to flagrant testing
with nary a pause in between, and if you’re like me
you’re driven to your knees several times a day, begging for
patience and wisdom.


I’ve been through a lot of that with Maddie this fall. Even
starting in the summer, her ego-centricity was breathtaking.
Cutting in front of kids waiting patiently in line – not even
noticing the other kids, really. Ripping Cora to shreds with a few
careless words about the quality of work in a painting Cora just
finished. Fighting vehemently with her sister for a toy she
didn’t even really want – she just didn’t want
her sister to have it.


I’ve been praying hard for Maddie, knowing that there are
some things that are simply Not My Job, and changing my
child’s heart is one of them. I’ve tried to be patient,
trusting God that His seeds will take root and bloom in that sweet
girl’s heart.


And recently, I’ve seen signs of new growth.

Yes, it's true. I'm a little envious of
all my friends in New York City right now.


Yes, I know that this hurricane is serious business, and that
people have died in the Caribbean because of it. Yes, I know my
friends in New York City are a wee bit concerned right now, some
without power.


On the other hand, I have several friends posting video updates on
Facebook that shows their whole family at home playing Balderdash
or Uno, making big pots of spaghetti or huge bowls of popcorn to go
with their movie marathon. Everyone's home from work, no one's
going to school, no one can run errands.


It's a little bit of the perfect family time. Forced to slow down
and hang out and enjoy each other.


Of course, the flip side of that is a family of four contained to a
700-square-foot apartment for two. Whole. Days. Or a friend with a
dog who is so afraid to pee inside (the dog, that is) that he
hasn't peed in almost 24 hours because he's so tiny there's no
way she's taking him outside to pee since he'd get blown away. So
he's shivering and probably in a fair amount of pain. Let it out,
little guy, it's ok just this once, I promise.


And I'm sure that forced family fun time won't be quite so fun
when the power goes out and there's no popcorn popper or movie
marathon. I know, I know.


But I rememeber the great power blackout of 2002 or 2003, when the
whole eastern seabord lost power for days. I remember lighting
copious candles - this was pre-kids - in our apartment, sitting
around with the windows open on an August night, listening to quiet
talking from neighbors drifting in. Just slower, more intentional
time together.


Like I said, I know it's dangerous. I know it's a multi-million
dollar storm.


It just makes me wish a wee bit for, say, one good snow day here.
Is that so wrong?

Friday night the family had a hurry of
clean-up before bedtime. I’d been slacking on it all week
since I’d been sick, but Friday night I told the girls
everything had to be picked up. “But can’t we leave out
a couple games, Mommy?” Maddie asked.


“No, kiddo, tomorrow we’re having people over for
dinner and I don’t want to have to clean up the house on my
birthday. Fair?” I asked, and Maddie reluctantly nodded.


That night I lay in bed with Cora saying prayers, and I was going
through our usual blessings when Cora said, “Oh, I’ve
got something to add!” I turned it over to her.

Still sick, with my allergies/cold having
settled into a lovely sinus infection. And on top of that, I can no
longer hear (hello plugged ears) and am losing my voice.


But I have to believe I'm getting better each day! We celebrated
my birthday this weekend and the girls and Brian gave me a lovely,
low-key day to hang out, book shop, and enjoy a quiet family
dinner. Getting there, I'm sure.


Bear with me.

No, don't worry, Cora's not sick.


I am.


I don't seem to have what Maddie had - no fever. Just a plain ole
cold, but enough to make me draggy and crabby.


Fortunately, both of my children go to school full time now, so I
have crawled back into bed after the morning rush and stayed there
until pick-up time for the past two days. Canceled a few clients,
put my home maintenance on hold, and stayed in bed.


Thank you, Lord, for small graces, like full-time school.

Maddie woke up fever-free on Friday and it
never came back.


Praise the Lord!


We rented a cabin on a farm for the weekend and I was surely glad
she was well enough for us to go; she was begging me to let her go

even if her fever came back. But that didn’t happen and
she’s almost all better, with just a little congestion and
cough left over.


We had to encourage Maddie to take it a bit slow after a week in
bed, and she took a couple spontaneous naps, but she’s up and
running again.


So we’re back to normal and I can start to get the house back
in order. Thanks for all the well wishes – now back to our
routine!

Still sick here.


Yep.


I did a phone consult with the doc, who said there's a virus going
around that does this - fever at night, not so much during the day
- and will last 5-7 days.


FIVE TO SEVEN DAYS.


She said to not even come in until it's been seven days or, you
know, she gets a lot worse.


Sigh.

Sunday night Maddie woke up at 3 a.m. with
a fever; I loved on her, told her she couldn’t go to school
the next day, and sent her back to sleep. She spent all Monday with
no fever and just slight stuffiness, but at bedtime the fever
showed back up. Sigh.


Home from school again on Tuesday, and I have to tell you,
I’m pretty sure this thing is allergies. I’ve taken
Cora to the doctor before for exactly the same symptoms – low
to moderate fever, sore throat, slight stuffiness – and she
guaranteed me it was allergies. Apparently in addition to causing
EVERY OTHER SYMPTOM in the book, allergies can also run a low
fever. Which, of course, is not contagious.


But without knowing for certain that it’s allergies, Maddie
has to stay home until she’s fever-free. Which means I have
one very bored kiddo around the house.

Yesterday I went to Cora’s school as
a volunteer art lecturer. No, I’m not that good; it’s
part of a district-wide program called Art To Go, where
everything’s put together for you – pictures on foam
board, questions pre-written, everything – and all you do is
show up and look really really cultured. I’ve done this for
Maddie’s classes in the past and was looking forward to
sitting down and talking about art with Cora’s class for the
first time.


Note to self – don’t ask kindergarteners such
open-ended questions, and then LET THEM ANSWER THEM.

Maddie discovered Junie B. Jones in
kindergarten and we spent a few painful months reading waaaaaaaay
too much of that child’s escapades before Maddie finally grew
out of the books and moved on to other, more well-written heroines.
I was quite pleased to bid Junie B. adieu, and only saved the
half-dozen books we’d bought out of sheer thriftiness.

I should have realized I wasn’t
finished with the annoying child.

Hit the state fair yesterday, and we had a
fantastic time but I'm totally wiped out.


And I can hear all those snickers out there - and you are so wrong.
The Texas State Fair is ridiculously cool.

When I was around five years old I was
living in New Orleans, happily playing outside one day. Suddenly I
noticed a ticklish feeling on my ankle and leg, and looked down and
saw a swarm of red fire ants enrobing my lower limb. I stared in
fascination, until the pain registered. And then I started
screaming.


I remember that day vividly.


When we moved back to Texas four years ago, I celebrated a return
to many of my favorite things in the South – excellent
margaritas, even better Tex-Mex food, and winters without shoveling
the sidewalk. What I did not look forward to, though, was the
return to southern bugs, especially chiggers and fire ants.

Monday was a day off school to celebrate
Columbus Day and after the whirlwind of the weekend – a
women’s retreat for me, birthday parties with school mates,
and more – I felt like we deeply needed some unstructured
down time together. Time to veg and hang out and play and bake and
watch movies.


In other words, a Pajama Day.

I love the changing of the seasons. It
doesn’t even really matter which change we’re talking
about – I love them all. Every winter I feel a yearning for
hanging out on the grass on a warm spring day, watching trees bud
and listening to birds sing. Then after a few months of that, I
become restless and develop a yen for sunscreen and lazy pool time
– those endless days that seem to stretch on forever, when
your kids scream and play for hours and you laugh and chat
desultorily with your girlfriends.


And then I have a hankering for the fall.

I spent yesterday getting ready for the
fall and its inevitable rounds of sickness: I made my homemade
cough syrup, a few pots of lip balm for the girls, and some
homeopathic cold medicine/immune system booster. I was racing and
sweating, bags of dried herbs strewn about the kitchen and pots
simmering on the stove. I now have several jelly jars safely in the
fridge, with even a couple left over to give to friends if need be.


I think I've officially crossed over into Uber-Crunch Land.

A few days ago, Maddie’s class had a
competition to give themselves a name – you know, the
All-Stars or Cougars or Champions or whatever. Her teacher, Mrs.
Hall, stopped me at pick-up that afternoon and said, “Ask
your daughter what name she suggested for my class.”


A little while later, I brought it up and said, “So what name
did you come up with, Maddie?”

Said yesterday morning while getting ready
for school:


Cora: “Mommy, can I ride my scooter to school this
morning?”


Me: “Of course!”


Cora: “Yippee!”


Me: “Why are you so excited about riding your scooter to
school?”


Cora: “Because I really love the sound of my shoe softly
tapping the pavement when I push.”


And she ran off.

This fall Maddie made the decision to quit
ballet; her level was stepping up to classes twice a week and she
simply wasn’t ready for the commitment. And while I
understood it, the retired dancer in me was crushed; I know how
much I loved dance my whole life and want Maddie to know that joy.
But we also want Maddie to find what she loves, so we step back and
give her some space to make her own choices.


Horseback riding is something Maddie’s enjoyed for a while;
she’s been on a couple trail rides and always loved it. So as
I cast about for something to let my introverted, nature-loving,
animal lover to try, I instinctively thought horseback riding would
be a good fit.


Believe me, we know it can get expensive and it’s not without
risk, so Brian and I talked about it a lot. But I felt in my gut
it’d be great for Maddie – almost therapy sometimes. So
we bought a six-class session and gave it a whirl.


And it’s a match made in equine heaven.

A few days ago I was walking home from
school with Cora and asked, “Did you have a good day at
school today?”


“Well,” Cora said matter-of-factly, “One kind of
big thing happened. We were sitting on the rug for Circle Time and
Sara started saying that I smelled like dog hair. She kept saying
it over and over, getting really loud, and all the kids started
laughing. And it really hurt my feelings. And so I went into the
corner by myself to cry, and then the teacher told Sara to knock it
off and then said I could come sit next to her. And mom,” she
turned to me, bewildered, with a sad look on her face, “We
don’t even have a dog! How can I smell like dog?”


Oh, my baby.

Apparently Cora is reading now.


And I missed it.


Monday night Cora shut herself in her room for a long time, and
when Brian finally went to check on her, Cora said, “Daddy,
I’m reading now! Do you want to hear it?”


Being a good dad, Brian said, “Of course I would!”
while thinking “reading” meant “I have the book
memorized and will now recite it out loud to you”.


And that’s how it sounded at the beginning, but it soon
became clear to Brian that Cora was really reading. She’d
skip a word and he’d say, “No, what’s
this?” And she’d stop, look at it, and figure it out
one letter at a time. Yep, reading.

Maddie’s always loved riding her
scooter to school; she’s not quite a bicycle girl yet, but
adores zooming along on her scooter, especially since she’s
learned a few “tricks” like, well, braking. While Cora
was in preschool she’d tag behind on her three-wheel
faux-scooter to get Maddie to and from school, gamely pushing along
but sensing something was different. And while she’s been
patient about her rickety princess scooter, this weekend we finally
upgraded Cora to the official Razor club.

Earlier this month a mom was arrested in
Texas for allegedly allowing her kids to play on scooters
unsupervised outside; the charge was child endangerment. Her two
kids, aged 6 and 9, were scootering on their cul-de-sac while she
says she was watching from a lawn chair. After being taken to jail
– her kids clinging to her legs and sobbing – she was
held overnight before the charges were dropped.


Apparently an anonymous neighbor made the phone call.

Last Friday we took the girls to their
first live football game: our local high school was having their
homecoming and playing, of all the luck, mine and Brian’s old
alma mater. So how could we pass that up?


Football, in Texas, is just SLIGHTLY less important than religion
to most people, and to the rest of the people, it IS their
religion. Football is not taken lightly here, and our high school
just spent 63 MILLION dollars on a new stadium. Don’t get me
started.


But school spirit was high that night, and the girls couldn’t
have been more excited if they were going to a Dallas
Cowboys’ game. They wore school colors, and brought spirit
towels and pom poms. They were ready.

As I pulled into my driveway Tuesday night
from work, the sun was setting and shadows were lengthening all
around me. Twilight was upon us, and it was nearly the girls’
bedtime. I idled in the garage a few moments, waiting for the girls
to do their typical rush-out-the-door they always do when they hear
me come home.


Nothing.


And then in the silence, I heard the faraway sound of girl’s
laughter – coming from the back yard. And that’s when I
realized –


It’s back yard weather once more.

Monday night one of my advanced acting
students approached me with tears in her eyes. A high school
junior, she’s been one of my favorite students for years and
I was immediately concerned.


“Miss Jen, I really hate to have to tell you this, but I
think I’m going to have to drop your class. I just
don’t have time for it right now.”


Stunned, I said, “You don’t have time for it? Does the
class meet at a bad time?”


She shook her head “no”. “I can see this is going
to be a demanding class and I don’t want to let you down with
what you want me to accomplish as far as learning lines and keeping
up and not disappointing my scene partner and I just don’t
have time to learn the stuff and it’s the only time all week
that I look forward to – this class is “me” time
– but I don’t think I can do it!”


And it all came pouring out.

The croup is making its rounds here, and
between that and walking pneumonia I’ve given the following
homeopathic help out so much that onion farmers are lining up to be
my very own political action committee. So I thought I’d post
it up here and share the love.


For the record, I didn’t make this up. I first read about
this over a year ago on Keeper of the Home, and before that we
probably had a few hundred thousand people do it back when people
didn’t have instant access to a CVS and looked in their back
yards for some relief.


And finally for the other record, I’m not a doctor, so
don’t listen to me. You know what I mean. If you or your kid
has a medical issue, seek professional help and for heaven’s
sake don’t say “But this chick I read on the internet
said to . . . .”


With the caveats out of the way, here goes.

Is it wrong that, when my daughter
mistakenly (and consistently) refers to Justin Bieber as
“Justin Beaver”, I feel no small amount of glee?


Example:


Maddie: “Cora, can I play with the Eric (from Little Mermaid)
doll now? I need him for my game.”


Cora: “No, Maddie, I’m still playing with him.”


Maddie crossly: “But that means the only guy left for
me to play with is the stupid doll that looks like stupid Justin
Beaver! What am I supposed to do with him?”


Yes, great satisfaction indeed.

There’s a parable in the Bible about
a rich man heading out of town, leaving his estate in the care of
three servants. To one servant he gives a small amount of money, to
another a medium stake, and to another a small fortune. When he
returns, the two servants who’d been given at least a modicum
of cash had taken their portions and exponentially increased them;
but the servant with the least had buried his cash in the back
yard, afraid of losing it. The rich guy, not surprisingly, was
displeased and took the small amount away from the poor guy and
gave it to the servant who’d been given a huge amount in the
first place, as a reward for being such a good steward of his
property.


When Maddie was born and I held her in my arms, I looked at the
fortune God had just placed in my hands, and vowed to be a good
steward with His property.

Thanks a lot, season premiere of
Parentood. As if my day weren't emotional enough yesterday,
I am now officially weepy at the thought of Maddie going off to
college. Yes, I've added worrying about my second grader's
imminent departure from home to go on to college to my
list-o-crazies.


Wait - she's just now starting to get real letter grades instead
of smiley faces and stickers this year; it's not too late to
sabotage her academic career!

Today is 9/11, and I don’t think I’ve made a single post on this day before. Eleven years ago, I was awakened in my New York apartment by the phone ringing off the hook with friends frantic to get hold of me. I turned the television on just in time to see the second plane crash into the building right up the street from my husband’s work.

The number of years I've now been
married: 17


The number of poolside glasses of champagne I consumed celebrating
this fact during an overnight anniversary getaway: 2


The number of panicked calls I received from our first-time
babysitter who also happens to be seven months pregnant with her
first child during said overnight getaway: 0



You are so ready for this, Nikkie. You're going to rock
motherhood.

Maddie and I were talking over her day
yesterday – what she did, what she studied, and so forth
– when she said, “Oh, Mommy, good news! Elise and I
have already picked out what we’re going to do for the school
talent show this year.”


Which is, I should tell you, in May.


“Oh, that is good news! But why are you working on it so
early?” I (reasonably, I thought) asked.

Yesterday, school finally caught up with
Cora.


Hard.


We sort of made it through the afternoon and dinner and Cora began
to create an elaborate make-believe game – a sure sign in my
girls that they’ve got some stuff to process. All was going
fairly well until Cora blatantly took a bag of Maddie’s and
then refused to even share it with Maddie. When I gently but firmly
insisted, that was the. Last. Straw. And Cora fled to her room,
sobbing uncontrollably.

I do miss my girls terribly while they're
at school.


On the other hand, I’ve gotten an awful lot done during the
day while the girls are school. Dinners made, laundry done,
cabinets organized, household running smoothly . . .


Hmmm.

We had our first three-day weekend as a
school family, and boy did we appreciate it.


Saturday was one of the most glorious Saturdays EVER. Brian got up
with the girls and when I stumbled out of my room at nearly 9 a.m.,
he was lying on Cora’s bed doing the voices while the girls
played Dollhouse. “Wah, wah,” my husband would say with
his eyes closed, and the girls would rush to pick up the doll
babies and take care of them. “How long have you been at
this?” I asked. He peeled one eye open. “Hard to
say,” he mumbled, and drifted back off.


I sent my man back to bed and found out the girls had been playing
happily for over an hour, and had not yet had breakfast. And thus
it went for much of our weekend.


We spent most of Saturday building towers and playing board games
and reading books and, yes, playing Dollhouse. A lot. Maddie and I
hit the library part of the afternoon, and I enjoyed the new
sensation of being there with a child who could be trusted not to
run off by herself, and who was perfectly content to park herself
on a library couch and read. TO HERSELF. We sat side-by-side and
read for half an hour.


Heaven.


A lazy evening eating burgers at our pool with friends rounded out
the day, and as we went to bed both girls said, “This has
been a great day.” And Cora added, “And we have
SQUEEZED IT DRY!”


Sunday was after-church lunch with friends, and Monday was spent
hosting neighbors in the house with the girls’ newly-opened
Treatment Center; you could choose from muscle treatment (massage),
food treatment (snack), or show treatment (yes, a show). The
neighbors were quite tickled and stayed for two hours, much to the
delight of my spotlight-hugging children. We wrapped up the day
with a family movie night and leftovers.


No big running around, no fanciness. Just pure heaven with my big
school girls.

Last year, Maddie and her friends
undertook that classic kids’ boredom game, Digging to China.
Many of you will remember that Maddie’s posse began
assiduously href="http://www.1mother2another.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1507">
working on a hole to China on their school playground,
calculating that they should be finished by sixth grade. Maddie
even asked Brian to be there the last day of school in sixth grade
– and bring scuba gear for getting through the oceans –
so the family could go to China together. Fortunately, the gang target="_blank"
href="http://www.1mother2another.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1519&Itemid=2">
called it quits a couple weeks into the project after one
mother brought up concerns that their digging might cause shifts in
the tectonic plates, triggering earthquakes in other countries.
Ever ones to worry about causing other people harm, the girls
regretfully called a halt to their diggings.


Until now.

Cora has impeccable timing: last night
I’d juuuuuuuuuust sat down on the couch and pressed
“play” on my DVR’d Newsroom when Cora began
calling out: “Mooooommy! Moooooooommy!”


I walked into the darkened room and said, “What’s up,
bug?”


Cora shuffled around a bit in her bed. “I was just wondering
if you might need to get some snuggle right now. Because, you know,
if you need some snugs you can, you know, just take some whenever
you want.”


And she patted the bed next to her.

As I began to tell people this summer that
I’d be a baby empty-nester – both kids in full-time
school – come fall, I also began hearing the same question
over and over again. Sometimes asked wistfully, sometimes
bewilderingly, sometimes dripping with envy, but almost always the
same question:


“So . . . what are you going to do all day then?”


And you know what’s ridiculous? I often feel the need to give
a play-by-play justification of an answer to them. “Well,
I’m going to spend hours cooking gourmet dinners, and change
the sheets on the bed every day, and of course devote a significant
amount of time to caring for the poor.”

I may have hinted, here and there, that I
am a wee bit sad about school starting in general, and my baby
starting kindergarten specifically.


A wee bit.


So to everyone who called or emailed yesterday with their
condolences –er, sympathy –er, kind words – I say
a heart-felt thank you. Deeply.


To those who sent well-meaning words of encouragement along the
lines of “this doesn’t have to be an identity
crisis”, I thank you for your intention, but you missed my
point.

Dear Cora:


In a few short hours you will be starting kindergarten. Something
irreversible will have begun, and though I’m loathe to see it
happen I’m so proud you’re doing this so well.
You’re marching forward with joy and anticipation and
I’m doing my best to hide my sorrow so it won’t taint
your happiness.


For yes, I am sad. You are my heart, my little love, and I will
miss your daily presence in my life. And yes, I know you went to
preschool last year, but five hours, three days a week is simply
not the same as seven hours, five days a week. Last year we had two
days a week for pure Mommy and Cora fun, and those two days were
the best parts of my week. If I could put myself in your backpack,
I surely would: I have spent the past week furiously cooking
make-ahead breakfasts and muffins for lunches, labeling water
bottles and laminating favorite photos for you to hide in your
backpack. I’ve done everything I can, short of drinking
Alice’s shrinking potion and stashing myself in your
pocket.

I just went through Back To School night
with my baby, who is so excited we had to walk outside and practice
saying goodbye on the sidewalk, then watch her walk in and find her
own way to the classroom.


Go away now. I need to drown my sorrow in donuts.

I had a great day with the girls
yesterday. A fantastic day. We got up early, played at a sandbox
park, played in a sprinkler park, ate lunch outside, hung out with
my niece, went ice skating and clothes shopping, ate a quick
supper, played around the house – a fantastic day.


Which leads me to this: remember the other day when I said I was
ready for school, finally able to move forward and to let go?


Yeah, that was what I call a false positive.

Last week I spent some time with each girl
individually, doing whatever fun thing she wanted for a special day
together. For Cora, I suggested rock climbing; she’s always
been instinctively athletic and coordinated, and it was something I
thought she’d enjoy. I mentioned the idea to Cora, who
considered it, then vetoed the plan in favor of a trip to our
city’s indoor water park.


The waterpark, I should mention, is in the same building as the
city’s fitness center, which has, you guessed it, a rock
wall. So after we had a fun few hours playing in the pool area,
Cora and I sat on a bench and enjoyed a snack while we watched
someone climbing. After a few minutes, Cora said thoughtfully,
“Is it too late to do rock climbing too?”


Always wanting to encourage my kids to do new things, I said,
“Nope!” and we cheerfully raced home to get her
sneakers. Twenty minutes later Cora was being tightened into the
world’s smallest harness and clipped to the on-staff belayer.
Belaying guy? Not sure what the real title is there. At any rate,
Cora was snugged up, and she began to climb.

Monday afternoon if you had driven slowly
through my neighborhood, looking carefully at all the houses, you
would have seen several hundred pairs of eyes peeking out at you
from behind curtains. Should you turn onto a certain street,
you’d hear several collected inhales from behind closed doors
– followed by a sharp exhale when people saw it was
“just you”.


Were all the mothers in my area hoping for the Publishers
Clearinghouse Sweepstakes Prize Patrol van? No way, man – we
were looking for something much more important.


Our school teacher’s letter.

I've had my A$$ kicked the past couple of
days by a couple of wildly disobedient, out-of-control kids.
Totally tag-teamed me into a puddle.


And my parents taught me that if you don't have anything nice to
say, don't say anything at all.


Hence my silence.

I spent yesterday living as close to the
life of a typical soccer mom as I have, and let me say, I was
exhausted.


And I don’t think I’ll be enlisting any time soon.

I just realized that as we push our
girls’ rising times earlier and earlier to get ready for
school, so also do we push forward our girls’ bedtimes,
giving me a bigger chunk of “free” time at night.


Huh.


Maybe this early rising isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Well, it’s begun. That annual time
of year when I mercilessly torture my children for no immediate
reason, causing tears and irritability for the entire day.


Also known as the Backing Up of Getting Up.


Two weeks before school starts I begin waking the girls up earlier
and earlier: I start at 8 a.m. and move it back by 15 minutes every
two days, until by next weekend we’re at the time we need for
a school morning.


Yes, I know, many people think I’m crazy and will suck every
last Sleeping In drop out of the summer that they possibly can. And
to those people I say, If you can do it, God bless you.


We, however, cannot.

I know I’ve waxed rhapsodic about
our recent family vacation, but in the interest of full disclosure
I feel honor-bound to tell you about the worst part of our trip
– just to even things out.


That would be our first travel day.

Anyone else's kids completely entranced
by the Olympics?


We recorded it the whole time we were on vacation, so now we're
catching up and pretending we don't know the results. Every night
we eat dinner in the living room - a HUGE first, I assure you - and
watch another evening of DVR'd Olympics. The girls adore the
gymnastics portion, of course, but are much more into other sports
than I'd anticipated.


The swimming races get the girls on their feet, screaming at the
television and jumping up and down. I think Maddie's going to have
a heart attack sometimes, she's huffing and puffing so hard. We
watched several track races last night and Cora finally got up and
started stretching- limbering up for a big race, I suppose. But
they do love their gymnastics, and whenever it comes on Maddie and
Cora being assiduously practicing handstands and cartwheels and
splits and shoulder rolls all over the room -until the competition
is over.


Heaven help us when the Olympics close on Sunday.

When my husband and I go on vacation
someplace gorgeous, we love to be outdoors. We’ll explore
national parks and pull over at scenic vistas and climb through
tunnels and traipse up to see cliff dwellings – love it. And
if we’re in Hawaii, our two favorite things to do are hanging
out at the beach, and taking long hikes. Pre-kids, we’d do
8-11 mile hikes in a day, then collapse for a couple hours on the
beach to clean up and cool down. Heavenly.


Now, we knew going back to Hawaii with kids would be different, and
it was. We knew we wouldn’t be able to do our
4,000-feet-in-the-air, clinging-to-a-cliff’s-edge, 11-mile
hike. We knew that. But we also wanted to expose the girls to
hiking, and see if we could give them a taste of it so they’d
love it as much as we do. So we picked out a few of our favorite
hikes, ones with really spectacular, one-of-a-kind views very
shortly into the hike, and prepared the girls. We grabbed walking
sticks, water bottles, hats, and sunscreen, and headed out.


The verdict?


Happy Hikers, the Next Generation.

Last week I read a series of essays (while
lying on the beach, heh heh) entitled Because I Said So, all
written by mothers, on a variety of topics but all in some way tied
to motherhood. A few of the essays resonated with me, particularly
one about a single mom and her thirteen-year-old daughter: as the
mom tried to find her way in the newly-single world, she had to
take a good look at her daughter and figure out a whole new way to
parent, and in the process she asked the question, What is it
that makes a good mother?


“As far as she could ascertain, it seemed to boil down to a
fairly simple set of issues. A lousy mother was someone who looked
at her kid and said, ‘Here’s who I want you to
be’ and ‘Here’s what I’m going to give
you.’ A good mother was the one who looked at her kid, really
looked at her, and asked, ‘Who are you?’ and
‘What do you need from me?’”


I have tried to find a flaw in this – perhaps because
it’s sometimes more effort than I’m willing to put out
– and I cannot. Who are you? What do need from me? I ask
these questions, and my parenting style shifts. Subtly, but
distinctly.

Well, I’ve had the vacation of a
lifetime and unfortunately it had to end, so I’m back.


Not that I’m bitter.


Seriously, I think that’s the best vacation I’ve ever
had – a long week in Hawaii with my family. And yes, I know,
Hawaii is amazing, but beyond that, I had a really excellent time
with my kids.

During the school year, I get up early to
work out – not because I’m a morning person, but
because if I don’t do it before the day gets going then I
don’t do it at all. And if I don’t work out regularly,
all my old dance injuries fall apart and I can barely hobble
around. So I get up a few times a week at 5:30 a.m. to work out and
shower before getting the girls up for school.


But it’s summer now and we’re not on a tight schedule,
so I’ve been setting my alarm for 7:30 instead; this lets me
sleep in and the girls are usually still asleep by the time I
finish my workout video and head for the shower.


Usually.

We went over the weekend to a swim party
at the pool where Maddie took swim lessons when she was three and
four years old. An indoor pool, the space has a nice layout, no
truly deep spots, and plenty of pool toys.


And a water slide.


This water slide was Maddie’s arch-nemesis both years of
lessons. As the grand finale of every swim class, the slide would
loom large over the entire half hour until the class would head
down towards it for the last five minutes. One by one, the children
would line up, slide down, and splash into the pool.


Except for Maddie.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about
Cora’s recent discovery of the game “Sorry”. I
won a couple times, she had a hard time dealing with it, and I was
worried it was Candyland all over – all smiles and sunshine
until Someone Other Than Cora won: then it was on to screams and
throwing of pieces and storming off. Would Sorry be simply
Candyland 2.0?


I won’t keep you hanging – the answer is no.


Cora is older and wiser, and after one night of tears and a very
good sulk, she decided there’s a better way to deal with
losing.


Learning how to win.

Maddie and a friend went back-to-school
shopping yesterday for a couple new outfits for school. In general,
Maddie’s good about letting me go shopping for her by myself;
she trusts my judgment, gives me a few pointers color- and
style-wise, and is happy to see me bring home the bags from a
consignment store. But for the first day of school, she’s
come to enjoy shopping with a friend – getting excited,
squealing over colors and fashions, and gearing herself up for the
fall. And yes, it might seem a tad early, but we’re going on
vacation (in case I haven’t mentioned it yet today) soon and
I don’t want this hanging over my head when we get back.


May I just say, I’m glad it’s over.

A few days ago, Maddie said out of the
blue, “Mom, could you set up a play date with Jonathon some
time soon?”


Jonathon, in case your memory is as bad as mine, was a boy Maddie
went to preschool with – and who she hasn’t seen since
then. While in preschool the two were great friends, and swore that
they would marry when they were grown-ups. He’s a great kid,
really sweet, but again, haven’t seen him in two years. Which
is, like, a decade to grown-ups.


So I said, “I’ll see if I can; but what made you want a
play date with him now?”


Without batting an eye, Maddie said, “Well, if I’m
going to marry him, we should probably stay in touch.”


O-kay. So I guess that’s still on the calendar.

We’ve got a big family vacation
coming up – we head out the end of next week – and I
think I may have gotten the girls TOO excited about it.


Maddie’s read the guide book cover to cover, and loves to
debate her favorite restaurants based on nearness to our rental
house and the ratings in the book. Cora’s pored over pictures
from my previous, child-free trips to the place, and will be able
to find her way around any beach blindfolded. We bought both of
them a snorkel set and have been using them at our neighborhood
pool to make sure the girls are comfortable in fins in the ocean.
Now we cannot get them to swim without their fins, which can be
disconcerting to the six-year-old playing innocently next to them.


Both girls made a countdown calendar yesterday and take great
satisfaction in x-ing off another day. Both girls daily ask me,
“When are we going to GO already?”


Meanwhile, I’ve got a growing stash of stuff-to-pack in my
bedroom, have already bought surprise treats for them, and am
maniacally planning how we’ll survive ten hours on a plane.
We’ve got a tower of sunscreen, a pile of books, and a couple
underwater cameras for good measure.


Are we there yet?

A few months ago Maddie had a play date at
a friend’s house, someone whose mother I only casually knew
from school. When she returned home a few hours later, her eyes
were shining with happiness. “I had the best play date
EVER!” she cried. “When can I go over again?”


I smiled. “I’ll talk to your friend’s mom and see
what we can set up! What was so fun about this play date?”


Maddie sparkled. “We watched television the whole time, and
her mom let us eat a LOT of candy!”


Oh.

Poor Cora was sick yesterday, waking up
with vomiting and lying listlessly on the couch all morning. She
seems to have recovered quite quickly, but it did force us to stay
home and do nothing but lie on the pull-out couch and watch
television and drink slushies.


Wait, maybe there shouldn't be a law against it.

I had a bad day yesterday.


For a variety of reasons, none of which had anything to do with my
kids, a really bad day. Let’s just leave it at that.


After dinner, I fled the house to run errands, leaving my husband
to put the girls to bed while I got some space to mentally process
what was going on. By the time I came home, the girls were in bed,
but not asleep. Cora called me upstairs for a cuddle.


I snuggled into the bed next to my girl, spooning with her and
breathing in her baby smell on the back of her neck. She sighed
happily and patted my hand, and I couldn’t take any more.


“I love you so much, kiddo, some days I don’t think my
heart will be big enough to contain all that love,” I
whispered to her.


Not at all surprised, Cora replied, “Yep, your love just gets
bigger and bigger until there’s no room in your heart for
more, and so your heart starts stretching and stretching and going
all throughout your body.”


Excited now, Cora turned to me and continued. “And the love
flows everywhere, and soon there’s so much of it that
there’s no room in your body for anything else. So all the
crabbiness, all the sadness, all the tired Mommy stuff just gets
pushed out of your body and you’re full of love!” And
she rolled back over, content, and sighed into sleep.


And my day was redeemed.

We had an unexpected treat this weekend:
friends invited us over to have lunch and swim, and we ended up
staying for almost nine hours having a fantastic time. We ate lunch
by the pool, swam for hours, changed into dry clothes, let the kids
watch movies and play like puppies while dinner was readied, ate
dinner, and then swam some more. By the time we went home the girls
were exhausted – the good kind of exhausted.


Our friends have a diving board, and Maddie and Cora were all over
it. They lined up and jumped in for HOURS. Maddie did
“trick” after “trick”: jumping like a
pencil, jumping in the straddle splits, and so on. Cora was
enamored of the deep part of the pool, and would cling to the side,
take a deep breath, then dive down in her snorkel mask, pushing
herself down the wall, to touch the bottom of the pool twelve
loooooong feet away before popping up again like a cork, smiling
insanely.


The girls had a great time.

Yesterday morning Cora had a friend over
to play. While the young girls giggled happily together, Maddie a
bit of the old man out, I took advantage of the pint-sized
distraction and cleaned a couple of rooms. Maddie, bored, ambled
into where I was and said, “Mom, can I talk to Elise on the
phone?” Maddie’s friend has been out of town a couple
weeks and my daughter was clearly missing her – as well as
looking for something to do that didn’t involve helping
five-year-olds dress up the cat.


“Sure, kiddo, let me go get the phone and call Elise’s
mom on vacation for you, and she’ll hand you over to Elise if
Elise is available.” I was headed towards the house phone
when Maddie said, “And Mom? I really think I should get my
own phone for Christmas this year.”

We have celebrated July 4th several
different ways as a family over the years: when we lived in New
York, we’d throw a picnic blanket on the floor and watch the
Macy’s fireworks show out our window on the horizon. A couple
years ago we went to a minor league baseball game and had a
fabulous time, with fireworks at the end and everything. Last year
we were in Florida and watched distant fireworks from the beach.


This year we discussed our options. There are several places in our
area to see quality fireworks; the problem with them all is that
they’re all, um, outside.

Yesterday the girls and I played at the
pool all morning with friends, bringing a picnic lunch to prolong
the fun. After we got home I hustled the girls into dry clothes and
ran a few errands with them before heading back home to get Maddie
dressed for ballet. As I scurried both girls out the door, rushing
to avoid being late, I handed Cora a bag I’d packed for her
with fun stuff to do while Maddie took class: markers, coloring
books, and the like.


“Here, can you please carry your bag? I put water and a snack
in it,” I said briefly as I struggled into my shoes.

Yesterday Brian and I took the girls to a
children’s science and technology museum for the afternoon.
We had a great time learning about friction with bumper car models
and spinning on a top to bring the idea of centripetal force home.
Brian and Maddie had just finished building a very nice Lego house
and we were all meandering our way back out the door when a staff
member approached me and said, “Excuse me, our dissection of
a cow’s eyeball is going to begin in two minutes if your
daughters would like to come watch.”


I looked at Brian. He looked at me. I took anatomy and did more
than my fair share of dissecting so I was happy to go splash around
in to some vitreous humors, but what would the girls think?

Note to self:


In the future, when trying to defuse a tense situation with
squabbling siblings by suggesting a rousing round of Family Board
Game Night, kindly do not suggest “SORRY” as the game
of choice.


Especially when you’re stupid enough to win.


Though by the time the game is over, you’ve only actually
beaten/broken the heart of one daughter, since the first daughter
left the game early on sobbing, “But it’s just not FAIR
that I get bumped just because you slide! It’s an UNJUST
rule! I can’t take this!”


Live and learn.

Recently Maddie’s been rather
indifferent about food – and by “food” I mean
anything but dessert. There is absolutely no ennui in her attitude
towards sugar. But for regular meals, she’ll take all morning
to decide what she wants for breakfast – half a bowl of
cereal – then procrastinate for an hour over lunch, then eat
a decent dinner (perhaps because she doesn’t get to choose
that meal). This has left me saying, “What do you want for
lunch, Maddie?” over and over again, only getting an answer
from her right after I’ve sat down and put my feet up to eat
my own lunch.


So a few days ago, I finally said, “Maddie, if you do not
tell me what you want for lunch in the next five minutes, I will
not make anything for you. If you are hungry, you will need to
provide for yourself. Do you understand?”


“Yes, ma’am,” I heard from behind a book.


Okay then.

One of my all-time favorite sites, href="http://www.crunchybetty.com" target="_blank">Crunchy
Betty, posted an article recently on homemade dishwasher
detergent. Her sister makes her own, and her one-year-old daughter
got into it and ate a fistful of it. One quick call to poison
control and they discovered that the fact that it was homemade
detergent saved them a trip to the ER.


Making your own household cleaners isn't just cheap and
eco-friendly - it's better for the kids, too! Check out her full
post (plus a few recipes for homemade dish detergent) href="http://www.crunchybetty.com/still-dont-actually-eat-your-dishwasher-detergent"
target="_blank">here.


And as an obligatory warning note: even homemade cleaners can be
toxic. No one thinks your kid should drink a bottle of vinegar
straight, for instance. But it's better than the harsh chemicals
in store-made cleaners.

Dear Camp Counselor of Maddie’s Day
Camp:


Last Friday as Maddie was finishing her breakfast on the last
morning of her week-long school-sponsored day camp, she said,
“Mom, can you set up a playdate with one of my
counselors?” Turns out she had so much fun with her over the
week that she wanted to keep the new friendship going. I explained
that older girls wouldn’t come over for a play date, but as a
babysitter, to which Maddie responded, “Then the next time
you go out, will you call her to be my babysitter?”


“I’ll look into it,” I said, then added,
“How will I know which camp counselor to ask? You have two of
them!”


“Oh, it’s easy,” Maddie replied. “I want
you to invite the one who likes kids, not the other one.”


Have you guessed, Camp Counselor? You are the “other
one”.

At the pool last night Maddie met two
older girls, fifth graders who were, of course, incredibly cool to
Maddie. They were kind girls and allowed Maddie to attach herself
to them for most of the evening. They played games with her and
paid attention to her – to an extent. But after a while
enough was enough and they paused on the other side of the pool to
hang out and gossip, big-girl style.


Maddie, desperate to get their attention back, climbed out of the
pool, stood at the edge, and said, “Hey, guys! GUYS!”
The girls looked up politely.


“Watch me!” Maddie shouted. “I’m going to
say ‘Mickey Mouse’ in slow motion!”


What?

Maddie and Cora have both been in camp
this week, and I have to admit, it’s nice having a couple
hours of space to try to get back on top of my domestic life. I
adore having the girls out of school, and we’ve positively
wallowed in our togetherness – copious hours by the pool,
multiple rounds of Go Fish and dance-a-thons, and so on. But as we
spend so much time hanging out, other things fall by the wayside:
suddenly I’m doing laundry in fits and spurts, and may get
three loads washed one day but take almost a week to get them
folded and put away. Small things break down in the house and
simply don’t get fixed.


And as for housecleaning –well, let’s just say
don’t look at my toilets too closely.

A couple people asked me after
yesterday’s post to elaborate on our bedtime arrangement
– how the girls get to color in their room, etc.


So here it is.

I’ve written a few times before
about love languages, and how I can see the girls developing
differently in that area. They’re becoming more clearly
defined, and I love to see their individuality, even as I see them
both happily moving forward and reaching out in each individual
language.


Cora is a big Words and Affirmation girl, and is more comfortable
saying, “I love you so much, Mommy,” out of the blue,
than any other kid I’ve seen. Her comfort with verbal
intimacy is humbling, and makes me work harder to meet that and
respond to her in her own words.

I taught all morning yesterday while the
girls stayed home with Gamma, and when I returned just in time for
lunch I opened the door into my kitchen –


And found a puppy barking on my floor.


No, not a real puppy. Don’t panic.

Our city offers a really great program
– free outdoor concerts every Monday during June - and most
years we find at least once band we’re interested in seeing.
This past Monday, we hit the city park to listen to a
Beatles’ tribute band.


And boy, did we have a good time.

Dear Maddie:


Last week you asked me to take a picture of you on the day before
your birthday, then take a picture on the morning of your birthday,
print them both up, affix them to paper (your instructions were
specific), and then turn it over to you. You want desperately to
see if you notice a difference between your six-year-old picture
and your seven-year-old picture.


Don’t bother looking, kiddo. I can see it well enough for
both of us.


What has happened this past year? You’ve grown so much
– and I’m not talking physically, though a friend of
mine described you and a friend of yours, accurately, as
“Great Dane puppies” just last week. And I’m not
talking emotionally, though the difference between you at the end
of kindergarten and you at the end of first grade is night and day.


No, what I’m talking about is how you’ve grown as a
unique individual.

Every day this week Maddie presses me
about her upcoming birthday in some fashion: asking if it’s
too late to add to her wish list (yes), wanting to know if
I’m getting stuff done for her party this weekend (of
course), and wondering aloud whether or not she’ll look
significantly different on the morning of her birthday.


‘Cause she’s aging and all.

A theatre friend of mine has a daughter
about Cora’s age, and the two play together a fair amount.
The girls share a love of all things theatrical, and just like
Cora, her friend Talia loves to dress up for elaborate
“shows” and adores listening to Broadway cast
recordings in the car.


A few weeks ago, little Talia started violin lessons, and the
session started with the teacher enthusing over how quickly the
girl would learn to play simple tunes.


“Why, today you’re going to play ‘Mary Had A
Little Lamb’ before the end of your lesson. What do you think
of that?”


Talia stared at her blankly, and then said politely,
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that one.
Perhaps I can play you something from ‘Les Miserables’
instead?”


Ok, maybe show kids are a little weird.

Yesterday morning I had to wake the girls
up for an early swim lesson. As Cora blinked her eyes open, she
rolled over, yawned, and said, “Mommy, everyone should carry
around something so we can all catch our tears and save
them.”


Cora is a hard sleeper and can have deep, vivid dreams, so I
wasn’t sure where this was coming or even if she was fully
awake, but I continued the conversation.


“Why do you say that, honey?” I asked, thinking
it’d be something fanciful about turning them into laughter
or not letting bad people see her sorrow.


“Because,” Cora continued, “if everyone caught
all their tears we could use them to end the drought. Tears are
water, and there’s a water shortage, so we should re-use
them!”


I love my girl.

This weekend Maddie and I were driving
through some farm country when I spied a curious sight out the
window.


“Look, Maddie!” I cried, and pointed to a group of
horses – one of whom was wearing what I can only describe as
an equine version of a 1950’s rain over-coat. You know the
ones: A translucent plastic that folds up into your purse, but when
the rain starts Voila! You’ve got a see-through raincoat
that’s tailored like a lovely day dress. The horse
didn’t seem to mind and was munching away on some hay while
sporting a semi-translucent plastic coat, tailored over his whole
body. It snapped at the neck, wrapped around his withers, and came
partway down his tail, as if made for his measurements.

Hear that?


That's the sound of me not packing any lunch boxes. Of the girls
not crabbing sullenly while I prod and cajole them through a
morning routine.


And that? That's the sound of me not saying through gritted teeth,
"Hurry UP, honey, or you're going to be late! I need you to chew
faster, baby, chew faster!"


And that? That's the sound of me not setting an alarm.


Sorry.

Yes, all my northern friends, read it and
weep. Today is the last day of school.


Cora’s been out for two weeks and has quickly discovered the
joy (sarcasm there) of running errands with Mommy. But it
can’t really feel like summer until Sister’s in the
same boat, so Cora is eagerly awaiting 2:55 this afternoon.


I’m grabbing my kid, heading to our neighborhood pool, and
staking out a spot there; my friends and I make this our official
launch into summer with pizza and popsicles and poolside drinks.


We may never go home.


Summer, here we come.

So last week our big project was the
re-doing of Cora’s bedroom. Declaring yellow “not
pretty any more”, she asked for a pink room, offering Maddie
her bedspread, lovely vintage prints of wildflowers, and more as
she pink-i-fied her room. Cora’s dream? To turn her room into
a ballet haven, complete with a sign on the door saying “Do
not come in unless you are a dancer!”


All went well to start, as you probably saw in my last blog. We
spackled holes, moved out furniture, taped off trim and ceilings,
and primed the whole room. Cora chose to sleep with Maddie that
night, and we closed the door on her pristine white room, the only
furniture in there her big bed covered in plastic in the center of
the room. I tucked the girls into Maddie’s bed and said a
cheerful good-night.


And then Cora started crying.

Both girls this year have asked to paint
their rooms, and Brian and I agreed to give that concession to them
as a birthday gift.


Sure, we could shell out five hundred bucks per room to hire
someone to do all the hard work, but what would be the fun in that?
I remember re-decorating my room a few times as I was growing up,
and loved the DIY-ness of it every time. We were operating on a
negative budget, but my mom never made me feel like we were doing
it to save money: painting and moving furniture and sewing our own
curtains was part of the fun of it all.

Yesterday Cora and I drove past a
neighborhood Montessori school housed in a fanciful building
replete with towers and royal-like flags.


“Mommy,” Cora said, “That building looks like a
castle, but it’s not a castle. It’s really a
children’s school.”


Thinking she’d heard this from another grown-up on some
previous drive past the spot, but wanting to keep the conversation
that she’d started going, I said, “What makes you say
that?”


“Well, castles are where kings and queens live. And we
don’t have any kings and queens here because this is America
and we are ruled by a president instead. So it can’t be a
real castle.”

A friend of mine told me that her daughter
recently walked out of a bathroom and remarked casually,
“Every time I look in the mirror I’m surprised that
I’m pretty.”


Nonplussed, my friend pressed the issue and learned that her
daughter considers herself unattractive – not because of
anything that anyone has said, it’s simply how she sees
herself.


Now, my friend and her husband are excellent parents and raise all
their children thoughtfully and deliberately, and made the choice a
long time ago that they would not dwell on appearances when
speaking with their children, especially their daughters. So a
compliment from them might sound something like this: “Hey,
your outfit looks very pulled together today! I can see that you
spent a long time working on it.”

School must be drawing to a close:
I’ve got something on the calendar every single day, and I
have a pile of teacher appreciation gifts waiting to be wrapped and
carded.


Between field day and class party day and awards ceremonies and
such, I don’t imagine the kids are doing much more learning
for the next two weeks. We seem to be flying from event to event to
event, and that’s not even counting such things as
Cora’s Birthday Weekend Extravaganza we just had (big hit,
more on that later), or preschool graduation, or the upcoming
recital for both girls.


And I really do want to sit down and write heart-felt thank-you
cards to all the teachers in Maddie’s life; she’s
enjoyed every class she’s done, from art to p.e. to music to
library. She simply loves her teachers. There’s just so many
people to include!


Couldn’t we spread this end-of-year stuff out a little bit?
Say, over the previous nine months?

Dear Cora:

I usually start these yearly letters off
by saying something like, “I can’t believe it’s
time again – the year flew fast!” And while this year
might have been speedy, I can DEFINITELY believe it’s time
for a birthday letter.


You, my dear, are straining at the leash to turn five. I have seen
such growth in you – and I’m not talking physical,
though if you don’t slow down you’ll be swimming nekked
by July because you’ll outgrow all the swimsuits I JUST
BOUGHT YOU – that I can’t help but be aware of how much
you’re growing up. Any traces of babyhood have been firmly
erased, and you are drawing in your new self with bold strokes,
filling up the pages and eschewing any need for an eraser.

Maddie and Cora are almost exactly two
years apart. Maddie’s development often seems to catch me by
surprise – hey, look at that, she’s rolling over! I
can’t believe she recognizes her alphabet! Wow, is she
putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles already? That
sort of thing. Cora is just the opposite: I’m inclined to
think such unfair thoughts as – hey, why isn’t she
brushing her teeth as well as Maddie does? When is her attention
span going to get better?


It’s not that I’m constantly comparing Cora to Maddie,
in a sort of “Well, Maddie rolled over at four months and
Cora didn’t do it until five months. Slacker.” way. But
with your first child, whatever stage you are in feels like it will
go on forever: you will ALWAYS be breastfeeding/pureeing solid
foods/changing diapers/potty training/sleep training/whatever. And
then suddenly you’re in a different stage.

We've officially hit insanity time in our
neighborhood, as school winds down and all the obligatory parties
and celebrations come with it.


This week alone, we've got Cora's end-of-year party (preschool
ends three weeks earlier than public school) today, which
unfortunately conflicts with Maddie's class kickball tournament,
so I'm hitting Cora's party while Mom cheers Maddie on. As well
this morning Cora is celebrating her upcoming birthday in her
school - since it's after school is out - so this morning will
find me bringing a dozen and a half mini-cupcakes to her class and
reading one of her favorite books aloud while the four-year-olds
get sugared up for the day.


Then tomorrow is Cora's preschool graduation, and yes, I rolled my
eyes too. Before they started weeping when I watched Maddie
"graduate" two years ago. So tomorrow's Cora's last day of school
- don't get me started on my baby growing up - and I'll pull
Maddie out for the graduation ceremony and luncheon, then take her
back for the remainder of the day.


The Friday is Cora's birthday, so you can imagine how that will
go: lots of running and crafting and bouncing and probably
swimming.


And sugar.


And we put a huge button on the end of this week with Cora's
blowout birthday party on Saturday - she and several of her friends
will be putting on a mini version of the Nutcracker at my theatre
school on the big stage. To call this a huge undertaking is an
understatement. But you only turn five once.


Tired? A little. But it keeps me from thinking about all the
milestones we're hitting this week.


And then, of course, there's next week: Maddie's class party,
Maddie's field day at school, Cora's summer vacation starts,
ballet recital . . .


I'll think about all that later.

Sunday was, of course, Mothers’ Day,
and I had a lovely time with my girls, my mother, and my
mother-in-law. We ate out both lunch and dinner – decadent, I
know – and I took a good long nap in the middle of the day
– equally decadent.


When Brian asked me last week what I wanted to do for
Mothers’ Day, it reminded me of every day over the past
several years he’s asked me that question. And how my answer
has evolved over time.

The other day Cora and I were in a public
restroom – Cora sitting on the potty, me staring politely at
the back wall. This is how we do it. A moment of silence, and then
Cora said amiably, “You know, Mommy, Chiwallas are baby
dogs.”


A Chiwalla, in case you wondered, is a Chihuahua. Sure, I could
correct her, but who wants to? It’s so darn cute every time
she says it.


“Some Chihuahuas are baby dogs, you’re right, honey.
But some are grown-up dogs.”


“No, Mommy, a baby dog is called a Chiwalla.”

I’ve spent a couple days this week
talking about teacher gifts so feel free to catch up before you
start reading today. But if you’re already caught up,
let’s dive in – to my own ideas for what to give
teachers as a “thank you” for putting up with your kid
–and, let’s face it, you – for a year.


First off, think about who you want to remember with a little
something. For me, it’s the people I see every day, whose
paths I regularly cross as my daughters go about their school
lives. So if you’ve never had a one-on-one meeting with your
school principal and can only vaguely remember what she looks like,
then don’t worry about a personal gift; perhaps something
small for the whole office staff to share would be great.

Monday I ranted (a teensy bit) about
end-of-year teacher gifts, and how they’re often stressful
– and unnecessarily so.


Today I’m here to make some suggestions.


I spoke with a few friends, all of whom are teachers in the public
school system, to get their input on this thing. Here’s what
they had to say:

I know today's supposed to be my
follow-up with suggestions and input on great teachers' gifts,
but, well . . .


Had to take my printer apart and fix it.


Spring concert last night for the four-year-old. Late bedtime and
too many cookies.


So I'm tired, sorry.


But it'll be here tomorrow, I promise.

It’s that time of year again –
when the weather warms up and the days grow longer and everyone is
thinking of one thing:


Time to get cracking on the teacher gifts.


Of course, the time to get cracking was a few weeks ago – now
we’re in crunch mode. But I’ve been working on them for
a couple weeks here, and have a few things to say.


And some suggestions for gifts.

I’ve talked many times about how
parenting is continuously building fences around our children, only
to knock them down and re-build them a few feet further out, over
and over and over again.


I feel like I’ve done a lot of re-positioning lately.


Maddie’s becoming aware of her independence in new ways, and
is tentatively testing it out in different situations. She’ll
often shyly ask if she can do something herself – and then
move forward hesitantly, but without looking back. And when
she’s finished, she glows with triumph -and skips happily
back to nestle in my arms.

Overheard yesterday:


Maddie: “It’s too cold to open our neighborhood pool in
May. I’m going to write to Congress and tell them to make it
a law that pools can’t open until June.” (Way to avail
yourself of our governmental system, baby. Due process, or
something, at its finest.)

Maddie’s school does an annual
talent show – something I distinctly do NOT remember from my
own childhood. Would I have jumped at the chance to get up and do
my thing, or would I have hesitated in fear? I honestly have no
idea.


But Maddie got up and did her thing.

My month-long marathon of rehearsals and
shows is finally over – show, closed; makeup case, put away.


Now to deal with the clean-up.

This is not my story, but it’s too
delicious not to tell. Pun intended.


Maddie’s friend Elise has historically disliked chocolate, to
the point that Elise’s friends will often choose a vanilla
cake for a birthday party so “Elise will want some
too.” This is not anything the girl has done to force her way
– it’s simply a measure of how much her friends like
her.


So when Elise asked for a chocolate bunny for Easter for the first
time, to call it huge would be an understatement. Both parents
checked in – yes, she really meant it. Rite of passage, or a
genuine taste change? Who could tell, and who cared. The bunny was
coming, and the subject of much discussion. Elise made it clear
that the bunny was hers – and ONLY hers – and she would
savor it slowly in her own time whilst it remained off-limits to
the rest of the household.

I’ve posted before about other mommy
blogs I really admire; I do enjoy reading other sites on a somewhat
regular basis, mostly just to remind myself that I’m not in
this crazy thing alone. Even words from a stranger can be
comforting when they echo my feelings.


But one site – target="_blank">Steady On, Mama – is not written by a
stranger. It’s written by my best friend Abby,
waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in New York. And I’m so thrilled
she’s started writing! She’s got an incredible talent
for saying what I’m thinking – only better. And now I
can finally keep up with her inner thoughts – and the issues
she wrestles with – along with all the other mommies out
there.


So check it out- I promise you won’t be disappointed.