1 Mother 2 Another

Monday we went to our local Arboretum, and
they were offering free face painting and storytelling and more.
Maddie and Cora both got their faces painted like a daisy, and
Maddie was so entranced by the idea that she announced we needed to
have a Daisy party on Tuesday. She wanted to dress up like a daisy
and decorate the house with daisies.


I should say here that we have impromptu parties probably more
regularly than most people – every couple of months or so.
Planning the decorations and getting ready is half the fun, and
Maddie and Cora love celebrating the simple things in life. So if I
can give my daughter a party, I’ll do it.


Plus, it kills a few hours with one blow.

A couple days ago I was driving down the
highway when Cora asked for her pacifier. Now, we’ve been
working on weaning her – graaaaaaaadually – from her
pacifier, so I try to stall and put her off and avoid the thing in
the car unless it’s absolutely urgent. So she’d ask for
“Pacifier, peeese!” and I’d reply, “Ok,
honey, hang on, I’ll have to look for it.”


Each request became a bit more urgent, until about the fourth time
Cora said, “Mommy! Pacifier! PEEEEEEEEEEESE!”
“Well, honey, Mommy can’t find it,” I replied,
which was technically true – I’d buried it in the
diaper bag so I wouldn’t be a liar.


There was silence for a few moments, and then from the back of my
seat a question floated up:


“Why not?”


Yes, Cora’s learned how to ask “Why”.

A couple years ago my friend Graham
recommended a children’s Bible called href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBig-Picture-Story-Bible%2Fdp%2F1581342772%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1238383564%26sr%3D8-1&tag=1mother2anoth-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325"
target="_blank">The Big Picture Story Bible. I’d
been looking for something to start reading to Maddie, and
didn’t want simply a regular Bible with kid-friendly pictures
in it. As soon as this book arrived, I knew I’d found my
answer.


Maddie enjoyed flipping through the Bible off and on, but about six
months ago she really started getting interested in reading it.
Since then, she’s been reading several stories a week, if not
one or two a day, and I’m trying to make a Sunday night
snuggle with a glass of milk and a Bible chapter part of our weekly
routine with the girls.

Cora recently woke up waaaaaaaaay too
early and was clearly not going back to sleep. On such mornings, I
bring her into bed with me, hoping she’ll go back to sleep if
she’s snuggled up against Mommy. This hardly ever happens,
but she enjoys Mommy time so much that she will easily lie quietly
for twenty or thirty minutes, allowing me to doze in and out, until
she can’t take it any longer.


When Cora’s been as patient as she can be, she’ll thump
her feet a few times to make sure I’m awake. Then
she’ll roll over and crawl into my face and whisper,
“Mommy, my tummy’s hungry. Let’s go downstairs,
get Cora some breakfast.” I’ll good-naturedly get up,
thankful for those extra minutes of dozing time, and get ready for
the day.


But the other morning I was truly tired, and really needed to
sleep. Cora must have sensed that because she lay there quietly for
an hour before even saying a word. And even then, she didn’t
thump to awaken me – she just talked quietly. “Mommy,
are you still asleep?”


“Mmmhmm,” I answered sleepily.


“Oh,” was all she said, and I felt the disappointment
in her body. But then she resigned herself, and pressed closer to
me for a snuggle, still silent, still willing to let me sleep.


These are the sweet moments that make the rest of the times worth
it.

The first time Maddie went to gymnastics
class, we discovered that the training school’s team
practiced at the same time. And when I say “team”, I
mean the girls who are hoping to compete in the next Olympics
– remember, this is the home of Nastia Liukin and Carly
Patterson. The team coach is a former Olympic gold medalist
herself. So Maddie watched the girls in wonder as they went through
their flips and leaps and spins around the bars, and couldn’t
tear her eyes off of them. Uh-oh, I thought.


And I was right. As we left, Maddie turned to me with stars in her
eyes and said, “Mama, where can I get one of those sparkly
leotards?”

With Cora’s insatiable curiosity and
burning desire to do whatever Maddie does coloring every step she
takes, her big sister Maddie has learned that honey is sweeter than
vinegar.


Maddie constructs elaborate games nearly every day – stories
about Thomas, plays involving every single animal we’ve got
in the Little People Kingdom, an elaborate picnic for her teddy
bears – the variations are endless but with one theme in
common: Maddie, and only Maddie, understands the plot and rules of
the game, and no one else can play. She’ll set up a story in
the morning right after breakfast, and come back to it all day
long. As a rule, we clean up every night before bed, but I allow
Maddie to leave her games overnight if I can tell she’s still
in the midst of an epic.

Wondering where I’ve been the past
couple of days?


Do you really need to ask????


Yes, we had an idyllic few days last week, with Maddie off in
gymnastics camp one day, and me and the girls getting plenty of
outdoor playtime and picnicking. We were all healthy, seeing
friends, having a wonderful time.


Then my husband started puking.

So as I said yesterday, Maddie had her
first “school” day on Tuesday, and absolutely loved it.
She even asked to go back, and is heading in this morning for at
least one more session. And as sad as I was to see her growing up
and striking out on her own, I have to confess I was really looking
forward to some one-on-one time with Cora.


All spring as we’ve sifted through preschools and planned
Maddie’s fall, in the back of my mind I’ve been
envisioning these long, lazy mornings with just Cora to hang out
with. I so loved Maddie’s first two years, and the fun things
we did together just the two of us, and I’ve really been
craving some similar time with my youngest. I knew I’d miss
Maddie at first, but I’d quickly get into having only one
child to chase after and get snacks for and clean up after –
it’d practically be a vacation!

Maddie had another first yesterday –
her first day of school.


Sort of.


We’ve registered Maddie for preschool starting this
September, and we’ve got a couple one-week day camps planned
to get her into the groove – figuring out what the school
thing is all about in bite-sized doses. But this week is spring
break, and her gym is offering day camp all week; for twenty bucks
a day, you can drop your kid off until nap time. I saw this and
thought, hey, this is a good way for Maddie to try out the
separation thing with no commitment. So we signed her up for one
day, and dropped her off.

So we were driving to church Sunday
morning, just chatting about things in the car as we went. And I
can’t remember how the conversation came up, but we began
talking about heaven and going there, and Maddie said something
about wearing her favorite sparkly leotard there, or something to
that effect. And I made some comment about how we wouldn’t
look exactly the same when we get to heaven, and Maddie immediately
became both worried and suspicious.

I took Maddie in to the doctor on Friday
for a mild rash, and in the course of ruling out causes they did a
strep test. And guess what? Yep, it was positive.


Cora was along for the ride, and even though neither girl was
showing any symptoms, I asked the doctor to test Cora as well. You
can imagine the outcome.

Maddie’s always been on the front of
the developmental curve; she walked, talked, and hit most
milestones on the early side. And since she was our first child,
every step of the way – rolling over, sitting up, walking
– was new and fascinating and worthy of sonnets.

Which is probably at least partially why
Cora’s been even further ahead on the developmental curve:
she knows she’s got to really step up her game to impress us.
First steps? We’ve seen ‘em. First steps at ten months
old? Now THAT’S impressive! “Mama, dada” –
old news. Complete sentences at 18 months – that’s
new!

It’s no secret that I’m into
protecting the environment and making healthy choices for raising
my kids. So when I heard about this new website “href="http://www.webmd.com/health-ehome-9/default.htm"
target="_blank">Health eHome”, put out in partnership
by WebMD and target="_blank">Healthy Child, Healthy World, I had to
check it out.


The verdict? It’s a great site, and one I recommend you
browse when you get the chance. Most of you probably know I heart
Healthy Child, Healthy World, and keep their book as a reference in
my house. I’m always looking to if for suggestions for
cutting down on environmental pollutants or allergans in the home,
or for suggestions for making non-toxic mildew remover.

We spent a glorious four days last week
with the entire family healthy, and I look back on them fondly and
reminisce.


Why look back, you ask?


Because the lucky streak is over.

I ain’t what I used to be.


I acknowledge that four years of my life have gone by with me in
some sort of denial. Four years ago, I was a cool New Yorker. I
worked in Union Square, bought my food fresh at the organic
farmer’s market, picked up handmade pasta for dinner on a
whim, and shopped the shoe sales on my way home on a Friday night.
Why not? I had nowhere I “had” to be; Brian was
perfectly capable of feeding himself. I walked everywhere, and
since I was a Pilates teacher, I worked out four or five times a
week, and though I bemoaned my butt in jeans, I looked pretty good.


Fast forward four years.

A good friend of mine came over last night to hang out, and at one point she chased Cora up the stairs. When she came back down she was laughing.

“I walked into Cora’s room, which was totally dark, and before I said one word, Cora whipped around and said, ‘Nuffin!’ I can’t believe it – I’d just read about that in your blog today!”

People think I make this stuff up, but I am here to tell you, I do not.

Ok, sometimes I exaggerate when I tell you they are the most beautiful girls in the history of the world, but not by much.

Cora’s hit the stage where she knows
she’s done -or is contemplating doing -something wrong.


I’m so thrilled, I say dryly.


I don’t think she’s hit the intentional sin point
– where she knows it is wrong and should resist, but it seems
so delicious that she deliberately chooses to do wrong – but
she’s definitely arrived at the age of sensing
something’s not going to get the parental seal of approval,
and thus should be done in secrecy.


This translates to Cora’s new favorite word –
“Nothing”. As in, “Cora, what are you
doing?” “Nothing!” Though in all fairness, she
actually says, “Nuffin!”

I feel as if I’ve been living in a
bubble forever now; the girls and I have been sick for so much of
the winter that our regular routine of somewhat frequent playdates
has been completely shot. I’ve been avoiding people
assiduously, trying to stop the germ spread, and now can’t
remember what it was like when we lived in New York and would head
out to the park EVERY DAY for a playdate with Maddie’s pal
Naomi.


We seem to be coming out of the latest round of germs, for which
I’m supremely grateful – and I am SO ready to set up
playdates. My life for the noticeable past has been waking up,
getting the girls going, and hear Maddie say plaintively,
“Where are we going today? What are we going to do? I want to
do something fun. I want to play with friends.”


And since no one’s been one hundred percent healthy, we often
haven’t felt like walking to the park. Which leaves indoor
fun – the mall, library, or Chick-Fil-A – or the other
alternative, which requires no money and no schlepping tired kids:


Mommy comes up with a brilliant, stay-at-home, fun idea.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine was
suffering from an obviously painful headache that had been going on
for weeks. We met up at one of Maddie’s classes, and
afterwards I asked how I could help her for the rest of the day.
“Other than taking my kid?” she jokingly replied. I
answered that taking her kid was exactly the sort of thing I had in
mind! She demurred, saying she didn’t want to impose.
“Why not let me take your child for a few hours to play with
Maddie while you rest?” “Oh, I couldn’t do that
to you – you’ve got two kids yourself!”


“Ok, how about if I take your child for lunch?”
“No, no, it’s ok. I just need to hit the drugstore on
the way home and we’ll be in for the day.”


Knowing my friend’s car had been having trouble starting that
day, I said, “Alright, how about this. What if I follow you
to the parking lot, and you leave the car running while you dash
in? I’ll park next to you and stand outside your car so you
don’t have to do the in-and-out-of-the-carseat thing, and
you’ll make sure your car stays running.” Again, she
politely demurred.

Thousands of screaming fans. Girls,
collapsing, sobbing, at the sight of their hero. A stage with
hundreds of lights focused on the star, and beefy security guys
down front to make sure nobody mobs the talent.


The Jonas Brothers in concert?


Nope. Bigger.


Elmo is in town.