1 Mother 2 Another

Maddie’s deep into her first
Nutcracker experience, and all I can say is – help. Is it
over yet?


I help out backstage in the holding room for Maddie and about
twenty (20!) other girls her age. Try controlling two dozen
six-year-olds in white (white!) dresses and red (red!) lipstick.
They’re bored, they don’t want to pee when you tell
them to, they only want to eat a snack after they put on their
costumes – they’re natural divas.

School finished up on Friday, and we've
got two blissful weeks of just family ahead of us. No big trips
planned, no house full of guests, just local family and some great
cocooning time.


Of course, we have a few Nutcrackers still to get through with
Maddie, but that's it, I promise.


Oh, and Maddie's pinkeye came back Saturday night.


No one said it would be completely clear sailing the next two weeks
. . .

Yep, I get that question every day –
and every day it seems my answer’s not good enough. And I
have to admit, they have a point.


We’ve been working our hineys off here, making gifts and
getting them boxed up and sent out to friends and family. Tuesday
Cora and I spent most of the morning putting all the baked goods
we’ve been working on into tubs to be shipped off across the
globe. We were a veritable machine of Dessert Boxes, me cutting the
brownie pans up and Cora doing all the plating. And to her credit,
she never once licked her fingers. Moving from treat to treat to
treat, making sure each tub had an equal sampling of all the
goodies we’d made, Cora worked fast and efficiently and was
rightfully proud when we were finished and saw all the stuffed
plastic tubs lined up.


Yesterday I got ten – TEN! – boxes mailed off to
friends and family, full of gifts and goodies. Shopping is mostly
done, homemade gifts for friends are just about finished, the house
is decorated – so what’s the hold-up?


I know we’ve been working feverishly and I know the days will
rush past between now and December 25, but honestly I’m glad
we’ve gotten so much accomplished; that just means
we’ve got all of next week to do fun holiday stuff, like see
Santa and ice skate and hit the half-price bookstore and order the
Christmas ham and wrap presents and –


Wait, I think we need a little more time.

As Maddie and I walked home from school
the other day, we chatted about what she’d done during school
time. I knew it was library day for her, so I asked what books she
checked out for the week. “I checked out three true books
about fish,” she replied.


What?


“That’s an interesting topic,” I said cautiously.
“What made you want to check out three different books about
fish?”


Maddie skipped along. “Because I plan on reading up on lots
of interesting facts about fish, and then using them to convince
you to let me have a fish for a pet.”


Wow. Don’t know whether to be proud or scared of her
long-term scheming.


“Well, a girl can always try, and I’ll always listen to
a well-reasoned argument,” I said equably. “But what
makes you want a fish so much suddenly?”


“Because I think they’re cool to watch and,” she
continued nonchalantly, “Elise has fish and her kittens are
always trying to eat them and I think it would be funny to watch my
cat try to get the fish out of the fishbowl.”


Ah. At least she’s honest.

Both girls are looking forward to
Christmas with unbridled glee. I always love watching them as the
holidays approach, and each year seems to get better for me; the
older they are, the more they seem to “get” Christmas.
This year, they’re not just excited about receiving gifts,
but about giving them as well.


Maddie, especially, has become aware of gift-giving in the family.
She made her gift for Cora – a real treasure box filled with
real plastic gems – several weeks ago, but still
couldn’t resist when she was out working a craft fair
recently and found a beautiful doll made from recycled neckties. So
she had to buy that, too. Then the girls and I were out recently
and they discovered the perfect gift for Daddy, which I won’t
print here because he dutifully – I mean, eagerly –
reads this blog daily. But it was their idea and they are quite
excited.

We’ve hit the ground running for the
holiday season, and we’re zigging and zagging from event to
event. Completely in a fun way: I’ve learned to turn down
stuff we’re not going to enjoy, and to try to build some
moments of calm into our entertainment schedule. But we’ve
got a lot going on fun-wise, and I fear the meltdown consequences.


Yesterday a friend hosted a cookie exchange right after school. All
of Cora and Maddie’s best friends got together to gorge on
cookies and candy canes, put together a few crafts, and gleefully
tear up my friend’s house in a sugar-induced frenzy. The
girls were excited (duh) and couldn’t wait to dig in –
er, go to the party.

Cora’s classroom has daily helpers,
chosen by table seating: red table “helps” on Mondays,
green table on Wednesdays, and so on. There’s about five
“helper” jobs for each day, and though the whole table
will get a job, they won’t all get the job they want.


High on Cora’s list is the job of “calendar
helper”. This job involves standing in front of the class and
assisting the teacher with the felt board calendar, naming the day
of the week and month, and so on. Cora had the job once this year
and has spent the past several months since then yearning to be
assigned the spot again. She dresses a bit nicer on Wednesdays
“just in case” and chats excitedly the whole way to
school: “Maybe today’s the day I’ll be calendar
helper again!”


Completely coincidentally, Cora loves being in front of an
audience.

Is there anything sweeter than your
four-year-old in her preschool Christmas concert, angelically
singing "Silent Night" on a cozy Monday night?


Is there anything worse than your four-year-old an hour later, two
hours past her bedtime and hopped up on cake and food dye,
helplessly spiraling out of control and taking you down with her?


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .

Recently an initiative was introduced to
the California State’s Attorney General’s office: the
California Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act. This
initiative, which will most likely be sent to voters in 2012, would
require all genetically modified food to be clearly labeled so
consumers can make informed choices.


Numerous other laws requiring better food labels have been
introduced to legislatures around the country and in D.C.;
unfortunately, big agriculture and chemical companies have great
lobbies and have gotten each bill shot down. The California
measure’s the first one that will be taken directly to
voters, and polls right now show that 93% of Americans believe
genetically-modified foods, or GMOs, should be labeled.


What’s the big deal, though? So they’ve cross-bred two
tomatoes to get a superior, juicier, redder tomato? Where’s
the cause for alarm, huh? That’s not what GMOs are, though. A
genetically-modified vegetable or animal – and yes, cloned
animals have been permitted in our food supply (unlabeled, of
course) by the FDA since early 2008 – is something that has
been altered at its molecular level: we’re talking
introducing foreign DNA from another substance, not another strain
of the same plant. So instead of cross-breeding a tomato with
another tomato, we’re talking about a tomato cross-bred with
a scorpion (true story, by the way). THAT kind of modification.

Maddie stayed home one more day yesterday;
though her eye looked significantly better in the morning, it was a
bit runny and I don’t want to be the mom who passes it on to
the rest of first grade. So Maddie had one more day of following me
around on errands, with a bit of fun thrown in.


I toned down yesterday’s fun day, and sure enough by
mid-afternoon Maddie was saying how much she missed her school
friends and was ready to go back. We still did some fun things,
though, and I still had a great time with my eldest to myself.

Maddie stayed home yesterday with an
unexpected case of pinkeye (No one ever expects pinkeye! I say in
my best Monty Python voice -) and we had one of those nonexistent
days when everyone’s gone but me and Maddie. Now usually,
I’d try to make the day boring and blah so she wouldn’t
be mad that she’s usually in school when all this fun is
going on, but she was home through no fault of her own while not
really sick – as in, she felt fine – so I figured,
let’s have a bit of fun.

The day felt like a holiday right away
simply because we got to sleep in an extra hour later than usual,
since Cora’s school doesn’t start until 9. I made a big
batch of pancakes and Maddie and Cora played for quite a while as
we leisurely got ready for the day.

Yep, if you've got a kid in the house,
you probably guessed right.


Maddie's got pinkeye.


Just after lunch today I received a harried phone call from the
school nurse: "Your daughter has pinkeye! You need to come pick her
up right away!" I swear she had absolutely no symptoms when she
left the house in the morning, but I still felt guilty, like I'd
tried to pass her off to give myself some more time to sit at home
and eat bon-bons.


Her eye doesn't look bad at all; pink and glazed, but not hugely
swollen or anything. It's been running rampant in the school so I
can't say I'm completely surprised, especially when most people
aren't clear how long they should keep their kid home with said
pinkeye.


"Now how long does Maddie need to stay home from school?" I asked
the doctor yesterday.


"Until she's been using the medicine for twenty-four hours," she
said cheerfully.


I looked at her. "Really? Because isn't she still contagious if
her eye is running and crusting, even if she's on drugs?"


The doctor stopped. "Well, yes, she is still contagious, and she
should stay home until her eye stops running. But we get so much
pressure from parents and schools that it's a pretty standard
'24-hour' line now. But yes, she'll be contagious until it stops
running."


So rest assured, folks - you won't see Maddie until she's pretty
darn cleared up. And as for Maddie, well, I guess she's about to
find out what Mommy does all day while she and Cora are at school.
Hope she likes doing chores, 'cause I got a list that won't
wait.

Today is one of Cora’s non-school
days, and so for Cora and Mommy Day we’re having a Craft-In.
Cora recently made some clay ornaments – almost a dozen of
them – and we’ll get the tempera paints out and
she’s going to go to town. We also have pinecone birdfeeders
to make – got the peanut butter and bird seed all lined up
– and candles to decorate. We’ve got a full schedule.


Cora’s in hog heaven, and I have to admit I’m not far
behind. Sometimes, I really love my job.

Over Thanksgiving break we found ourselves
at a certain pizza chain famous for its all-you-can-eat buffet and
extremely cheap prices. For whatever reason, the girls ADORE this
pizza which makes me, as a New Yorker, cringe in embarrassment. So
whenever we’re on staycation or doing something to celebrate,
you can bet it’ll involve a trip to this place.


Anway, we were there one night and preparing for the girls’
favorite part of the night – the dessert bar. They make
brownies, cinnamon rolls, and some sort of pizza-shaped pudding
thing. Don’t ask. But the girls scarf up the brownies and
cinnamon rolls, and this particular night they were drooling in
anticipation.


It’s not a free-for-all, of course; I do set limitations. So
when Cora asked, “Mommy, can I have some of the brownie and
cinnamon rolls both?” I went into Mommy Mode and made a snap
judgment based on the theory, Never Say “Yes” to A
Whole Lotta Sugar Before Bedtime. “Cora, you can have half a
brownie and a whole cinnamon roll, or half a cinnamon roll and a
whole brownie,” I said, only partly paying attention.


Cora looked at me and crumpled into tears.

Another day of vacation, and already
it’s going by too fast! Monday we spent the morning at our
favorite half-price bookstore after feasting at the Original
Pancake house, then played games together the rest of the day.
Tuesday was declared a Pajama Day, and we lay on the floor and
watched movies, made cookies, played games, and did dress-up.


This vacation is rockin’ it. Big time.

My week-long cold took its toll on my
voice, and when I woke up Friday morning I didn’t have one.
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.


Nothing.


I was apprehensive about how I’d get through the day with the
girls and no voice: what’s a mommy without her ability to
coach, encourage, cajole, direct? But I have to admit, I was quite
surprised at the results.

What do these jokes have in common:


“What’s a zoologist’s favorite food?
Zucchini.”


“What do you call a relative that lazes all around the house?
A NAP-kin.”


“Why did the baby stop eating? Because he was fed up.”


Wondering what the common theme is here? They were all written by
Maddie.


And then explained exhaustively to us.

Every day this week, I think the next day
is Friday. Perhaps because the girls are both off all week next
week; perhaps because I’ve been sick with a cold; perhaps
because everyone’s already decorated for CHRISTMAS: whatever
the reason, I keep thinking it’s later than it is.


Make that wishing, not thinking.


I’m so ready for next week’s staycation with the girls.
I’ve been working on the game plan, writing a list of fun
things to do, and plan on tricking out the Staycation Poster
tomorrow while they’re in school. My time of pure,
uninterrupted fun with them is more and more limited these days,
and I’m ready to get to it, already.


Is it just me?

This week both Cora and Maddie have
Thanksgiving feasts in their schools, and I have a teeny(ish) issue
with both of them.


Maddie’s feast is today, and to be fair, I’m not sure
of a good solution to what I perceive as the problem. For the
school’s feast day, family members are invited to come in and
partake of the special meal with the students, so everyone goes
through the hot line in the cafeteria for what I am sure is a meal
that’s had a lot of work put into it. And they have to
process hundreds of people in a very short amount of time, so I
know it can get crazy.

Yep, we seem to have gone straight from
most of us (except me) getting the croup to first Brian, then me
coming down with a lovely cold. Brian was asleep the entire weekend
and still bears an uncanny resemblance to the walking dead, and I
feel just bad enough to want to sleep all day without being so sick
I can justify hibernating from my kiddos and job.


Sigh. It’s going to be a long fall.

It’s not even halfway through
November and my calendar for the REST OF THE YEAR is crammed. How
did this happen?


Oh, right. I had kids.

Maddie has been working on her fairy tale
unit in school for six weeks now – I know I’ve blogged
about this before – and we finished filming it Wednesday and
had the big “movie premiere” yesterday.


And can I say, our kids are darn cute.


Make that freakin’ awesome.

There’s that time of day in our
family life when my children’s lives become a little less of
a sure thing, and more of an “eh, we’ll see if I let
them live until tomorrow” sort of thing. When my girls were
babies a friend of mine called it the “arsenic hour”
– the time of day when you’re pacing back and forth
with the baby bawling its eyes out, strapped to your chest while
you bawl your eyes out, staring out the window counting down the
seconds until your spouse comes home and gives you some relief.

Cora and I have been enjoying our
twice-weekly Mommy and Cora Days: the days when Maddie’s in
school and Cora is not are set aside for fun only, and I work hard
to get my chores and errands done on other days so we can wallow in
each other’s company.


Most weeks this works well, but sometimes a wrench gets thrown in.
This week, I needed to be at Maddie’s school for half an hour
in the morning yesterday, and then had to spend time throughout the
morning getting chores done – food that needed to be cooked
before going bad, preparing a bag of games to bring with me to work
(Cora had to tag along because of tricky babysitting), that kind of
thing. Cora and I did have some great moments: we made banana bread
together – one of her all-time favorite things to do –
and went out to lunch and read books and snuggled a lot.

Maddie’s almost to the end of a
six-week class project – the study of fairy tales. They read
a few different stories, talked about elements of a fairy tale,
then set about writing their own with the intent of performing it.
The kids created a make-believe kingdom complete with laws and a
coat of arms; designed the village and castle out of paper bags and
crafting paper; and wrote the story themselves.


I’d been told that at the end of the project they’d be
performing it for their peers, and had visions of a first-grade
“stand in front of your class and say some lines” type
of thing. But as the date got closer, the steering teacher
suggested filming it instead – less pressure to memorize,
more chances to fix mistakes, and so on – and that’s
where we ended up.

I know that Christmas comes earlier every
year; on November first Maddie and I saw a blow-up Santa outside of
the local Home Depot. November 1 is the new day-after-Thanksgiving.
I get that. But I still have a hard time with people putting up
trees in November (I say as all my local friends smirk, since most
of them do) so I am steadfastly ignoring this new, artificial
green-light to Jollywood.

I’ve mentioned in the past that
I’m a fan of the whole Love Languages theory – that
there are five “languages” of love you might speak, and
each person “hears” better in one or two languages. For
the record, my languages are “acts of service” and
“gifts”, and Brian’s are “quality
time” and “physical affection”.


Notice there’s no overlap.


From what I’ve read, children don’t really start to
solidify their love languages until they’re around five or
so, which means it’s important to tell your child you love
her in more than just your own language. So while I might think
it’s important to show my child I love her by cleaning her
room, she might “hear” that better by getting some
small gift from me.

Cora and I had a glorious day outdoors
yesterday, enjoying our beautiful fall weather and having a
fantastic time playing together. We spent the morning at a nature
preserve, and there’s a corner that has a couple baby
dinosaurs you can climb on.


Cora tried very hard to climb onto the slick raptor by herself, and
was clearly struggling. Undaunted, she kept trying, refusing my
help. At some point she realized it was futile, which is when it
became fun for her.


Cora threw a knee into a crevice, flung a leg over the
raptor’s back so that she was practically in the splits, and
began struggling with faux earnestness to pull herself up. She
began shouting, “I got it! I got it! I got it!” and
then slid off into a heap at the bottom.


At which point she looked up at me, winked, and said with an impish
smile, “I don’t got it.”


I love that my child can quote Mel Brooks movies. Well.

What do you get when you mix two kids with
excellent costumes and unlimited access to high fructose corn syrup
and artificial dye?


A couple of crabby, hung-over kids twelve hours later.

Here’s something you don’t
hear every day from a four-year-old: “Hey, Mommy, I want to
get up on that cow and drink some beer!”


Let me start from the beginning.

We had our first full day of Mommy being
back yesterday, and both girls did well – but also stayed
quite close to me all day long. Maddie, of course, had school, but
even then I came in to volunteer for half an hour and got plenty of
snuggles in that time. On a side note, what in the world am I going
to do when my daughter no longer wants to snuggle with me in front
of her friends?

I’m back, but I’m not back, if
you know what I mean.


I just had about the best five days of my life, eating my way
through every single ethnic food type there was in New York –
which is saying a lot – and sampled pretty much every
chocolatier’s offering. Which is also saying a lot. I walked
through EVERY major neighborhood in Manhattan, and had a grand time
reuniting with the city I love so much.


But most of all, I talked.

My amazing husband and incredibly
sacrificial mother have teamed up to give me an astonishing early
birthday present – a trip to New York to see my friends.


It’s been a whirlwind of planning and getting ready and
making all the big decisions, such as where to eat every delicious
meal in the city. But as ecstatic as I am about going there,
I’m not so thrilled about leaving here.

A few weeks ago, Maddie came to me,
troubled. “Mommy, I’m very frustrated with recess time
right now,” she said.


Fearing some sort of conflict with one of her friends, I cautiously
asked, “What’s going on?”


Maddie sighed. “It’s just that every single one of my
friends can do the monkey bars except me, and I feel really left
out. I feel bad that I can’t do it. And all my friends try to
help me and give me suggestions, but I just start to feel like
everyone’s telling me what to do and I get frustrated and
have to walk away.”


“So what do you want to do about it?” I asked.


Maddie looked at me determinedly. “I want to
practice.”

Cora’s been sick since Monday
afternoon, and a nightmare of a nighttime – think fretting
child not sleeping more than ten minutes at a time before waking to
either a) throw up or b) cry and cling to you – led to a
similar Tuesday. I held off taking her to the doctor in the
morning, thinking it was just a stomach virus. But when she began
to complain of aching all over, and had had a headache since Monday
afternoon, I bowed to the possibility of strep and took her in.


So I was glued to Cora’s side all morning – rubbing her
feet, just lying next to her, distracting her with stories,
whatever – and trying desperately to stay awake, then dragged
us out of the house to get to the doctor. I was carrying my poor
girl and her throw-up bowl through the doctor’s office, Cora
a limp little doll in my arms, still in her pjs with no shoes on.
The verdict was a virus, so all we can do is hang in there and hope
it’ll get better soon.

Cora started running a fever yesterday
after school, hitting close to 104 last evening. Maddie is still in
the midst of another round of nightmares/no sleeping/freaking out
due to our neverending cycle of fire/tornado/lock-down drills at
school.


And then the thunderstorm moved in.


Can you say "no sleep"?

In our house, our rewards system is jewels
– glass pieces bought in bulk at the local craft store. Girls
can earn them by doing extra chores, but they’re just as
often given one for performing an outstanding act of kindness or
going above and beyond on something. The jewels aren’t a
privilege, in that it’s not something they can lose by bad
behavior: once they get one, it’s theirs until they spend it.
I supposed it’s our precursor to an allowance.


There are a variety of ways the girls can spend their jewels, but
it’s roughly one jewel to one dollar. If Cora sees some tacky
plastic play phone or something, I’ll tell her she needs to
save her jewels for it, look at the price, and name an amount of
jewels. A week later Cora will come back to the store with her
jewels clutched in her hand, the magnificent piece of crap now
hers. So oftentimes the girls will say, “How many jewels does
this cost?” and I’ll throw out a quick number.

As part of a test program in our school
district here, I am helping out in Maddie’s classroom once a
week for six weeks. Pretty much every day of the week, a
student’s mom comes in to teach for half an hour; the teacher
wrote up a six-week lesson plan, then distributed it to the
volunteer moms (I’m Thursday) and set us loose. I’ve
been nervous, but I’m having a blast.


We’re studying fairy tales: we’ve taken a fairy tale
apart, talked about what makes a story a fairy tale, read a couple
of them and found the “fairy tale markers” in each one,
and brainstormed ideas for building our own kingdom – a first
step to writing our own fairy tale.

Yesterday we took both girls out of school
to hit our state fair – which, call us hicks, but we love.
Our state fair is the coolest one in the country (I say unbiasedly)
and we go every year. Who doesn’t want to see a sculpture
made out of two thousand pounds of butter?


The fair has its down side: everything costs an arm and a leg
(read: four dollars for a small bottle of water) and there’s
nary a vegetable to be found in the entire place. This is, after
all, the place that has deep-fried bubble gum, deep-fried oreos,
deep-fried butter, and even a deep-fried latte. But we spend
selectively and know going in we’re going to have tummy aches
the next day.

One of my favorite places in our big
metroplex here is our local arboretum – it’s really
excellent and a place I can always go to for a great day with my
kids. Every spring and fall they do Mommy and Me days; each Monday
and Tuesday, they have a face painter, a craft table, a story
teller, puppet shows, a petting zoo, and more.


For free.


Well, you pay to get in, but you don’t pay more for all the
extra stuff.


Cora and I have been craving some one-on-one time, so we hit the
arboretum yesterday for the first time this fall. When the girls
were younger, we were there a few times a month; we’d buy a
family membership that would more than pay for itself in the first
month. We’d pack a lunch and the red wagon in the car, then
explore all over the park: through the area set up like a frontier
village, all around the asian gardens and waterfalls, playing chase
through the big pecan grove, rolling down the huge hill towards the
lake – you name it, and we’d do it.

A couple weeks ago Cora went on an art
kick, and our budding Renoir is showing no signs of slowing down.


I got out the easel – I forget why – and set it up for
Cora in our kitchen, complete with drop cloth and washable paints.
We’ll do this every once in a while; the kitchen breakfast
counter is great for most crafts – gluing sequins and
stapling books together are no problem there, and of course markers
and crayons are used almost daily. But when we want to do some
serious painting in this house we get out the easel so the artiste
can stand and admire her work and she progresses.

One of my good friends from New York is a
stay-at-home dad, and I’ve long respected the way he handles
the questions and discomfort that invariably come up. In a previous
life, he was a financial consultant who left the money world to
become a New York City school teacher. When his daughter was born
right around the time my good friend– his wife – was to
start her medical residency, they made the decision for him to stay
home and her to go back to work.


Graham is one of the best dads I know, and is an excellent example
of deliberate parenting. He had a backpack stuffed with
non-battery-operated toys and flashcards to use while waiting for
the subway; he brought us a meal after Cora was born; he writes
thoughtful, illuminating articles on Christianity – the guy
is not just flying by the seat of his pants here. But no matter how
great he is, I’m sure he still wrestles with identity issues
– I imagine him going to some sort of hospital fundraiser
with his wife and having to field the inevitable “So what do
you do?” while watching the questioner’s eyes start
searching for someone more worthwhile to speak with when he answers
simply, “I’m a dad.”


But Graham has come to peace with this, and recently wrote an
article weighing in on href="http://www.qideas.org/blog/fatherhood-as-vocation.aspx"
target="_blank">Fatherhood As A Vocation – I
highly encourage you to read it. It makes me want to dig in even
more as a parent, myself.

In the years since Maddie and Cora have
been born, at least one – if not both of them – have
had all of the following:


Thrush

Whooping cough

Scarlet fever

A heart that spontaneously stops beating

Hand and mouth disease

Leukemia

Asperger syndrome

Hemophilia

Concussion

Brain tumor


Before you freak out and start sending condolence cards, no, my
children have not actually been diagnosed with any of these
diseases. But I can tell you that I spent at least one night on
each of these diseases: going the entire night absolutely CONVINCED
my child had (fill in the blank), and trying to figure out how I
would rearrange the rest of my life around this new
perspective.

Since we’ve been healthy for, oh, a
few weeks now, we’ve certainly been due for some germs around
our house.


And they’ve obligingly showed up.


I’ve had both a nasty cold and persistent, lingering
allergies over the past two weeks. A stomach bug was passed around
both girls’ schools and Cora obligingly picked it up and
spent Sunday puking. Thankfully, it was short-lived, but Brian came
home early Monday with a cold that’s knocked him on his
hiney. And Maddie’s saying her allergies are starting to feel
like a cold.


Thank heavens we’ve got that half-gallon of hand soap.

If you’re like us, you go through
about a gallon of hand soap a month. And now that cold-and-flu
season is upon us, it’s just going to get worse. We always
use liquid soap – I can’t remember the last time we
used bar soap in this family, since it’s so messy and is
harder for little hands to hold – but I’m not a big fan
of most liquid soaps; the artificial fragrances range from annoying
to carcinogenic, and most hand soaps now add an anti-bacterial
ingredient known as triclosan, which is a big no-no in this
household. (Side bar – triclosan is being reviewed by the FDA
over concerns that it is both harmful to humans and is actually
producing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And it has been proven to
be no more effective than regular soap. Plus, all the triclosan
that gets washed into our water systems is literally killing entire
aqua eco-systems. )


But I digress.

Sung to the tune of “The Farmer in
the Dell”:


“Stop, drop and roll!

Stop, drop and roll!

If your clothes catch on fire,

Stop, drop and roll!”


This is what my four-year-old has been lustily singing all
afternoon. Apparently it was fire safety day at preschool, and she
has no problem singing about the possibility of her catching on
fire. This is very different than my older child.


But here’s the best part –

Yesterday was the annual fundraiser at
Maddie’s school: the children all run laps which people
(thanks, grandparents!) have pledged to sponsor. The kids love it
and our fundraising is done for the year. I enjoy going because the
kids run around a track set up on the grass outside of school;
there’s energetic music and a high-octane dj who encourages
the kids and dances along with it. The kids have a great time
boogying around the track with their friends, high-fiving their
parents.


And their parents’ friends.

In case you ever have a cat jump onto a
paper plate acting containing a rainbow of washable paint, then run
across your carpeted living room, then sit on your NEW COUCH and
stare at you, I thought you might like to know that while the title
“washable” is stretching the truth a bit, a 50/50
solution of water and rubbing alcohol neatly does the trick of
getting it out of your carpet. And new couch.


Don’t ask me how I know this.

Last week we bought a new car – our
first car purchase in fifteen years, and the very first new car
I’ve ever driven. And suddenly, the fact that we only park
one car in our two-car garage – the other side being taken up
with stuff and more stuff – seemed not the smartest idea. We
thought about Texas hailstorms and decided it was time to clean out
the garage.


As I started poking through our stored stuff on Friday, I realized
we were keeping many big toys that the girls simply don’t use
any more; I’d often put “seldom used” toys out in
the garage to bring in on a rainy day or the tail end of some
house-binding virus. But I knew it was time to clean out, so I
talked with the girls a bit and they agreed to let a couple things
go.


We only have three big items getting ready to head on to other
homes right now, but as I began to dust them off I realized
I’d used all three at once on more than one occasion.


Cue the misty-eyed Mommy reminiscence.

Cora will periodically head upstairs to
our dress-up area and come back with boxes full of costume jewelry.
She’ll then proceed to deck out the living room with
necklaces, rings, earrings, and bracelets in preparation of some
game. In months past, she’s clipped earrings on pillows,
given every member of the family a plastic bag, and told us we have
five minutes to find all the “presents”. When Cora
called “time”, whoever had the most
“presents” won a prize, usually a hug from Cora.


For the past few days, it’s been “Christmas”:
Cora has draped necklaces all over the room – fireplace set,
chair legs, anything you can think of. Bracelets and necklaces are
stretched strategically out on the coffee table, and we’re
each assigned a spot at the table. When it’s
“Christmas” time, we rush to discover our presents all
over the room, then gather at our particular spot for our regular
“gifts”. And of course, the pillows are all festooned
for the holidays with clip-on earrings.

Yesterday Cora sat on her snack stool at
our breakfast counter, happily drawing a card for a friend while I
cleaned up the kitchen. She had her paper and crayons and a pencil
and was humming a cheerful tune, drawing an elaborate story to
color in.


Cora’s pretty good about only drawing on paper –
she’s not one of those kids who will happily write all over
the wall just for the fun of it. At the same time, she’s got
an independent spirit and if she decides to do something, by golly
she’s going to do it and no consequence is going to stop her.
I have on one memorable occasion caught her cutting up her shirt
and taping it back together: she wanted to see how well the
scissors worked on fabric, and when she discovered their sharpness
(by cutting a large hole in her shirt while still wearing it) she
attempted to patch it with scotch tape so I wouldn’t notice
it.


All this to say that Cora has a bit of a history of doing something
wrong – and knowing it’s wrong – and then trying
to cover it up because she knows she’ll get in trouble.

So as Maddie and I were walking home from
school yesterday, we chatted about the different things she’d
done during the school day. The subject of recess came up –
one of the favorite times of the day, naturally – and I asked
after Maddie’s long-term project, digging to China.


“Oh,” Maddie sighed, “we aren’t doing that
any more. We had to stop.”


“Why is that?” I asked, assuming the story would have
something to do with a gentle-but-firm teacher and a lack of a
desire on said teacher’s part to have a large,
liability-laden hole in the school yard.

Remember the
fire-drill-that-wasn’t-a-drill last week? Remember Maddie not
wanting to go to school?


She came out of class with the biggest smile on her face at the end
of the day. She’d been named Student of the Week in her
classroom – and not for an academic achievement, but for
being brave during the fire “incident”. Maddie was so
proud her teacher had recognized how hard it had been for her, it
was better than ice cream.

While I was at Maddie’s school
yesterday for a volunteer meeting, the fire alarm started going
off. Startled, the teacher ushered us out of the room, cheerfully
saying something about a “surprise fire drill”. Three
minutes later we realized it wasn’t a drill when we heard
sirens and saw a fire truck pull up out front.


I scanned the parking lot for Maddie’s class, but she’d
apparently evacuated to the other side of the building and was
nowhere to be found. I told myself that she’d be fine: sure,
drills worry her to no end, but she’s bigger this year and
doing much better with her worries. Unable to do anything but worry
(yes, I see the irony), I waited out my sentence on the black
top.

I spent yesterday morning making
individual muffin-sized breakfast casseroles for school mornings.
Somewhat time-consuming, but a good use of some leftover ham and
extra white bread slices, so I knew it was time to buckle down and
knock them out.


More importantly, though, we’ve hit that wall of
school-morning breakfast ennui. Maddie takes a good ten minutes
coming up with something she’s willing to eat for breakfast:
cereal rarely interests her any more, and yogurt-and-granola is hit
or miss right now. I have a big batch of breakfast cookies in the
freezer and I’ll happily defrost one for her, which works a
couple times a week; but many mornings she just doesn’t seem
interested in breakfast.

Maddie has a vivid imagination. And I
don’t mean that in the “Oh, I just made up a whole
pretend kingdom replete with its own monetary system and
multi-tiered governing body” kind of way. No, I mean it in a
“Give me a thumbnail sketch of a natural disaster and I can
inflate it into a play-by-play in graphic, unending detail in my
head” kind of way. Mix that quirk of her personality with her
penchant for worry over things she cannot control, and you’ve
got a recipe for some long nights.

Maddie's been cast in her very first
production of "The Nutcracker", as a Sugar Plum Fairy Attendant.
She plays a tiny fairy who never leaves the Sugar Plums side,
wearing a tiny little tutu with tiny little flowers in her hair and
lots of glitter sprayed all over her.


Translation: A way to sell a dozen more tickets.


I can't help but realize that the very first time I was in a
ballet of any kind - Christmas or otherwise - was when I was ten.
Yes, ten. I can't quite believe they start them this young these
days. Saying "no" was, of course, an option; but not a very
palatable one, since she's got this pesky habit called "reading"
and read the casting call for herself, seeing that girls age 6 and
up could audition. It's not going to be too bad at this age - a
few Saturday afternoon rehearsals and four shows. Plus I've got my
ace up my sleeve - my mom plays the grandmother in the ballet every
year, so I have a built-in carpooler and backstage babysitter (hi
mom! Love you!) for this thing.


And who am I kidding - I'm going to take more photos that day than
the papparazzi on Oscar night.

Brian and I were supposed to go away
Saturday night as a sort of anniversary celebration/hide-from-Sept
11 sort of thing. But with the credible threat going on in NYC and
all the tenth anniversary footage I couldn’t seem to get away
from, I found myself short of breath as I contemplated leaving my
mom and girls home by themselves on Sunday.


So we changed our plans.

Sixteen years ago today, I married the boy
I'd been chasing since high school.


One of the best days of my life.


Ten years ago on Sunday, my husband unexpectedly came home early
from work. If he'd lingered longer in his office after the planes
hit - if he'd made a different decision as he was walking away
from the World Trade Center - but he showed up exhausted on our
front door step after no phone calls on his side and too much news
watching on my side.


Also one of the best days of my life.

Last night I lay snuggling with Cora in
her bed when she rolled towards me, her face troubled.
“Mommy,” she said, “I don’t want to go to
preschool any more.”


What?

Last spring I mentioned that Maddie and a
couple friends had started the Green Team – a group of
environmentally “aware” kindergarteners who spent their
recesses combing the playground for trash and pushed to get
recycling cans in different parts of the school. The movement was
cute and, I thought, came out of the whole Earth Day teaching time
in April.


Then last week Maddie told me that the Green Team had been
resurrected, and they needed t-shirts. So she’d invited the
team over to our house to make shirts.


Okey dokey.

Cora, Maddie and I have all been suffering
from the season’s first cold, and as it lingered over the
weekend I found us doing just enough to stay a bit exhausted and
craving some true down time. So on Sunday night, I declared that
Monday would be a No-Labor Day: we would make it an official Pajama
Day Staycation. Pajamas all day long, with plenty of lounging
around. The girls were, um, enthusiastic.


Monday morning the girls awoke to find the living room had been
rearranged; the coffee table was moved and several blankets piled
on one another to make a picnic-blanket-like spot right in front of
our couch, with lots of big pillows lined up to lean against during
television-watching. I’d also posted the following
notice:

Wednesday night my throat began to feel a
suspicious sharpness, right about the time my shoulders began
aching. By Thursday morning, it was confirmed: I had a cold coming
on.


Now, this is not (thus far) a whopper of a cold, but it’s
clearly something non-allergy-related, and it’s just annoying
enough as it continues to come on that I got out of bed Thursday
morning dreading the day. When you’re not soooooooo sick that
you can lock yourself miserably in your bedroom, you are still
expected by your kids to perform all your Mommy Duties, and with
the same amount of good cheer and grace. Grumble, grumble.


So I got out of bed, cheered Maddie through her morning routine,
and walked her to school with little difficulty. Then I turned
around, came home, and repeated the process with Cora: finish up
breakfast, snuggle and read books, then head to preschool. I
dropped Cora off, got in the car, and sighed as I ran through my
mental to-do list, exhausted just by the thought of it: make
several mini breakfast casseroles to freeze for the girls; hit the
eye doctor; chat with a new client; return some stuff; make more
granola; clean the desk; and more.


And then I realized –


I could take a nap right now, and no one would be put out by
it.

As I was walking Maddie home from school
one of the first days of school, I asked her what she did during
recess. Recess time, I have learned, is a little window into her
day: if something good happens at recess, she’s had a good
day, and if something bad happens there, chances are her entire day
tanked. It’s become a rather good barometer of her
post-school mood.


This day, Maddie was in a good mood, and she said, “I played
with a couple of my friends, but not on the playground – on
the dirt near it. We’re digging a hole.”


“What kind of hole?” I wondered aloud, bemused.


“We’re digging a hole to China.”

I’ve been filled with optimism these
first few days of school; Maddie seems to be handling it well, and
we’ve had a virtual absence of meltdowns after school, so
I’ve been enjoying seeing my sunny, lighthearted girl from
the summer continue on into the school year.


Yesterday, unfortunately, we did seem to hit a bit of a speed bump.
Nothing major; a boy teasing her during gym class, and a point in
class when she almost got in trouble for something she didn’t
do. On their own, nothing major, completely doable.

Well, it’s official. I now have two
girls in school.


And I’m still alive.


Cora started preschool yesterday – pre-kindergarten, three
days a week – and she loved every single minute of it.
She’s in the purple room, and so was decked out in a purple
dress, as was her flamingo named Cinderella. She had her Monday
underwear on when she went to bed Sunday night so she
wouldn’t forget. Her bag was packed.


She was ready with a capital “Read”.

Do not. Talk to me.

Cora starts preschool on Monday –
pre-kindergarten, three days a week. To say that she is ready is an
understatement.


Cora cried – tears of rage, not sadness – when she
learned that Maddie would be starting school a whole week before
she would. “Not FAIR!” she screamed, and stormed off to
take a break. I do believe she’s the only kid who’s
asking for MORE days of school.

I’ve been apprehensive about Maddie
starting school back up again this year; as I’ve mentioned
before, last year was hard on her emotionally and I was bracing
myself to witness my happy, sunny girl shrink back into her shell
for another nine months. Now, I know this is only the first week,
and perhaps I’m just looking a bit too hard, but I am
starting to feel hope that she’ll handle this year
better.

So Monday morning Cora and I got through
the whole taking-Maddie-to-school thing, and then immersed
ourselves in work. We made jam with all the berries we’ve
been saving up over the summer, and while the jars cooled on the
racks we went out and drowned our sorrows with shopping.


Cora starts pre-school – and heck, for that matter, ANY kind
of school – next Monday, and I told her we’d hit the
Container Store and buy some more small, kid-friendly containers
for her lunch boxes. Cora was standing in the midst of the kitchen
department, earnestly trying out snapping lids and plastic covers
and debating between a couple different kinds, and let me tell you,
she was looking so adorable I couldn’t help myself.


“Cora,” I said playfully as I scooped her up in my
arms, “I have to tell you something.”
“What?” she asked, looking directly at me.
“I’ve decided that you’re not going to school
next week. I’m going to keep you home with me and
you’re never going to school.”

Maddie’s heading off to first grade
this morning, and I am, if it’s possible, more freaked out
about this first day of school than I was last year with
kindergarten. Sure, she’s much more relaxed this year and
even eager to start school; sure, we are pros at this; sure,
I’ve been there before and know what to expect.


That’s the problem.

Last week I asked the girls to make a list
of all the things they wanted to be sure we did before school
started. I told them they could each pick one restaurant to go, as
well as any other activities. Cora dictated, Maddie wrote, and
we’ve been working on our Summer Bucket List ever since.


Have a movie night at home – check. Breakfast at our favorite
Original Pancake House – check. Pool – check. Pool
again – check. (That one’s on the list twice more!)
We’re tearing gleefully through the list, and I seem to be
the only one misting over occasionally as we work on it.

I am now staring at the prospect of having
to pack two (TWO!) lunches and two (TWO!) snacks every day. Well,
not every day with Cora, but it sounds more dramatic to say it that
way. And Cora’s quite excited about getting a big-girl lunch
packed for her, having picked out a very nice princess lunch box
from the eco-friendly Crocodile Creek company, while Maddie has
said she wants to use her old backpack and lunch bag again this
year: “No use buying another one when we’ve got a
perfectly good one for me.”


Sometimes my kids make me quite happy.

Yesterday morning I returned home from
dropping Brian off at the train station to see Maddie’s cat
tearing down the stairs as if running from a room full of rocking
chairs. Maddie followed after her, shaking her head forgivingly and
saying, “Surely there is an adventurous spirit within that
cat this morning. I speak this with certainty.”


Coincidentally, Maddie is hard-pressed to be found without a book
within her hands.

Saturday morning Cora woke up late,
staggered to the couch, and lay there looking wan.


Sure enough, about half an hour later she began throwing up on an
empty stomach.


Cora cried weakly and Brian snuggled down next to her, where she
curled up like a baby bunny. And that’s how he spent most of
the rest of the day.

My apologies for stealing my title from
Mr. Sanburg, but it’s such a delicious line.


So I’ve been peripherally aware that fall – and all the
hectic scheduling and harried life-pace with which it’s
invested – has been fast approaching. But I keep trying to
ignore it, choosing to do the bare minimum to keep us on track:
buying a backpack and lunch bag for my youngest as she prepares to
go to school for the first time. Hitting the outlet mall to pick up
first-day-of-school outfits. This sort of thing.

So I had my Green Night the other night
(it was fabulous, by the way) and for a couple days leading up to
it the girls and I were baking yummy treats to set out for my
guests. We made banana bread and zucchini bread and chocolate chip
cookies and creamsicle cookies (yes they’re as good as they
sound) and it was a feast for the eyes.


I’d warned the girls that we were baking for Mommy’s
friends and I’d allow them to have one of everything, but the
rest would be for that night. Our final bit of baking was the
zucchini bread; it dries out quickly, so we were putting it in the
oven about two hours before my “party” was supposed to
begin, and Cora helped me every step of the way.


I closed the oven door and Cora stood there contemplatively,
staring into the oven from which yummy smells were already
beginning to emerge.

Every summer my church organizes several
fun nights for the women at my church; different people are asked
to “host” an event that they’re interested in. So
one woman might offer a one-night class about how to get the most
out of clipping coupons, while another one might host an ongoing
weekly early-morning walking club.


I was asked to host a night about living green.

Friday afternoon we stopped in at our
local Borders Bookstore, where we’ve spent many happy hours
hanging out and sampling books and generally wasting the morning
away. Maddie wanted to know what all the big signs in the windows
were for, and I explained that the store was going out of business.


Maddie was heartbroken.


“But where will I buy my Junie B. Jones books?” she
wailed, looking around the store in desolation. “I need to
buy all the rest of them NOW!”

I try to feed my family in a pretty
healthy way while not making them feel like the weird hippie kids,
and one of the hardest areas for me to make health merge with taste
(and what’s in fashion at friends’ houses) has been
cheese. We generally buy Tillamook cheese out of Vermont;
it’s a great company that, while not certified organic, does
not use bovine growth hormones on its cows. This turns out a
relatively cost-friendly yet delicious and nutritious cheese.


Unfortunately, it can’t hold a candle to Velveeta.

Last week Maddie and Cora participated in
a theatre camp with a Princesses and Pirates theme, and they
learned most of the “theme songs” for the Disney
princesses. Yesterday they were lustily belting out Snow
White’s “Some Day My Prince Will Come” when they
stopped to ponder the storyline.


“Mommy, how did the stepmother in Snow White die
again?” Maddie asked.


“I’m not sure – I haven’t seen it for a
long time,” I answered. I should say here that Snow White,
with her passive approach to life and her
I’ll-sit-around-and-wait-for-a-man-to-help-me attitude, has
never been my favorite princess, and the girls have never actually
seen the movie.


Speaking of –


“Mommy, when are we going to get to see Snow White, anyway?
Is it really that scary?” Maddie asked, assuming I was
keeping her from the movie to avoid nightmares. I realized the time
had come for “the talk” and I took a deep breath.

I’m hosting a night soon for some
friends from my church; a group of about thirty people are coming
over to talk about small steps you can take to “green”
your life and move towards more sustainable living. Being the OCD
person I am, I’m writing up a small(ish) handout about the
whole thing, and am including links to lots of helpful sites.


One of the sites I’m referencing is the Story of Stuff, a
website revolving around a twenty-minute documentary about, well,
all our stuff – how it’s made, where it goes, and so
on. I just sat down and watched it again and even though it’s
been out for a while and even though I’ve seen it before,
it’s impacted me. Again.


So target="_blank">here’s the link – seriously, if
you’ve never watched this, now’s the time. It’s
only twenty minutes.

Yesterday afternoon Cora came out of her
room after quiet time begging to play with her rock collection. She
and Maddie both have a jar of polished rocks they’ve bought
at various museums and tourist sites, and their glass jars are a
rainbow of smooth polished rocks.


I laid down some ground rules – keep the rocks in the living
room, don’t feed them to the cat, etc. – and opened the
jar. Then I made my big mistake – I disappeared into the
office to catch up on some emails.


Ten minutes later, I heard an ear-splitting crash followed by an
even more ear-splitting “NOOOOOOOOO!” from Cora.
Rushing out, I saw Cora and Maddie standing in our wood-floored
kitchen, Cora wailing and Maddie looking shocked. At their bare
feet was the shattered glass jar, splintered all over the kitchen,
rocks scattered everywhere.

As I mentioned earlier, both girls are at
theatre camp every morning this week and amazingly enough it marks
the first time since they’ve been born that I’ve been
home by myself – barring being ill, I suppose.


I’ve already got grand plans for the fall when Cora’s
in pre-kindergarten three days a week: one day of chores and
errands, one day of teaching, and one day available to volunteer in
both schools. I picture having all this time to do my home-work
unfettered: grocery shopping, bill paying, toilet cleaning,
vacuuming, sifting through young-child detritus that’s
accumulated under a bed – the possibilities seem endless. And
as weird and sick as it sounds, I’m looking forward to it; I
don’t heart doing laundry in any big way, but I am truly
anticipating getting all the grunt work done whilst childless, so
my time with the kids can truly be quality time with the kids as
opposed to “time doing errands while dragging children
unhappily after me.”

As I’ve written recently, I’m
in full smoothie swing this summer and have been pulverizing fruit
left and right. Recently, though, a mid-afternoon crabby episode
drove me to experiment with, um, other ingredients, and I’ve
hit on the absolute best smoothie ever.


If you like chocolate, of course.


One caveat here – I use a half can (about six to eight
ounces) of coconut milk – the thick stuff that’s full
of fat but oh-so-good. So you should like the taste of coconut
before you make this. I personally love the ice cream made with
coconut milk, so this is, to me, like a chocolate milkshake. Of
course, if you’re not dairy-allergic like I am, you can use
cow’s milk instead, but make sure it’s got some fat in
there for some delicious oomph.


Here ‘tis –

Maddie and Cora started a week-long
theatre camp yesterday at the performing arts school where I work,
and I think I may have created a two-headed monster. Or two
monsters. Or something.


The camp itself isn’t anything career-making; it’s 9 -1
every day, with some singing and dancing and acting, and a small
show on our stage at the end of the week. It’s four-year-olds
through eight-year-olds, so we’re not talking anything
incredibly complicated. My main reason for putting them into it was
really to give the girls a chance to have a week of structure and
getting up somewhat early before school gets started. Cora’s
never done school at all, and this week will be the most time
she’s ever had to concentrate in her life. Add to that things
like learning to get her own lunch in and out of a bag, and taking
care of her own potty needs, and I figured the camp would be a
great testing ground for Cora before pre-k.


I forgot how much the girls just like to perform.

So yes, we went horseback riding, and yes,
Maddie loved it.


Not LOVED loved it, as in, “Mummy, sign me up NOW! I must do
it! I want horsie curtains and horsie sheets on my bed!
NEEIIGHHH!” But loved it as in, I saw that slow smile spread
across her face as the ride began and, in spite of her fears and
challenges along the way, that smile never left.

Maddie’s had trouble with her lovey
being at school; if she brings it, she has a tendency to want to
take it out and snuggle with it. During class time. And when
Maddie’s got Silky in her hands, she goes into a coma-like
trance, only barely able to listen to the outside world. I find
that the days Maddie would leave Silky at home, she’d finish
the day much more alert and attentive, and I tried for a long time
to get her to leave it alone.


Finally I went with the tried-and-true parenting method of
bribery.

Not to brag here – more like
I’m just wanting to capture it so I don’t forget that
such days exist when the dark times come – but we had
ourselves quite an awesome day yesterday.


The morning started earlier than anticipated, when Maddie
spontaneously awoke at 7 a.m. I thought I heard her rustling around
quietly, so I stuck my head out of my room and saw her sneaking
into the game room. "Maddie?" I asked softly, a question. She
turned to me: "I finished my book last night and wanted to get
another one." And sure enough, she grabbed another chapter book and
took it downstairs, snuggling on a couch with a blanket to read.
Smiling quietly, I got out our daisy-shaped pancake griddle and
proceeded to make a fun breakfast. We had a lovely slow beginning,
reading and cooking and eating things loaded with butter and syrup.


The girls and I hit our neighborhood pool around 9:30, and had the
place entirely to ourselves until 11 a.m. Cora’s hit an
intense diving phase – as in, “for rings” –
and she spent the whole time diving for rings, diving for glass
jewels we bring for “sunken treasure”, diving for her
goggles – you name it, she swam for it. Maddie, meanwhile,
had her snorkel gear on and was practicing breathing through the
snorkel tube, swimming like a cruising shark over the entire pool
without coming up for air. It was truly greatness.

If you’re anything like me,
you’ve been madly making smoothies since all our delicious
summer fruits began coming into season. The girls love them, and I
love having a glass full of fiber and vitamins in a yummy drink.


I’m a bit of a protein hound, always trying to find new
smoothie recipes that will get me some blood-sugar-boosting
proteins and fats in non-dairy ways (slight allergy), and I came
across this one from target="_blank">Keeper of the Home recently. Since
I’ve been madly freezing organic fruit as it’s
available for a modest price, I’ve got a drawer full of
berries that are being seriously whittled down in this recipe. The
use of coconut milk solves my thirst for something more filling
than pure carbs, and I throw some brown rice protein powder in for
an extra boost as well.

Monday morning Cora woke up crying.
She’d had a horrible dream the night before, so I raced
upstairs to her worried that it was a continuation of that
nightmare.


“Hey, hey, Mommy’s here,” I soothed as I ran in.
Cora was still curled up in a ball, back towards me. As I lay down
next to her she rolled into me and melted, still whimpering and
sleepy.


I stroked her back. “What’s the matter, puppy?”


“I just realized,” Cora sobbed, “That when
I’m a mommy I won’t ever get a hair snuggle
again!”

“Mommy, Gamma, come see a special
show we’ve got going on! And you have to come sit on the
floor in the hallway to watch it!” Maddie and Cora called
downstairs Friday afternoon.


My mom and I came into the hall, mystified. Of the hundreds
(literally) of shows we’ve seen in my house, none have taken
place in the hallway. But there on the floor were two floor
cushions, so we obediently sat down and sat back.

Am I the only person who feels like summer
is just whizzing by?


June was a blur of teaching for me, so that hardly counts. Then it
was all-hands-on-deck getting ready for our vacation, then a week
in Florida (I know, I know, quit whining), and now that we’re
at the tail end of what feels like our first real week of summer
vacation, I’m looking at the calendar and realizing
it’s almost over.


Ok, not really almost over. But I estimate we’ve got maybe
two good weeks left before we have to start thinking about
back-to-school shopping and returning to the school morning
schedule. And frankly, that just doesn’t seem fair.


Don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna.

I remember when I was young, and going on
vacation was inextricably linked with getting to eat
“vacation food”: junk food that would normally never
pass my mother’s inspection was allowed on vacation, and we
got to indulge in that rarest of pleasures – eating out.
I’m not saying we gorged on piles of refined white sugar, but
the usual restrictions were loosened, lifted slightly, and became
part of the pleasure of the vacation.


Ah, how things change when you get older.

Of course, Cora woke up sick on Tuesday.
Of course. My little vomit comet.


Whatever's ailing Cora, it comes out as throwing up, and yesterday
was no exception. No fever, no other symptoms - just a stomach not
even able to tolerate water. So we had to give Cora Pedialyte - one
tablespoon every fifteen minutes - all day long, while listening to
her beg for water or ice.


Did I mention the cable repair man was at the house for three
hours?


Which means my day looked like this:

When I was a kid, I felt like the world
revolved around me – in a completely non-egotistical way.
Life simply seemed to be filled with rooms full of people who
became animated when I walked in, and shut down when I left. The
whole Life Story thing was, to me, supremely interesting, and I
felt like everyone else existed to be supporting characters in my
movie.


I couldn’t have put this into words, of course; it was
something that I simply felt – a sense of being the center of
the universe. And I don’t think I felt like I deserved it or
was incredibly special or chosen for this great event as much as I
felt like it’s simply the way it was. From my point of view
– which, admittedly, was clearly biased – everything
was important as to how it related to me, or affected me. If I had
to put a title to points of my life, they’d be such things as
“Jennifer Goes to Camp” or “A Young
Ballerina” or perhaps, in an after-school special sort of
thing, “Jennifer: An Angry Teen”.


Even as I got older and realized it wasn’t so, I still felt
like I was penning a very cool story as I went about my daily life.
My travels, my shows, my life felt interesting to me, a story that
still (surprise surprise) revolved around me and, later on, my
husband – as a co-star. Though I still got first billing. I
felt like a real-life Seinfeld, or Raymond, or Dick Van Dyke, or
Mary Tyler Moore. I’m not saying I thought I was God’s
gift to anything – just felt like the story revolved around
me. In an appropriate way.


And then I had kids.

In a study just released a few days ago
that many people in the medical community are calling a "complete
game changer" on how they deal with autism, environmental influence
was found to play a much higher role in causing autism than has
ever been thought.


The study found that about 38% of autism risk comes from genetics -
with environmental factors accounting for an astonishing 63%. The
New York Times, as well as many other national papers, published
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/research/05autism.html?_r=2&emc=eta1"
target="_blank">articles that have rocked many people's
worlds. The medical community will be absorbing this impact for
years, and the study will result, many experts feel, in a complete
paradigm shift in how people look at - and strive to prevent -
autism.


And if that's not enough, href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/prenatal-vitamins-lowers-autism-risk"
target="_blank">another study just recently released shows
that taking a prenatal vitamin at the time of conception cuts the
risk of autism in HALF. Half. Talk about big numbers.


I encourage you to take some time and href="http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/new_research_links_autism_environment/"
target="_blank">read the articles - it's big stuff
happening right now.

Don’t have time to talk today
– we’re shoe-horning ourselves in the car and hitting
the road for a cross-country trip at 4 a.m. Saturday morning. Yes,
that’s for ANNO DOMINI, or a.m., or in the morning. Call us
ambitious, call us organized, call us cheap – we’re
getting in the car and not stopping until we seen some white dang
sand.


Do I have lots of excellent tips on preparing for road trips with
your kids? You betcha. Do I have lots of sagacious words of wisdom
on how to pack light, and travel organized? Absolutely. But I
don’t have time to share – I’m too busy
over-packing and ignoring all my own advice, cramming the car with
absolutely every stupid Ariel doll and crossword puzzle book I can
think of in a desperate effort to stave off the inevitable
meltdown. And the question isn’t IF, but WHEN the meltdown
will occur.


Who has money on Louisiana?


So yes, we’re off for a blissful week at the beach on
Saturday. Which means don’t expect to hear much from me for
the next seven days: I’m too busy soaking up my kids.


And preparing to cram it all back in the car next Saturday to come
home.

I have a standing Wednesday morning pool
play date with a group of neighborhood church friends; last
Wednesday I took Maddie while Cora was in ballet camp, and
yesterday I told Cora I’d take her while Maddie studied Swan
Lake. “Shall we have some just-Mommy-and-Cora time?” I
asked Cora, hoping she wouldn’t miss Maddie at the pool too
much. Cora nodded happily, and we packed up our gear and headed
out, me looking forward to seeing my friends and having a chance to
re-connect.


Cora and I got there early and spent a good half-hour in the pool
all by ourselves. We swam and laughed and giggled and had splashing
contests, having a fantastic time in our own private pool. As our
friends started showing up the pool began to fill, and within
twenty minutes Cora was surrounded by almost a dozen of her church
friends.

Air-conditioning: fixed.


Cat: calmly resting. And no, that's not a euphemism. She's still
here.


Chiggers: Driving me up the $#@#$ wall.


But two out of three ain't bad. And it could be worse: one of my
friends from our Saturday creek walk has chiggers AND poison ivy.


Though as soon as I hear the words "poison ivy" I imagine more
itchy spots sprouting up on me. Lord, deliver me from my itchies.
And thanks for fixing our air-conditioning.

Our house seems to be a converging point
for several occurrences of bad luck these days, and I have to say I
feel like whining a bit.


First off, our cat’s having a tough time. Not Maddie’s
new kitten, but our 16-year-old, as-old-as-our-marriage cat. Her
teeth aren’t doing great, so we made an appointment for her
to go in and get them cleaned under anesthesia yesterday. Because
it’s general anesthesia, she wasn’t allowed any food or
drink the night before, so she spent the evening rather miserable.


And she was more miserable than she otherwise would have been,
because we came home from church Sunday to a stiflingly hot
upstairs. Yes, our upstairs air conditioner decided to go on
strike. On a Sunday. In June. In Texas.

While our side yard has been a veritable
nursery this year, with the caterpillar-cum-butterfly and the dove
nest, our larger neighborhood has caught baby fever as well; for
the past couple of weeks the yard in front of our neighborhood pool
has hosted a duck nest, replete with eggs and an anxious mama.


A few days ago, the eggs hatched, and the neighborhood’s been
a-flutter with kids and parents alike all trying to catch a glimpse
of the two babies. Alas, natural selection prevailed and one of the
babies was eaten by some animal larger than a duck, but so far the
second baby is hale and hearty.


And as of Friday morning, taking a nice swim in our neighborhood
pool.

Last night Maddie and I had a run-in, and
it wasn’t pretty. The episode occurred at the very end of the
night; it started with her usual prayer time and ended with sobbing
and crying.


The details of the stuff in the middle aren’t important;
suffice it to say that she’s had a hard time recently with me
telling her “no” – as in, I’ll tell her
“no” and she’ll try to argue or bargain down to a
lesser sentence – and I’ve warned her that if it
continues the consequences would be more severe. And last night, it
continued, and ended with me having to put several of her favorite
stuffed animals in her closet for the night.

I was busy doing something in the kitchen
yesterday when I noticed Cora looking stranded in the living room,
as if she were adrift and not quite sure where to land.


“Are you ok, Cora?” I asked.


Cora blinked, coming back to reality. “Yeah, I’m
fine.” And then she turned back to her unfocused look,
clearly working on solving some logistical puzzle in her head.

Maddie’s kitten is getting restless,
no longer content to be shut up in either Maddie’s room or
the bathroom. Our next step is to allow the kitten to roam free
upstairs, but we’ve got a couple obstacles. First, I can put
the baby gate across the top of the stairs, but she can climb it
effortlessly. Second, she is small enough that she can squeeze
through the banister rails and plummet to her death. Not so much an
option.


I’d just let her have the run of the whole house, but our
house is rather large and I’m afraid it’ll take her
some time to get the lay of the land and in the meantime forget
where her litter box is. I’m just not up for more
spot-cleaning of the rugs. Which means we needed to figure out how
to keep her upstairs.

Swim lessons just wrapped up last week,
but there’s no rest for the weary around here; yesterday
morning saw the start of Cora’s four-day ballet camp. How was
Cora going into it?


In a word, ecstatic.


We actually had Cora signed up for a ballet camp last summer
– she’d just turned three, the minimum age at which a
camp is offered at our ballet studio. Unfortunately, Cora was
apparently the only three-year-old interested in a week-long ballet
camp, and the class was canceled. Cora was devastated, and I ended
up doing a one-day ballet camp of our own at my theatre studio,
just for Cora and Maddie and a friend.


This year, though, Cora’s camp held together, and we received
confirmation of it last week. Cora’s been excited for weeks
and couldn’t wait to “move up” on the color
chart: three-year-olds wear pink in class, and Cora spent all last
year in pink every Tuesday. Now that she’s four, though, she
can wear light purple, and Cora’s had Maddie’s old
purple leotard and skirt ready to go for a long, long time. Sunday
night it was laid out very carefully and lovingly on her chair, and
I could see Cora shivering in anticipation as she went to bed.

We’ve just finished our annual
two-week swim class here at our house, and I have to say that for
the first time ever, Maddie really enjoyed it and is anxious for
more.


Maddie’s had a long love-hate relationship with swimming; she
loves the water and playing around in it, but spent her first few
years being incredibly fearful of putting her head under water. She
was so fearful that we had to do private lessons when she was
three, and by the end of that summer she was barely putting her
face in. Each year she grew a bit, and by the end of last summer
she was swimming underwater regularly – but still a bit
worried about jumping in or going where she couldn’t
touch.

Maddie’s got her first well-kitten
appointment today, and I’m not quite sure how she’s
going to handle it. She’s already asked if I can do it for
her, to which I firmly replied, “No!”


Not that she’s squeamish – I think she just
doesn’t want to watch her kitten get a shot, and then be mad,
and possibly link shots with Maddie in her feline mind.
Maddie’s done a great job staying on top of the
kitten’s litter box, exclaiming enthusiastically every time
the cat poops, then cleaning it up with no complaints. So I know
it’s not a soft stomach – just a soft heart.


Wish us luck – this should be interesting.

Maddie’s had her kitten for nearly a
week now, and for the past few nights she’s gotten closer and
closer to sleeping with it. We originally put the kitten in the
bathroom at night, so it wouldn’t keep Maddie awake all
night. But Maddie’s been asking and last night she got up the
courage to give it a try. So it was a Kitten Slumber Party.


I have not had to get up with one of the girls at night for over a
week (!) so I was in the midst of a profound, deep sleep when I
heard a knocking on our door. Maddie was in tears, clutching her
cheek. “I got up to turn on the ceiling fan, and when I got
back in bed the kitten hissed and scratched me really bad! It
really really hurts!”

Remember the mourning doves who built a
nest in our hanging bougainvillea?


The babies are here.


We've spent the past couple of weeks watching the site
apprehensively; doves are not known for their parenting skills, and
the odds of the two eggs actually hatching two live babies was
pretty slim. But our parents beat the odds, and we've got a couple
of surprisingly quiet baby birds now. Maddie and Cora love watching
the basket through the window, and every once and a while you'll
see a baby head appear and baby wings stretch out.


June is indeed busting out all over.

For almost a year now, Maddie’s been
begging for a kitten. And for almost a year now, I’d said,
“Not until you’re at least six.”


Oops.


As her birthday got close, Maddie’s pleas increased in both
volume and velocity until I broke down and gave her a trial run: if
she could take care of our older family cat, then we’d look
at a kitten for her. A month later, Maddie’d handled our
cat’s litter box and food and water rather well.


Oops.


So guess what we did on Maddie’s birthday?

Dear Maddie:


It’s been a long year, my big six-year-old, and while it does
feel as if it’s flown by, I also can’t believe how much
has been packed into the past twelve months.


You’ve gone from a just-finished-preschooler to an
almost-first-grader. I think this has been, for you as an
individual, the hardest year of your life. Starting kindergarten
was quite a shock to your five-year-old system, and we felt the
repercussions of that big event for several months last fall.
Adjusting to a seven-hour “work” day was incredibly
hard, but you complained less than I ever imagined, and were so
obedient about giving it a try. Let me tell you, kiddo, dropping
you off at that school door on the mornings you were clingy and sad
just about broke my heart every time, and the bravery I glimpsed in
you as you walked, crying but compliant, through those glass doors,
just about took my breath away. I’ve missed you, my love,
more that you will ever understand until you drop your own child
off at kindergarten. My most precious parts of myself – you
and Cora – are walking around outside my body, and to have
you shut away from me for seven hours a day – to have SEVEN
HOURS of your daily life a complete, opaque mystery to me –
has been painful.

Me. Sick. Fever, chills.


And my emergency back-up generator - my mother - out of town
yesterday. So I had two white, worried faces peering at me on the
couch. I think they realized something was wrong when I got out
their cereal boxes and spoons and bowls, poured milk into a small
plastic pitcher, and said, "Maddie, if you or Cora want seconds,
you can pour from this pitcher. Come get me if someone gets hurt."
And then went back to sleep on the couch.


So the girls were on their best behavior, pouring me water and
bringing me unrequested crackers and ice. They spent two
uncomplaining hours at the doctor with me, and Brian had to come
home from work early while I went comatose.


Wednesday afternoon we dragged ourselves to the airport to pick up
my mom, and the strain was finally showing on the girls. Fights,
tantrums, easy tears from both girls. And many cries of "I just
need Mommy and Me time!"


Poor kiddos. Soon.

We are officially in Summer Time, though
Maddie contests that every time I say it, as she’s acutely
aware that summer doesn’t legally (or something) begin until
much later in June, according to the Seasonal Calendar Gods.


But here in our household, it’s summer time.

It’s D Day in our house.


That’s D for Denial, baby.


Today is Maddie’s last day of kindergarten and I’m so
excited my tail is perpetually wagging. But I have to keep my
excitement in check, because acknowledging the extent of my
excitement means I would have to acknowledge that Maddie is
finishing kindergarten.

If there’s anything worse than
realizing your baby is about to be a kindergartener, it’s
realizing your baby is about to graduate from kindergarten.


And be a first grader.

The girls had their annual ballet recital
over the weekend, and it was quite the event for everyone involved.


This was Cora’s first recital EVER, and she’d been
looking forward to it since she started ballet in September. At
various times throughout the year she gave me instructions on how
the Big Day would go, such as: “Mommy, I’m going to
need someone to drive me to the theatre for the recital. So
you’ll need to take me there, then leave me backstage.
Don’t try to stay with me, ok? This is important.” Or
how about, “Mommy, when you come to get me after the
performance, you need to bring flowers with you to give me.”


Little gems like that.

Earlier this week I was taken out for a
working dinner to an incredibly nice restaurant – we’re
talking forty-dollar steaks, and the potato costs extra. I
didn’t know when I went it was going to be so great, and I
carefully kept half my meal to bring home and share another day.


Being the incredibly kind and selfless daughter that I am, I let my
mom have my leftovers last night, and watching her face melt as she
took her first bite was almost worth it. While we ate, I described
the place to her, finishing by saying, “It was a really
excellent restaurant, and I’d highly recommend it for some
special occasion.”


Cora tuned into the conversation and spoke up. “Hey, Gamma, I
know another really fine restaurant if you ever want to go
someplace really special!”


Mom looked at her while I mentally scrolled through all the places
we’d been recently. Nothing that might require closed-toed
shoes came to mind.

Last night we had spaghetti, as is often
the case on the day Maddie has ballet and I teach right before
dinner. Maddie had her usual
noodles-with-one-meatball-hold-the-sauce order, and as the family
sat around eating together she broke into song – “On
Top of Spaghetti”.


Brian and I could only remember the first verse, so Brian looked up
all the lyrics on his android phone. He and Maddie sang lustily
through the meatball rolling under the bush, then turning to mush,
then growing into a big meatball tree next spring while Cora
continued to eat and I cleared dishes.


Before they could get to the part about new meatballs growing in,
Brian noticed a strange “bah-hah-hah” sound from Cora.
He looked up and saw her, a smile screwed onto her face, trying to
hold back making noise. “Cora, are you crying, baby?”
Brian asked her.

Mama Dove has not budged out of our
bougainvillea for over 48 hours now, so we're thinking there are
some eggs under that bird hiney. From what I've heard, morning
doves are not known for their excellent parenting skills, so we may
have a "teaching opportunity" coming up here in a couple weeks: as
in, "Mommy, why did the babies die? Where do they go now?"


On the up side, our monarch caterpillar is getting fatter and
fatter, and we know he's got to cocoon within a week now.


I'm telling you, it's babies and new beginnings all over the
place here.

Just off our kitchen is a sweet little
side yard, with a door for quick in-and-out and a small patio for
morning meditation. We have a birdbath, a few hanging flower
baskets, some lovely flowering vines, and about a dozen different
fresh herbs planted in a sweet garden. It’s a major reason
why we bought this house.


Every morning we sit at our breakfast table and look out at the
dewy lawn and wonder what visitors the garden will see for the day;
we’ve got a hummingbird feeder that calls frequent visitors,
lots of butterfly-friendly flowers, and pinecones rolled in peanut
butter and birdseed tied to our fence. Cora will happily putter
there all morning, walking back and forth to the rain barrel to
water the herbs or check on the strawberries or try to coax a
four-legged visitor into our yard. And recently, the visitors have
been plentiful.

Yes, Cora had her fourth birthday
yesterday, and it was positively wonderful.


The birthday started the night before: one of our family traditions
is that the birthday girl receives a new pair of summer pajamas as
she goes to bed on her birthday eve, so Cora hit the sack in
hot-pink zebra-striped pjs, feeling like hot stuff. She slept until
almost 8 a.m. (which would have been great had big sister done the
same), and when she came out of her room she ran into her Gamma.
Squatting excitedly with her hands on her knees, Cora said,
“Guess what, Gamma! I woke up four today!”

Dear Cora:


Well, love, you’ve survived, and given your penchant for
diving into a situation headfirst and asking questions later, your
survival has not always been a safe assumption. But you’ve
made it – you’re officially four years old now.


I think this is the first year you’ve looked forward to your
birthday as something more than just “time to get
presents” day; this year you’ve been very eager about
the act of turning four, of gaining another year, itself. You long
to be the same age as your sister Madeleine, and I’m not sure
when it will sink in that, in spite of your best efforts, you will
never catch up.


Or perhaps, knowing your personality, you’ve already realized
that but refuse to give up trying.

So Monday morning, Cora comes downstairs
with a band-aid on her finger. When I left her the night before,
there was no band-aid on the finger.


“Look, Mommy, see my band-aid?” she asked, waving the
finger in my face.


“Yep, sure do,” I said. “Did you just get it and
put it on this morning before coming down?”

Yesterday the girls and I headed to the
park for some fun, Cora on her bike and the rest of us walking.
Cora packed a purse full of toys, I brought our water bottles, and
Maddie packed a first-aid kit. Just in case.


The girl must have been psychic, because on the way home Cora fell
of her bike. The bike didn’t even tip over; it simply leaned
a bit on a bump and Cora toppled off. She fell on her hiney,
bumping it a bit, and looked at me startled.


Maddie rushed over with her purse half-way opened: “Cora, are
you ok?”


Cora looked up at Maddie and said sadly, “Maddie, I fell on
my hiney!”


Maddie leaned over, the Concerned Older Sister. “Oh, poor
baby. Do you need a band-aid for it?”


Cora blinked, the wheels turned in her head, and she said,
“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Finding time to exercise while being
responsible for small children is not always easy. I’m not a
fan of working out after they’re in bed, as I simply get too
hyped up to sleep at a decent hour; and rising earlier than my
usual 6 a.m. to fit in some fitness time is out of the question
– I still don’t sleep through the night a couple nights
each week, and every second of unconsciousness is precious to me.


So I usually find myself exercising during Cora’s afternoon
quiet time. It’s relatively interruption-free, and my energy
flags after lunch anyway. I often spend a few moments of devotional
time beforehand, so while I try to finish before Cora comes
downstairs, sometimes she arrives while I’m still sweating
along with Jillian Michaels.

This Saturday our neighborhood is having
its annual garage sale; hundreds of houses throw their undesirables
on their front lawns and everyone chips in five bucks for
advertising. Cars begin circling the neighborhood around 6:30 a.m.;
chaos reigns supreme from 8-9:30 or so, and then it’s a
steady trickle until perhaps noon.


For the past three years Maddie and Cora have had a lemonade stand
on garage sale day, making fresh-squeezed lemonade and baked goods
to sell to all the early-morning souls. It’s their one
money-maker of the year, and both girls now eagerly look forward to
it each May.


Last year we expanded and offered coffee as well, and this year
we’re adding bottles of water. We’ve been baking for a
week with more to do, and the event is getting bigger by the
minute.

As I mentioned last week, allergies hit
Cora hard. Actually, I think they started with me.


I was down for the count two weekends ago, so bad I was convinced
it was a cold. I’m on allergy meds 365 days a year, and the
only thing I don’t take – Zyrtec – will actually
put me to sleep for a good 18 hours at a stretch. So when allergies
hit, there’s not much I can do.


But as I said, I at first thought it was a cold, and simply
rejoiced that no one else got it. Then Cora went down and I assumed
she had the same “cold”, but gave her some allergy
medicine just in case.


She was bubbly and bouncing twelve hours later.

I remember as a child looking at
Mother’s Day with bewilderment; what, exactly, is THAT all
about? Tell Mom you love her, let her pick where we eat lunch,
yadda yadda yadda. Doesn’t that make EVERY day Mother’s
Day?


Now, of course, I have a different perspective, but it’s
still kinda weird to me. I mean, I enjoy my kids making me the
cards, and getting to go someplace nice for dinner, but my children
are still young enough that I see evidence every day of their love:
I get the snuggles and cuddles and kisses almost constantly, and so
don’t need a special day set aside for them to shower me with
affection.


I need a day of rest from that affection.

Yes, Cora’s down with something
again. Either bad allergies or a cold – only time will tell
which it is as we hope the Zyrtec builds up in her system and
works. Right now, it’s simply an extreme stuffiness and the
occasional headache.


Unfortunately for Mommy and Daddy, Cora simply cannot sleep when
she’s stuffy. She’s up every thirty or forty-five
minutes, whimpering and crying because her face just HURTS.
It’s simply exhausting for us, which is why we ended up
bringing Cora into our room at midnight last night; I’d
already been into her room FIVE times and couldn’t deal with
another night like the one before.


So instead we were awakened every hour or so with a whimpering,
crying kid, but at least we didn’t have to get out of bed to
deal with it.


I forgot how much I hate missing out on sleep.

You may remember that Maddie and a couple
friends put together the kindergarten Green Team on Earth day;
it’s a club dedicated to picking up trash and recycling on
school grounds. Part of their big plan was to talk to the principal
and get the club announced on morning announcements so other kids
would know to recycle.


Yesterday, the Green Team’s dream came true.

A couple days ago we were out a farm and
Cora lay down in the dirt as we were walking to the car to go home.
“Cora, don’t lie down again, please, we need to keep
moving,” I said. “Sorry, Mommy,” Cora said, and
got up, walking a few steps.


And then lying down again.


“Cora, I told you not to lie down again!” I said.
“Sorry,” she said, and stood up.


“So am I, honey, because you just lost your video from
disobeying,” I replied.


Cora burst into tears. “But I said I was sorry!”

Yes, I believe I can say –
completely unbiased – that the Swan Lake excerpt was the
highlight of the kindergarten talent show.


Maddie and Elise showed a remarkable lack of nerves, and both
seemed excited and ready for their primary school debut. I was
fortunate to score a choice seat in the audience, and even more
fortunate that the two girls were seated right in front of me. I
took advantage and leaned in for some last-minute coaching.
“Ok, girls, what’s the most important thing to remember
here?” I whispered.

Maddie’s school is having a talent
show today, and any child who wishes to can perform.


Need I mention who is performing?

Two points if anyone recognizes that title
as a line from the theme song from “WKRP in Cincinnati”
–


I am, as many of you know, a bit of an organizational freak. I
actually enjoy organizing my pantry, or unpacking in a new home.
But even for me, the endless tedium of shepherding small children
through their daily lives – the backpacks and lunches and
snacks and extra underwear changes – starts to get a little
wearing.


My day starts the night before, actually, when I prepare for the
morning ahead. I pack Maddie’s lunch – cut up her fruit
and put it in the fridge, cube her cheese, make her yogurt,
whatever – and measure out a snack for her as well. We lay
out her school clothes on her chair so there’s no argument
the next day. Then I’m finished until the next morning.