1 Mother 2 Another

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.