1 Mother 2 Another

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.