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.