1 Mother 2 Another

Yesterday afternoon I picked the girls up
from school, then rushed to get Maddie ready for ballet and an
appointment afterwards. I ran out of the door with Maddie in tow
just a half an hour after the girls had gotten home from school,
with only a quick kiss in Cora’s direction as she settled in
for an afternoon with Grandma.


By the time I got home a few hours later, Cora had done her
homework and eaten dinner and I felt like I’d just missed the
whole afternoon with her. So I scarfed down a quick bite and said,
“Hey, Cora, want to go for a bike ride?”


A smile split her face and she screamed, “Yeah! Just you and
me!”

Well, I thought we were finished with
saying goodbyes this year, but apparently the year’s not over
yet.


At least this time, it’s not a person, but a place.


One of the reasons we bought our house was its close proximity to a
neighborhood park – two short blocks. I spent nearly every
day those first few years walking those two blocks at least once a
day. Cora learned how to, well, everything on that playground, and
for the past five years it’s been the girls’ go-to
spot. As they’ve gotten older we’ve gone from me
scampering over the equipment with the girls, to a posse of kids
running wild together as parents sit on the sidelines. Just a few
weeks ago we met up there for one last hangout with a friend who
was moving, and Maddie and her friends sequestered themselves in a
secluded spot to giggle and sing away from the ‘rents. When
Maddie was in school and Cora was still home, Cora and I would walk
over there nearly every day after dropping Maddie off, and play on
it, just the two of us. Cora would beg Daddy to head to the
playground on the weekend, and they’d go crazy for a couple
hours at a time.


But yesterday, it was torn down.

This weekend we were having a time of
rather intense cleaning: I’d allowed the girls to have
several “games” running at the same time, and nearly
every room in the house was overrun with toys and story set-ups.
I’d warned the girls ahead of time, and they knew they were
in for a good hour of nonstop cleaning up. They weren’t
grumbling, but I could see they also weren’t thrilled.


So I provided incentive to my youngest, who was working on the
downstairs portion.


“Listen, Cora, you’ve only got an hour before we need
to head out of here. If you can get all the clean-up done in time
– and done WELL – you may clean the downstairs
bathroom.”


“All RIGHT!” Cora yelled, and began moving at top
speed.


And then from upstairs floated, “No FAIR! Cora gets to clean
the bathroom! If I finish fast enough, can I clean the upstairs
bathroom?”


“Oh, I supposed,” I said.


Not kidding. This is what makes them happy.


Wanna borrow my kids for an afternoon?

Recently I spent a few quiet moments
downstairs one weekend afternoon, blissfully working away at
getting a headstart on the upcoming week. Daddy was taking a
well-earned nap, and as I plowed through the menu planning and
grocery list, I gradually became aware that I hadn’t heard
from the girls for a while.


At all.


Not one peep. Or outraged scream.


So I went upstairs to investigate, and found Cora’s door
closed. Peaceful murmurs could be heard behind it, but since I was
there I decided to look further. I knocked on Cora’s door and
opened it.

Cora’s had a lot of milestones
recently, and you can see one of the results almost constantly:
she’s bursting at the seams with pride, and in her head is
practically a different person that she was two weeks ago.
We’ve joked that relatives won’t recognize Cora any
more, and that she’s so grown up that there’s nothing
left for her body to do now until high school. As we drove home
from church the other day, talking in this vein, I heard Maddie say
to herself quietly, “I haven’t done anything at all
recently. I’m not any bigger in anything.”


I started to think about this, going back over the last few weeks,
and realized that while she may not have had any spectacular
fireworks moments in her life recently, Maddie is indeed a
different person than she has been.

It seems the girls are moving ever-faster
towards adulthood; whereas they used to give me some breathing room
between developmental or physical milestones, now we seem to be
knocking one down before the last one’s even in our rearview
mirror.


Cora, for one thing, with her two front teeth last week. I started
the week with a sweet baby girl, a smile full of milky baby teeth,
and ended the week staring at a little girl with a crooked,
gap-toothed grin. Losing two teeth in a row has given Cora’s
face a completely different look, and even as I enjoy the sweetness
of her soft lisp now, I know it’s simply a sign that
she’s growing up. Friday afternoon I kept staring bemusedly
at her sweet smile, thinking of how much she’d accomplished
in one week.


But Cora decided she wasn’t done – and finished off the
week by learning, once and for all, how to ride without training
wheels.

Last week the girls played an elaborate
game over several days, involving a trip around the world. Cora was
a girl and Maddie was her cat, and they packed a car and went for a
global drive. Included in the car was a very comfy carrier/bed for
the cat, copious snacks, a reading corner in the back seat
(apparently the cat was going to take a shift driving so the girl
could read), and some changes of clothing.


And a first-aid kit.


At first I didn’t realize what was in the shoe box
they’d packed in the “rear window” of the car,
until it came time to finally break the game down and put
everything away. When I grabbed the box I said, “What’s
this?”


Cora replied, “It’s our first aid kit –
everything we need for if we get hurt!”


And I looked in the box.

Cora lost another tooth yesterday.


Two teeth, two days in a row. She’s got a missing top and
bottom tooth on the same side of her mouth – a big gap right
there in the middle of her smile.


As Cora went back to bed after yanking it out herself, she smiled
and giggled, “I’m a little embarrathed at how I thound
when I thpeak.”


The lisp will clear itself up as she gets used to the crater. But
Mama’s heart will take a little longer to heal – those
dominos are falling like crazy.

Sorry about the absence – been
dealing with a head cold and doing the bare minimum for the past
few days. But I have to let you know what happened yesterday,
because it’s big.


To me, at least.


Cora lost her first tooth.


She’s had a wiggly bottom tooth for several months now, and
we went through that stage over the summer (if you remember) of
frantic notes back-and-forth with the tooth fairy as she begged for
help getting it out, or at least a little advance on the cash owed
her. But in spite of her vigorous efforts, the tooth stayed firmly
in.


Then Cora’s best friend lost a tooth at lunch yesterday, and
Cora despaired of ever getting hers out. She forced her friend to
examine Cora’s own tooth, and was told “it’s
hanging by a thread!”


So Cora got back in there, and according to her teacher, was
working that thing the rest of the day.


When I picked Cora up her tooth was, indeed, hanging by a thread. I
tried to help it come out when we got home, giving it a firm yank,
but it didn’t. So I went off to work, came home after dinner
– and there was my baby, MINUS ONE TOOTH.


Yep, Daddy got it out.


Without me.


My baby lost her first tooth.


She’s so darn excited, I have to do my grieving in private.
And of course, I totally ignore the fact that I was trying to pull
the tooth out that afternoon while Brian was still at work. But
still.


Sigh. The first domino’s fallen. Her growing up will just
accelerate from here.


Dang it.

The other day Cora and I were walking home
from school together, chatting about this and that. Cora asked how
her kitten had been during the day, and I replied,
“She’s as happy as a clam!”


“Do you know why clams are happy?” Cora asked
seriously.


I looked at her. “No, hon, why are they happy?”


“Because they go around eating the ocean’s trash,
keeping the water clean. And sometimes they like a piece of trash
and keep it for themselves, and hold onto it in their tummy and
turn it into a pearl. And then someone takes the pearl and drills a
hole into it for a necklace, and since the pearl’s had a hole
drilled into it the clam can never have any more babies.”


And Cora skipped on ahead.


I think that Cora is mixing some recent mythology she’s read
with her eco-friendliness, touched more than a bit by her
kitten’s recent neutering surgery.


And I decided – I’m going to let this one go. I just
don’t have the energy to fix it. Sure, I’ll pay for it
in a few years when we have The Talk and she realizes birth control
has nothing to do with making a shiny necklace, but for now, I just
don’t have the energy.


So if your kid comes home with some skewed version of the birds and
the bees from my school, sorry ‘bout that. That one's on
me.

Maddie and Cora absolutely love putting
together long’, involved games that are played out in the
house over a several-day time period. Whether it’s an
elaborate, four-act show or a long, detailed mystery to be solved
by the Butterfly Woman and Whisker Girl spies, the games often
involve several rooms in the house, multiple costumes/disguises,
and a proliferation of props.


A week ago the girls spent a good afternoon putting together their
latest game – Pioneers. In our library they built a covered
wagon like no other I’ve seen. There was a baby doll cradle
and dolly – that’s Baby, who’s just been born but
needs to travel with the family anyway, because Pa says it’s
time to move. They had pillows standing up to outline the wagon,
with two chairs towards the front as the bench to sit on; a
freestanding drawer as their storage/kitchen table; and the love
seat as the back end of the wagon, padded down with blankets so the
girls could “sleep on the end of the wagon and see the
stars”.

I teach a few different things –
ballet, musical theatre dance, acting, pilates, and improv.
Improvisation, or learning how to make up funny scenes on the spot,
is one of my favorite classes, and whenever the girls come along
while I teach, they watch and listen and ask lots of questions.


Since improv is a passion of mine, I don’t give the girls the
“short answer”, but take the time to really explain the
rules of comedy, teach them comic timing, and describe some of the
great comedy scenes out there. Brian’s showed the girls Abbot
and Costello’s original “Who’s on First”,
and we’ve taught them a few of the best Saturday Night Live
and Monty Python sketches (some censored, of course.)


I do believe Cora’s one of the few six-year-olds out there
who knows the Land Shark/Candygram sketch from Saturday Night
Live.

Dear Maddie:


Life’s gotten a bit more demanding on you this year; now that
you’re in third grade, you’re responsible for a lot
more of your daily world, like making sure your ballet shoes are in
your dance bag twice a week, or being more independent with your
allowance.


Or being in charge of packing your school bag every day.


Yesterday you started to pack your back pack for the day: daily
folder, snack, water bottle, lunch bag, and a good book to read in
independent study time. As you went to load your bag, you
discovered the book you’d left in there over the weekend.
“Oh, this is where I left it! It’s such a good
book!” you said, and promptly opened it and read a chapter.


After a moment I looked up and saw you, still engrossed in your
novel. “C’mon, honey, finish up because we need to
go,” I pushed, and you put the book in, zipped up your bag,
and walked out the door.


And left your snack, water bottle, and lunch on the counter.

Sunday marked another milestone for Cora:
she began receiving allowance. Maddie’s been quietly getting
it for two years now, and with Cora in first grade it was time to
give her more responsibility.


So I sat down with the girls and explained how the system works
here. They each get a dollar a week, which we give them at the
first of the month and calculate by Sundays. With five Sundays in
September, they got five dollars for the month.


You should have seen Cora’s eyes pop out of her head at all
the bounty.

Last night the girls were getting ready
for bed, and it wasn’t super easy. We’re at the end of
the first week of school, and tears are close to the surface and
tempers are frayed and everyone’s tired. But bedtime was
going relatively smoothly and I was in Cora’s room helping
her pick out clothes for the next day when Maddie came in and said
formally, “Mommy, when I’m finished with my bedtime
routine I’d like to lie in bed and talk to you about my day a
bit.”


Hmm. That doesn’t sound good. Bedtime is the time of day
Maddie’s most likely to talk about her day. When I pick her
up from school, pretty much every day is a “good” day
and she talks about the stuff that went right; but a few hours
later, when she’s had time to sit with her day a bit,
she’s willing to talk about whatever might have been a bit
harder.


So we finished up with the teeth brushing and cat feeding and all
the other nightly chores, I snuggled Cora and read books, then
headed into Maddie’s room. I climbed into her bed, snuggled
up, and said lightly, “Ok, cutie, whatcha want to talk about
from today?”


Maddie rolled on her side and faced me. “Mommy, today was a
really hard day.”

Yesterday morning as the girls were
getting ready for school, Maddie said, “Hey, Cora, after
school do you want to go bike riding out in the front
circle?”


This is a complicated question to deal with, because Cora would
LOVE to go bike riding, but is a wee bit afraid of her bike. She
took the training wheels off in the spring and isn’t as
proficient on two wheels as she’d like, so avoids the bike to
keep from getting frustrated.


As I expected, Cora said grumpily, “No, I don’t really
want to ride my bike. I fall off too much. I’m no good at
it.”


Maddie didn’t give up. “Please?” she asked
sweetly. “If you come out front with me, I promise I’ll
hold your bike for you. Please, may I help you not be afraid of
your bike? You’ll have so much fun once you get past
that.”


Cora was silent for a moment, and then said rather ungraciously,
“I suppose so. I suppose I’ll let you help
me.”

Well, yesterday went about as well as
could be expected. There was the standard difficulty getting out of
bed, and more than a modicum of early-morning grouchiness, plus
more than a few tears at drop-off.


The kids, on the other hand, did pretty well.


Yeah, as crabby as I was about the whole thing, the girls were
remarkably ready for school. Sure, it’s easy to get them out
of bed when you’ve got fresh bacon and homemade cinnamon
rolls waiting for them downstairs, and fresh new outfits and shiny
new shoes to wear to school. But they were still pretty happy about
the whole thing, so I sucked it up and pretended to be so as well.


And didn’t cry until I’d dropped them off.


I thought we were doing pretty well: Cora gave me a fierce hug then
went happily to her classroom, and Maddie was well ahead of me down
the hall, so intense was her conversation with her school chum. But
when we got to her classroom she turned to me, looked me dead in
the eye, and said, “You know, I AM going to miss you a lot. I
love you!” and then went into her classroom.


Sigh.


It’ll get better, I’m sure.

I don’t want to talk about it.


Let’s just say that we had one last, glorious Pajama Day as a
family yesterday, and the only bad parts of the day were all the
times I had to stop and let that pesky Real World intrude as we
packed backpacks and laid out clothes for today.


I anticipate a long, crabby year.


Speaking for myself, of course.