1 Mother 2 Another

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.

My daughter Maddie is a bit of a pack rat.
She can have a hard time letting go of things – well,
ANYTHING, really, and will easily attach sentimental value to the
Kleenex she used to mark the spot in her book as she read it for
the seventh time. So her room can get a bit cluttered, and
let’s face it, so does Cora’s. Cora actually does a
pretty good job of keeping things picked up, but neither of them
offer to just “get rid of stuff” on a whim.


A few times of year, the gradual creep of junk – small happy
meal toys (and I swear, we don’t do happy meals – they
win these pieces of crap at school or whatever), a billion pencils,
birthday party grab-bag goodies – the detritus gradually
seeps into their rooms until I can’t stand it any more and I
snap.


I wait until they’re in school, then I go through and
“clean up” their rooms for them. And in addition to
organizing and vacuuming and such, I get rid of junk. I admit it. I
sneak stuff out behind their backs. But just in case they go
looking for some plastic necklace I didn’t know had been made
by a BFF, I stash all the junk from the most recent clean-out into
a box, and it lives in our garage for six months. If, at the end of
the six months, they haven’t asked for any of the stuff in
the box, I freecycle it.


Yes, this is underhanded. No, they’ve never noticed. And I
really need the junk gone.

We’re into our last week before
school starts, and frankly, I’m pissed.


For whatever reason, this summer has seemed too darn short and too
$#@ing emotional. I don’t feel like I’ve had my fair
share of long, lazy days by the pool with the girls, eating
pb&js and spooning out frozen smoothies while we laze on our
towels. I haven’t hit that stage of “please, God, can
school start up so these kids will stop driving me crazy!!”


We all seem to be reeling with emotional hangovers right now,
coming off a weekend of back-to-back farewells: Thursday night was
a very sad culmination to a whirlwind summer shocker as some of our
best friends suddenly planned a move all the way across the
country. I lost a good friend, and Cora and Maddie both lost sweet
girls who were part of their inner circles. Then Friday we said
farewell to another family, this time moving to Austin and taking
their daughter, Cora’s best friend, with them.


So we’re walking around with holes in our hearts right now,
knowing that we’re supposed to be Moving On but incredibly
unwilling to do so. Which means I just haven’t found it in me
to crank up the School Machine yet.

"How lucky I am to have something that
makes saying goodbye so hard."

-Winnie the Pooh


One of our closest friends moves across the country today. The
girls both lose friends, and I lose a big one.


And judging by how hard it was to say goodbye, we've been
exceedingly lucky.

The past few days have been quite
friend-heavy for us: we’ve had a dozen kids in the house for
face painting; an afternoon with cousins; sleepovers; a morning
helping church friends; an afternoon double play date; and ballet
class. By dinner time yesterday, the girls were still forging
vainly forward, but getting that glazed look in their eyes.


I called an audible.


We had dinner while watching a movie.


Yes, I said MOVIE! In the middle of the week!


Within minutes the girls were happily imitating stalks of asparagus
and vegging out. The chomped absentmindedly through their pulled
pork quesadillas, strawberries, and carrots, and barely lifted
their eyes from the screen to ask for more strawberries.


See? I’m cool! I’m spontaneous!

Yesterday a friend came out to do some
free face-painting. Yes, FREE! I invited a dozen kids to my house,
my friend painted their faces for free, and got to take pictures
for her look book.


Did I mention the kids got free face painting?


Maddie and Cora were in hog heaven, running wild in the house with
all their friends – a pre-cursor to school days to come. Add
fanciful face painting, and we had a dozen kids with a dozen wild
stories running through the house.

The girls have gotten into a bit of a rut
fights-wise: Cora gets frustrated and storms to her room, and
Maddie doesn’t want to let (fill in the blank) go and tries
to push open Cora’s door, forcing the door open or running
over Cora in the process.


In retaliation, Cora’s begun locking her door – mostly
as a defense mechanism against Maddie. It’s her last card to
play against the sheer superior strength that Maddie has. So
it’s a smart move, except that locking doors is illegal in
our house.


Yes, even in the bathroom.


Yesterday things came to a head once again, and the fighting
escalated so quickly that by the time I made it upstairs tempers
were quite high and I had to pick Maddie up and carry her to her
room. Both girls had right on their sides in one form or another;
both girls had wronged the other. Both girls were sobbing.


It was time to make a change.

Cora woke up Tuesday complaining of an
achy ear. She had no fever and didn’t act like a typical ear
infection, so I figured she’d slept on it funny and thought
no more of it.


Throughout the day, though, she’d mention it again, and I
finally got her to pinpoint the pain – all right towards the
outside of the ear. “Does it feel like an ear
infection” I asked. “Does it hurt anywhere inside,
where you can’t touch?”


“No, and no,” she said, obviously as flummoxed as I
was. So we simply kept going with her day.


But when she woke on Wednesday and her first words were,
“Mommy, it STILL hurts!” I gave the doctor a call.

href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL8-l3nCFGA&feature=youtu.be"
target="_blank">This? Is how my children empty the
dishwasher on an average day.


And no, they didn’t know I was recording; after they got
going I sneaked the camera in and sat it on a corner of the
counter.


I’m telling you, I cannot make this stuff up.

Maddie and Cora both get monthly magazines
– “Highlights” or “High 5” –
that carry “easy” recipes kids can make. Every month
the girls sit down with their magazines and devour them eagerly,
arriving at the end of the magazine and oohing and aahing over
whatever recipe’s been listed in there for that particular
month: pumpkin bread pudding; corn chowder; watermelon pizza
– you name it, the thing looks good to the girls, who both
like to cook and who can clearly see themselves gracing the page of
said magazine in the future, merrily waving a whisk or wielding a
plastic knife.


Since school’s gotten out the girls have begun to dream big,
and Cora’s written a list of foods she wants to make for the
family at some point in the near future. The list is solely for me,
so that I might purchase the necessary ingredients for her;
Cora’s got the list memorized and the pages are well-thumbed.


Yesterday, while the adults lazed/dozed on the couch, the
girls’ dreams got even bigger, apparently.

A couple weeks ago Maddie fell off her
horse during lessons for the first time. She was shaken, but
basically unhurt, and I led her out of the ring and immediately
helped her get back on. She was a bit apprehensive but fine to go
back to it, and when we left I was so proud of her for getting
right up and getting back on.


Then came the next week’s lesson, where everything fell
apart.


Last weekend Maddie tried to ride, and spent the entire lesson with
tears streaming down her face. She was so afraid of the other
horses – she’d fallen off when another horse spitefully
came over and kicked her own horse, who then shied away –
that she had a death grip on the reins and jumped in fear every
time she got close to another horse. Maddie came home that day
ready to quit horseback riding, one of her passions.


I persuaded Maddie to take a private lesson this week, to give her
a chance to work in the ring without other horses threatening her,
to take time to work through her fears. She agreed and we went
yesterday morning.

How is it August already?


Where did summer go?


And why is it that the girls aren't in school, I'm not working,
and yet I'm still exhausted and feel like I'm constantly running?


What summer vacation?

So in response to last week’s plea
to the tooth fairy from Cora for a toy for her cat, she found this
on Friday –


Dear Cora:


Thanks for yesterday’s note; what an exciting day you had!
How scary to have lost Satin’s tooth, but how wonderful that
your AMAZING mother found it again!


It sounds like you’ve got quite a playful kitten there, who
likes to nibble and scratch at her toys – even if her
“toys” are your toes! Unfortunately, a tooth fairy only
has gold coins to give out, and I don’t think Satin would be
very entertained by those. But I bet you have everything you need
to make an awesome cat toy right in your own home!


Ask your mom to let you go outside and cut some catnip from your
herb garden. Then tear it up into tiny pieces and stuff it into one
of your old, too-small socks. Tie it shut and throw it to Satin and
watch her totally forget about your toesies!


Good luck – I’ll see you soon, when you lose a tooth!


Sincerely,


Your tooth fairy


I didn’t mention the note to Cora, but later in the morning I
went outside to do some pruning in the herb garden, and walked in
with an armful of herbs to dry.


Including catnip.


“Hey, guys, I had to cut the catnip back, so I brought some
extra in to dry. Do you think we’ll find a use for it?”


Cora looked at me, startled. “Oh, that reminds me! I got a
note from the tooth fairy and she said -“


And we were off and making a cat toy.


Not my first rodeo, kid.

So at bedtime last night Cora asked Maddie
to come into her room after books had been read for some
“help on a little note”.


Yep, Cora wrote a note back to the tooth fairy.


Here’s what I read when I sneaked in to read it last night:


Dear tooth fairy,


Today we lost my kitten’s tooth and my mom found it. My
kitten’s name is Satin. Satin is very playful and it wou8ld
please me and Satin very much if I received a toy that Satin could
play with instead of my feet. Whenever I get cold I put my feet
under the covers only to wake up in the morning and find my feet
with scratches on them.


Thanks,


Cora

p.s. Did you print your recent letter?


Do you see what my child did there? Who would deny a sweet kitten a
little toy, especially when that toy would keep the sweet little
kitten from tearing up the darling child’s tender toesies?
And is I did deny said child the toy, she will end up SHIVERING AND
COLD at night, afraid to use her blanket lest it make her toes an
alluring child.


In other words, I’d be depriving my child of basic shelter.


Oh, she’s good. She’s very good.


It’s on.

So yesterday morning Cora found this note
stuck into her tooth pillow:


Dear Cora:


I understand you recently grew another tooth –
congratulations! You must feel like a very big girl now


And I hear that your kitten has lost a baby tooth – wow! What
a lot to go on in one household at once!


I’ve heard that you’re hoping for some money from me,
and I want you to know that while it would be a lot of fun for me
to do, I’m afraid it’s not going to happen.


Don’t get me wrong – I think every new tooth is
something to be celebrated! But what do you think would happen if I
start giving out money every time you get a new tooth in your
mouth?


Just think about it. You’ve got a ton of teeth in your mouth
right now- and if I had to give you at least a dollar for each one,
then another dollar to replace them all with grown-up teeth,
I’d be broke! I’d have given away all my money years
ago to other kids, and have none saved up for terrific girls like
you.


Right now I’m saving up for your first tooth, which I feel
confident I will see within the next school year. And when I do see
it, there’s FIVE gold coins waiting for you – yours to
keep! I can’t wait.


So just know that I’m so happy about your new tooth, and that
your kitten’s lost one of her own; that’s lots of
exciting changes going on there that can only mean one thing
– you’re growing bigger and bigger! Keep up the good
work, and make sure you brush those new teeth really well so
they’ll be in good shape when I get them.


Sincerely,


Your tooth fairy

p.s. no use trying to pull out a perfectly good baby tooth before
it’s ready to come out – they’re no good to me
and will hurt an awful lot. No cash for cheaters! I promise,
I’ll be back soon enough.


Cora found the note and read it in silence. I casually said,
“So, I see you’ve gotten a note! What do you
think?”


Cora was silent for a minute. Then she said, “I have some
thoughts.”


Then at bedtime last night, I heard her say to Maddie, "Maddie will
you come into my room after you read books with Mommy? I need you
to help me spell some words for a letter I'm writing to the tooth
fairy."


Bring it, kid.

Several nights ago, Cora came into our
room in the middle of the night complaining that part of her mouth
hurt. Now, ever since we’d gotten back from New York,
middle-of-the-night visits are not uncommon; we spent a week
sleeping everyone in one room, and it’s natural for the girls
to, shall we say, elaborate on issues to make them visit-worthy.


So when Cora told me in the middle of the night that her mouth
hurt, I assumed it was a canker sore –she’ll get them
occasionally when her diet goes to crap (thank you, vacation!)- and
told her we’d look at it in the morning.


When morning came, Cora brought it up immediately, and imagine my
surprise when I looked in her mouth and saw that she was teething!
Yes, her six-year molars were coming in, and apparently this one
was particularly painful.


I explained the situation to Cora, who immediately became delighted
and spent the rest of the day constantly checking on her “new
tooth”. She asked for popsicles constantly, which I provided
by making her a strawberry/spinach smoothie (don’t judge,
it’s delicious) and freezing it into pops. She gnawed away
happily, and all seemed well.


Until bedtime.

I do love summer – the pace is
slower, expectations are lower, the schedule is lighter. You can
cruise along, coming up with fun things to do or simply lounging
all Saturday in your pajamas.


Or, you can have our weekend.


Which, let me say here, was not really bad – just not what
we’d thought it would be when we went to bed Friday night.


For starters, I’d arranged for our niece to come babysit
Saturday night, planning to surprise Brian with a date night.
Maddie had her horseback riding lesson at 9 a.m., but I could see
us sneaking out of the house while Brian and Cora slept, coming
home a couple hours later to find them still in their pjs, waffle
leftovers on the kitchen table. Then I pictured a whole day
lounging around the house, reading on the couch, playing games,
until Date Night arrived.


And I was mostly right.