1m2aSandbox

Last week I was at a mom’s group with several friends, and as we sat around chatting and catching up one mom started telling a cute story about her six-year-old and a recent lunch table experience.

It seems that this little girl – we’ll call her Susie – had a friend who, at six years old, insisted that Santa is not real. Susie became quite concerned, and several other kids at the table started to panic. As the children argued and began yelling at the poor “Santa basher”, the teacher came over to see what was going on. By this time, at least one child was near tears at the thought that Santa was not real, so the teacher began to calm the child, assuring him that Santa is, indeed, real. Unconvinced, the student continued to cry.

“So what happened?” one mom asked interestedly.

I’ve always been ambivalent about the whole Santa thing: I enjoy the magic and childlike wonder, but feel incredibly uncomfortable actively encouraging my children to believe a lie. So I’ve lived in this uncomfortable zone at Christmas time, deflecting questions and trying to avoid all-out lying to my kids. And yes, we go see Santa for photos, and hang stockings, and all that – but we don’t do Elf on a Shelf or go crazy with the Santa idea.

This year just after school started, the mom of one of Cora’s friends pulled me aside and told me that Cora had told her daughter Laura that Santa Claus wasn’t real. In a very sweet and non-threatening way, the mom asked me to please ask Cora to respect other family’s traditions and not ruin the illusion of Santa Claus. Mortified, I assured the mom that Cora and I had never even had “the” Santa talk, and as far as I knew Cora still believed, and perhaps it was a misunderstanding?

Maddie and Cora each have their own bedrooms, and their own closets. Both closets are full, which sounds crazy since each closet is a double-door, wall-length closet with PLENTY of space for a small child’s clothes and perhaps a newlywed couple in some countries. But in our house we don’t get rid of stuff very quickly; we have tubs and tubs of clothing in Maddie’s closet ready to be handed down to Cora, and in Cora’s closet we’ve got tubs and tubs of clothing Cora is handing down to her young cousin.

This past year, Cora’s closet has been gradually emptying out as baby J starts growing. We’ve said a tearful good-bye to newborns, then three month olds, then six month olds – you get the picture. Each tub leaving is both a cause for rejoicing – more STUFF gone! – and a pause to remember my babies, and how they’re moving inevitably onward and upward.

Thursday afternoons often find us at the school playground after school, and yesterday was no exception. Determined to enjoy the mild weather before last night’s storm moved through, we hung around for a while, snacking and playing with friends. Or I should say, I sat on a bench and basked in the sun while the girls played with friends.

And some not-so-friendly people.

Maddie and her friend Elise found two older boys – fifth graders!- on one side of the playground, tossing a football back and forth. At first the girls just watched the boys play, but after a couple minutes the girls wanted to see if they could join in.

We’ve been talking over the past week about the breakfast dilemma: namely, how to get a hot, filling meal on the table without getting up at the crack of dawn on a school day. Last week I gave you the recipe for homemade (and fast, once they’re pre-made!) egg mcmuffins, and today I give you another egg-based recipe – the egg pancake.

This is high on protein and super-low on difficulty. It’s not a crepe-like pancake, but a thick, hearty one. This recipe makes one egg pancake, which the girls will split most mornings along with a glass of juice and perhaps a slice of banana bread; if they’re super-hungry the girls might eat a whole one for lunch, for example.

We’re talking about how to get a hot, filling breakfast on the table in fifteen minutes or less. Today’s the first installment, and while it’s not under fifteen minutes prep time, it’s waay less than that in the morning, so here goes.

I’m a big believer in cooking ahead – I try to double a recipe and freeze half, or spend one morning every couple of weeks preparing a few big meals. I also like to cook ahead – do some prep work – on the weekend to get ready for the coming week: I love serving good meals, but hate pulling them together in the evening.

Same goes for mornings.

All this week Maddie’s been doing some standardized testing in school – the things we hate but have to go through to keep our state funding. And every night when Maddie has me sign her homework folder, I see where it says in big letters: GET TO BED EARLY TONIGHT. EAT A GOOD BREAKFAST TOMORROW MORNING.

And Maddie has said, anxiously, “I need to eat a good breakfast tomorrow!” To which I reply, “Maddie, you always eat a good breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, “I do.”

When I was pregnant with my oldest, I sat down during an early visit with my OB and brought out my carefully crafted List of Questions I’d mostly copied from some pregnancy book. She tolerated a few of them, until I got to this one: “Are there any books you recommend I read to get ready for the birth?”

My doctor rolled her eyes, took a breath that was clearly designed to help her Count To Three, and then said, “I don’t really keep up on books parents should read about the birth process. But let me tell you this: if expectant parents read nearly as many books on actually raising a child as they do on pregnancy, we’d have a lot less messed up kids in this city. So why don’t you take some time reading books on parenting, which you’ll be dong FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, and let me read the books on delivering a baby? It’s kind of what you’re paying me for.”

Once a month I come in and teach a little art appreciation class to my daughters’ classes. The whole thing is already put together for me, and I just have to show up and interact with the kids. Being somewhat (ahem) comfortable on the stage, I enjoy these opportunities to engage with the children.

Usually.

Yesterday I taught a class on Pop Art, and threw out several questions, as is my wont. After two years of teaching this course, you’d think I’d have learned – don’t ask them a question that might have more than one answer.

Here’s a sample. Enjoy.

Two nights ago Cora developed the croup. She and I were up for a large portion of the night, her barking coughs and sad little cries as she tried to breathe through her constricted windpipe being the soundtrack of our wee hours. I rubbed homemade vapor rub on her chest, rocked her, put a cut-up onion by her bed to help her breathe, massaged her feet, and simply sat with her while she whimpered.

Then the cat threw up. Several times.

Maddie’s about to go through another growth spurt, and has an insatiable hunger throughout the day. At times like these, Maddie will tell me, “Please send me a morning snack as big as a lunch, and a lunch that’s as big as a FEAST!”

I’ll send her an entire apple sliced up, plus a granola bar, for her morning snack; for lunch, she’ll get a full sandwich, a Clementine orange, a small bag of veggie puffs, a cheese stick, a container of apple sauce, and some crackers. For example.

It’s Red Ribbon/National Drug Awareness Week at schools across the country, and ours is no exception. All week this week the girls are dressing up in a variety of ways – like hippies for “Peace Out to Drugs Day” (and am I the only one to see the irony of choosing the flower child movement to represent a drug-free culture?); “Turn Your Back on Drugs” (wear your shirt backwards); and more. All of these days are designed to start a dialog about drugs with our children, and get us into that uncomfortable conversation about why they’re bad.

Fortunately for my family, my kids have seen first-hand the perils of doing drugs, right here in our own house.

No, it’s not one of us – it’s Maddie’s cat.

Twice a year we head out of town for the weekend, going east a couple of hours to a sweet little organic farm that rents cabins on its private pond. Our spring and fall simply wouldn’t be the same without a couple days spent there, canoeing and fishing and hiking and feeding baby pigs and collecting eggs with the farmer and stargazing and roasting s’mores and . . . and. . . and.

This weekend was our “fall” weekend, and the weather was simply perfect. The girls know the spot well enough by now to have worked themselves into a tizzy of excitement for the days leading up to Friday, and by the time we were driving there Friday evening they were straining forward in their car seats, practically willing the car to move faster.

We arrived late, in the dark, and as we pulled up the drive to the main house both girls were squealing excitedly. “Look! There’s the farm house!” “Do you think we’ll be in the same cabin again?” “I can’t wait to help feed the baby animals!”

We took our yearly trek to our state fair yesterday, willingly taking an Unexcused Absence at the girls’ school so that we could see large statues carved of butter and marvel at Cool Ranch Dorito Fried Pizza (no, I didn’t try it). And though it rained off and on the whole day, we had a fine time, crawling in and out of fancy new cars at the auto show and sampling local foods in the Food Pavilion.

We’ve been going to the fair every year since we moved here five years ago, and we’ve watched the girls grow up each time. When we first started coming, both girls still napped in the afternoon and we’d time our trip to end right at nap time; I’d bring nap blankets and loveys and tuck the girls in nice and tight and they’d sleep happily on the drive home.

Also in years past, we’d bring our big red wagon for pulling around diaper bags and babies. It was a happy year indeed when we first left the diaper bag (and attendant jars of baby food) at home, and an even bigger one when Cora had the stamina to walk everywhere herself. No more lugging that red wagon up dozens of stairs.

A couple nights ago Cora’s cat opened her door (yes, all by herself) and ran free through the house. Around 3 a.m. we heard the sound of glass shattering, bolted out of bed, and ran down the stairs.

To find a crystal vase filled with roses had been knocked off a table, and there were crystal shards. Everywhere.

Brian and I spent a grueling forty-five minutes painstakingly cleaning up all the shards from the blast radius. I hovered over the floor, barely skimming it with my hand to pick up every sliver, every shard, making sure the floor was clean enough to perform surgery on by the time I was done.

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.

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?”

Maddie:

Yesterday morning was a very hard morning for getting to school, wasn’t it? You decided to walk, and when Cora opted to ride her scooter and you realized Cora would be (gasp!) ahead of you, well, you didn’t like that. You took off running, trying – and succeeding, for a block – to be even with/ahead of Cora, even as she tried her hardest to get out in front for once. When I saw you running so hard ahead of your sister, after you’d just said your legs were too tired to ride a bike, my heart broke a little bit. It broke for Cora, certainly, who looks up to you so much, and feels the weight of being the youngest in the family – which means she’s never as fast as you, never knows as much math, never reads books as big as yours – and who just wanted to be first down the path to school. For once. Every other time she’s ridden her scooter, she’s had to ride behind you on your bike – and be reminded once again that she can’t ride a bike, can’t keep up with you. Even if she starts out first on the sidewalk, you come up behind her, ringing your bell and saying, “Excuse me, Cora, you’re going too slow.” Today was Cora’s chance to be the leader, to know what it feels like to have some quiet time and get to the stop sign first, and when I saw you press insistently ahead of her in the alley I felt so bad for Cora.

But my heart also broke a bit for you, to see you make that choice –or, perhaps, to not even make a choice at all, and simply think “I can go fast so I will.” In which case you didn’t consider your sister at all. When I saw you do that, I became angry – angry that my two girls were going to have a rough start to the day, angry that this choice you’d made would define the rest of the trip to school, angry that there was no consideration for your sister in your choices.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

“Mommy, I need you to help me make a drawer for Cora to appear in at the top of a song,” Maddie said the other day, and then turned away, expecting me to follow.

Which I did, unquestioningly.

And what’s worse, I knew exactly why she was asking for it.

Taking the girls to New York was something we did for several reasons, and one of the things we wanted them to experience was the world-class theatre. We’d originally bought tickets to NEWSIES only, and then broke down halfway through the week and bought tickets to ANNIE as well.

So we spent last week in New York City, giving our girls the chance to go back to their birthplace for the first time since we moved from there five and a half years ago. Both girls have been clamoring to go, and at one point we even offered them the choice between Disneyworld and New York – and New York won.

There was not, of course, time enough to cram everything we wanted them to experience into one trip. But we surely did try, hitting museums, a couple different zoos, multiple city parks, many trips into Central Park, two Broadway shows, some free events, LOTS of great time with friends, and of course, a ton of excellent food.

In fact, I consider it one of my crowning victories that we did not eat at a chain restaurant one single time all week.

Maddie’s spending the week at her riding stables in a five-day horseback riding camp. It’s all-day, every day, and it’s exhausting. 8 to 5 would wear out any third grader; add to that the fact that she’s in Texas heat, un-airconditioned, working and sweating outdoors the whole time, and you’ve got one worn out child by the end of the day.

She’s never been happier.

She gets a couple full lessons each day, of course, but she doesn’t spend every minute horseback: she grooms the animals, feeds and waters them, cleans their stalls, and so forth.

And then there’s the rest of the time, which is where I think the real lessons are.

Yes, there’s no surprise endings with a title like that, eh?

Friday morning Maddie was apprehensive about heading to Invention Camp – still nervous about her group’s duck launcher not working – but was trying hard to be strong in her decision not to forfeit. When I dropped her off, I pulled the counselor aside and said, “Listen, if the duck-launching thing doesn’t go well and Maddie asks to go to the bathroom, can you please let her go? Quickly?” and filled her in on the rest. The girl was sympathetic and promised to not give Maddie any grief should tears overtake her.

Throughout the day I sent up a quick prayer for my daughter – not that she’d win, or even score a point, with her invention – just that she’d have the courage to try it, and the strength to face the results. By the time I went to pick her up for the parental showcase and dismissal, I was a nervous wreck.

Last night I lay snuggling with Maddie as we do every night, talking through the day behind us and looking forward to the one to come. Maddie’s been in Invention Camp all week, and today is the culmination of all their hard work, getting to test inventions they’ve been working on all week, and showing off their projects to enthusiastic parents.

“So are you happy camp is almost over, or sad?” I asked.

“Well, mostly sad, but also a lot stressed about tomorrow,” Maddie said, surprising me.

“Why are you stressed about it?” I asked, and Maddie gave a huge sigh, and spilled it all.

Maddie’s eight now, and we’ve long seen some Serious Talks coming down our pike at this house. It’s commonly touted that girls mature faster than they did when I was growing up, for a variety of reasons.

I’m not trying to discuss the theories behind “why” – growth hormones in dairy products, over-explicit and age-inappropriate media exposure, there’s quite a list of common theories out there. But I am hearing so much of the “fourteen is the new eighteen”, and “nine is the new twelve”, and I can’t deny that I’m now within shouting distance of age nine.

So I do what I always do in situations like this – I start reading.

3:30 a.m. last night, there was a knock on our bedroom door. “Come in,” Brian groggily said.

Cora came tiptoeing through the door. “Mommy, I . . .” but I was already out of bed and stumbling towards the door before she even finished her sentence, knowing from the past four nights what was going on.

We’ve got a new baby in the house, and no one’s sleeping.

Cora adopted a four-month-old kitten the day after school got out; it was her promised sixth birthday gift, and we’d made her wait until school was over so she’d be home to bond with it. And as fun as that kitten is, around 3:30 a.m. we all wish (just a teensy bit) that Kitten was back at the animal shelter.

Dear Maddie:

This weekend we celebrated your eighth birthday for what seemed like days: we spent a fun morning with friends horseback riding and eating ice cream at the stables; we went for a huge long family swim with more friends; we at ice cream and cake and pizza and your favorite meal: smoked ham, baked beans, and steamed broccoli. And of course we took lots of breaks for opening gifts.

The weekend was a revolving door of friends and family stopping by to drop off a birthday present, and I can’t help but rejoice at what a close community you’ve got in your own right here. Friends came by with a book of poetry about animals (how well does she know you???), or with gift cards to a favorite store, or even an original poem written by a sick friend when she had to miss your birthday party. You, my friend, are well loved.

A couple days ago, Cora asked me why I haven’t bought Pirate Booty recently; that and Veggie Booty have been regular snack treats in our house, and it was a fair question.

I explained to Cora that one of the main ingredients in Booty is corn, and over 85% of corn in the USA is genetically modified. I’d called Robert’s Snacks, combed their websites, sent emails – and been told explicitly that yes, they use genetically altered crops. And while our diet may not be 100% GMO-free, it’s rather close, and that’s on purpose.

I’m not trying to get into a conversation on GMO foods here – that’s a much longer post, believe me, and I’ve made it a couple times. But this did lead us to a child-level version of that conversation, and I spent a few painful minutes talking through GMO crops and why we choose not to eat them with the girls.

Yesterday was dominated by a bad weather threat all over north Texas; after the events in Oklahoma on Monday I spent the entire morning working on turning my fear over to God and leaving Him in control of my girls. Not an easy task when you’re a mama, but I tried. As I saw the weather forecast predicting that the bad storm would hit right around school pick-up time, I decided to play it safe and had the girls come home from school after lunch.

In other words, Early Release Day.

In other words, Extra Play Day.

Yesterday afternoon Maddie came out of school distinctly subdued. She had a couple papers in her hand and immediately handed me her backpack, keeping the loose papers to herself. “Do you want me to put those papers in your backpack?” I asked.

Maddie handed me one, and as she did I caught a glimpse of the other, retained paper – a math test with the score written in red. “You can have this one,” she said, handing me her vocabulary test. “But not this one,” and she waved the math test.

“Baby, is it because of the grade on the math test?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Honey, it’s ok, we all miss some sometimes.”

So Maddie handed me her math test and burst into tears.

She made an 89.

Dear Cora:

Every morning provided the weather holds, you scooter to school. About a block and a half into it, you arrive at your friend Lily’s house, and invariably you pause there, lingering in the hope that she’ll come walking out the door at that moment and you two can continue on to school together.

When I catch up with you, you’ll always say that your leg is “tired and needs to rest”. One day I teasingly pointed out that your leg always seems to get tired at the same spot on our journey; you shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “My leg always wants to rest with my friends.”

Well, I don’t know about your leg, kiddo, but I know for certain that your heart rests with your friends. You spent the past few years essentially “borrowing” friends from your older sister, but this year you’ve truly come into your own and have spent kindergarten developing your own sweet little gang. You are always begging me for a play date with Lily, or Maggie, or Logan or Rawan – always wanting to spend more time with your friends. And it’s not that you’re not comfortable in your own skin: you can easily entertain yourself in your room for hours at a time. No, you simply love your friends. You have an easy confidence with them that, frankly, I envy: I can’t imagine being that comfortable with myself and open with so many others at your age.

Monday afternoons always feel a little hectic for me; Mondays are my “errands” day, full of grocery stores and the cleaners and the drugstore and taking care of returns and all the other million things your children HATE to do with you. Then I come home for about ten minutes to eat and switch mental gears as I get ready for the second half of my day: pick the girls up from school, spend a few precious minutes with them, then rush off to teach for the rest of the day.

I try hard not to be flustered and tired when I see the girls, so I can be focused on them and enjoy them for however brief a time. This past Monday my teaching started a bit later than usual, so I was looking forward to having a good hour with the girls before heading out the door.

On Sunday morning, my plan was to sleep until I absolutely had to wake up, jump in the shower and get ready for church. I’d heard Brian get up a bit earlier and was snuggled down under the covers, half-asleep and enjoying the fact that it was almost 8 a.m. and I was still in bed.

At which point I felt a tap on my shoulder and opened one eye to see my husband looking at me sympathetically. “I’m so sorry to wake you before your alarm, but this is just too darn cute so you need to roll over to see it.”

I obligingly rolled over and opened the other eye, and there was my five-year-old with a huge grin on her face, holding a breakfast tray.

In an extravagant fit of sheer awesomeness, my mother just gave me a Vita-Mix blender as an early Mother’s Day gift. I’ve been eyeing one for a couple of years and we really thought this was the year, but a few household repairs came up and . . . you know how it goes.

But I suddenly find myself with this Lamborghini of blenders at my disposal, and there is no stopping me now.

My first day with Frieda (my highly efficient new friend, on constant call, ready to whip up any drink I might want with Teutonic efficiency) I used it Five. Times. Yes, five. For one round with the girls, I peeled four clementines and threw them in there –seeds and pith and all – with a peeled banana and some yogurt and some vanilla extract. Sheer heaven. Frieda (my new best friend) will take any fruit and pulverize it to a smooth, un-pulp-y liquid. I have high hopes that she will help me get more whole fruits and veggies down Cora’s throat – Cora is my Texture Nazi.

Last Friday I pulled the girls out of school early to go strawberry picking, an annual event we always look forward to. We’re lucky to have an organic strawberry farm just north of us here, and we pack a picnic and make a day of it. The strawberries are EXCELLENT and the prices below grocery store, so we always pick plenty to bring home and freeze for canning and smoothies.

This year we may have over-reached a bit.

Maddie and Cora were able to really participate this year and did a great job filling up a few buckets with very ripe strawberries, while my mom and I worked diligently to pick as much as we could. I kept remembering how we ran out of the thirty pounds we picked last May by mid-July, and I was determined to pick more this year. I sent the girls back to the farmer for extra buckets a few times, and we ended with quite a haul.

Sixty-eight pounds, to be exact.

Yesterday was Maddie’s turn at the talent show, and she seemed much more relaxed and ready for it than Cora had been the previous day; after all, Maddie is a two-year veteran by now, and was performing with her friend that she’s done the talent show with since kindergarten.

So I was not expecting it when I received a call from a friend of mine within the school, hissing, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen here! The girls are fighting. I repeat the girls are fighting.”

I still don’t know what went down, but I understand Maddie sat rigid with fury while her gal-pal and partner-in-talent dripped miserably over the lunch table. For quite a while. When it was pointed out that perhaps their feud was due at least partly to nerves, the messenger was promptly shot, uniting the two girls at least momentarily.

I’m pretty sure I put up this post every single year, but I can’t help it.

Talent shows always make me cry.

Cora did her talent show yesterday – they’re divided up by grade - and I don’t think there’s anything more soul-stirring than watching a dozen kindergarteners put themselves out there so bravely. I felt myself tearing up in the very first act (a very dapper tow-headed boy lip-synching to the Jackson Five’s “ABC”, replete in a mini leisure suit) and it never stopped.

There’s something about becoming a mother that makes you feel responsible for, well, the entire universe. I spent one entry about a week ago linking to therapeutic blogs to help work through this, so I’m not going to dwell on the rightness or wrongness here.

I’m just going to acknowledge that it exists.

Once you become a mother, you see every single child out there as, to some extent, your own. From very early on, I found myself trying to help out frustrated toddlers on a playground, or cautioning complete strangers that they were doing something dangerous (“Do you think your Mommy would let you cross the street blindfolded?”) Just last week I spent a lovely evening with an author friend of mine, attending his book signing and just being a fly on the wall. Once we left the gathering and were walking towards the parking lot, he looked bemusedly at me as I grabbed his hands and proceeded to squirt – uninvited – hand sanitizer on them.

Several months ago Cora was experiencing intermittent chest pains. I was reasonably certain it was some sort of heartburn and treated it homeopathically, since it never seemed to immobilize her. But after about a week of it, I began to worry she was having some sort of heart attack (I know, I know, but I’m a mommy) or something and I was missing all these signs, so I took her to the pediatrician. Just in case.

The pediatrician felt around and asked Cora a few questions. “Where does your chest hurt?”

Cora pointed right around her heart. “Here”.

“And what does your mommy give you when it hurts?”

Saturday night Maddie threw up- most likely from too much sugar celebrating her dad’s birthday. But when Sunday morning church time rolled around and she was astonishingly still asleep, we called an audible and skipped church, thinking if she was actually sick we didn’t want to wake her.

Maddie stumbled out of bed right as rain, so we settled into a slow, stay-at-home family day that was, to be honest, much-needed around here.

What did we do? Lessee – hard to really lay it all out there. Cora and I worked in our herb garden a bit, watering the plants and doing a little maintenance. While watering the dill we discovered nine (NINE!) caterpillars munching contentedly on it, obviously bulking up as they prepared for cocooning. A few minutes of yelling excitedly later, the entire family was gathered around the nine (NINE!) caterpillars, watching them munch in breathless wonder. Looks like we’re going to have several butterflies in a couple weeks.

So that, you know, took a good chunk of time.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve read a few really inspiring blogs by other moms and I finally just need to share them with you guys. Seriously good stuff.

First, The Problem With Being Supermom and How To Fix It at Inspired Action. Her opening sentence struck a deep chord with me:

“I’ve finally realized why it is I try to be Supermom. It’s because I can’t decide what is most important so I just try to do it all…which is impossible and leaves me feeling defeated. Rinse. Repeat.

Maddie sucks her thumb. She’s done it her whole life, and when she was a baby and we were excited when she did, since it meant she didn’t wake up in the middle of the night when her pacifier fell out of her mouth. Oh, sure, we knew we’d pay for it later, but we were so exhausted then we couldn’t do anything but rejoice and sign the credit card slip.

Fast forward almost eight years.

To be fair, Maddie’s not a bad thumb-sucker: she only does it when she’s holding her lovey, which has been restricted to her room. And though she does it to fall asleep, it pops out of her mouth immediately. So we’ve been able to skate by pretty well with the dentist, who’s always said, “No rush. She’s fine. Let’s talk again in six months.”

Second grade is the first year Maddie’s had “real” homework every night, and in the beginning it took some getting used to. Every night she has twenty minutes of reading, twenty minutes of some kind of math, and something “extra” – a website assignment, or a worksheet, or a long-term project or something of that ilk. I think it’s partly to get the parents and kids trained and ready when everything gets kicked up a notch in third grade.

Reading every night has been easy: the teacher says “do whatever” and I just let Maddie pick and am responsible for simply logging in her hours. And hours. And hours. For math, I’ve spent most of the year thinking it’s the same thing – “Do whatever, lady! Just get your kid used to thinking in a ‘math-y’ way for twenty minutes each night!” So we’d gone all over the map with math.

You see, Maddie enjoys math, but doesn’t like the tedium of memorization or practice – she likes the figuring-out-new-concepts thing. So we’ve covered long division and multiplication and percentages and fractions and negative numbers and . . . you get the picture.

Saturday afternoon the girls and I were enjoying glorious spring weather playing outside on the street of our cul de sac. Maddie was zooming around on her bike while Cora scootered happily along, me admiring various tricks and occasionally pulling weeds from the front lawn.

After a while Maddie became restless and asked if she could bike by herself for a while. Now, I have never let Maddie go off for a bike ride before: she doesn’t even walk the half-mile to school alone. Mama’s not quite ready, I guess.

But I could see in her eyes her longing to stretch her legs, so I said, “Tell you what. You can ride the two blocks to the park, ride around the blacktop a few times, then come back, ok?”

Maddie’s eyes lit up.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day outside and the girls had a rare day of sibling amity for the entire day; we played outside after school then came home and continued in the back yard, pausing only briefly for dinner, until bedtime. Part of the time I simply lay on the grass and watched them laughing and giggling together, marveling that sometimes I get it right – at least, right enough to be able to give them this small measure of happiness in each other.

Anyway, their joy was overflowing and the funny things kept pouring out of their mouths. At one point, Maddie was demonstrating how she’s working on her front flip: she laid out several floor pillows in a row (yes, we take them outside sometimes, and really, the word “no” just didn’t fit in yesterday’s vocabulary), ran at the pillows, flipped in mid-air, and landed on her head – yes, head – and continued smoothly into a forward roll.

I watched her do this and said, “Honey, I am really glad you chose to use the pillows; practicing this on the hard ground would not be good.”

Last night I taught until just after the girls’ bedtime, and when I came home I immediately headed upstairs for a last-minute snuggle, as is my habit. The girls read books and say prayers with a grown-up, then are allowed a bit of time by themselves with the light on to read some more or do crosswords or puzzle books. Well, traditionally Maddie would read and Cora, not yet a reader, would do some sort of maze book or color.

But recently Cora’s been reading and I’ll occasionally come in to snuggle her and find her working her way through a book. Last night, I happened upon my daughter reading Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.

This weekend, out of nowhere Maddie said, “Ok, here’s something I don’t get.”

Uh oh.

“How is it that sometimes when people get married they don’t have a baby right away, but sometimes people have babies sooner?”

The adults at the table looked at each other.

A few weeks ago the girls’ school began teaching soccer in gym class and for whatever reason Maddie got bitten by the soccer bug. She’s managed to spend her whole young life assiduously avoiding team sports, but this time around a light’s switched on and she wants desperately to play.

Of course, by the time she came to this realization all the spring soccer leagues were already under way, so Brian stepped up and offered to do a once-a-week practice at a nearby field for Maddie and some friends. No games on Saturdays, no competition, just getting together once a week to work on soccer skills and have fun.

Last night was the first practice.

Spring break is barely in our rearview mirror at this household and I’m already feeling the pressure to get our summer schedule figured out. You might think such a schedule would look something like this: “Sleep in. Go to the pool. Take a nap. Repeat.” And we’ll certainly have many days like that, it’s true.

But that’s not the whole story.

So yesterday I filled you in on my past life with Barbies – read that first if you haven’t already. Let’s just say that I played with Barbies as a kid, as did my mom who gave hers to me, and I had them all in a huge steamer trunk neatly labeled “Barbies” in my garage. The girls have seen the trunk and longed for the day I’d get it down for them.

Monday was that day.

Monday was our Pajama Day – a day we traditionally have for every Staycation, and this spring break is no exception. I thought for this Pajama Day I’d bring in the Barbie trunk and let them wallow in girl-ness for the day.

Now, on Pajama Day the girls aren’t allowed to go downstairs until both are awake and an adult goes with them: I set up a pallet of pillows and blankets on the floor the night before for movie-watching, get out games and fun stuff to do, and tape up a “chores list” for the day. No one’s allowed a sneak peak, since the chores list says things like “Eat cookie dough” or “finger paint” or “play outside in your pajamas”.

Or “play with Barbies”.

My girls have not gotten hugely into Barbie – she’s never appeared on a cake or taken over our gameroom - but it’s definitely on Cora’s radar. I think the plastic dolls first started coming in the house as the Disney princesses; the actual Barbie first came across Cora’s path as a book, I believe. You know the books – the tons of books-from-the-movies that Barbie “stars” in, like the dancing one and Fairytopia and the Ariel-wanna-be girl, Merliah.

Ok, so we have our fair share of Barbies in the house.

I’ve resisted buying them a lot of “Barbie” stuff, partly because it’s stupidly expensive (what I do buy comes from resale shops), a bit because of the whole feminist issue (though let’s not put all the blame on Barbie for this one, O Mouse House), but mostly because I have a whole trunk of Barbie paraphernalia in the garage.

Yesterday was a glorious day outside – high in the mid-80’s, breezy and sunny. Maddie rode her bike to school while Cora scootered her way there, so we were all happy as we traveled home in the gorgeous sunshine.

Maddie moves the fastest on her bike, and Cora will often choose to scooter slowly beside me to chat, tell me about her day, and so forth. Yesterday, though, she scootered alongside me silently for a bit before powering on ahead to catch up with Maddie at a crosswalk. After we’d gotten across the street and turned down our last block, Maddie put one foot on the pedal, preparing to take off again.

“Maddie, can you ride more slowly so I can scooter next to you? I’ve got some stuff to tell you,” Cora said. Maddie moved over on the wide lane and Cora began shoving along next to her big sister, who asked, “What do you need to tell me?”

I do enjoy cooking, but I don’t love the weekly rut of meal-planning, shopping, and making “do” in the kitchen. In a dream world, we’d hire a personal chef to make dinners (and pack school lunches!) for us. The only catch? I would get to tell the chef exactly what to make, and be insanely micro-managing on the whole shopping/organic/good produce thing.

I know, I can dream, right?

Weeknight dinners are always a little catchy: some nights I’m teaching and leaving my mom to feed my kids – not exactly cool to leave her with the whole “hey, what’s for dinner? I don’t know, I’m leaving, you figure it out” taste in her mouth. So on those nights I need to cook the meal in advance. Then on nights I’m home I can make a meal from scratch – but I’d much rather have extra time for hanging with my kids.

Dear Maddie:

This weekend, my baby, you looked one of your worst fears in the face. And you kicked its butt

Last week, reasonably out of the blue, you decided to dust off your bicycle – not ridden in almost four years because of a one-time fall – and give it another shot. You spent the weekend joyfully rediscovering what it feels like to put the pedal to the metal and truly enjoyed riding that bike – though it’s too small for you and your nearly-eight-year-old legs.

You rode the bike to school one day, having thought about what it would look like for a second-grader to ride a bike with training wheels but deciding to do it anyway. I don’t know if anyone teased you about it, but I know the training wheels have weighed heavy on your mind all week; by Wednesday you asked me if I could raise the wheels up a bit so you could start practicing riding on just two wheels.

And then came Friday.

When Maddie was four years old, she fell off her bike. She was riding in a bike-a-thon and a couple boys her age came whizzing around the corner, skimming too close to my slow-and-steady girl, and tipped her over. Ever since then Maddie’s refused to ride her bike. At all. Every once in a while I’d bring it up and suggest giving it a try and Maddie would say, “I am too scared to. Remember the time I was riding my bike and I fell off it?”

Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve remembered it for the past three and a half years.

Last week Maddie came home from school and announced, “In two days we get to go to school dressed like our cultural heritage! So I’m going to dress Hawaiian!”

Yeah, ‘cause we look so darn Hawaiian.

Actually my mom grew up there and I was born there, so TECHNICALLY Maddie’s descended from a Hawaiian, I guess, but we’re the white Hawaiians. The ones that actual Polynesian Hawaiians don’t so much like.

So I set out to put Maddie straight on our heritage and explained why she really couldn’t dress Hawaiian. “Well,” she pouted, “Then what can I dress up as?”

Ah, now we see. It’s called Maddie Gets To Wear A Costume To School Day.

We had a long week last week, mostly from anticipating- and then wallowing in – Valentine’s Day, and by the time the girls got home on Friday we were pretty fried. I was facing a reasonably hectic weekend, an incredibly filthy house, and the prospect of two exhausted, bickering children.

I was not looking forward to it.

But for whatever reason, we had one of those golden afternoons, where you hit that sweet spot and simply coast from one happiness to the next. Not in any huge, life-changing, trip-to-Paris kind of way, but in a sweet contentment kind of way.

Dear Maddie:

We had a bit of a rough morning recently, didn’t we? School mornings are never easy, but this one seemed to start out pretty well and I had reasonably high hopes for getting you to school relatively incident-free.

Then it came time to brush your hair.

As I approached you with the brush, you raised your arms up and blocked me from your hair. And then I said, “Honey, you need to let me brush your hair – and not fight me – or you need to brush it yourself.”

I then lifted my arm up to brush again – and you pushed my arms away.

Today our school is celebrating all the kids’ 100th day of school. Kindergarten in particular has a rip-roaring good time with lots of extra activities, like making a necklace of 100 Fruit Loops or counting out 100 pieces of snack; but the grand finale of the nearly week-long festivities is today’s big excitement: the 100 Days Shirt.

Each kindergartener is supposed to make a shirt with 100 – SOMETHING – on it. 100 stamps, or buttons, or stickers, or pom-poms, whatever. And when I say a kindergartener is supposed to make it, I mean his MOM is supposed to make it.

The other day Maddie and I were walking to school, Cora scootering on ahead. Maddie was holding my hand, pausing every once and a while to give me a brief, affectionate hug. As we neared the school Maddie grew quiet, clearly thinking about something.

“Hey, kiddo, what’cha thinking about?” I asked lightly.

Every Sunday Maddie brings her personal Bible to church; her second grade class is encouraged to do so, trying to build the kids up to actually use their Bibles and become comfortable with them. Yesterday when Maddie ran to grab hers before getting in the car, Cora said, “Oh! I want to bring mine today, too!” and ran off to pick hers up – her new-for-Christmas, very lovely but perhaps intimidating-to-a-five-year-old grown-up Bible. I wasn’t sure why, but was happy to go along with it.

I dropped Maddie off at her Sunday school room before walking Cora to hers, and when Cora walked through her door she made a beeline for the teacher, clutching her Bible to her chest. Wanting to find out what was up, I did what any respectable parent would do: I eavesdropped.

“Hey, teacher, do you want to know something really interesting?” Cora peered owlishly up at her instructor.

Her teacher, of course, nodded yes.

Bear with me as I give you the background:

Exhibit A: Tuesday afternoon Cora came home from school with a new library book. When Maddie saw the book she exclaimed, “Oh, I saw that book at the library! I REALLY want to read it! Can I please borrow it?”

Seeing Cora’s mutinous look, I hastily spoke up. “Maddie, this is a book Cora checked out and she will get to read it first. Please do not read the book or try to look at it until Cora’s had a chance to read the whole thing, ok?”

Maddie agreed.