1m2aSandbox

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.