1m2aSandbox

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.