1m2aSandbox

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.