1m2aSandbox

We were heading to church on Sunday when
Maddie and I had a conversation that reminded me once again what a
smart kid she is.


I’d spent the past few days baking, stockpiling several dozen
cookies to donate to our church for a big neighborhood outreach
project they’ve got going on. Maddie, of course, has helped
when possible, though her motives are not entirely pure since
she’s always angling to lick the beaters. And as we’ve
baked we’ve talked about why were baking, since she is deeply
interested in understanding why baked goods are going out of the
house instead of into her tummy.

Both of my girls were born without much
hair to speak of – I guess it’s just a family thing.
And when Maddie was a baby, I didn’t want to be one of those
women who glue a bow to their bald kid’s head, so I waited
until Maddie actually needed one before trying the hairclip thing.


Big mistake. By that time, Maddie was perhaps 18 months old and had
definite opinions about what did and didn’t look good, and
hair accessories fell soundly in the latter column. I spent the
next six months trying to coax any type of hair accessory onto
Madeleine’s head, having success at first with the head band,
then alligator clips, then (still reluctantly) the elastic rubber
bands. The fights were not small, but I kept trying since the
alternative was a face full of floppy hair and a girl who kept
running blindly into walls.

Offering yet more proof that children
really do listen to what we say, Maddie’s becoming quite the
little eco-conscious consumer.


The other day I set out to pile us post-pool into the shower for a
quick chlorine rinse, and turned on the water before stripping down
the girls. With our bathroom on the second floor and the water
heater in our garage, it can sometimes take a good two minutes for
the hot water to reach us. Maddie looked at the empty, running
shower and said, “Why did you turn the water on before we get
in?”


Struggling to peel a swim diaper off a snug wet hiney, I said,
“Well, we need the water to get hot first so we’re not
cold when we get wet.”


Maddie looked anxiously at the empty shower, the water running down
the drain, and said, “But you’re wasting all that
water, Mommy! Turn it off now!”

Cora’s got a half-dozen or so
“words” going on now – Mama, Dada, ‘Amma
(Gamma), Mah-Mah (Maddie), bye-bye, ball. Or should I say,
she’s got a half-dozen or so words we can understand, since
Cora’s actual vocabulary count seems to run in the hundreds:
that girl can take a breath and talk nonstop for sixty seconds,
pointing and gesturing the whole time, before running out of steam.
I’ve learned to jump into the conversation quickly during a
breath pause, lest it become a monologue instead of a two-person
scene.


And my job, by the way, in these conversations, is simply to guess
what she’s trying to say and repeat it so she can confirm or
deny the rumors of her intentions. “A gabba gabba goo goo
durah mah!” she’ll say. “You want to go outside
and play?” I’ll guess. “Deh!” she’ll
confirm, saying yes.

We are still in the throes of nudging a
resistant Maddie into using the big-girl potty, and I’m
beginning to fear that my jokes about Maddie still wearing diapers
in kindergarten may well have a whiff of reality about them.


And on the heels of that statement, let me thoroughly confuse you
and say that my daughter is completely potty trained; she simply
refuses to use the toilet.

Between blog post comments and emails,
I’ve received quite a bit of feedback from you parents out
there on yesterday’s “Facebook Depression”
posting. Clearly, I’ve struck a familiar note with a lot of
you, as pretty much everyone was echoing some refrain of
“Sing it sister! I feel ya!”


So I’ve been stuck chewing that cud all day, still trying to
work my way through it. I had a playdate today (four hours at the
pool – and Maddie still went back after dinner for more.
Those aren’t wrinkles, they’re permanent pruney lines
from being in the water All. The. Time.) with a fellow mom
who’s definitely been there – six kids, making me feel
like the amateur as I crab about dealing with two! And while our
conversation skipped over several different topics, we kept coming
back to land on how we felt as moms, our job dissatisfaction even
as we know we wouldn’t trade it for anything. And throughout
my friend's words of wisdom and encouragement was woven a constant
stream of conversation that went something like this:


"Get out of the pool." "Why? What'd I do?" "You whined." "No I
didn't!" "Yes, you did. Speaking in an annoying, sing-songy voice
is whining. Out. And you - (to a brother) - you get out too." "What
did I do?!" "You laughed at her having to get out." "Do you see a
smile on this face?" "I see a smirk, yes I do." Then, under her
breath - "Lord help us, I don't think we're going to make it to
dinner today. This just might be the day we don't."


Huh. Guess it doesn't get any easier with practice, I think to
myself, right before I see my friend's daughter slip scarily in
the water and run sobbing to her mother to be comforted, slights
and bickerings forgotten and forgiven as need overtakes pettiness
and my friend's arms offer absolute grace, the look of muted joy
shining on her face as she is able to make her daughter feel
better.

I think I’m probably the last person
in the computer-using world to be holding out on Facebook, the
online club that everyone seems to be a member of except me. My
husband spends a not inconsiderable amount of his precious free
time surfing it, looking up acquaintances and re-connecting with
old friends, and is often shouting out to me to come look at
someone’s photo, or did I know that so-and-so is still
performing in New York?


Sometimes I’ll succumb and peek over his shoulder for a few
moments, and I admit it’s seductive. You click on one old
friend you haven’t seen in ten years, wonder if they’re
in touch with any other friends and look up their friends, then
find yourself ten degrees out and seeing folks you haven’t
thought about in a long time. I can easily see myself spending
hours wading through different pages, idly following threads and
ending up with my best friend from kindergarten staring me in the
face (hey Beth Caswell – where are you these days?).