1m2aSandbox

Cora’s quite the sensory girl:
we’ve already figured out that she is incredibly tactile,
touching and rubbing against everything in an effort to get to know
it better. Just think about my blogs describing the way she rubs my
hair over her face in ecstasy. And she’s quite a
super-taster, too – she put many more things in her mouth
(unfortunately) as a baby than Maddie ever did. And her hearing is
extraordinary –she’ll hear Brian come home late at
night, hours past her bedtime, when our door alarm chimes softly
(across the house, on another floor, through her closed door, with
her air purifier and night-night music on) and immediately begin
chanting, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”


But nothing beats that kid’s sense of smell.

A girl uses the potty, and feels big and
grown-up. A girl understands there will be other people around,
watching, crowded into the bathroom to “help”. A girl
suffers this in silence for a while, thinking it’s necessary
and thinking, frankly, that it’s a bit safer that way. But
then there comes a time when a girl just wants to use the potty by
herself, without anyone else in the room. A girl wants some
privacy.


I’m speaking, of course, of me.

I’ve done many things over the 4th
of July. In our nation’s capitol, I took a private cruise up
the Potomac and watched the Mall fireworks from there. In historic
Boston, I camped out on the Charles River along with tens of
thousands of other people. In New York, we threw a picnic blanket
down on our floor, turned off all the lights, and watched the
famous fireworks out of our big front picture window. I’ve
definitely had some good Independence Days.


But Sunday was hands down the best.

When Maddie turned a year old, I began
searching in earnest for friends for her. She had built-in friends
with my own friends; we’d all begun having children around
the same time, and Maddie had three or four children only a year or
so older than her. But I also started trolling the park, eventually
finding Maddie the first big love of her life – Naomi. They
bonded, and were BFFs until we left New York for Texas.


Once we hit Texas, I was blessed enough to fall into a mom’s
group in our neighborhood with children all roughly Maddie’s
age. She was on the youngest end of the scale, but she’s
always been happiest that way, and she’s had playmates within
walking distance ever since. Preschool has simply widened
Maddie’s circle, and she’s entering kindergarten with a
good half dozen great friends under her belt, going in with her.


And then there’s Cora.

I know I’ve written before about
both girls’ love for collecting and organizing things,
whether it be in purses or boxes or little piles on the floor.
I’m used to one girl or the other starting a collection of
something random – shoes that all have black in them, or
rocks with an uneven number of sides, for example. But
Maddie’s latest obsession leaves even me scratching my head.


Maddie has a small stuffed dog – I mean almost dollhouse
small, like three inches tall tops. And even though she’s got
a Fisher Price dollhouse crammed with rooms full of furniture and
accessories, she’s on a mission to collect as many
“useful” things as she can for her dog.

Both Cora and Maddie are avid gardeners.
They come by their green thumbs honestly on both sides of their
family tree: my family has a long history of tending to the earth,
and Brian absolutely adores working outside and seeing things grow.
So we’ve spent the spring growing things from seeds,
transplanting them to outside, and watching them grow into flowers.
Cora especially enjoys puttering in our side garden many mornings;
our side garden is our herb and vegetable space, and she loves
sniffing the rosemary or checking on the basil or watching our
raspberry bush (which alas succumbed to Texas heat last week). She
and Maddie both can spend an hour out there, arranging rocks or
checking the rain gauge or checking out the hummingbird feeder. And
just last week, we got a new addition to the side garden
that’s got them all atwitter:


We got a rain barrel.

My articles on sunscreen from last week
have prompted some posts and emails with further questions, asking
about other chemicals or “what if . . .” or “what
about . . .” and I see that the sunscreen thing is just the
tip of the ice berg.


Now I know I’m way more hippie or crunchy or whatever-y than
a lot of you, and I’m not going to preach at you to get rid
of your air conditioners and dryers and go back to wood-burning
stoves (they emit too many pollutants to be a viable main cook
source anyway). But I am getting questions from girlfriends and
readers, and thought I’d direct you to a couple different
articles to get you started.