1m2aSandbox

If there’s anything worse than
realizing your baby is about to be a kindergartener, it’s
realizing your baby is about to graduate from kindergarten.


And be a first grader.

The girls had their annual ballet recital
over the weekend, and it was quite the event for everyone involved.


This was Cora’s first recital EVER, and she’d been
looking forward to it since she started ballet in September. At
various times throughout the year she gave me instructions on how
the Big Day would go, such as: “Mommy, I’m going to
need someone to drive me to the theatre for the recital. So
you’ll need to take me there, then leave me backstage.
Don’t try to stay with me, ok? This is important.” Or
how about, “Mommy, when you come to get me after the
performance, you need to bring flowers with you to give me.”


Little gems like that.

Earlier this week I was taken out for a
working dinner to an incredibly nice restaurant – we’re
talking forty-dollar steaks, and the potato costs extra. I
didn’t know when I went it was going to be so great, and I
carefully kept half my meal to bring home and share another day.


Being the incredibly kind and selfless daughter that I am, I let my
mom have my leftovers last night, and watching her face melt as she
took her first bite was almost worth it. While we ate, I described
the place to her, finishing by saying, “It was a really
excellent restaurant, and I’d highly recommend it for some
special occasion.”


Cora tuned into the conversation and spoke up. “Hey, Gamma, I
know another really fine restaurant if you ever want to go
someplace really special!”


Mom looked at her while I mentally scrolled through all the places
we’d been recently. Nothing that might require closed-toed
shoes came to mind.

Last night we had spaghetti, as is often
the case on the day Maddie has ballet and I teach right before
dinner. Maddie had her usual
noodles-with-one-meatball-hold-the-sauce order, and as the family
sat around eating together she broke into song – “On
Top of Spaghetti”.


Brian and I could only remember the first verse, so Brian looked up
all the lyrics on his android phone. He and Maddie sang lustily
through the meatball rolling under the bush, then turning to mush,
then growing into a big meatball tree next spring while Cora
continued to eat and I cleared dishes.


Before they could get to the part about new meatballs growing in,
Brian noticed a strange “bah-hah-hah” sound from Cora.
He looked up and saw her, a smile screwed onto her face, trying to
hold back making noise. “Cora, are you crying, baby?”
Brian asked her.

Mama Dove has not budged out of our
bougainvillea for over 48 hours now, so we're thinking there are
some eggs under that bird hiney. From what I've heard, morning
doves are not known for their excellent parenting skills, so we may
have a "teaching opportunity" coming up here in a couple weeks: as
in, "Mommy, why did the babies die? Where do they go now?"


On the up side, our monarch caterpillar is getting fatter and
fatter, and we know he's got to cocoon within a week now.


I'm telling you, it's babies and new beginnings all over the
place here.

Just off our kitchen is a sweet little
side yard, with a door for quick in-and-out and a small patio for
morning meditation. We have a birdbath, a few hanging flower
baskets, some lovely flowering vines, and about a dozen different
fresh herbs planted in a sweet garden. It’s a major reason
why we bought this house.


Every morning we sit at our breakfast table and look out at the
dewy lawn and wonder what visitors the garden will see for the day;
we’ve got a hummingbird feeder that calls frequent visitors,
lots of butterfly-friendly flowers, and pinecones rolled in peanut
butter and birdseed tied to our fence. Cora will happily putter
there all morning, walking back and forth to the rain barrel to
water the herbs or check on the strawberries or try to coax a
four-legged visitor into our yard. And recently, the visitors have
been plentiful.

Yes, Cora had her fourth birthday
yesterday, and it was positively wonderful.


The birthday started the night before: one of our family traditions
is that the birthday girl receives a new pair of summer pajamas as
she goes to bed on her birthday eve, so Cora hit the sack in
hot-pink zebra-striped pjs, feeling like hot stuff. She slept until
almost 8 a.m. (which would have been great had big sister done the
same), and when she came out of her room she ran into her Gamma.
Squatting excitedly with her hands on her knees, Cora said,
“Guess what, Gamma! I woke up four today!”