Notes From Camp

She finished 4th grade, finished another soccer season, performed in the end-of-the-year piano recital. She's nine going on ten going on seventeen and we're technically required to call her a fifth-grader now. She has braces. She was awarded the "Fantastic Friend" award by her teacher at school, and "Best Technical Skills" award by her soccer coach, whatever that means. She's had an iPod touch for a year or so, for music and a camera and silly games, and she lobbied us for months to enable the texting feature, which we finally did this week on a trial basis with much trepidation and after multiple conversations about Responsibility and Trust and The Internet is Forever, so now she and her friend can use all the emoji while they text about which headband they'll wear the following day.

Also, she's at camp.

Camp, as in sleepaway, as in we dropped her off on Sunday and haven't spoken a word to her since. I didn't think this would be a big deal for me, since I've definitely been away from her for much longer periods of time (I pick her up tomorrow), and I know she's with three of her bestest friends, and I loved camp myself at exactly her age. But the complete lack of communication has thrown me -- can't I get a 60-second phone call: "Everything good? You're having fun? I love you!" -- and the house is so very quiet without her in it.

Not that the absence is all bad. Because in spite of the fact that she can still pass time by coloring, possibly still believes in fairies and Santa, and spent a big chunk of her first day of summer vacation playing an invented game with Jemma involving scooters, maple seeds, a sidewalk-chalk-drawn map on the driveway, and bad guys, she's moving into the teen-ish years more quickly than I can believe. The last week of school, she had an honest-to-goodness fit about her hair, which looked exactly the same as it has looked every other day of the last year, and declared it "square" and ripped her headband out and threw it on the ground. For the first time this school year, she actually got a little worked up about tests ("Quiz me on the state capitals one last time, Mom!") and she started faux-complaining about a boy or two in her class. I brought her to one of Ben's lacrosse games and after the game was over the two of them had a few moments of painful awkwardness, complete with strange voices and total lack of eye contact, before they remembered that they're friends who have known one another since they were born and went on talking and laughing as usual. She's moody and talks back and stomps off and is 100 percent a tween.

Before she left on Sunday, Jason and I tucked a few notes into the clothes she had packed in her duffel bag for her to find later. It was Father's Day, and as I was hiding a little blue note among her t-shirts, I  was remembering the way my dad used to do the same thing for me each year. I don't remember what a single one of his notes said -- I wish I had one still now -- but I can easily envision his spidery, all-caps handwriting and the little smiley face he always drew.

On Sunday, I had talked to him on the phone earlier that day, and he told Annie to have a great time at camp, and I wish I had remembered to talk about the notes with him when I wished him happy Father's Day. I always loved finding them, always felt loved and treasured when I thought about my dad remembering to tuck them in. As Annie grows up and away from us (grades and boys and camp and texts), more and more I think our role is to step back and watch her learn (and try, and fail, and try again) while we coach and encourage from the sidelines. I kind of can't believe I'm the person tucking the notes into the camp duffel, but I'm hoping she remembers it on a day next week or next year when she "hates" us, and maybe again in 20 or 30 years, when she's doing it for her kids.

And I can't wait to go get her tomorrow.

Piece Work

When she finished, the back of it looked like this

and as I trimmed it to fit into a square black frame, I said, "I feel like there's a metaphor here somewhere" but she laughed and ran off to play, already forgetting the many hours of messy and frustrating work it had taken, me by her side, to produce this valentine for her teacher.

In the spirit of a holiday that's supposedly all about love with a capital L, I love that she dreamed this project up herself and that she saw it through to completion. I love that - for the first time ever - she loves math, and that she loves the teacher who taught her to love it. I love that she could hardly wait to bring it to him on Valentine's Day. I love that her excitement stemmed from giving something she had made, something she was proud of, rather than from getting chocolate or treats (though she did, and she loved that too). If I'm being honest, I love that the project is finally done, for I could hardly step away for a stitch or two before she was calling my name. But mostly I love the way the beautiful finished product belies the messy backside full of ugly knots and missed stitches, the metaphor for life made piece by piece by my eight-year-old on a series of February days.

My Very Favorite Writing

I think that if I could freeze my children at any ages they've been so far, I'd pick either 18-24 months (so cute! such chubby cheeks and squeaky voices! and they haven't started saying 'no' too much yet!) and kindergarten. The writing and drawing skills from the kindergarten stage are particularly my favorite, so it is no surprise that I adore every single thing Jemma brings home these days. I love the inventive spelling, the backwards letters, and the scrappy little drawings so much that it's hard to part with any of them, though I do guiltily sneak a fair amount of them into the recycling bin during the day when she's at school. I try to photograph some of my favorites, though. To wit:

I like strawberries. I like cherries. (Other things she "licked" during that stage included friends, donuts, and her family.)

"Me and my family." Awwwww.

A recent self-directed art project with stickers and the most adorable spellings of Halloween words ever.

Speaking of hilarious and adorable writing, Jason and I volunteered in Annie's classroom to help with an oil spill simulation, and this is the thank-you note she wrote us a couple of days later:

That's a keeper, for sure.

Sunrise, Sunset

Traditionally, I write Annie a letter here each year on her (our) birthday. It's fun to look back on the year that has passed, think about the ways she's grown, praise her for her persistence or her passion, wonder anew at how big she is getting. This year it doesn't seem necessary.

Annie is eight. She remembers everything that happened to her (to us) over the course of this last year. She has her own stories to tell. As of today, along with the rest of her third-grade class, she has her own (semi-private, school-sponsored, teacher-moderated) blog. So I'm not sure I need to be keeping track of the highlights of her years for her anymore. (Though I can keep doing it for me, and I will.)

Plus, I've started writing Annie real letters. She and I both communicate better, more succinctly, and more (ahem) calmly in writing than via conversation, especially when there's an ongoing challenge or a tricky subject involved. I wrote her a letter a few weeks ago after her first, disastrous soccer practice - a dashed-off-in-desperation three-pager about how hard I know it is for her to not immediately be good at something, to have to fail and make mistakes and learn in front of other people. I set out three basic expectations for the season, and she's risen to the occasion since then, adopting a new, positive attitude and even having a genuinely great time at her first game on Saturday. I wrote her a letter the night before school started. I write her notes in her lunch every day.

So I didn't write her a letter yesterday. What I did do is bake her a double-chocolate layer cake for her family party on Sunday PLUS thirty Pinkalicious cupcakes to bring to school for yesterday's treat. Jason and I got her the American Girl doll (Julie) she's been pining for since June. I took her (and Jemma) to get a birthday pedicure, then to piano lessons, then met up with Jason so all of us could go out to dinner to Rose's, where she and I took full advantage of free birthday dessert by ordering key lime pie AND creme brûlée. I tried not to think too much about how eight means halfway to sixteen which means driving; relatedly, I tried not to equate 35 to confirmed middle-aged, even though that was pretty unsuccessful.

I looked at this picture of us, taken right around her first birthday

and tried to wrap my mind around the fact that this picture of us is the reality these days:

She wrote me a letter on my (our) birthday, though - gave it to me just before she left for school in the morning. It says, "Dear Mom, Happy birthday! I love you as much as anyone can love anything! You are the best mom ever! I hope you have a great birthday! I love you sooooo much! Love, Annie"

Best birthday present ever, that one.

Summer, Halfway

It's six weeks down and six to go and I'm sitting outside with a Left Hand Milk Stout thinking that seems just about right. Jason's on a ride and the girls are freshly tucked in bed after a day that included both slushies and the new fro-yo spot in town, which also somehow seems right.

One of the fifteen new arborvitae in the back yard has died. Just one. Jemma bit my shoulder today when I lifted her into the house for a time-out, wet and dripping from the hot tub, and then she drew me a picture and wrote, "MOM IM. VORE SORRY. I LOVE YOU MOM. JEMMA."

The girls did a couple of pages in their workbooks this morning, but my early summer fantasy of languid, coffee-drinking mornings with the three of us working happily at the dining room table has proved to be exactly that: a fantasy. The girls spend much of their time outside (they are brown, despite the sunscreen I slather on them daily), creating elaborate fairy houses or homes for caterpillars and roly-polies they dig out of the mulch.

They cannot both be upstairs together at the same time, a situation that will have to change when school starts. When I send them both up to change clothes or get an item to bring wherever we're going, there is inevitable prolonged nakedness, followed by laughing wresting, followed by crying wrestling, followed by looks of stricken confusion when I ask what is taking so long. They forget why they're upstairs at all. Jemma threw a twenty minute fit about getting dressed yesterday morning, and Annie and I had this conversation when it was her turn:

A: So can I get a pedicure?
Me: What?
A: Can I get a pedicure as a prize for getting dressed?
Me: HAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA. No.

You can imagine she didn't take that very well.

(I wondered today while I was driving whether, if a parent raising girls mapped out these particularly hysterical days on a calendar for a period of several months, the parent would eventually, in seven or eight years, come to see that the particularly challenging periods were occurring in, say, some sort of monthly pattern. (No reason at all! Ahem. Just wondered.))

We took a family bike ride tonight. We can do that this summer sans bike trailer, Jemma pedaling her little heart out, the bright pink feather in Annie's hair left over from the rock concert peeking out of her helmet. (She wishes aloud that there could be a rock concert every night. She is learning the guitar now, too, from Jason.)

My favorite photos of the summer so far are mostly the ones of the girls, really close up, eating something special: ice cream, s'mores, corn on the cob. Also the ones of us around any kind of water: boating on Walloon, spending an afternoon at the beach with friends, wearing goggles in the hot tub or at the pool, my toes on the dock. (Jemma wanted to take the swim test at the pool yesterday but was a little nervous. Annie offered to swim next to her the whole way. They made it all the way to the other side.)

Everyone asks me lately what I'll do in September when both girls are in school all day, and here's my standard answer: I don't know. Some days, that's a Zen, the-universe-is-unfolding-as-it-should, calm "I don't know;" other days it's a wide-eyed, nervous-laughter, slightly panicked "I don't know." Either way. Both. I've got a few ideas, and in the meantime, I'm trying to be okay with not knowing, and with six more weeks of summer.

Hello, Summer

This morning, Annie got ready for school for the last time until September. Considering that the last two mornings have abruptly brought epic bouts of dressing drama, obsession with changing earrings and donning a million Silly Bandz, and actual dragging out of the house five minutes after our usual leaving time, this is sort of a relief. (Sort of.) (Some people in our house do not do well with transitions.)

And thus ends second grade, the last time I'll confidently feel that I "know" what sort of standards and curriculum my child is working with. Annie brought home her writing journal from the year this week. A few choice excerpts:

In September: "On my birthday I love to open Presents because I like to see what People gave me who came to my Party. I also like to eat cake because somtimes it is cheesecake and I love cheesecake."

On November 28, 2011: "On Thanksgiving I went to my grandma and grandpa's house and saw my cousins. At lunch we had turkey, cranberry sauce, macht potatos, stuffing, and gravy. And rolls. It was fun. We also had grape juice. I have a lot more to say but that would take forever."

On January 6, 2012: "If I could fly, I would make friends with birds and build a nest. If I was a robin my favorite season would be spring."

On January 19, 2012: "When I got my ears pirst I was a little nerves. I was so happy and excited to show my grandpa and my dad! My sister covered her eyes. After that, I had a Petacire. I tried to pick the same color of my earrings. It wasn't the exact same color."

On February 6, 2012: "On Saturday my mom and dad went to a wedding and my grandma and grandpa took care of me and my sister. My grandpa is pretty silly."

"On spring break I went to my grandma's house for Easter. I decided to wash my moms car in fifty-one degree whether and I was so cold I sat in the bucket of hot water! I went to my cousins house on wednsday and had lots of fun. I went to a park and got cookies while we were at the park because there was a shop called toms moms cookies. My cousins names are Berit and Marta. We sometimes call Berit B and Marta Mart. They are both girls. My sister went too. One day I got into a fight with Berit. My sisters name is Jemma. Me and Jemma stayed for two and a half days. My Aunts name is Lisa and my uncles name is Trever. He is my dads brother. They are very silly together. Me and Jemma had so much fun! P.S. I am the oldest kid in the family.

*****

Right now, I'm full of ambitious plans to do a small amount of daily "school" stuff with the girls this summer. We all do better with a little structure in our days, so I've stocked up on journals and flashcards, workbooks and crayons, and I'm hoping to start each morning with an hour or so of fun-yet-educational activities. I'm picturing me with my coffee and the girls with their heads bent happily over a sheet of paper, or perhaps a mini writing lesson on our chalkboard easel, or maybe one girl doing the yoga DVD while I do math flashcards with the other one. I'm sure this little fantasy of mine is far from reality, but I'm going to give it the old college try anyway. I'm going to loosely organize our learning by theme (switching it up every week or two) and I've asked the girls to brainstorm topics they'd like to learn more about. Here's Annie's list:

China
the human body
plants
snakes
Laura Ingalls Wilder book study
Susan B. Anthony
Vincent Van Gogh
okapis
car engines
Austria
Jamaica
race and skin color

Sooooooooo . . . that's a nice, broad cross-section, huh?

*****

Just this minute there are exactly zero construction workers in or around my house, a state that has been a rarity since the Monday in early April when the blamming began. We have plants, mulch and sod in our backyard, a fence around the hot tub, tile in the laundry room, and a washer and dryer coming on Monday. I'm sure it will be weeks before it all truly feels finished (trim to paint! table backordered! nothing on the walls! rugs! planters!), but it is nearly so, and I could not be more ready to have my house back. Just in time, it'll be the three of us girls most days for the next three months. I intend to make it good, or at least as good as it can be.

Hello, summer.

Girls in White Dresses with Blue Satin Sashes

Annie's first communion was last weekend, and despite my trepidation leading up to the event, it was sweet, appropriate, and meaningful. She was beautiful - angelic, even - and she seemed to like being the center of attention for the day, a flurry of cousins around her, cards and gifts being showered on her, and a fancy outfit to boot. I watched her reading a card aloud to the whole family after brunch, and then I watched her read the opening welcome to the entire church at the beginning of mass, and I thought: who is this poised, confident, charming little lady? We were understandably pretty proud of her, our little Anna Catherine.

Tooth Number Three

Annie pulled her tooth out tonight just before bed. Jason goaded her into it - he was tired of watching her play with the poor thing, hanging by a few sad fibers - and she yanked it out calmly and spit the blood into the sink. Even after Jason jammed some wadded-up tissue in the socket, she kept trying to talk to us. Just now, she's upstairs, finally asleep. She came downstairs once after being tucked in, afraid that something was under her bed and going to get her ankles if she got out.

"Like what?" I asked, half-smiling.
"Like, a monster," she said, also half-smiling, because we both knew she wasn't really afraid.
"I only ever let in that very little purple monster," I told her. She rolled her eyes (a daily occurrence). She kissed me on the lips (the yips, as Jemma would say) and stoically marched back up the stairs to bed. She stopped halfway.

"Go to sleep!" I said. "If you don't go to sleep, the Tooth Fairy can't come."
"Why not?"
"Because she doesn't want people to see her."
She positioned her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Is the Tooth Fairy this big?"
"I don't know. I've never seen her. Now go to sleep."

Heat

Since returning from Florida, it's been nearly 80 and sunny here every day. We've been walking around in stunned euphoria: eating ice cream, playing in sprinklers, wearing tank tops, embarking on a night run at 7:15 p.m. wearing shorts and a tank and coming home, sweaty, to drink a Blue Moon on the front steps. Getting back into the groove of regular life has been a little tough to manage in light of the sudden summer environment, and I confess that kindergarten forms may have been hastily turned in at the last minute, I forgot to get my allergy shot for a week, and doing anything besides staying at the playground after school pick-up seems annoying. And though the heat and sunshine for mid-March seems like the tiniest bit of bad karma (like, we might have to pay for it with an April where it rains every day), we are basking in the glory of every warm and sunny moment: Shamrock shakes outside on St. Patrick's Day, a Sunday hiking Dune State Park and picnicking at the beach, dinner eaten on a blanket on the front lawn.

Jemma continues to be her sweet, silly self. She is obsessed with my phone's Siri function and specifically wants to know what Siri's middle name might be. (We have asked; Siri has no reliable answer.) We have her spring conferences at pre-school on Thursday, and we fully expect to hear that she is ready for next year and the full-day challenges that it might bring. She reads more and more words every day, counts well into the hundreds, and loves to be given math problems to solve. (We are still working on her remembering to look before she crosses the street, though . . .)

Annie is, right this minute, at piano lessons, where she is working on Au Claire de la Lune. She has a million questions about everything, all day long, and she spends much of her time doing her hair seven times until the braid looks just right, jump-roping backwards on one foot, and eating adult-sized portions of everything at every meal. She loves writing to her new pen pal, Aunt Lisa, and telling anyone who will listen about how she gets to be a flower girl in her uncle Brett's wedding next winter. (After a mere fifteen years of dating, my brother finally got around to making it official with the woman our girls have always called Aunt Meagan. My mom has possibly not stopped crying tears of joy since the announcement, and nobody is mad that the wedding is going to be in Jamaica, either.)

I'm trying to fit the odd yoga class and lake run around a bit more freelance writing and a bevy of daily phone calls and emails with the list of various people working on our house project, which grows by the day. As of now, we've involved a seamstress, heating and cooling professionals, a dry basement company, a landscaper, an electrician, a painter, and a woman in NY state who makes slipcovers for the Pottery Barn rocker in addition to our general contractor and much help from Connie in the design department. I am looking forward to the final product, though I have no idea when anything about it will be final. In the meantime, I have started re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I haven't read it since my freshman year of high school. It calms me.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

We checked out an old, classic version of Fortunately, Unfortunately from the library a few weeks ago, and the girls were immediately taken by the literary device. They were so intrigued that they both wrote their own Fortunately, Unfortunately books and wrapped them up to give to Jason as Christmas presents, so part of our Christmas morning involved the two of us reading said books aloud, simultaneously praising the "creativity" and dying inside of laughter (hint: the books involve pirates, monsters, witches, grandmothers, ice-skating, and frogs). After a day like today, here's my version.

Fortunately, we all woke up in our warm house this morning with plenty of food, clothes, and all the basic necessities plus some.

Unfortunately, Annie started crying at breakfast and didn't want to go to school for the second day in a row.

Fortunately, one of the 29475736 things I said must have helped, because after thirty minutes of crying she did indeed get dressed, pulled herself together, and happily went off to school.

Unfortunately, I don't know which of the things I said was the magical thing.

Fortunately, Jemma went to school as happily as she always does.

Unfortunately, Jason and I had to meet with a lawyer to update our will and estate plan right after we dropped her off at school, which led to us spending an hour or so pondering those scenarios you really never want to ponder.

Fortunately, it was quick and painless and we are on the same page with these horrible decisions.

Unfortunately, it is winter.

Fortunately, it was sunny and I pulled Jemma in the sled to pick Annie up from school.

Unfortunately, we were all pretty cold by the time we walked home.

Fortunately, the girls were full of love for me and one another and we had a cozy night of piano-playing, braiding hair, bath bombs, and stories in my bed.

Unfortunately, Annie felt yucky and sad again right before bedtime, leading me to Google yucky and sad things after she finally was soothed to sleep.

Fortunately, there was a new Modern Family on tonight, and Jason got home just in time to watch it with me.

Unfortunately, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat and a sense of dread about tomorrow morning and one child's predicted emotional state.

Fortunately, I know we'll figure it out.

Not Seamless

The transition, that is, from two-plus weeks of lounging and gift-giving, oversleeping and overeating, traveling and togetherness back to the first, real, down-to-business day of January 2012. There was an hour (plus) of crying last night before bed and another hour (plus) of crying this morning before school.

It was a new experience for us, a child who was expressing this very high level of anxiety about something she'd previously never blinked at, and Jason and I reacted differently.

"Stop it," said Jason, because he, truly, is a person who doesn't really worry, who - aside from one specific work-related event this past year - doesn't have anxiety about things. If his brain starts to worry, he stops. Simple as that. But his advice, given more kindly than I've illustrated here, doesn't work for this particular blonde seven-year-old.

My tack: Walk the fine line between sympathetic comfort and firm instruction. Say, "It's normal to feel like this," and, "Everybody feels like this sometimes," and "I know you're brave and strong and you're going to have a great day!" and "Well, you're not sick and you're not staying home." When those things didn't work and the anxiety ramped up to a level that made me think, Psych consult in aisle four, please, I pulled out a few other things, like this gem of a conversation:

A: "I'm just feeling so terrible!"
Me: "Well, that's weird, because you just had a great day sledding, playing outside, having hot cocoa, practicing your piano, and playing with your sister, so it seems like you're feeling fine."
A: "I'm going to tell Mrs. F. that I'm sick and I need to come home."
Me: "If you call me from school, I'm going to ask to talk to Mrs. F. and I'm going to tell her that you're fine."
A: "But what if I'm sick and I need to come home?"
Me: "You throw up, I'll come get you."

and also the much-avoided, for-emergencies-only "I'll lie in bed with you until you can calm down and fall asleep."

As much as I put a brave face on it and focused on getting her to school this morning, 99% sure that all she needed was one day back in her usual routine, of course I worried about her all day long:  talked about her on the treadmill this morning, kept my phone close to me all day, and gave her the biggest hug when she came out of school smiling and reported that she'd had a good day. Pshew.

A Note, A Hat

I'm driving her home from catechism and she's looking out the window dreamily, crunching the Smarties her teacher gave her for correctly answering questions, looking for stars.

"Somewhere in the world right now -" she says, and then she stops, self-conscious, censoring her words already.

"Somewhere in the world, what?" I ask.

I see her smile sheepishly in the rearview mirror.  She is quiet.  Then:  "Somewhere in the world right now, a baby is being born."

"You're right!  Probably lots of babies, actually."

"Like, 55 million babies?"

"Well, probably not quite that many."

"Like, ten?"

"Probably more than ten.  Somewhere between ten and 55 million babies."  Later, after she'd gone to bed, I looked it up.  I wrote a note for her lunch today:  250 babies are born every minute in the world.  I am so glad that YOU were born!  Love, Mom


I'm walking her to school this morning and we're arguing about whether or not she should wear a hat.  "It's 39 degrees," I say, "and I'm wearing a hat.  It's cold!"  She is holding the offending hat in her hand.

"Moooom.  It's only fall.  You always make me take a hat when it's not even winter.  Then the other kids in line laugh at me."

"Who would laugh at someone else because they had a hat when it was cold?" I say, my feeble attempt at fighting second-grade peer pressure.  "That's silly."

"Mom.  I'm not wearing it."

"Okay.  You don't have to wear it if you don't want to.  But just have it in your backpack in case you want it at recess."  She rolls her eyes and shoves it in her backpack before we even reach the school, mortified at the thought that anyone might see her with a hat.  It's probably in there now, right next to her lunch with the note, little pieces of my love she takes with her as she counts by tens in Spanish and makes a fantasy story web and reads graphs and chases boys on the playground.

Things Annie Says: Don't Even Try Editon

"There are a thousand million things I'd rather do than math flashcards."

*****

Me:  "Annie, for the love, stop romping all around the house at bedtime!"
Annie:  "Mom.  Don't just make up words."

Seven

Dear Annie,

You turned seven on Sunday, though (as usual) we celebrated your birthday all weekend.  On Friday, donuts and cider to school and then the football game with grandparents while Daddy and I went out with friends.  On Saturday, you did the thing you've been waiting to do for well over a year now:  you got your ears pierced.  Jemma, Grandma, Mimi and I were all gathered around to watch you pick out your blue-green studs with such poise and heft yourself up into the chair with calm confidence.  I snapped one last photo of you as you were:

Then you squeezed the heck out of my hands while the earrings went in simultaneously - pop! - and you didn't flinch or cry at all, just smiled shyly when you saw your newly-pierced ears in the mirror.

Afterwards we all went to get pedicures together for a special girls' afternoon.  You and Jemma charmed all the women in the salon.  You chose polish specifically to match your earrings and then were delighted when you got tiny flowers painted on every single toe.

Then, presents in the front yard

and blowing out seven candles on your chocolate cheesecake.

The next morning - the morning that you were officially, finally seven - you looked like this:

And just like that, you're another year older.

I've read a few less-than-encouraging books lately about the challenges of raising happy, healthy girls in our current culture.  Instead of coming away feeling educated and empowered, I've closed those books feeling overwhelmed and confused.  Don't tell girls they're pretty! goes one theory, or they'll base their entire self-worth on their appearance.  And then, in another book, Don't tell kids they're smart! studies show, or they'll actually give up more easily and perform less well in school.  In another chapter:  Don't bother emphasizing honesty; it doesn't have any impact on how honest your kids will grow up to be, and even the "best" kids routinely lie to their parents.  For a week or two there, I felt like nothing was safe to say, like there was just no way we hadn't already messed things up forever.

Then school started and your birthday happened and life became one big flurry of activity, and I was reminded again of what a resilient, competent, persistent, compassionate, and - yes - pretty and smart person you are.  Sometimes I see you do something - take the monkey bars every-other-one, smash a tennis ball across the net, run around the track, play a new piano song perfectly, solve a tough math problem - and I can hardly believe it is you.  You can make your own peanut-butter-and-nutella sandwiches, switch the CD in your player from Suzuki piano to the Justin Bieber your sister gave you for your birthday, sign your name in cursive, do a cartwheel, swim real strokes, twirl spaghetti on a fork, and read yourself to sleep at night.  You are a patient teacher to Jemma, telling her how to spell words she wants to write, reading to her on the hallway floor, chasing down frogs and bugs as a team.  You are a big kid, and we are so proud of you.

I am going to forget about those books and forget about censoring myself around you.  I'm going to think instead of something better I read in another book, The Gift of An Ordinary Day:


"The hardest part of being a parent may be learning to live with the fact that there are so many things that we simply can't control, so much of the journey that is not our doing at all, but rather the work of the gods, the unfolding of destiny, fate.  We give birth to our children, we love and cherish them, but we don't form or own them, any more than we can own the flowers blooming at our doorstep or the land upon which we build our homes and invest our dreams.  We may tend the garden for a while, take our brief turn upon the land, nurture the children delivered into our arms, but in truth we possess none of these things, nor can we write any life story but our own."

So even as I see you blossoming into the big kid you are becoming, I'm remembering that it's you who is doing the hard work of growing up.  And because it's not due to me saying the right things or the wrong things, I'm going to go ahead and keep telling you that you're beautiful, reminding you that you're smart, and telling you to be honest, parenting books be damned.  Looking back at the seven years we've had together and looking forward to the treacherous, wild, messy territory that is still uncharted, I want to say, too, that you're a great kid and I'm so lucky to be your mom.  I tell you that every day.  I'm so glad you were born.

Just Us Big Girls

Jemma spent the night at my parents' last night for her summer sleepover and Jason was off doing manly things involving mountain bikes, jerky, speakers, and beer at the cabin, so it was just me and Annie. After the others left, I told her she got to be in charge of the day and her eyes lit up.

First, we went to the farmers' market, where she chose a peacock feather for herself and one for Jemma.  We bought peaches and raspberries and tomatoes, too.

She declared it Opposite Day, meaning that first we needed to eat ice cream at Jersey Junction, and then we needed to eat lunch.  So we did.  We sat outside and spoiled our lunch with ice cream and it was fabulous.  After lunch, she wanted to "be cozy," so we climbed into my bed, Annie with her Boxcar Children book and me with my books, and we read for an hour or so in companionable silence.

Next, Annie declared that we go to the pool, so we did.  There was hardly anyone else there but luckily she knew one little girls from school and I talked with a friend while her son zoomed into the water and taunted me adorably with his peanut butter crackers.

She wanted risotto for dinner, so I made that and I sliced a farmers' market tomato with some fresh mozzarella and basil from our windowbox.  Sarah called to invite Annie down to watch a movie in jammies with Lucy, so the little girls snuggled with popcorn in the basement while Sarah and I drank lambic in her adirondack chairs.  Later, she fell asleep while I scratched her back.

It was pouring this morning when we woke up.  We made peanut butter toast and had more raspberries while I drank coffee and looked at the IKEA catalog and Annie perused morning cartoons.  I went running while she made up a dance routine with Lucy.  Later, we went to Target, where she counted out all her "spend" money to buy her very first pair of real earrings, tucked away in their pink box for the next month.  She asked me if I cried when I got my ears pierced.  She asked to buy new basil soap.  She chose Annie's Mac & Cheese, pumpkin granola bars, and new school clothes.  She still fits into some 5T Osh Kosh, just barely, and I am savoring one more season of that cuteness.

We went to the library to return books and check out new movies for a cozy movie night.  She asked me what my favorite song is.  She asked me how I learned to cook.  She wondered what Jemma was doing. We played statues.  We did math flashcards.  We read Pippi Longstocking, and Jemma came home, and everyone went to bed.

I hope she remembers.  I think she will.

In Concert

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Tuesday night, I tell her we're going to go to a concert in the park and she immediately runs to her room.  Lipstick.  Bracelet.  Necklace.  Clip-on earrings.  Packs a purse.  Probably would have painted her nails if there had been time.

We walk to the lake, spread our blanket on the grass, and she is gone - chasing friends, getting her face painted, dancing in front of the band, laughing.  She is still six.  Her ears are still un-pierced, this last month before her seventh birthday.  She stands, looking, smiling, the sun and her sister just behind her.

*****

Wednesday night, I tell her I'm going to a concert with my friends and she immediately runs to my room.  "What dress are you going to wear?  What food are you making?"  Blue maxi-dress.  Figs.  Goat cheese.  Probably would have made caramels if there had been time.

I kiss her good-bye, drive to the gardens, plunk a chair down on the grass and I am there - drinking wine, people-watching, talking, listening to Sara Barielles sing, dancing under the stars, laughing.  I am still thirty-three, this last month before my birthday.  I sit, looking, smiling, the stars and the crickets just behind me.

Who They Are Right Now

Right now:

:: they are both still sleeping.

:: Annie falls asleep listening to her Suzuki piano CD or reading a Magic School Bus book in bed most every night.

:: Jemma has progressed to being able to swim underwater half the length of the indoor pool at the gym.

:: their shoulders are a deep, smooth shade of brown, no matter how diligent I am about the sunscreen.

:: they still fill afternoons playing "dog," "baby," and "school."

:: I sometimes catch Jemma kissing her finger, then pressing her finger to the photo of herself and next-door neighbor J that's on our refrigerator.  (I told his mom.)

:: they love picking the snap peas from the garden and eating them raw before we even come inside.

:: they want to learn about sea anemones, shapes, artists, germs, cooking shows, and music.

:: they can identify a U2 song on the radio within ten seconds, and refer to anything by James Taylor as "Sweet Baby James."

:: they spent a portion of last week's Whitecaps game learning about strikes, balls, and outs from their patient daddy.

:: they have each grown about two inches since Christmas.

:: they are still one another's very best friend.

What's New, Bullet-Style

• Last Friday afternoon, Jason and I sat in a title office and signed closing papers and a big, horrible check to finally sell our South Haven house.  It is hard to know how to describe the way it feels to sell a house that was the first big thing we owned together and to which we brought home baby Annie from the hospital.  It is also hard to know how to feel about the fact that it took nearly SIX YEARS on the market and us bringing an amount of money to the table that would buy a used car for that thing to finally sell.  I'll go with . . . bizarre.  Surreal.  We came home and drank champagne, toasting to "one mortgage!"  
• Jemma, as I previously mentioned, taught herself to swim.  Early last week, she was still getting a snootful of water every time she tried to remember how to "hum" underwater to blow bubbles.  Today, during the minutes when she wasn't asking (at 4:00) if we could "eat lunch soon," and during the minutes when she wasn't being irrationally weepy about the tiniest boo-boo ever on her big toe, she was swimming half the length of the kid's pool underwater, popping up every single time and looking at me with big eyeballs through her goggles.  "Mom!  Did you see THAT?"  I definitely did, little fishie.
• Jemma also taught herself to whistle, which she now does at every possible opportunity, including in church.  It is almost too cute to tell her to stop.
• Annie and I spent an hour this afternoon going through the giant pile of crap she brought home from school in those last few days.  My favorite things are her artwork and an entry she wrote in her journal about her parents.  It ends, "I was the first baby that they ever had."  
• Michigan strawberries are at the farmer's market!  (And in my tummy!)  Time to make shortcake.
• I began the day at 6:15 a.m. with yoga class outside at Reed's Lake.  It was a clear, cool morning, and doing sun salutations facing the rising sun with the grass under my mat felt like being on vacation.
• Our fish Priscilla died.  What?  I never mentioned a fish before?  That's because we'd only had her for about a month, ever since the day Jason and Annie came home from the Science on Saturdays program I'd signed them up for - with a fish!  There was NO MENTION of a fish in the promotional materials.  And yet there she was, in her clear Tupperware container which would remain her home forever, until we flushed her down the toilet this morning.  Is there any child, anywhere, who does not have a memory of flushing a goldfish down the toilet while they cry a little?  RIP, Priscilla.  You were a spunky goldfish on our kitchen counter for nearly five weeks.

Last Day of School

First day of first grade . . .

Last day of first grade . . .

Things They Say: Control Freak Edition

A:  Mom, when you get a cast, do you have to let people sign it?
Me:  No.
A:  Good.  Because when I have a cast, I'm not going to let anyone sign it.
Me:  Oh, okay.  (Pause)  You planning on breaking a bone soon?
A:  No.  (Pause)  But I don't like how sometimes people draw a picture on the cast, like a heart, or a peace sign, and there isn't room for everyone to sign their name, and then the whole cast gets full of black marker and looks all messy.
Me:  Noted.