A Jen Too Many

It is currently snowing. We are told we can expect as much as another foot. My sweetheart gets to stay home from work tomorrow. The girls and I played Set this evening. Oldest Girl Child is incredibly good at it. I barely won the first round, which is pretty amazing when you consider that her age is measured in the single digits still and I am ... well ... old, OK?

Somebody stopped by yesterday and offered to finish shoveling our driveway for $25. I couldn't say, "Yes," fast enough and was tempted to throw myself at his feet in gratitude. The Boy Child, who would normally be earning the shoveling cash, has cleverly vanished from home for the last week and we have not heard from him. I am sure he will reappear once the snowstorms are safely out of the way and the driveway is cleared for good (or until next winter.)

No more school for the rest of the week. Youngest Girl Child got her snow week homework out of the way already, but she only had a couple of things to do. OGC has a whole package of papers and is starting to get snarly about the whole process of being required to do a small amount every day.

I thought about going to the store today to pick up a few things we are low on, but my sweetheart went out to pick himself up some soda and came home with the report that the roads are still very slick. So I decided we were fine for the rest of the week with what we have. Besides, judging from the photos I got in my email this afternoon, there is no point to going to the store right now - I have more in my pantry than they do on their shelves. (Note: These are not my photos. They are just a couple of the ones I was sent.)

Pictures of our recent snowstorm. We got about 2 1/2 feet, which is nothing to those of you in Idaho, Utah and other parts west, but is a huge amount here. They shut down school Friday in anticipation of the snow, canceled church today, and have canceled school for the first part of this next week and we may yet wind up having school canceled for the entire week. My sweetheart was told when he left work Thursday not to come in Friday, and has heard that his workplace is closed Monday, too.

It's been a very relaxing weekend for us. Except for the whole snow shoveling thing, that is. On the bright side, I'm sure my biceps are much more developed than they were Friday morning!

The girls are beside themselves with glee. They have never been in snow up to their knees before. and are wallowing in it (deliberately, that is, not because they've fallen and are stuck.) I told them that their Grandma's house gets this much snow all the time and now they want to fly cross-country several times a winter.

On a more serious note, I have been thinking a lot about the phrase, "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." Disasters, large and small, are part of life, and I try to keep my family prepared for most of the calamities that I can think of. Because of that, this has turned out to be a nice little mini-vacation for us. We didn't have to hurry and get to the store before all the bread and milk were gone. We haven't had to worry about what we would do if we lost our electricity. We had a plan for frozen pipes. Being ready for the unexpected brought me much peace of mind this weekend.

The only thing I would change is to have bought a snowblower last fall. Excuse me. I need to go take some more aspirin. Can anyone help me get the lid off the aspirin bottle?

We almost didn't make it to midnight last night. Their father and I spent the last half hour of 2009 chivvying the girls into staying awake. Well, kind of. I kept telling them that they were free to go to bed if they wanted to, and he kept reminding them that it was only a few more minutes until the new year. They really, really wanted to blow their horns, so they made it, but they were tucked in bed and asleep just a few minutes later.

It's so funny to watch small people trying to stay awake. We followed a tradition that I loved from when I was a kid. We spent New Year's Eve eating chips and dip and playing games. (I highly recommend Sleeping Queens - got it on sale and am glad I did so. A great game! Especially good for princess loving little girls.) The games went well, the junk food was greeted with joy, the root beer floats overloaded their little systems and left Youngest Girl Child complaining that she didn't feel good. Although I think that was also simple exhaustion.

Girl Child was slumped in a corner of the couch, glassy-eyed, staring at the TV while she waited for the ball to drop in Times Square. (She was very disappointed to find out that it wasn't literally dropped.) YGC insisted on cuddling with me on my bed, wrapped up in a comforter. She had discernible dark gray half moons under her eyes and clung relentlessly until five minutes to midnight when both the girls perked up, decked themselves out in hats and cardboard tiaras and sat glued to the countdown, clutching their horns.

The ball dropped, much noise ensued here, the dog started barking wildly in response, the girls laughed at the dog, OGC protested that she hadn't seen the ball drop, we rewound and showed her that it wasn't actually "dropped" but lowered carefully, and then everyone got hustled off to bed, much to Mommy and Daddy's relief, because we were tired, too.

This morning, we all slept in.

Conversation between the girls, while playing around and under the Christmas tree, with various dolls and sundry stuffed animals:

Youngest Girl Child: Attend (translated: pretend) we had a sleepover

Oldest Girl Child: So we can wear our capes!

YGC: Yes.

OGC: The kitty is alright!

YGC: Attend your kitty liked it

OGC: Does she like it? I'm glad.

YGC: Attend she has to stay in the cage. (pause) Santa came last night!

OGC: He did? Is she alright? Did you see Santa? Tell me you didn't!

YGC: I did! Just kidding!

OGC: Come 'ere girl. (gasp) You kicked her! Just kidding. (to the stuffed cat) You need to be washed! You have fleas. Friend, can you hold her still? Kitty! Don't worry, it's gone. Now!

YGC: I'll hold her. Meow, meow, meow. Attend you messed her up.

OGC: Meow, meow, meow. You've got to shake her!

YGC: Attend she didn't like it and she was crying.

OGC: She's hiding. (to the stuffed cat) Don't worry! We'll fix it! Pretend when she said that she came right back up. (to the stuffed cat again) It looks like you like it. (brushing the cat's hair)

(discussion about the right way to brush a cat)

OGC: Pretend this is her home

YGC: And her kittens slept in the Christmas tree. Attend her kitten was sleeping.

Continuing on like this for quite some time...

The Little Demon Up The Street was here this morning. There has been snow (much excitement!) and they played outside, then inside, then outside again. Then Oldest Girl Child asked if she could go play at TLD's house. I told her, "No." She accepted it, albeit with a pout, and went back outside.

I just went to check on them and there is no sign of any children. I have no idea where my children are, but I'm willing to be they're inside TLD's house again.

I hate, hate, hate this. I don't want to have to be harsh with her. I've re-evaluated my stance again and again, but I can't see that I am being unreasonable. I need to know where she is. I need to know if she's inside someone's house. I cannot let her run wild around the neighborhood without accountability. The world is just too dangerous for that. All I ask is that she let me know where she is. I try to keep the Nos to a minimum. She still is fighting me on this, though.

I have to figure out what to do next. I have no idea what consequence to use next. She was grounded for a week this last time. Do I make her start checking in with me every 15 minutes? Ground her for longer? When I was little, I would have gotten a hairbrush, belt or wooden spoon to the bottom for this kind of behavior. I don't agree with that kind of punishment, but I do have to say it had its advantages. I would have been much too frightened to pull this sort of stunt (at least not twice.) But ruling that out still leaves me with a problem - how do I convince her to obey me without terrorizing her?

Can I quit this gig? Just go have a nice easy career solving world hunger, finding a cure for mental illness, or discovering the key to Faster Than Light travel? 'Cause that would be simpler than trying to raise my children to be responsible, capable adults, I think. Easier than trying to teach them to be independent while keeping them safe.

Or maybe I'll just go hit my head with a hammer. It'll make a nice change of pace.

So, y'know, the question of the day is - How do I keep my sweet, darling, precious little angel from being sullied by her association with that nasty little hooligan over there, who is constantly finding ways to lure my little snookums into terrible acts of deception, manipulation, disrespect and general misbehavior?

No, really. Stop laughing, guys. I am serious!! How the heck do I keep my kid away from the bad influence of The Little Demon Up The Street? I have been wrestling with this all week.

The other day Oldest Girl Child went up the street to play with TLD. I had specifically told her that I didn't want her going inside to play. I wanted her to play outside. It wasn't that cold and after being in school all week she needed the exercise. Besides, playing inside with TLD tends to lead to trouble. Like the Nail Polish Incident. And the Deliberately Running Away And Excluding Youngest Girl Child Incident. Not to mention the TLD Lying To OGC And YGC About People Being Mad At Them Incident. And a host of other Incidents.

That day, I wanted to surprise the girls with a movie (a real movie, in a real theater with popcorn, even) so when it was time to go I went outside to call OGC home. There was no sign of her, so I went and knocked on TLD's door. There she was, inside, a guilty look on her face, absolutely and completely busted.

I talked with her when we got home. I was very calm and patient, but firm. (Really, I was. I didn't yell once. Not even a little bit.) I talked with The Love of My Life and Father of My Children and we agreed that grounding was appropriate. We did allow her to go to the movie with me and YGC since that is an unusual treat and it seemed overkill to take it away, but we gave her a choice. She could have a couple of extra days of being grounded, or she could stay home from the movie. (She chose the movie and the extra days of grounding, obviously.)

When we got home from the movie, OGC had a quiet talk with her father about the importance of obeying us and the dangers of going somewhere without telling us. Afterward he came to me, rather shaken up. He had gotten his first ever serious rebellion from OGC. As he described it to me, she wasn't bored, or distracted. She was flat out rebellious, taking a you-are-so-stupid-attitude toward him.

He wanted her to never play with TLD again, feeling that this attitude was not natural to OGC, but something she had picked up from her friend. Now, I've been thinking this same thing for awhile. As I said before, there have been a number of incidents with TLD that have more than alarmed me. I haven't felt comfortable with just banning her, though. I thought that would provoke further rebellion, and I wasn't sure how well I could enforce that rule since she just lives a few houses away. I did not want OGC playing up there with her anymore, though, since my attempts to keep control of the situation have been so easily undermined.

Soooo... We've been thinking this over this week. I expressed the feeling that we were looking at two ends of the spectrum, and we needed to find a third solution. Not to ban TLD forever, and not to let the situation (clearly a negative one) continue, but something else, something in between the two extremes. After thinking it over, and talking with a few people I trust, this is what we came up with:

She can keep playing with TLD, but it has to be over here, where I can supervise the situation. I even managed to put it to her in a way that didn't upset her. I explained that TLD's parents have a different way of looking at the world than we do, and it's not fair to expect them to make sure that OGC makes the sort of choices that we think are appropriate. Therefore, since our standards are the stricter, and since she plays over there so much anyway, it would only be fair to have TLD play over here. That would make things easier for TLD's parents, and give them a break from always having the kids there.

I am hoping, honestly, that TLD will not want to play here. If she does come over, though, I will make sure I stay in the same room as the girls and aggressively monitor what is happening. That will let me break up any bad behavior before it gets a foothold, not to mention allowing me to keep my peace of mind.

Can we do this? Can we Provide A Good Influence? Tame the Demon? Teach her to Play Nicely and Tell The Truth?

Time Will Tell ...

Around the beginning of November Oldest Girl Child and Youngest Girl Child walked up to me in the kitchen, wearing I-have-something-important-to-say expressions.

"Mommy," said OGC, "It's about time we start ..."

She paused, looking for the right words. YGC helped out with a conspiratorial, "You knooooow ..."

I thought rapidly. "Being good for Santa?" I contributed.

There were eager nods and grins. I laughed.

"I have a hunch," I told them, "that Santa looks at your behavior the whole year, not just right before Christmas."

The eager faces suddenly looked nervous.

Now, only a few days from Christmas, I am ready to pull my hair out. Forget the rest of the year. They can't even be good for five minutes at a time this close to Christmas!

I am dreading Christmas vacation. Why, oh why, do the stupid schools have to shut down for two weeks?

Every year when we put up the plastic tree, we have cookies and eggnog. The kids and I put the tree together, while their father takes pictures. Sometimes the girls like to dress up. We always use multi-colored lights, because I am the one who buys the decorations and that's what we had when I was a kid. I like a tree with those kind of lights.

Either Mommy or Daddy puts the lights on, then the kids put the ornaments on. We have a tree skirt I made many years ago, some old glass ornaments I got at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store when I lived in Oregon, several newer glass ornaments (that are gradually decreasing in number as one or two break every year) and a large number of figurine-type ornaments that were either gifts from friends and family, or made by the girls at school and church.

This year we have two new ornaments - a wreath the Youngest Girl Child made out of sparkly pipe cleaner and a milk jug lid ring, in kindergarten, and a styrofoam ball studded with beads and sequins precariously held on with pins made by Oldest Girl Child. The ball is already starting to shed pins and I worry for its longevity.

We also have: a tongue depressor Star of David (OGC), a tongue depressor snowman (YGC), a tongue depressor Rudolph (OGC), a felt-and-pipe-cleaner sled made by one of my sisters and given to me many, many years ago, a blue glass ball with "Merry Christmas R.S. '98" written on it in puffy gold paint (given to me by a friend who died a few years later), a white plaster (I think) snowflake on a blue background (OGC), a plastic bead wreath (unknown), manger figurines I bought a few years before I met my husband (baby Jesus has been lost for years), and a piece of lace the girls found at the bottom of one of the boxes which I used to use as garland back when I was roommates with Cari.

At the top of the tree we have a star, also lit up with multi-colored lights. and another decoration that I brought with me when I got married. The girls both want to be the one to put it up on the top of the tree, so we arranged things this year so that they could both have their hands on it when it went on. (That's another good thing about an artificial tree - it's really easy to make the star stay on.)

There's nothing on there that would impress a decorator, but I love everything on there. Christmas trees are supposed to be gaudy and tacky and full of little kids' art projects. There's a law about it. Somewhere.

I spent tonight teaching my daughters the fine art of artificial tree branch fluffing.

When I was a kid, we always had a real tree. One year it was a live tree, in a wooden barrel half. I think my parents were being ecologically correct that year. (The tree went outside after Christmas was over. I don't remember what happened to it after that, although I would be willing to lay money on it having died of neglect eventually. Green thumbs do not run in my family. Herbicidal thumbs do.) A couple of times we went out to tree farms and cut them down ourselves. Most years we just went to a tree lot.

Dad would always get the biggest tree that would fit in our house. The house we lived in when I was in high school had cathedral ceilings, and he really went all out after that, at least as far as height went. You see, a 10 or 12 foot tree is not cheap - unless you are going for the very tall Charlie Brown tree. Especially when you are buying it on Christmas Eve just before the lot closes for the year. I wish I had a picture of some of those trees. Not much in the way of branches, but they were certainly tall!

I was a Christmas tree purist when I was young. Artificial trees? Blasphemy! Yet here I am, on my *mumblemumble* year of our artificial tree, and very happy with it. OK - there's no smell. There are also no needles that are still being vacuumed out of the carpet in March. No worry about the dog drinking the tree's water and poisoning himself with tree food / preservative. No stress about scheduling when to get a tree, and how to get it home. No having to make sure to remember to put it out at the right time to have the garbage service pick it up free of charge.

So my children will have fond Christmas memories of putting the tree together before decorating it. That's OK. We have a living pine in a pot on our porch. If I remember to transplant into a bigger pot this spring, it might not even die.

Oldest Girl Child has announced that she is too old to call me Mommy anymore. Her friends all call their mothers Mom, and she has decided it is time for her to do the same. She let me know this yesterday, and has been working on it ever since. At first, she kept slipping up, but now she is calling me Mom fairly reliably.

It's a shock every time I hear the word Mom coming out of her. There's a little flash of pain that deafens me for a moment and grays out my vision. I'm losing something precious here, even more than when she made the change from baby to toddler. This is as big as when she went off to her first full day of school.

I remember when I made that change. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember that same feeling OGC describes - the feeling that I was much too old to call my mother Mommy; that it was time for me to start calling her Mom. I was so proud of myself. I felt so mature and grown up. I understand how OGC feels right now; I wonder if my mother felt as sad as I do.

Youngest Girl Child is not happy with the change. This morning she made it clear that she has no intention of ever doing the same thing - she will call me Mommy forever. OGC told her (in that smug big sister way) that she would change her mind when she got to be OGC's age. YGC indignantly denied it. OGC insisted she would. I had to separate them at that point.

Recently I was teaching my Sunday class of five year olds about the importance of obeying your parents. "I know my mommy's name!" one little boy burst out. "It's Mommy!"

"Good-bye, Mom!" OGC called this morning as she headed out the door to the bus.

My name is Mom now. I'd rather be Mommy.

The context: Driving past the local high school and the technical institute next door.

Oldest Girl Child: (pointing to technical institute) When will I go to that school?

Mommy: Well, that depends on what classes you take in high school. Some classes are over there, like if you want to learn to be a mechanic.

OGC: What school do you go to if you want to cut hair?

Mommy: (firmly) First you have to graduate from high school. Then you can go to a beauty college.

YGC: What school do you go to be a princess?

Mommy: Oh, you don't go to school for that, sweetie. You have to be born a princess. Or marry a prince.

YGC: (extreme disappointment)

When last we left our heroine, she had been dropped into the Paleozoic Era by the evil wiles of Professor Periwinkle! Barely had she stumbled from the chamber of Professor Periwinkle's time machine than she was snatched up by the fearsome Nemicolopterus, and hoisted into the skies to be carted home as an offering to its rapacious offspring! Fortunately for our heroine her struggles proved too great for the creature's grasp and she broke free - only to find herself plummeting through caustic gases toward the crater of an immense volcano that was actively spewing molten lava! We take up our story where we left off ...

"And that, Janet, is how I repaired the time machine, captured Professor Periwinkle, and was reunited with my one true love, who turned out to secretly be a Time Patrol Agent - the same Time Patrol that Periwinkle was seeking to uncreate with his dastardly manipulation of time."

"Golly, Jennifer! What an amazing story! Whoever would have thought it was possible to accomplish such amazing feats of intelligence and physical prowess! And all this from a middle-aged mother of two!"

"Well, thank you, Janet, but I'm nothing out of the ordinary. Why, everything I've done could have been done by any woman with the courage of her convictions, a pure love for her husband and children, and a pocket-sized nuclear device."

"But weren't you afraid of altering the time-stream and forever changing the future?"

"Oh, Janet, that was never a concern! The futuristic Danellian supermen put everything to rights! But enough about me; is this your new pet Tyrannosaurus? What an adorable little thing. Look! He fits right in the palm of my hand!"

OK - time to jump back into Vintage Photo Fridays!

These old school photos are all of my mother-in-law. The Kilgore referred to is Kilgore, Texas. Later on she became a Kilgore Rangerette, which my husband informs me is a Big Deal and Very Impressive.

Genetics crops up again, here. In the first two photos I can really see the resemblance to Youngest Girl Child, but in the two later photos she reminds me of Oldest Girl Child. I see my husband and The Boy Child in the two youngest photos, too.

It's most striking in the first and last photos - '42/'43 and '47/'48. I've seen that exact same expression on YGC's face ('42/'43). In the last photo, it's the way she's looking at the camera. She smiles like her oldest granddaughter and has a look in her eyes that I've seen in OGC's eyes.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

I am sitting in the house, nearly alone. The Boy Child is the only one here and he is leaving soon to go hang out with some friends. My Sweetheart has gone to work, the girls are gone to school. I have been working on shoveling out the living room, which was left in a more than usual state of chaos this morning.

Except for the buzz of the computer fan and an occasional metallic clack from the dryer, everything is quiet.

I am handling the first day of school very well. I seem to have gotten my weepies out of the way last night at 10:30 p.m. when I turned off the movie I'd been watching and starting my nightly closing-up routine. That's when it hit me that I would spend the next day without a warm little cuddlebug filling the house with her special brand of sunshine, and I broke down and spent about half an hour crying.

Yesterday was filled with getting ready. There was paperwork from orientation to be filled out, clothes to be laid out, pictures to be taken (for the school's star student* forms), backpacks to be filled up, and interspersed throughout the whole thing Oldest Girl Child's fits of glee, and Youngest Girl Child's bouts of, "But I don't want to leave you, Mommy!" followed by hugs and weeping. Her weeping, not mine.

Not that YGC was as upset as she made herself out to be. Her feelings were real, but I know her well enough to recognize when she's exaggerating or pretending more than she's really feeling. I've probably mentioned before that she does this thing where she sometimes decides how she's supposed to feel and then acts it out. Unfortunately, these feelings usually tend to be negative. She decides she's afraid of something, or some situation, for example. Or she decides she's shy. Or she decides she doesn't like something. That's what she's been doing with school - taking her normal trepidation and acting out this dramatic, negative scenario.

I recognize what she's doing, because, well, that's what I used to do when I was little. It wasn't a positive trait for me either. In fact, it caused me a great deal of trouble in my early years, especially the tendency toward being negative. If I had allowed myself to be positive, it might have worked to help me, instead of hinder me, but... *shrug* With YGC, I'm working on teaching her to overcome that negativity, to be positive and find a way to make the good happen, instead of going all passive and moving to avoid the bad that might never come.

I hope I am doing the right things to help her. It scares me to think of how difficult her life will be if she doesn't learn this.

For example: Last night OGC said to me, "Mommy, do you remember the girl who sat at my table during orientation? I think she wants me to be her friend. She looked like she was shy."

I couldn't help flashing back to what YGC said after leaving her orientation. "I don't think they want to be my friends."

They are both going to be self-fulfilling prophecies, if I can't head YGC off.

When she forgets to be negative, though, YGC is very excited about going to school. Just before bedtime last night the two of them were literally jumping with excess energy and the decibel levels were getting alarmingly high.

We had orientation a couple of nights ago, which had us going to the school for the girls to meet their new teachers, and for me to get school supply lists and find out what the teachers' expectations are for this school year.

YGC's teacher seems very nice. YGC had drawn a picture for her (a fountain, I was informed, looking at the confusion of blue marker blobs and lines) which we gave her as soon as we got in the room. She smiled brightly at YGC, thanked her and said she'd hang it up. She gave us a sheet of paper with everything we might need to know - start times, lunch times, etc. I would have loved her for that alone. In Oldest Girl Child's previous years at school no-one has ever done that for me. I know more now about how the school operates than I ever have.

OGC's teacher is the only man teaching in this school. I think this will be a good experience for her. I was impressed by his manner during the orientation, and rather taken aback by his announcing that the kids didn't need to bring any school supplies. He will provide everything they need, although we are welcome to donate anything we like. So I sent OGC off to school this morning with everything we'd bought for her, telling her to give it to her teacher.

We've been working for the last month on getting YGC in the habit of getting up at 6:30. She is a little night owl, much like her parents, and has always been resistant to a schedule. Oh, I could get her on one, if I worked hard enough, but the first breath of wind that came along would knock her off that perch.

Really, the amazing thing is not that YGC is a night owl, but that OGC is such a lark. She's been waking up at 6:30 all summer, just because that's what she's used to and she likes to get up that early. She's like my brother S, who has also always mystified me. After half a lifetime of early risings I still hate, hate, hate them, and take several minutes to figure out how to keep my balance and make my eyes focus. If I jump out of bed too quickly I tend to walk into walls.

To make life easier (on me), we bought the girls a nightlight alarm clock. OGC is usually up before the alarm goes off, but YGC has been waking up very nicely to the alarm and, after taking a few minutes (to get her balance and focus her eyes?), will stagger out to the living room, wrapped in a blanket. She'll huddle in a corner of the couch watching some half hour show, like Fetch, or Cyberchase, then emerge to announce that she's hungry.

Last night, we discussed the morning procedure for school days. "No TV until you are dressed!" I told them. OGC was fine with this. In fact, she was up and mostly dressed when I staggered out of the bedroom this morning. My alarm goes off five minutes before theirs, so I was able to hear their alarm when it went off. YGC staggered out, OGC went to turn on the TV, and I stopped her. "Remember? Clothes?"

"Oh, right!" So then OGC turned to chivvying her sister into her clothes.

TV is a great motivator. YGC was moving in record time.

Their father is working swing shift right now, but he wanted to be up to see them off, so I got him up at a quarter after, and he joined us for scripture study and family prayer. Then we headed off to the bus.

Which was 20 minutes late.

This was good and bad. It gave YGC time to play with the other kids at the bus stop and relax. It also, however, gave her more time to agonize and cry and worry about bad things. In the end, though, when the bus drove off she was grinning as she waved to me from her window.

And then I went home and took a nap, which was absolutely delicious. Right now I feel rather weird, kind of twitchy and itchy. Even with TBC here the house feels empty. I'm feeling very relaxed after that nap (two whole hours!! Do you know how long it's been since I took a long nap like that? Usually I catch, at most, 15 minutes, and even then it's frequently been while sitting up with YGC on my lap.) I've been cleaning, while rejoicing that it won't all be undone in the next half hour. I would listen to music, but I'm enjoying the silence way too much. It's so nice and peaceful here right now.

But the emptiness is still making my skin feel weird.
___________________________________________
* Every student at the school fills out one of these forms. Over the year the school counselor will randomly draw a few every week, which will go up in the cafeteria until the next week. When they come down, the kids get to take them home, along with a folder and a certificate and pencil. I guess it is meant to be a self-esteem builder kind of thing.**

**Something that tends to backfire on OGC. Last year she came home from field day with a ribbon for participation. She ignored it until I picked it up and said, "Oh! You got a ribbon?" She kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, everyone got one of those." It's now just another toy, played with rather less than most of the others. She does enjoy being a star student and having her picture up, though. She adores attention.

I've been reading Kira's blog, Kiwords, for years. Not only is she a brilliant writer, it's a fascinating glimpse into life with little boys, something of which I know very little. (The Boy Child was no longer particularly little when his father and I married.)

In Kira's latest post (about triumphing over a video game that had given her trouble) she says:

"Can I try now?" Raphael wanted to know. "Can I have a turn?"

But no, he couldn't because it was bedtime.

I immediately visualized how a statement like that would go over in my estrogen laden household, and I couldn't help but wonder if boys react anything like girls to being told, "Sorry, but it's bedtime. Fun's over. Go brush your teeth."

Is there an immediate emergency siren-like wail of despair? Stomping? Inadequate teeth-brushing as a way of punishing the mean mommy?

Do they lurch as they stomp, physically overcome by the cruelty of the world until they cannot walk without throwing themselves about, reeling side to side, backward and then forward with every step? Are there slammed doors? Is there earsplitting weeping, sufficient to make the dead wince and cover their ears?

Is there prolonged sulking once the initial dramatics are over? Pouting as they throw themselves onto a corner of the couch, staring blankly at the TV screen? Can you see a recounting of past wrongs done to them flickering across their little faces? Do they slump over with groans of despair and anguish to lie obstructively across the couch so that no-one else can sit down?

Do they yell at their siblings?

Am I going through all this because I have girls, or because I have children? TBC was not inclined to dramatics until he became a teenager. If the girls increase the drama by the same percentage that TBC did ...

Wow. Ummm - can I just go hide in a hole when that happens? Please?

I'm trying to figure out where I got this song from. I think I remember my mother singing it to us when I was a kid, but the memory is fuzzy. I started singing it to my children in the mornings when I was getting them out of bed, several years ago.

Good morning!
Good morning!
Good morning!
Good morning I say!

Good morning!
Good morning!
And have a good day!

Is anyone (siblings o' mine, chip in, please!) familiar with this song? Did my mother make it up, or did it come from some longer song?

I'll ask her, too, but honestly, I doubt she'll remember. She tends not to remember stuff like that.

I need to blog. I really, really do. I have neglected the blog shamefully for the past couple of weeks. And I have things to say, I really do. In fact, I've taken to noting them down, listing the ideas as they hit me.

Someday I might actually do something with those ideas. Today, however, and probably for the next little while to come, every time I sit down to write all I can think about is, "School! My baay beee!!" and then my stomach gets all tight and I have to fight off tears.

I am such a wimp.

But, oh! She is so soft and cuddly and warm! She fits so perfectly on my lap. She is going to be gone All Day Long. She will come home talking about friends who are only names to me. She will have all sorts of experiences that I will never know about. She will have problems and have to solve them all by herself, because I won't be there.

This is good for her. This is good for her. Keep chanting that, Jennifer. This is good for her!

It just stinks for me.

Because I am a wimp.

Yes, yes, I have mixed feelings about Youngest Girl Child going off to school. We all knew this was coming. No matter how excited I get about once again having a life that does not involve being continually on stage, having to scrutinize myself constantly to assess the example I am presenting, I am still letting my baaay beeee! (sob) go away from me for hours and hours a day, five days a week, into the care of strangers who will surely not care nearly as much about her sensitive nature and tender heart as I do.

And today I found out that it's all going to be four hours a week longer than I thought it would be.

I still haven't gotten anything telling me who YGC's teacher will be, so I was nosing around the school district's website, trying to find out if the letters have gone out yet. I noticed the new bus schedules were up, so I clicked on it to confirm what time the bus will hit our stop, and if the stop is going to be in the same place as last year.

The bus will be using the same stops as last year. The pick up and drop off times have changed dramatically. The girls will have to be at the bus stop 20 minutes earlier in the morning. They will be dropped off 30 minutes later. That's an extra 50 minutes a day on the bus.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that my kids are one of the first stops in the morning. In the afternoon, the bus takes the same route, in reverse, which means my kids are one of the last stops in the afternoon. In other words, the bus turns left in the morning, after entering the subdivision, and right in the afternoon, so that the kids who get picked up last in the morning are the kids who get dropped off first in the afternoon.

This annoys me. Very, very much. I intensely dislike how much time the schools claim out of my childrens' lives as it is, and now they're taking another hour a day. For no good reason! It's not like I can't make good use of this time. I've got quite a bit for them to do every day, and only so long before bedtime to get them through homework, chores, outside play time, dinner, and family socializing. I'd like to start Oldest Girl Child on piano lessons this year, which adds another daily commitment. And how am I supposed to find the time to let them take some other kind of lessons, like ballet, without pushing bedtime back - which I am not willing to do?

I'll have to think this over for a few days, make sure I'm not emotional about it anymore, and then maybe call the school district and ask them to reconsider the first on / last off thing. Could we at least have the first kids on in the morning be the first kids off in the afternoon?

The context: The Best Daddy Ever had been gone for a week. Youngest Girl Child cried every day on my shoulder about how much she missed her Daddy. His daily phone calls were momentous occasions and the Ceremony of Crossing Off the Remaining Days was an event not to be missed, lest there be floods of tears and storms of weeping.

Daddy: (walks in the door, home at last)

YGC: (racing up and throwing her arms around his knees) Daddy! (backs up a few steps to be able to look into his face) What did you bring me?

According to Youngest Girl Child, it is impossible for her to sleep, "...because it's too dark." This just scant hours after having told us that she was too tired to participate in Family Home Evening. She was too tired, she informed us, "...because I didn't get enough exercise today."

Recently YGC has taken to staying up until around 11 p.m, which means that at least one of her parents also gets to stay up, as a deterrent to naughtiness and dangerous behavior. (If you have children you have no need to ask, "What dangerous behavior?" If you are unfamiliar with this miniature form of the human species, allow me merely to point out - 1) Complete mobility, 2) No experience to speak of, 3) Judgment that measures somewhere in the negative numbers, 4) A degree of impulsiveness that makes a butterfly look like a tortoise.)

The Love of My Life and Father of My Children has just gone to bed after informing me that, "I'd have had children just for the comedy value." He has been dealing with YGC's excuses ever since her bedtime, while I cravenly escaped to our room, where I spent the evening leisurely reclining upon the pillows, reading science fiction and enjoying myself hugely.

It is 10:30 p.m. Do you know where your children are? Mine is lurking in her bedroom doorway, trying to find a way to convince me to let her come out and watch TV.