What Matters

Maybe it's the heat. Or maybe it was the junk food fest she enjoyed yesterday at an over-the-top birthday party in Gwinnett. Or maybe she was tired. For whatever reason, Clara was a royal pain for most of the day. Crying. Pushing Margaret. Hitting Margaret. Not eating breakfast. Lying down in her chair at the table. And worst of all, provoking the cat and ending up with a scratch close to her eye. We either have to give away our lovely kitty or have her front claws removed. It's only a matter of time before she catches Clara in the eyeball. And then we will have a dog in the house, a seeing-eye dog.
And then, right as we were getting ready to go swimming, Clara started hitting Meowie with a squirt gun she got at the birthday party yesterday. So Clara didn't get to go swimming. She stayed in her crib most of the time Margaret and I were splashing around.
To cut to the chase, because I'm so tired:
When the girls were in bed, Clara asked me to stay with her while she was going to sleep. She hasn't asked me to do that in months, maybe even a year, so I decided to comply. I sat down next to her crib and stuck my hand through the slats. She took my hand and drew it under her blanket and started petting it. Then she reached her hand out and put it on my face. I was so tired, and thinking about what a horrible mother I am, that I started crying. She just looked at me and held my hand. She didn't seem upset or troubled by my tears. God knows, Clara produces a lot of tears herself. We are constantly making salty tear-water tea.
I think I was crying because it was so touching to me to have my little daughter asking for me to stay with her and holding my hand like one of her stuffed animals. She won't need me like this for very much longer. She kept peeking at me over her blanket to make sure I was there. (Margaret had been asleep for about twenty minutes before Clara's eyelids started getting heavy--thanks to the swimming.) I started singing "All the Pretty Little Horses," a song that always put Clara to sleep as a baby, and she gave out this shuttering kind of breath and seemed to relax, deeply.
It makes me miss my mother even more, because she was the one person who would be deeply interested in the kind of details about Clara I could provide for her. How Clara's eyebrows knit together in the Roberts scowl. How strong her little hands are and how much she likes to get her hands in dough of all kinds. How Clara makes a nest every night when she's going to bed. Gene says I do the same thing. And how blessed I am to have her. I tell Clara I waited my whole life for her to come, and she smiles and says, "Here I am, I'm here now."

Being Mama

When we play pretend, Clara can be Daddy and Margaret can be Stuart. But they never let me be anyone but Mama. Maybe for an instance, I can claim to be Tio or Tanna, but then they laugh and tumble into my laugh and both say, "You're just Mama, my mama." And since I learned I was carrying the two of them in my tummy, as they say, I have known this is who I would become. I think about them all the time. If we are apart--like now, when Gene has taken them to the grocery and the library--I wonder if they are okay, are they thirsty, will they tell him when they need the potty, will he be able to spot when Margaret is squeezing her body so she won't poop. If we are together, I wonder if I can continue to laugh and enjoy and engage them without getting too tired, wonder what and how I will fix for supper, hoping Clara will start to eat better and Margaret will fill up, because she never refuses food and just burns it all off. Only when I am sitting in a dark movie theatre do I forget, just for an instance, that I am Mama. I don't think of myself at all, I just watch whatever image is flickering on the screen.
Margaret and Clara don't see skin color, or body size or wrinkles or blotches or any other imperfection or distinction. Margaret easily and often slips her hand into the hand of a stranger who looks like the large woman who runs the church nursery. She and Clara seem to relax and smile when they hear someone speaking Spanish. When they look at me, they don't remember when I was last angry or tired or fed up or even gritting my teeth with frustration. They smile and pat me. And Margaret will lay one of her warm, small hands on my cheek and ask, in her soft voice, "You like me, Mama? You like me tons and tons still?" and I always say, "Tons and tons and more tons, baby."
Because that's what she knows Mama is going to say.

Practice for School

Last week, Margaret and Clara and I went to Bible School. I was a crew leader for the pre-school set, they were part of the crew. When I went to Bible School, we spent a week making baskets out of popsicle sticks or making mosaic tile creations, drinking orange colored liquid and eating? what? I can't remember. Sugar cookies, maybe? We played games and memorized Bible verses and sang a lot and played outside on the church playground.
Now, however, churches buy packaged themes for their Bible Schools. With everything built in, from DVDs to songs tying into the Bible verses, to the crafts and tee-shirts. Quite lucrative for someone. I don't think children will remember the theme as much as they will remember the songs. Or at least Clara and Margaret won't.
It was fun for me to see my girls interacting with other children, noticing differences and playing. Margaret's tendency to scream when something happens she doesn't like, well, that didn't go over well. The other kids stared at her. Clara continued her policing of everyone, making sure everyone was in line, was out of the bathroom and was sharing toys. Margaret actually started singing! which is great. Clara sings so well that Margaret would never sing....but she loves the song "Deep and Wide." And she started giving the Bible School cheer, pumping a fist into the air and yelling, "Fear Not!" they both loved doing crafts, with some success....I heard them saying "please" and "thank you," all the time and I was so happy! I will work with Margaret on her grasping a pencil or crayon and drawing. Her fine motor skills are getting better, but I don't know if she's on peer level or not.
Both Clara and Margaret are excited about coming to school. As long as I accompany them. They firmly believe the three or us are going to pre-school at Emmanuel Day School come August. There is an opening for an assistant teacher at the school, and I am going to put in an application. I've applied for every other job I've heard of, so I might as well go for this one!
I know the girls liked Bible School, because on Saturday morning, they were up early, ready to go out the door. And were disappointed when they learned school was over for this year. I will have to find out whatever happened to the popsicle basket idea....

Likes and Dislikes

Margaret and Clara are both developing preferences for....everything. I thought it would be fun to share a list of likes and dislikes before I forget.

Keys, bags, purses, Mama's shoes, lipstick and lip balm, nail polish, hair care products and camisoles. Dora undies. Going to the library. Max and Ruby. Little Bear. Madeline. Mama's side of the bed. Getting under the covers. Jumping on the bed. Walking through the grocery store aisle. Helping Daddy with any project, from finding ants to fixing the porch. Painting with a paint brush. Pencils. Drawing. Books, reading and re-reading. Drawing on the walls. Brushing teeth. Drinking milky coffee. Cooking. Wearing an apron. Stirring eggs. Helping Margaret. Root beer. Olives. All nuts, from pine nuts to pecans. Finding pecans. Hats of all sorts. All animals. Collecting leaves. Finding a great stick. Walking with a great stick. Watching bugs. Trains. Doing yoga with Mama. Waffle House. Being covered and tucked into her crib. These are Clara's big likes.

Here are Margaret's: looking at photographs. Reading alone and with Mama. Visiting other people's houses. Eating grilled cheese sandwiches at the neighborhood lunch counter. Finding a great stick. Sitting with Mama in church. Milky coffee. The crib, high chair and car seat, basically, any place removed from Clara. Being with Mama. Holding hands. Water. In the sink, the hose, the bathtub or a pool, lake or ocean. Cats and horses. Hair care products. Her kitty shirt (a shirt with a faded yawning kitten that is too small). Her pink pajamas. Watching Little Bear. Max and Ruby, specifically, Max. Reading anything by Rosemary Wells, like Voyage to the Bunny Planet. Lacing animals. Wearing Mama's shoes. Beating bushes with sticks. Swings and swinging. Acrobatics. Doing yoga with Mama. Walking to Earth Fare. Spinach risotto. Tofu. Rice of all sorts. Any kind of egg dish. All fruit except cherries. Broccoli. All kinds of soup. Popcorn. Stuart. Dancing and ring-a-round-the-rosey. Brushing her teeth. Waffle House, talking on the phone.

Their dislikes are similar: raised voices, Mama going to yoga or working in her office too much, strangers who touch them, wolves, having to hurry, Mr. McGregor, water in their eyes, the church nursery, being told "No," having Daddy fix their owies with Bedadine. The big one is being told no, being thwarted. Isn't that a drag for everyone?

Dr. Clara's Cure for Tummy Problems

We took the bus downtown this morning to pick up a chronically troubled bracelet. I had taken it back to the store where I purchased it, long ago, at a ridiculous price. Since then, the stones in it have dropped out like baby teeth. So I decided to get it returned to the maker and to try and shame him or her into repairing it once and for all.
So the three of us boarded the UGA bus and rode through campus to downtown. Clara was carrying a pinwheel she had picked up for church last night (more about that later). She left it in the store and we had to return and retrieve it.
We were planning to end our errands by dropping by a cookie shop for a couple of cookies. Clara was sick last night, really, most of yesterday, with tummy troubles. She ate very little and complained about her tummy hurting her, and we spent much time in the bathroom, reading and hanging out.
Today I said, "I don't think cookies are good for girls with tummy problems, Clara."
She raised one finger and said, "Mama, chocolate cookies are very good for resolving tummy problems. That's the way it is."
She got her cookie.
Yesterday, we went to our church supper, which was slammed with people I had never seen there before. Why? The Day School was having a celebration, and many of the people were parents with children in the school. We headed for the upper playground, where C and M will go when they are in school, and it was crowded with children and parents. Neither girl was having fun. Except they liked the pinwheels they got to take home.
Before we left, though, they asked if we could go sit in on the choir practice. It may be just me, but I think it's a little weird for three year olds to sit quietly through 20 minutes of choir practice. A little boy, about 8, the son of a choir member, was playing with a Gameboy while we were sitting there.
After listening to his machine make its loud noises, Clara said, "Ssshhh. You should turn that down."

Clara in her favorite place

Bidness

This morning the girls woke up with one thing on their minds: lemonade. Creating and running a lemonade stand. No matter that we live on a quiet street. No matter that the street is closed until fall so the city can install drainage lines. Clara was convinced they would have hundreds of customers. The idea came from a Max and Ruby book, I'm sure. But the girls had their own ideas...until I nixed it, they wanted to give their pennies to customers. I explained why this wasn't a good idea.
Luckily, we had a few lemons in the fridge, so we squeezed them and added real sugar and lots of ice. It must be a dentist's nightmare, with the lemon peeling away the enamel and the sugar going to work. But it was really refreshing.
So we moved their picnic table outside and voila! they had an instant lemonade stand. Clara said she couldn't write, but she could draw, and so she drew a sign that, in her mind, said lemonade for sale. It looked like Japanese haiku.
A student from next door bought several cups, at five cents a cup. He confessed he was nursing a hangover and thought the lemonade might help. Then our neighbor Peter and his mom came by, and then our friend Joan. And then Stuart showed up and gave them much more than five cents for his cup. They were both beaming.
We walked to a nearby toy store and Clara picked out her train. She wants a Brio train that she can use at home. I think it costs $21. The thing I like is that both girls are content merely to look at the many wonderful things in this store, without whining when we come home with nothing. Looking costs nothing. Friends of ours own the store, and they buy the coolest, most interesting stuff. Makes me almost want to be little again.
I'll have see if they want to staff the lemonade stand tomorrow.....