truer words have not been spoken

Both girls are home all day, every day for two weeks until school starts after Labor Day. We are all driving one another crazy.

Sylvie spends all day channeling Godzilla. Caroline spends all day putting a chair behind her door to keep Sylvie from entering and ruining whatever toy set up she has meticulously arranged. Then Sylvie spends all day drawing all over Caroline's door with a colored pencil (when she's not flooding the bathroom). Then Caroline discovers this, and is irate! "How dare she! She ruined my door!" I'm usually googling "mother's little helper canadian pharmacy" by 9am.

At the end of the day yesterday, Sylvie decided she wanted to be full of love. So she walked between Caroline and me, hugging each of us repeatedly. Caroline was a perfectly patronizingly older sister. "Aw, isn't that so cute and adorable that she can hug now?" She hugged Sylvie back, "I love you, Sylvie." Sylvie hugged her again and said, "I wuv you, Care-wine."

Caroline gasped and put her hands to her cheeks. "Did you hear that? That was amazing!"

Then she looked at me and said very seriously, "These little ones sure can be pesky. A lot. But they are good to have around."

the pink poodle avenger

Caroline came downstairs in costume and in character. She was wearing her black soccer shin guards (no socks), metallic pewter bow ballet flats, a turquoise and pink heart nightgown, a wide rainbow headband, and a grimace. She was "the dark side, fierce Caroline." She showed me her secret weapons: a tiny piece of black cardboard ("my strength"), a black labrador figurine ("my power"), and her beloved black stuffed animal puppy Nesty ("my protector"). She told me to prepare to defend myself against her dark side powers.

I told her it was kind of hard to take her fierceness and darkness seriously when she was wearing a rainbow headband.

She never broke character when she uttered in a very Clint Eastwood tone, "Well, the blue in the rainbow is dark blue, and that's what matters."

a fond farewell

Today was Caroline's last day of the preschool "camp" summer session. This means it was her last day ever at her preschool. She's been there since shortly after she turned 2. She spent one year in the toddler program, then two years in the preschool program. So more than half her life has been spent with those wonderful teachers, and some of the kids have been with her all three years. It's tough for her (and us!) to process that she will not be there anymore. Thankfully, we have Sylvie starting the toddler program now, so she will still be able to visit on days she doesn't have school.

At the end of every year, I copy down Caroline's sentiments for her teachers (and it's verbatim, which can be interesting to say the least). This year was no different. She drew cards for each of her teachers and assistant teachers. A few:


The comments written for each one varied, of course, but included stuff like:

You are very mellow, and I love that about you. You help me and my friends so much. Thank you, and I'll miss you. Love, Caroline.

...

I'm going to miss you so much. I wish that you could be at my kindergarten. I've loved that you've been helping me for two years. I'll give you a hug before I go. Thank you. Love, Caroline

...

Thanks for being so cool. You have a very cool attitude! [Seriously, Mom. She has a very cool attitude.] Thanks for helping me this summer. Okay, here comes the end: I LOVE YOU, ANGELA. [heart] Caroline

She wanted to write one more after I thought we were done (and all the teachers and the director were done!). So I told her she'd have to do all the writing herself, since she'd only done the signature and I love yous on the other cards. I left her to her card, having no idea what she was doing. She called to me in the kitchen, "How do you spell 'being'?"

I eventually came to see what she was up to. She had finished her card. A card to the new school gerbils.


And inside?

the hard sell

We are trying to wring all the joy out of the waning days of her last summer as a little kid. So in the midst of busy summer days, I've been bad at paying attention to things I should record here.

She spent a couple days at a cottage with her cousins. Her cousins all have Nintendo DS systems. A long time ago, when she was probably a young 3, she begged for a DS after seeing these same cousins play on theirs. I am semi-anti-video game. So I made her a deal that seemed great at the time. She couldn't have a DS until she could read. I thought this would buy a couple years. Little did I know that she'd be able to read less than a year later. So I fudged the rules. She could have a DS when she could read an entire book cover to cover with no help. She was young enough to think this was the original agreement. But that came sooner than I was ready, as well. So I fudged the rules again, thinking I'd be able to coast until the end of kindergarten. And I told her she could have a DS when she could read a Level 3 book cover to cover with no help. Well, crap. She did that a while ago. But she had forgotten about this deal. Until her mini-vacation.

I got a call while she and her dad were en route home.

"Mama. How about that DS?"

No greeting or declaration of missing me.

"You said I could have one when I could read a Level 3 book, and I read that one about Tinkerbell a long time ago. So..."

@#(!*#

So she got home and walked in the door and handed me her father's iPhone, where she had typed a notepad message to me that said:

Hello momy i rily want my ds
But i will haft to prove that i will win
my ds and my ds games

I read it and looked up.

She said, "Ok, I'm going to go upstairs right now and dig up a book and come back down and read it to you, and then you can go get my DS. I will get the Marley book and prove that I can read this stuff. It's harder than a Level 3."

I winced.

"Mom. Prepare to be impressed... and then get your purse."

they sell those along with baby reds and fingerlings

Caroline and I were discussing a preschool issue. She had been up late the night before [stupid parents], and then at school she overreacted with sobs and drama during a transition time because she really wanted to finish her drawing. We talked about it, and she said she was embarrassed that her teacher had told me about it.

"I don't know why I freaked out, Mom. Putting away markers is really just such minor potatoes. I could have finished it later."

filling in the blanks

In the reading log our library gives to Summer Reading Program participants, there is a little survey of sorts to get kids thinking about their own stories. I discovered that Caroline had filled this out on her own.

The person who understands me best is Ardin because LOVE!!

Arden is her best friend.

...

You might think that I'm shy, but I'm also nice.

Hm. Shy? Hm.

...

One wish I have is... TO : BE : A : CAT

She gets her desire to be a cat and affection for punctuation from her mom.

...

My story begins when... Im a baby rememir?

"I'm a baby, remember?"

a reasonable conclusion

Caroline was eating her lunch at the dining room table, looked up, and gasped. She said, "Something is weird in the living room!"

She ran kind of tensely to the living room and crept up to the corner where she saw suspicious activity.

She stood up and relaxed.

"It was just Sylvie's blanket, all bunched up. At first I thought it was an anteater."

healthy image

While examining her forearm closely, she ranted, "Why do I have tiny little hairs on my arms? Like, what's the reason? I don't get it! And pores! I don't even understand why we need ugly little holes in our skin. It's humiliating."

that explains it

Spontaneous conversation.

Caroline: Thanks for the cup of water, Mom. I really love you.

Mama: Oh! You're welcome. I love you, too.

Caroline: You are such a special person to me, Mama.

Mama: Wow, thank you. That is very sweet of you.

Caroline: I just love you SO MUCH!

Mama: You are super lovey today, huh?

Caroline: Yes, there are a bunch of pink hearts in my head, floating around. That's why.

whippersnapper

We were without power from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday morning. The hottest days in a couple years, what a nice coincidence. We bunked up with a very kind and generous cousin of Chuck's, the beloved Uncle Mark. His wife and kids were at a cottage on Lake Michigan, so it worked out well in terms of space and fun.

One morning Chuck and Caroline were playing outside in the kids' play fort/swing set which has an "address" of 752 (their ages at the time Mark built it - 7, 5, and 2).

Caroline asked why those numbers were there. Chuck explained. Caroline was confused and asked if cousin Jessica is really the same age as she is. After Chuck explained that this was built 4 years ago, and now the kids are 11, 9, and 6, and they're all older than her.

She was very upset to hear this so bluntly. "That's not fair! Now they won't respect me!"