Surprises and gratitude

One of the things I'm so grateful for, and feel compelled to report, is that Kate's mornings and evenings are finally settled, and going better. (JINX.) Mornings have started to surprise me, even. She is able to wake up and she WANTS to be the first kid downstairs, dressed and ready. Some days I leave her snoozing in her bed, to go get my socks or say hello to Alex. "I'll give you a few more minutes, Sweetie..." and when I come back, her light is on and she's tying her shoes, for heaven's sake. Blows me away.

I still can't get her to comb her hair on a daily basis, but hey. Fridays is good. Baby steps.


In the evenings, her preferred routine hasn't shortened at all (in fact it might take longer?) but it has ...matured...(?) to this:

• We read chapter books together for 10 or 20 minutes (there are some Tinkerbell/fairy ones - the Never Girls collection -  she likes a lot, as one of the heroines is named Kate and another one is Mia (the name of a friend of hers), or Junie B. Jones books that we've read at least 3 times before, or she kind-of enjoyed a couple of Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew).
• She then spells out exactly what she wants in her lunchbox the next day, and for her 2 snacks, and admonishes me to remember a water bottle.
• She asks me to "give her" a dream, and I've fairly surprised myself by being able to come up with something dream-like and creative on the fly, something different every night... once it was "dream you're tiny and you're playing in a huge tub of popcorn with your friends, and you slide down into it, then toss the popcorn to each other, then eat some, then..." here she interrupts me to add her own embellishments, like "and everything in the world is there? Every thing? a girl could ever want?" And I say, "Sure. It's your dream." and go on like this and try to give her a few things so that her eyes will stay closed for a minute longer after she "starts to dream it." 
• I rub her back while playing her a "Lullaby" playlist that I made on my iPhone (woe to me if I forget the phone, though she's usually willing to go all the way downstairs if it means she'll get to listen to her songs.). The list includes: Amy Grant's "Say Once More," Sting's "Fields of Gold," The Free Design's "Love You" (a song I discovered/listened to when she was an infant), The King's Singers' rendition of Billy Joel's "Goodnight, My Angel," and finally Don Henley singing "Annabel."

It's sweet. Long, but sweet. No more fussing and fighting when I leave. Forever and ever Amen.

There are nights when I make a date with Alex instead. We've been reading Harry Potter IV, The Goblet of Fire, and just finished it this week. I didn't cry. Miracle. Every other night with him, really, would be my preference, but on the other hand, he's older and likes to read by himself more than she does. I find it amusing that he'll read awhile, and then when I come in, he hands the book to me, tells me where he left off, and rolls over to listen to me read the rest.
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He and I had to use our time once last week to read through a very long, required section of his new Boy Scout manual, about avoiding abuse. Yuck. It was yucky. And weird. But as many times as I've read Mir K.'s "under the sink" story, one of the funniest mom-blog posts of all time, I knew that acknowledging that it was weird and awkward and embarrassing would make it better. We got through it. Kid needs to figure out Santa Claus ASAP, though, and let me know, because it's almost time for him to hear the rest of that whole conversation (I think they're starting to approach it in "Family Life" at school (5th grade). I can't have him knowing about s-e-x before he knows about Santa). Yipes. Anyway, GOOD QUALITY TIME talking with my boy is so important to me.
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Spring Break was wonderful. Everything I wanted. The kids swam, the weather was nice so the grown-ups could sit outside, I didn't HAVE to swim with them, but I did, once, we felt the sand under our feet and smelled the healing salt-air at the beach, we hung out with cousins, we had a big dinner party with the fam, and we had the great mornings around the kitchen table that Kate said she loves. I read my book a lot. My parents are the best. I loved every minute of it, and even the driving wasn't so bad.
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It's Friday. GRAAAAAAATEFUL. This week hasn't been too terrible at work. Just your regular assignments and interruptions. Let it be, let go of expectations. Do good work (and keep in touch). I tell myself these things. The mid-week days I look forward to, because after work on Tuesday I take Kate to gymnastics, and on Wednesday I take Alex to piano, and I love attending both of those things. It's free time for me to read, while they're learning and having fun. So those days aren't so bad at all, and by then I've made it to Thursday already.