Always Remember That

“Camp is fun!” Mallory said, about thirty minutes after we arrived. Then she looked back at me. “Camp is fun, right, Mommy?” “Camp” was for Girl Scout leaders and their daughters – a special weekend getaway. I decided to bring my kids to camp so I could get a feel for the facilities and decide if camp was something I would ever want to do with our whole troop. Camp was climbing on logs and rocks and crossing a “swinging” bridge. Camp was Phoebe’s sudden fits of hysteria anytime she, Mallory, or I got separated by more than ten paces. “Mallory, wait!” she would wail, whenever Mallory tried to run ahead. “Mommy, hurry up!” she would holler tearfully, if I was lagging behind. “We have to stay together !” She takes the Buddy System very seriously, does Phoebe. Camp was going on a canoe! We were subject to a 15-minute lecture on Canoe Safety by a woman who called herself, mysteriously, Band-Aid. As Band-Aid spoke about grips and feathering and sterns and pivoting on...

Was surprised to come across the highlighted line in the book I'm reading: The author, in 1997, chose those two names at random for these particular characters (who are never mentioned again). My daughter's names (one of which we chose at random, one of which she inherited). It's just so weird. I'm wondering now if I read this book, some time before December 2001, and then remembered it subconsciously after I got pregnant, and...but no, I know that didn't happen. (This book is kind of dumb, frankly. Memorably dumb.) ---------------------- Here are the lines Phoebe wrote in her "journal" at church last weekend (asking me to spell each word, of course): Turtle on the loose Top secret cat diary Donkey Kong is amazing and awesome Then I told her I couldn't spell any more because it was time to listen to the priest. ----------------------- At a former job, Chris got to write a personal bio for his company's web page. He included the li...

Mallory has changed her mind and no longer wants to be a giraffe for Halloween. You can bet that I did not spend any amount of time trying to change her mind back. Now she wants to be a witch. Phoebe is also going to be a witch, having inherited the witch costume that her Aunt Amy wore for many years as a child, and which was recovered from a box in my in-law's attic and which is still in pristine witchy condition. I went to Target today to look at witch costumes for 8-year-old girls. I found a Sweetie Witch costume of inappropriately short length, and a Fairy Witch costume with purple sequins. I went to the Adult section and found a Spiderweb Witch costume and a Glitzy Witch costume which one would need a whole lot of cleavage to pull off. There were Twinkle Witches and Elegant Witches and Goth Witches and, yes, Sexy Witches too. I just want, for my child, a long black dress, maybe a bit raggedy around the hems, with a plain black cape. I guess I need to learn how to sew.

We received a DVD of the play Mallory was in last summer, and watched it Friday night. Captured on film was Mallory's late entrance for the big "NYC" number. As she watched herself meander across the stage to her mark, Mallory shook her head and said, "Boy, I'm a slowpoke." Perhaps awareness will be the beginning of a cure. But I'm not holding my breath.

We've had a busy week. Last weekend, the girls begged us to let them set up a lemonade stand. They've asked before, and we've vetoed the idea, having visions in our minds of the girls sitting, dejected, in the hot sun, with a full pitcher of lemonade on the table and no ready customers. But I finally said yes because, well, I figured if the no-customer scenario came true, they would at least learn a valuable life lesson about disappointment and commerce and so forth. (Plus, Phoebe made the heartrending plea that "I've wanted a lemonade stand my whole life and it's not fair !") As it happens, the girls sold 4 dozen cookies and 2 gallons of lemonade in about 45 minutes. They made $9 a piece (because I didn't have the heart to charge them for my own time and labor and the price of chocolate chips). Of course, it could be that the only thing worse than an unsuccessful lemonade stand is a successful lemonade stand, in that now they're going to wa...

I thought and thought about how to make the "bio" for my 20-year high school reunion interesting and witty and insightful and memorable. Finally I wrote: My life is not what I expected it would be, 20 years ago. I am less “successful” than I anticipated but more fortunate than I could have imagined. I think that pretty much sums it up.