Last Sunday we sprinted home after church, as you do when church is three long food-less hours. I looked up from foraging in the fridge and wondered where Avery was. Molly in the booster seat eating cheese, check; Lucy not putting her boots away, check; Callie not hanging up her coat, check. No Avery.

She was upstairs on her bed, reading.

Two days before Avery’s birthday we had a party for her friends. In the past my plan has been that the kids can invite half as many people as they are old, and that they must plan, write and deliver the invitations and help with decorations, etc. This cuts down on friend parties quite a bit. In fact, seven-going-on-eight seems to be the age when my kids are aware and determined enough to do their part (that’s seven friend-party-free years!). This year there are only eleven girls in Avery’s fifth grade class and anything exclusionary gives me junior high hives, so I told her she might invite everyone. She stamped her invites with celery-head roses.

(What’s the hooker quotient on those hand-me-down boots from Karin? They’re not black, leather or stiletto. Still . . .)

Eight little girls/almost-grown-ups showed up and dressed pizza rounds. (Question: how does a Mormon girl grow up in exurban Utah and not know how to make pizza?) They drifted upstairs to the dress-up box and then regaled us, in full costume and at full volume, with their Hope of America songs. I probably would have been weepy-eyed if it had been five decibels below eardrum-piercing.

They ate, watched The Princess Bride, opened presents and scarfed down fruit pizza on a sugar cookie base. Tom herded the other cats to bed, then asked Avery how the party was. She had glanced at the balloon bouquet and then never protested her sisters’ gleeful assault on it. “It was the best party ever,” she said.

The next day she and I got up early for a  swim meet in Salt Lake City. She swam respectably in the first session and then we had six hours to kill before the second. We ate a decadent breakfast at a “fancy” (her words)/”tacky” (mine) diner, ran to a store for sunglasses to replace mine that got stepped on and for Avery to spend birthday money on the graphic novel of Twilight (despite all my pleadings). I let her pick a cheap pair of earrings (hope they really are “hypoallergenic”) for her birthday.

(This girl has not experienced nitrous oxide (or anything stronger than Motrin) yet. Oh, the humanity.)

We walked around the Gateway even though it was cold. I realized later that the Anne Mother would probably have encouraged more playful shenanigans in Anthropologie. Since it was my first visit ever, I spent the whole time scared we’d break a whimsical fifty-dollar salt cellar. We were too late to see the second Sherlock Holmes movie, so Avery chose the planetarium and a viewing of Flying Monsters. I didn’t realize that the Amanda Quick heroines who dig for fossils in the caves on the coast in England were so historically-based.

Avery smoked them in the 100 meter freestyle that evening for her final event despite a couple disheartening disqualifications earlier. I mean, beat them by a length almost. Of course, she had a slight advantage being surely the oldest ten-year old there.

We stopped for Chick-fil-A nuggets and then small chocolate shakes on the way home. Avery told me she likes books so much because they never change. You can re-read your favorite parts later and they’re still the same. It was a lovely sentiment, but I had to disagree. When you grow up, I said, books change when you re-read them, and if it’s a good book, that’s not a bad thing. She said she wished today was in a book so she could experience it again. Another lovely thought; I told her she could write about the day any time, in a book or a letter or her journal. She said it wasn’t the same. Sometimes, I think it’s better. In writing or reading, you don’t get the same spine-crunching feeling of suffocating sauna and sound that I did up in the concrete bleachers through endless heats of the thirteen & fourteen-year-old’s men’s backstroke.

On Sunday she turned eleven. She acted embarrassed to be sung to in Primary, but would’ve been devastated if they’d forgotten. Grandma and Grandpa, newlyweds Karin and Justin and Marcy and Hans and their seventeen children all came over for dinner and cake. That night I discovered, hidden in my room, waiting for wrapping, the bag of small presents, a few clothes and a Jessica Day George book, that I’d been gathering for Avery. I kissed her good night and told her she could have them the next day after school. Since she hadn’t asked where they were, or noticed their lack, I wished they were bigger and shinier. But not really.

This year I didn’t go through my usual cycle of Spring = Daydream of Homeschool; Fall = Boot Them Out Now. We had a great summer that was a little crazy with our basement finishing project, and we’re still sucking the marrow out of the warm days and cool evenings. We’re on a hiking-to-waterfalls kick (Stewart Cascades and Battle Creek Falls recently; next up Grotto Falls and Diamond Fork) and finally eating dinner outside.

Avery is at the same charter school as Callie this year and though she still misses her old school, she likes her (male, laid-back) teacher and there’s even a girl from her fourth grade class. I asked if they were friends last year and Avery said, “Well I know her and I don’t hate her.” Here at the smaller school, away from established friend groups, they have progressed to eating lunch together. Could friendship bracelets be far behind?

Avery tried out for the debate team and though it improved my daily prayer habit (tryouts in fifth grade??) it’s an extracurricular activity I can really endorse. There should be no problem ensuring she gets plenty of practice. She’s also swimming and reading too much and I had to take her bra shopping (for fifth grade??) which reminded me of my own mortality and also how much I hate shopping for intimate apparel.

The only fruit fly in our basil is math. You might remember that we worked through half of a Saxon math book last summer after she got a C in third grade. Not that a C is so terrible (though it is, let’s be honest, I got one my sophomore year at BYU so I know), but her attitude is horrible. This summer I took her to a week-long math camp at UVU, after which I got to hear the words “love” and “math” in the same sentence, though the emphasis may have been on the word “camp.”(Seriously, it was their first year doing it and at $45 for 15 hours of a fun, interactive introduction to everything from game theory to cryptography, i.e. A STEAL, I highly recommend.)

Back in the real world Avery enjoys saying she hates math and watching my heart shrivel. Because a) I love math and b) I refuse to raise girls who hate math. I would rather they pierced their noses and tramp-stamped their lower backs than hate math. (Maybe a temporary tattoo on the left forearm.)

Homework is a nightmare. She dawdles, she doodles, she daydreams. We cajole, I yell, Tom commiserates and wanders into bypaths of How This Will Apply When You’re in Algebra. She tested into the 6/5 math group which is right where she should be, and the math groups themselves are small (11-12 kids) and taught by every adult, including the director, at the school first thing every day.

After school she asks me what 6 times 4 is and I want to take the knife I’m cutting up peaches with for their after-school snack and turn it on myself. (I don’t mean to trivialize the mental illness that leads people to cut themselves, but sometimes I honestly think it would be a relief to pull out my eyelashes one by one rather than remind her that 6 times 4 is 24 and always has been, always will be, till the moon turns red and the stars fall from the sky.)

Some days I sit next to her and get frustrated-er and frustrated-er. Some days I don’t say a word and that seems fine: it’s her homework, she’s old enough to be responsible and take the consequences or reap the rewards, but then it’s 9:30 at night and her head droops limply over the heavy book and I even though I know she’ll perk up long enough to read once she’s in bed I just want her to get some sleep.

So I emailed her teacher and asked if I could come watch the math lesson. It seems crazy to have an hour dedicated to math and then have an hour or two of drawn out, make-you-stabby assignment-doing at home. He talked to her math teacher and this morning I went in. They took a test yesterday and Avery was the fourth person to hand it in and she got a 95. She got 100% on the multiplication fact test (I didn’t check to see if 6 times 4 was one of them; I’m assuming not since the nurse didn’t call to report a case of hives, bubonic plague, and dysentery on Wednesday). Avery is fine in class, Mrs. B. said.

Of course she is.

So what do I do then? Mrs. B. said, “Let’s talk to the director, she’s really good about this kind of thing.” We walked over to the director’s office and when Mrs. B. introduced me it took her just a second to say, “You’re here about math right? Though Avery was the fourth done on the test yesterday.” I explained the whole thing and said I was quite open to suggestions. The director said she’d be happy for Avery to do her homework at the school one afternoon. She can sit in Mrs. B’s room and ask her any questions but basically do it on her own. I’m to come after half an hour and then the four of us will sit down and show her the test scores and look over her homework and tell her that since it’s clear she can do it, from now on it’s her responsibility, that it’s up to her whether she does it and gets the points for it or not.

This is my kind of intervention. After 3:30 pm this afternoon in the Year of our Lord 2011, I will not mention the words “math homework” ever again. Amen.

On our walk home from church I reported the conversation to my sensitive ten-year old and told her she had four options: 1) continue as she is, and realize that boys talk about things like underwear when it’s visible (and probably even when it’s not), 2) wear leggings/bloomers/shorts, 3) sit “like a lady,” or 4) go shopping for some nice trousers to wear.

Giving her that fourth option was a little like reverse psychology, hoping she wouldn’t go for it or balk at the other choices if she knew that (as far as I’m concerned) wearing pants wasn’t forbidden (and therefore desirable), but not really like reverse psychology because if she had given me a spiel about it not being fair that boys can sit however they want and that she wanted to wear pants too, I would have taken her to get some nice pants to wear. (Note: I didn’t point this out to her; the world is sexist and unfair and she’ll figure that out and be bothered or not by it in her own time.)

She thought it over for awhile and the next Sunday she wore leggings under her skirt. We haven’t talked about it since.

Yesterday I read a BCC post (it’s really just two links and a provocative comparison) that pointed me to the new dress and grooming guidelines for missionaries on LDS.org. The other link was to an interesting article on Huffington Post about how, if we want to encourage girls in the life of the mind (my awesome phrasing), we should ask them what book they are reading rather than telling them they’re pretty upon first meeting. (I have thoughts on that too, because I tell my girls they are cute all the time, but maybe that’ll be another post.)

I hadn’t seen the dress and grooming pages, and when I did, I was flabbergasted. Flabber-gasted. Really, you have to go there now and flip through all the pages. Don’t forget the makeup gallery and the makeup tips and the hair style gallery and the accessories page with the colorful ballet flats that would be so practical for walking on cobblestones for ten hours.

Then I got on Twitter and said that the pages seem superficial, condescending and creepy to me, and they are not the message I want to send to my daughters. Several women chimed in for the next two hours (though mostly they disagreed with me). Someone on the original BCC post said they recognized some of the skirts as costing $120 at Anthropologie; someone else calculated how much this kind of wardrobe (all “outfits,” no coordinating separates) would cost ($10,000). Most interesting was that two women who served missions in Belgium said the pages were great and necessary. Then one of those ladies went back and actually looked at how extensive and detailed they are and said she felt like she was on Pinterest (a website where design/crafter/hipster-types collect images of things they like).

A friend on Facebook echoed other comments that the pages seem necessary because immodesty is such a problem. I was surprised that many thought the pages were an attempt to get sister missionaries to tone down their appearance and makeup, when I thought they were clearly sending the message that women need to spend more money, time, and energy on their appearance in order to be good missionaries/Mormons.

Are the pages a call to frump up or frump down? Probably depends on how (non)frumpy you consider yourself, so my umbrage may certainly have to do with feeling inadequate and plain ugly (and middle-aged) compared to the models.

And I haven’t even mentioned that the Dress and Grooming guidelines only showcase women. I know there are strict guidelines for men, but they are not online (yet?) for some reason. And even when they are published, I doubt they’ll have an equivalent to this nugget of advice:

Tinted moisturizer with SPF is another quick way to get color and base. To minimize the appearance of dark circles under your eyes, use a yellow- or pink-toned concealer lighter than your skin tone to blend.

More subtly, the makeup section does have an “If you choose to wear makeup, here are some tips,” disclaimer, but this is the front page:

Huh. I wonder if makeup would help you look your best for the elders at zone conferences?

I have nothing against preaching modesty (so long as it’s taught as something a girl does for herself because she loves and honors herself and appreciates the wonderful body God has given her, not as a means of saving boys from themselves). And I also think it’s pragmatic and whatnot for the Church to have missionary guidelines and standards, to encourage/require a professional, be-your-best-you missionary force. But these pages go too far in suggesting that looks and clothes and accessories are all-important for women.

And here’s where I morph into a comment on the priesthood and how I feel about women not holding it. Doctrinally, it’s not a big issue for me. I like being able to do the things I can do as a woman that men can’t do, and I’m okay with different gender roles and biology and etc. But the practical ramifications that seem to follow, in our culture, from the fact that men, by virtue of holding the priesthood are in charge of correlation, in charge of what gets approved for curricula and the website and policies, in charge of telling women how they should look — it seems really unfortunate that women do not have a similar say in these matters. Can you separate doctrine from practice? Can I be a good Mormon if I don’t shop at Anthropologie?

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(If you’re on the Twitter and want to catch our next impromptu chat on #mormsandmakeup (TBA), you should follow @imaginaryzina, @compulsivewrtr, @grouchyteacher, @andrea_aka_mom, @hollywillnot, @oneinamelia, @jet_set, @suedonym, @thatfig, @lesliehatch and @emihill   There are many, many other cool Mormon women on Twitter, and, of course, all heresies and infelicities of thought are my own. Just to give credit for lovely ladies helping me think this through, hope I didn’t miss anyone. I’m @seagullfountain.)

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And don’t tell me that this whole set of pages was done at the inspiration and execution of women — I don’t think I could handle the disillusion.

Molly at nine months. Avery wore that dress exactly ten years ago.

My Dad says (in a letter to my brother on his mission in Texas) that Molly isn’t as expressive as her cousin Eliza (my other brother’s first daughter), who isn’t as mobile as Molly. Tom has been a bit miffed ever since that letter (which I think is the cutest thing — Tom feeling a bit miffed on his daughter’s behalf. “Too bad she isn’t very expressive” he smirks as he tickles her into fits of laughter.) This convinces me of the perils of comparison. I try really hard not to compare my daughters (especially in their hearing). But I compare myself to other women all day long, mostly in my head. And it’s probably just as fraught.

Avery at six months at Tracey's reception. Those cheeks! Those arms! Mom's black eye!

Yesterday Avery and I had a long talk that left us in tears at the same time it made me glad to be here, glad to be her mother. My daughter has a “best friend” who will apparently think she is weak and a crybaby if she does not join her in being mean to a third girl, a girl who used to be one of Avery’s good friends. It turns out that Avery is also the odd girl out in a similar situation at school, with two girls who are now best friends to her exclusion.

Can we go back to talking about sex and cigarettes, and how we wait till we’re married to experience the transcendent glories of the first and how we’ll never try the second, no matter the pressure of friends?

I told Avery that being kind to everyone is the most important thing. And it’s true. I know we have this hierarchy of sins, especially in the Mormon culture, where smoking and drinking are almost the worst things you can do, and I’m not saying I’d be happy if she took up a 2-pack a day habit tomorrow, but I would rather she negotiate this next few years of tweenage girl-child hell with grace and kindness than never drop acid.

Maybe I say that because I know how hard it is to be a ten-year-old girl, except when I was a kid, it was even harder to be a twelve-year-old girl. And I have no firsthand experience with acid.

But it’s true, isn’t it? Being kind to those who despitefully use you, standing up to those you want to impress and befriend, doing what’s right and plain being nice at all times are the hardest things to do, ever.

I showed Avery the verse in John where Jesus wept because his friend Lazarus was dead. Does it take a strong heart to cry with compassion? Is it weak to take the first step to end a fight you’re sure the other person started?

Avery said she just wished she knew why the two girls at school don’t like her any more so she could apologize. And I asked, “Were you mean to them?” and she said no. Then it’s not you, I said. You are perfect, there’s nothing you could do or apologize for or change about yourself to make me love you anymore, to make Heavenly Father love you anymore. You are already beautiful and smart and kind.

She asked me to show her where that scripture was again so she could highlight it in her own Bible.

And she promised to think about it some more and to try her best to treat the the odd girl out as if she were the odd girl out.

After proving that entertaining is one sure way to get motivated about cleaning

Avery is 10 today. I could write some tear jerker about how she was the one who made me a Mom all those years ago and how sweet she is despite remembering (and mentioning often) how I whacked her with a hairbrush when she was four. But I’ll just say I’m glad my baby ticker went on red alert when I was 22 and changed my mind about what I wanted to be when I grew up. She is worth it. (So far.) (I make no predictions about the teen years.)

Avery reads to her sisters, changes the baby’s diaper for a nominal fee, got an A in math last term (after terrorizing me through a summer of special Mommy-Saxon math), ensured that we had a gluten-free alterna-treat for the new girl in her class, and reminds us to have family scripture study.

She rocks her Christmas rollerblades and works hard at dance class. She doesn’t want her ears pierced but she asked for makeup for her birthday. I don’t expect her to actually wear it to school or church, but I got her some to play with. She still wears her pants out at the knee with all the horse-play (literally) at recess. I expect Sears to blacklist us from their KidVantage program any day now.

I want her to keep wearing those holes in her pants until she’s eighteen. Or thirty.

I love her.

AMAZON  WARRIOR

By Avery Johnson

Chapter 1

All Chores should be doomed.

Nisa sighed. She hated this chore so much! Covering the “stink holes” was disgusting, nasty, and it stunk. She was a young warrior and apparently the young warrior’s got ALL the chores.   Jappa, her aunt, would say ‘’you are lucky! When I was a girl…blah blah blah ’’ then you knew to run or you’d die of boredom.  ‘’Chores should be doomed. No, wait. They just were!’’ She said to Dialie, her best friend who happened to be passing by. ‘’I so agree. I’ve got stable duty. Nuclear almost kicked me in the face yesterday.’’ said Dialie. ‘’ ouch. ’’  Stable duty was cleaning the stables. Unfortunately, that included the 22 horses and their poop, tack (which Nisa thought ended up on the floor everyday purposely by the horses) and slobbery food. And as a plus all the horses hated them. ‘’poor you! You’re going to die!’’ Nisa said. Dialie nodded seriously. Amazon horse’s hoofs were very hard. ‘’we always have so much bad luck.’ sighed Dialie. ‘’uh hu ‘’ mumbled Nisa. ‘’ Well , good luck’’ said Dialie and left. Nisa sighed (yet again) and sat down to do the worst job in the history of Asamia, the little village of Amazon island, 300 miles off the coast of the Mediterranean  sea.

He was so concerned that she’d get teased by the kids at school. I told him I was teased daily for most of my school career, and I turned out just fine. (Anyway I’m not buying an eye makeup pen, or whatever they’re really called, to cover up a whacked pretend shaving job.)

Today he called to ask how her Biography Presentation went at school. I told him she did great, not to worry. It was simple enough to ambush the other kids in her class beforehand with a razor so she’d fit right in.

sacagawea from shannon johnson on Vimeo.

this Halloween I’m going to be a enchantres. I have a dress that’s velvet and Gold triming. I will have magic powers and fly. my mom got me that dress and i Love it! she got it from the chepest place! Di! i wonder why anybody would give it to Di. it’s the Best dress ever!

today I woke up and had Breakfast. But when I poured my creal I found out I had magic powers! I ran upstairs and found my piggy bank and made more and more money and then Bought a scooter. then I turned my sisters into toads. But my mom made me turn them back. I was not very happy.

Observations:

1. I’m glad Sally has given up the idea of being a vampire. She doesn’t even know what a vampire is, so I don’t know why she wanted to be one.

2. That dress really is awesome. I don’t know why anyone would give it to DI, either.

3. Having kids old enough to get their own breakfast is the first step on the path to parenting nirvana. Of course, it’ll be eclipsed in quality-of-life improvingness when she’s old enough to babysit, but for now, it’s a glimmer of hope.

4. I like that she went to her piggy bank to make money. Like an ancient alchemist or any Einstein-ian scientist. You can’t have matter from nothing, right?

5. Sally has been talking about a scooter for months, so we bought Susan and Spot scooters for their birthdays this month. By the time Sally’s birthday comes around it’ll be snowy. So really we should get her one now, but we didn’t. Cruel, I know.

6. Sally is so in touch with her feelings (not to mention personal choice, responsibility, and consequences) that I don’t think she’s going  to need very much therapy at all.

She complained
that I sat too long in my underwear at my stupid computer.

I reminded her that
I had to ask her five times to get in the tub.
And she was silent.

She reached around me
for her seatbelt as I strapped her sister in the very back seat.
I said, Oh Sally, I love you too, let me give you a hug my little sweetheart baby girl.

She laughed
and then remembered she was mad at me.

We dropped her off. I have given up
on making her give me a kiss before she gets out of the car.
Instead, she tells me, over her shoulder as she runs into the building,
Love you too Mom, be safe.

I looked in my side mirror as the door slid open
And felt my glasses smash into my face, the pinch of rigid plastic mashed into my eye socket

And didn’t feel her kiss.

I think maybe you will someday read this blog, and if you are a new mother, I hope that my honesty, my writing about what motherhood is really like, my posts that make it so that sometimes the top google search for my blog is “I hate being a mother” — I hope that what I have said here will help you feel better about your own mothering.

But I would be dishonest if I did not write to tell you that the last few weeks (since you turned eight) have been some of the happiest of my life. Because of you.

You make me happy.

I have always loved you. Ever since I made your father walk to the drug store in the rain to read the back of the pregnancy test box to me at work to confirm that yes, two lines really did mean I was pregnant with you, I have loved you.

All of your firsts have been my firsts too. The first time you huddled on my heaving, trembling heart, the first time you breastfed, the first time you started school, the first time you made a playdate. The first time you rode your bike, and roller skated, and kart-wheeled across the living room. The first time you read a book that I have not read. The first time you ran up to hug my grandmother, and the first time you slept over at my mother’s house by yourself. The first time you smiled shyly at my great-grandmother, just a few years before she died.

I love the way you laugh out loud at movies at the dollar theater, and how you help your sisters get booster seats, without my asking. I love that you cheerfully look out for them, even when you are distracted by your friends. I love how you run upstairs five times in a row to get me something I desperately need, like my Mountain Dew cup or the book on my nightstand.

I love how you got yourself all ready for school the other day when the carpool was picking you up. I had no idea it was so late, and I rushed down the stairs as I heard you yell, “Bye Mom, I love you be safe” as you opened the front door. I caught just a glimpse of you; you looked back up at me, and I vowed to get up earlier.

You may not need me anymore to get you dressed or pour your cereal or brush your hair or remind you about your backpack and coat and library book, but I need to see your face before you leave. I need to touch your cheek and tickle your side and make sure that the last thing you hear before you go out there is that I love you more than a good book and a warm bed on a cold morning.

This Saturday you were my first child to get baptized. I felt old. And it humbled me when you asked that I give the talk about baptism. I thought you would request your Grandma (who sewed you a dress out of fabric leftover from my wedding dress eleven years ago) or your Aunt Karin, or maybe even Grandpa or Aunt Marcy.

I thought you would be tired of hearing what I have to say, as you do roll your eyes whenever I repeat myself for emphasis. I told you, and the two other kids getting baptized, and all of the families gathered, that baptism is a big choice, the second big choice you have ever made. And I know that most of why you chose to get baptized this week was because we wanted it for you. We’ve been talking about it for years, and telling the story of Jesus and John the Baptist, and Alma at the Waters of Mormon.

Some people think that an eight-year old is too young to understand the significance of baptism and confirmation. I’ve been sympathetic to this view. I feel like my own conversion to the gospel matured when I was nineteen, and again when I was twenty-one.

But I was surprised by how ready and prepared you were. You know all the doctrinal answers, and you sparkle. You love your family and your friends with a guileless, unselfish affection, and you believe absolutely that God loves you.

Today you took the sacrament for the first time that it actually meant something. You and your sisters have been reaching for the bread and water as Dad and I do for years. But today it was a renewal of your new, shiny covenant. I cried, and I remembered the first time I took the sacrament again after not taking it for a while, about a year before I met your father.

There is one more thing I need to teach you before you grow up and leave our home for more than a day at school.

And that thing is that God loves you even when you make mistakes. Especially then, with a love that begs you to return to Him. So even though we made a big deal about how now you are clean and pure, even though you were clean and pure before your baptism, so clean and pure and fresh and innocent it hurts me to think of it, and to think of you going out into that world every day, God loves you even when you are not quite so clean and pure, and there is nothing on this earth that you could ever, ever do to make Him stop loving you or to make your Savior regret giving His life for you.

And if sometimes I wonder what I am doing with my life, all I need do is look in your blue, blue eyes, at your dear heart-shaped freckle face, to know that I am doing something right.

Because there is one more thing I need you to know, to learn, to believe. And that is that I love you too. Always, forever, no matter what you do or where you go or how often you insist that you hate me when you’re thirteen and I won’t let you wear that skirt.

I will always love you.

love,

Mommy

Sally drew this during church last Sunday. Such a sweet child.

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Sometimes I think about homeschooling. This thinking usually peaks around May and plummets in July. The timing is handy, making me look forward to both summer vacation and to school starting again. And even though I know it’s a cycle, I can’t avoid it because let’s face it: two universal truths are competing here.

1) Kids are annoying. (Yes? You disagree? How about “high-energy” or “best-enjoyed-after-long-stretches-away-from-home”?)

2) Public school policy can be moronic.

I think I’m pretty rational (if liberal) about school attendance, so imagine my surprise when Sally’s school started sending home truancy notices last year. As if their attendance policies were somehow more significant than mine. Wait — Who gave birth to this kid? That’s what I thought.

When I reported to the school secretary, she advised getting doctors’ notes in future, as illnesses are excused. I asked, “How about I just tell you she’s sick. Because I don’t take her to the doctor for every cold or stomach bug, and I assume you don’t want green snot and vomit everywhere.” And the secretary kindly told me I could bring Sally in for them to determine that she is sick. As if I need anyone else to tell me my kid’s sick or to dispense a heavenly benediction upon my decision to keep my kid home from school. Just when, exactly, did public school import Principal Mao?

So. There’s a lot to be said for homeschooling, namely: freedom from dimwit public “officials” with unimaginable thirsts for power.

Then again (it’s July, after all), there’s much to be said for saying adios every morning at 8:30 and feeling genuinely excited to pick up the kids at 3. Love you again!!

I admit. This seems pretty unbalanced on the side of arranging things for mom’s benefit. Sure, Sally gets interaction and learns stuff at school. But I could set up playdates and fieldtrips and such. And now that she can read (after agonizing about her not reading by five, she read Harry Potter 1-4 last week), I am ultra-plus confident that she can and will learn whatever she wants to.

So why are we gazing longingly at the bins of Elmer’s glue and plastic pencil keepers? The stacks of freshly-cut paper and the Barbie backpacks?

The truth is, Sally needs other adults to love/emulate/admire. The longer she’s at home all day with me, the more needy she gets. I was teaching her Sunday school class at church until recently, and she always wanted to sit right by me, kissing my arm and distracting everyone.

Last June, Dick came home from a business trip on the last day of school. I picked him up at the airport and then we went to Sally’s school. I thought she would be ecstatic over seeing her beloved, fun, tolerant father. But she barely looked at him. She was inconsolable for a couple hours because she wouldn’t be seeing her teacher anymore: Mrs. Machol had announced that she was switching schools next year.

We reminded Sally that we were hoping to move too before the next year, and that she would be in second grade anyway. “But I won’t see her ever again,” she wailed.

Honestly? I was a bit miffed. Wasn’t she excited to see Daddy? Wasn’t she delighted about getting to be with Mom all the time? I promised to take her to the library (like kid crack) and swimming lessons (more kid crack) and Grandma’s house (ultimate kid crack), and, nothing.

Of course she bounced back, and this summer has been pretty good. But I want you to know that I am buying school supplies tomorrow, and next week I’ll call the school to see who she gets for second grade.

As long as her teachers are like Mrs. Machol and not Principal Mao, public school is best. For mom AND for Sally.

Don’t forget to go share your Things That Must Go. The LLBean Tote Bag giveaway ends tonight at midnight.

p.s. I don’t think Sally’s autistic. For one thing, she’s very affectionate and, for another, Grandma, despite all her other perfections, is not a trained psychologist. I’m sorry Sally was so crazy at the Little Women musical, Mom, but I don’t think autism was the problem.

Also, I feel bad that I complain about my kids so much, and I want you to know that if I did not think they were the most gorgeous creatures ever to grace . . . hmm, I already said that, huh? Anyway, if they weren’t beautiful, I would complain that much more. Just call me Shallow Mom. (Hey, is that domain taken?)

First day of swim lessons today. Don’t you just want to take small bites out of all that smooth skin?

Look at those eyes. Dick and I have green eyes. Sally got blue from both grandfathers and Susan got brown from one of her Grandma’s eyes. Not “one of her Grandmas,” but from one Grandma who has one green and one brown eye.

I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but this one was my favorite for three years and eight months. She’s still my favorite whenever I see her reading a book that I loved when I was younger. Right now she’s reading Andrew Lang’s Green Fairy Book. Any nightmares will be referred to Daddy.

We call Sally freckle face, and have forcibly desensitized her to our teasing enough that she takes it as a compliment. Of course it helps that Dick and I each sport a million freckles ourselves. (And that she is still young enough to want to be like Mom and Dad).

This one, I confess, is my favorite stinker of them all. No forgotten middle child in this family.

Seriously, I hear those awful commercials on the radio for kid modelling agencies, where they probably want to charge you thousands of dollars to take a headshot, and I think, if only this kid weren’t the most recalcitrant, uncooperative, recidivist child in the universe, we could be millionaires. MILLIONAIRES!

I gotta go ferbert Susan’s arm right now. Be right back.

This one isn’t indoctrinated into the picture-posing protocol yet. Also, she doesn’t like to smile on cue. But we’ll probably keep her, at least until something better comes along.

Or until we have to start supporting her shoe habit.

Spot gets her extreme self-sacrificing nurturing of her babies at the expense of her own needs from her mom. She’s picking that strawberry FOR the baby.

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Even better is when you happen to be looking at the IM window maximized (see, I can do the computer lingo), and you see at the bottom that “Tara is typing a message.” Sometimes I see that message when I am typing myself, and then I hurry, hurry to get my message done first because I need the attention RIGHT NOW.

Last night we were both typing at the same time, and when the text appeared, hers was this long thing about being the worst mom, and mine was this long thing about being the worst mom ever. Twinner worst moms! Though I did manage to stake out a little more territory with that ever.

Then on the phone this morning another friend was telling me that she liked my post about complete strangers giving infant-feeding advice, because she gets annoying stuff like that from her mother-in-law complete strangers too.

That friend’s sister (who doesn’t even share the helpful mother-in-law), says that as long as you don’t do drugs, you are a good mother. But it was more specific that that, even. Apparently, as long as you don’t do crack when you’re pregnant, you are a good mother. Doing crack after they’re born is fine. Doing crack while you’re breastfeeding would probably be a gray area. (And here I had worried about the caffeine in one or, uh, four, Mountain Dews).

Also, we decided that we may not be perfect moms (even though we don’t really do crack, and would never, ever condone anyone ever doing crack, ever), but we are definitely FABULOUS moms, and that is way better.

This fabulous mom forgot to take the video camera to Sally and Susan’s Dance Class Performance tonight. I did drag their father there, which should count for something. Except, Dick really didn’t require dragging. He’s like the dad in those McDonalds’ commercials that ran in the early 80s — You deserve a break today . . . at McDonalds.

I left the videocam at home because I expected Sally to do fine and Susan to stand there like a post, as she did in every class the past three months. Not much scope for the imagination there. But Susan did the funniest dance which bore almost no relation to what everyone else on stage was doing.

I laughed so hard I snorted multiple times — usually after the first time I am self-conscious enough to cover my mouth or plug my nose, but tonight I couldn’t help it.

The man in front of me turned and asked, “Is yours the one off to the side?” I said, Yep, and he said, smiling, “She’s got some moves!”

I have to say that I don’t care if my kids are the smartest or the fastest or the best, as long as someone periodically turns to me and says, “Is yours the one off to the side?”

Yes. Thank you for noticing.

Then Sally came home from school with a conscience, and a song. I think I may have been premature in diagnosing her as tone-deaf. She can definitely follow a tune. In more than one language, yet.

(First in English): I tell the truth, the truth is what I tell. In any situation, I can never fail with ho-nes-ty, wooo-oooo ho-nes-ty. I leave the Spanish translation to your imagination; You’d never guess from Sally’s accent that she was American.

Today’s discussion topic (Now children, when you’re home with your mom and dad, ask what they would do) was What would you do with a hundred dollars? Dick said he’d buy a microphone for his podcasts.

I said I’d . . . well, to be honest, I didn’t say anything because I was trying to block out the entire conversation. The kid’s lucky to have one parent paying attention at any given time. Two would be overkill.

Sally said she would buy a fancy house and a cat, and then give the rest to charity. I think we’re all feeling a bit freakin’ bonkers stir crazy being indoors this winter. So a fancy house means one with room to run around in AWAY FROM MOM, and the cat is a recurring refrain. Whatever. But she would give the rest to charity. Dick and I are obviously doing something right.

Nothing involving reality, or awareness of the world, money, value, cost, or anything of that sort. But, still. It’s inspiring. So, does anyone want a really cute vest?

She said Penny’s mom writes i love you, xo on her napkin everyday. So I thought I’d be sneaky and write some cute message on hers while she ate her pancakes. But we’re not that subtle around here. Sally handed me the napkin and asked if I could write the same on hers. So I got out my black sharpie and wrote i love you even more, XOXOXOXOXO. We’re not competitive around here, either.

Sally is smart and sometimes shy; sensitive and sometimes silly. She loves to dance and actually has talent. She is, unfortunately, as talented at singing as her parents are, but she also inherited our love of reading. She can now block out the world in favor of a book with the best of them.

Don’t worry, we haven’t tried to discourage any of her emerging talents yet–but we would, if necessary, before she could make a fool of herself in an American Idol audition. What are parents for?

Sally gets obsessive about her homework like I used to, and she’s athletic like Dick used to be (hehe, Dick is still athletic, of course). And she’s kind, nurturing, loving to her sisters. She’s definitely a better big sister than I was. Like most children, she’s quick to forgive and to show affection.

I find that when I get mad at Sally it’s because she’s suddenly acting like a normal 7 year-old, where I had gotten used to a pretty helpful little-big girl.

Notice the purple velveteen bunny in both the baby picture and the 6 1/2-year old picture from this summer.

We found this car seat on the curb in The Bronx — New York has a great system of recycling; just leave your stuff on the street (next to, but not in, the garbage), and chances are, someone else will need it. I had to draw the line, though, when homeless people were picking up aluminum cans that had blown into the little front yard of our Archie Bunker house.

Sally was a healthy 9 lb 3 oz at birth.

I think I have about 700 pictures of Dick and the kids sleeping.

Dick was home with Sally while I worked in the good old days, and he liked to tease her. I think you’ll see that Sally looks a lot like Spot, or Spot like Sally.

See Sally with Julia Stiles — Dick taught her freshman writing course, and I was crass enough to ambush her after a student-teacher conference. Wanted my Sally to have at least one picture with a celebrity, eh.

See Sally ride the Subway in NYC.

And here are some pictures from our swim party on Saturday:

Unfortunately, the birthday girl isn’t featured very prominently in these pictures: she was too busy going down the slide and staying as far away from mom as possible. At least it seemed that way at times.

But on Saturday I finally found the Pocahontas costume I bought for 97 cents at Old Navy after last Halloween (2006) when Spot was two weeks old. We only missed this Halloween by 73 days, and there is no way Spot is fitting into this costume next year, so I made her wear it all day and even took some pictures.

We can pretend this is Spot at 1 year on Halloween, but really it’s Spot at 15 months with her very special (meaning she doesn’t have to share it) baby doll. She was not impressed by the authentic Native American headdress; one second after this picture was taken she ripped it off for the millionth time.

The costume really wasn’t bad as a regular dress. It’s soft and warm and fuzzy, and despite how it looks when she sits uncooperatively, it kept her knees warm. I guess the dress-up gene gets turned on around age 2, though I really can’t remember a time that Sally and Susan weren’t changing clothes five times a day.

Today I felt sklunklish. The high-pitched whining (“I’m a princess. I don’t have to bring my dishes over to the sink.”) almost tipped the sklunkish-ness over into daughter-cidal mania. Which is not to say that I would prefer boy children.

If we had a boy, we’d have to build up a whole new terminology for potty time: Susan (sitting primly on the toilet), “I don’t put my dress in the potty, I just put my poop in the potty.” Although Sally’s latest bit of candor (“Mom, if you eat all of that you’ll get fat), made me consider the possible benefit of oblivious boys.

I’m assuming (charitably, I think) that Sally was mostly trying to get me to share my cookies with her. But she’s right about the eating=fat thing. Luckily I have a plan to work on that. Goes something like “eating+exercise=not too fat.” I’ve found an exercise/babysitting partner who inspires forces me to jog about five times a week and deep clean slop around some lysol wipes and empty the dishwasher every morning before she and her kids come over.

We’re running our first 5K race in two weeks. Nothing like a race in public to shame you into actually schlepping to the treadmill. I know I’m not Yiddish, but I did live in NYC for three years; I can use the word schlep. What a great word.

We went to a beach party at Sally’s school last week. Since there was neither a beach nor a party there, it was about what you’d expect. Dick had to use the little boys room and then reminisced about throwing wet (from the sink, I hope) toilet paper on the other kids. He was reminiscing about his childhood, not about having thrown wet toilet paper just then.

At church on Sunday I taught a class of five kids ages 3 to 8. Incidentally that was our entire primary; not exactly what I envisioned when we moved to Utah. First I totally changed their lives with a lesson encouraging them to choose the right by asking themselves”What would Jesus want me to do?” (see how that is similar, yet superior, to WWJD?). Then for an activity I had them draw pictures of them doing something that Jesus would want them to do. One 7-year-old boy drew a picture of himself helping a bleeding kid get a bandaid.

Each time he showed it to me the pool of blood was bigger, but, to be fair, the bandaid he was applying as an act of mercy got bigger too.

Sally’s school party was basically an excuse for all the kids to run around screaming (don’t they get enough of that at school?). There was music and a disco ball. Sally was really excited at first, but then she got shy for a while. I was mean and said she had to get out there and dance or we’d just leave. Susan, bless her heart, was oblivious to everything but the music and her own body. Why . . . really, why do they have to grow up even that much?

Dick forced me out on the cafeteria floor (“you have to dance or we’ll just go home”) for the moms-and-daughters only song Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I almost started crying. Ok, I did cry a little, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Why am I such a girl? And why do I sometimes want to wring the necks of these three beautiful, frustrating, silly, loving, exasperating girls? I should probably focus on how angelic they are when asleep. If only I weren’t asleep myself for most of that blissful time.

But then I remembered what I am succeeding at spectacularly daily. No, not finding the cure for cancer or even caucusing for random Baptist preachers who are the first in their family to graduate from high school (and to win in Iowa!): I’m raising three confident, content girls.

I wanted to wrap a bunch of the kids’ old toys for Christmas morning, or at least their new-ish snow clothes. Somehow we spend a lot of money on the girls but don’t always get a lot of present-opening-bang for our buck. Luckily, generous family and friends had wrapped exciting new things, and a couple days after the big day, a box of clothes from The Children’s Place (of the fantastic adjustable waist) arrived from fashionista Auntie Liz.

Sally and Susan rushed to try on their new clothes, and as Sally pirouetted in her new pink skirt, she said, “Susan and I really are princesses, huh? We have everything you could ever want. We have ponies [not live ones] and pretty clothes and games and books and coloring stuff. We really are princesses.” I’m writing this down for posterity and so that I can remind her of it when she’s 16 and wanting a car.

Here they are the morning of. Sally has been devouring the Magic Treehouse books — even to reading them as she walks through the store with one hand on the shopping cart so she doesn’t have to look up. How frustrating to try to communicate with someone completely lost in a book!!!

Susan, who is 3 and 1/6 years old, has been doing pretty well with the potty, but she is a recidivist of long-standing, so recently it has been necessary for me to remind her (Do you want to go potty or go to timeout you awful rotten wonderful sweet child?) about twice a day.

After she goes, I run down the checklist: did you 1) wipe your buns, 2) flush the toilet, 3) wash your hands? (if you’re familiar with the Elmo’s Potty Time dvd, you may remember that Prairie Dawn and Elmo argue as to whether there are three or four steps to the post-potty process. If you do remember this and/or find it remotely interesting, I’m sorry.) The other day when I asked if she was all done, she said, “No, I gotta wipe my cute buns.”

I’m writing that down for posterity too. And so that when she’s 16 (13? 11?) and complaining of fat buns or bad hair or a big nose or ugly clothes (unless Auntie Liz keeps ‘em coming) I can tell her with a perfectly straight (though too-chubby) face that she has a beautiful body and very cute buns.