So when a weekend flies by with too much that takes her in other directions, or when a day flies by without enough adventure, I hate it. That’s what this weekend felt like. I went to the gym on Saturday morning. She hung out with her mom, just back from a weeklong reporting trip in California. They went shopping together. They read on the couch. Melissa taped her singing into NPR headphones and a mike. We played a game or two: Top It, the card game formerly known by its now-politically incorrect name War; Buggo, a memory card game; a cut-out maze game from the back of her magazine, Click. Yes, it’s parenting, and it’s fun, but in the world of the liberal guilted working mother and (sort of) working father, it feels like not enough. Like we should always be seeing, hearing, and trying things we’ve never seen, heard, or tried before. For dinner, we made a pizza, which Chloe didn’t like. ``It doesn’t taste like the other pizza,’’ meaning the Amy’s frozen pizza, or the pizza from the place in Friendship Heights. In fact, pretty much every meal over the weekend was a struggle; all week, with mom away, she chowed down without complaint. But that’s been a regular dynamic: much more cooperative with one parent than with both. With dad, it’s all yes and thank you and okay, open to anything and everything, unfazed when it’s bed or bath time, eager to entertain all suggestions. When we’re both around, not so much. It’s not a given: Our hike to Great Falls two weekends ago was fabulous, and when we actually just get out of the house and go, it’s almost always fine. It’s staying home that’s the problem. She says no more—no, I don’t want to go to Carderock, no I don’t want to go ice skating, both of which were uttered Saturday morning—and we let her say no.
How much of the general reduced cooperation is her punishing mom for being away (by doing it in front of dad) and how much is some other inexplicable dynamic of a 5-year-old brain, we’ll never know. I think it’s all about not being able to articulate what’s happening in her head. So we stayed home, and then went to the school auction on Saturday night, where we bought two baskets of stuff—one filled with science books and projects, one with empty pads and notebooks and markers and books about being an author—and a National Geographic family atlas. We hid the author basket for Valentine’s Day and left the science basket on the rug in her room for her to see when she woke up. She came around 7:00 wearing a giant smile—the basket was two feet tall and wrapped in decorative cellophane. We did an inventory: a book on why things are, a book explaining gross things (we read the fart entry immediately), a book of games, a chess set and book, a plastic bottle filled with science experiments, an adventure atlas in which a detective travels around the world.
We had lunch at the Owen/Burnses. The usual three-boy chaos, plus two kids from another couple. So Chloe disappeared to play, emerging only to air grievances. I tried, futilely, to attach the second-hand Trail-a-Bike I bought from neighbors to Melissa’s new hybrid (her Christmas present). Back to the garage it went. Chloe and Melissa bike for a bit, then Chloe and I biked over to the Price’s for a bit, where she bounced on the trampoline with Charlie for a minute, emerging soaked and unhappy. We borrowed some clothes and biked home. Then to Scott Dailard’s for the (greatest) Super Bowl (ever). Chloe and Miranda and Julia play fabulously. They were dressed in leotards and fairy dresses in minutes, watched (oh, dear) High School Musical, frolicked for hours.
This morning. Tired girl. “I want to wear jeans!” she cried after trying on some new “yoga flairs”and judging them insubstantial. The first, green, “shrug” she wanted to wear was too tight over her long-sleeved shirt. The second, pink, one was acceptable. She ate (bagel, grapes, cereal, milk with two straws) improved her spirits. She finally agreed to bring 100 Scrabble tiles to class as part of a celebration of the 100th day of school—each kid has to bring in 100 of something they like; Chloe couldn’t decide. I went to the gym. They went off to school. Melissa took the day off, and picked her up at school, and they walked home, and they played Connect Four. I didn't go down for an hour, and when I did Chloe was grumpy because she kept losing. Now, she came racing upstairs in elation because she won had legitimately: a breathless recitation of the final game, a beatific smile pushing into her flushed cheeks. I hoisted her onto my chair, kissed her tummy, and shared her glee. Funny, it makes up for every moment spent apart.
