Yesterday, you and I had a moment. Several, really. Nothing spectacular or headline-making, just a series of quiet, fun interactions that remind me that someday you will grow up and be entirely your own person. With a little luck, you'll still be a person whose company I will willingly share. For all of your intensity and drama, you can be just the coolest kid... sometimes at the same time.
It started with plans for a haircut for you and shopping for a birthday present for Emma. As foreordained by the universe at large, things didn't go quite as planned. The $7-haircut place was packed, so we made an appointment, and we squabbled over the proper gift for wicked smaahhhht Emma, because you saw a Go Diego Go backpack in a store somewhere months ago and insisted that this would make Emma very happy, but I was equally insistent that I was not going to buy a "3 and up" gift for a "7 but decades smarter" birthday girl. We reached a compromise under the "Let's go wander somewhere until we find something we both like" category.
So we went to BJs, where we proceeded to buy one of everything in the store. I tell you what, "Sure, why not?" is a very, very dangerous phrase to say in any wholesale/bulk store. $388 worth of dangerous. At least there's no sales tax in New Hampshire.
And throughout, you and I just chatted about things and discussed personal preferences and talked about pricing, and generally shopped together. We found a gift for Emma in the books section, and a bath-toy organizer that was clearly the coolest thing ever, and a bazilion other things.
Afterward, we went to lunch at Panera, and you ate as though you were about to be mailed intercontinentally and needed to stock up. A good appetite is not a given with Miss Pickypants, though I've had those Cinnamon Crunch bagels with the honey walnut cream cheese, so I understand. And we indulged in good old-fashioned gossip, which entailed one of us saying, "Psst... c'mere... I have a secret." And then whispering about how annoying the group of older men in the corner were, the ones who talked at the top of their lungs about sports and laughed like emphysemic horses, or how your art teacher told your that you are her favorite, or how we're really excited but a little nervous about flying to Washington next week. And about how, really, though we try to pretend it's not true, girls are just better than boys. We can't help it.
Then we came home, and after unloading the 47 metric tons of merchandise into the house, you requisitioned the bath-toy box and spent the next several hours creating a robot. How cool is it to be six? I mean, seriously.
And look! Handmade socks!
Just, thanks. I needed some sweetness and imagination and new perspectives on things. It was a lovely day.
Love you, love you, love you,
Mama
