The removal procedure was kind of neat: they used a thing similar to a blade saw (don’t worry! keep reading!) but with such a blunt edge that you can put it directly on your skin with just a slight tickling sensation. It bites through plaster, nothing else.

After the removal, we went to Radiology for an x-ray to see how it was healing, and then they said something about coming right back for the ‘next cast’. Oh sure, I thought, some kind of temporary splint that comes off at night. No problem.

Um… well… not exactly. They put another cast on her. This one for another 3 weeks. After that there’s a temporary splint and then finally she’s a free girl.  I thought she’d be on the monkey bars by Christmas but it looks more like it’ll be Martin Luther King Day.

The new cast is slightly shorter, so she has a little more mobility. Rada chose a patriotic theme and here she is with her favorite dog-friend Zeus:

photograph kindness of Zeus’s person, Poul.

I got the call at noon on a Friday and rushed to school to find a sobbing girl cradling her arm in the nurse’s office.  A series of trips to primary care and Children’s Hospital resulted in the fine cast you see below, with a lovely soccer pattern for its decor.  The prognosis for her wrist is excellent: the cast comes off before Thanksgiving, and by December, she can return to the monkey bars.

After an initial few days of pain and discomfort, Rada quickly settled into the life of royalty:

Everyone in her soccer team signed her cast; in school she is assigned a daily helper to assist with getting her coat on and off and carrying her backpack around school; the lunch ladies pick up her tray for her in the cafeteria; and her teacher lets her miss spelling tests and math quizzes.

At home, she no longer has to clear plates from the table or put on her own socks. I also comb her hair and ‘prepare’ her toothbrush.

Rada’s return to normalcy happens in 2 weeks when she gets the cast off.  I’m counting the days until the princess reverts to civilian.

My Kazakh-born American daughter is growing up in a world where people of all colors and genders are leading our country and leading the world, hopefully to a better place. It is a truly wonderful day today, such a good day to be an American.

I stood looking over the school yard this morning as my daughter filed in with the rest of her classmates and teachers, such a rich group of nationalities and ethnicities in the school. I noticed another mother standing next to me, and we turned to each other in wonderment, sharing the amazement and joy. She said “I told my son this morning he can do anything he sets his mind to, he can be anything he wants to be”. I nodded, agreeing, tears in my eyes for some reason.

Such a nice day to be an American.

Years later I swore off sweets and desserts, but instead developed a nightly peanut butter and jelly sandwich habit.

And last winter I could not go to sleep without a dish of maple syrup yogurt for a night cap.

My newest obsession is Honey Crisp apples. I’m not going to tell you how good they are, because I don’t want you buying up the local stock.

However, I will reveal that they can only be purchased from farmers markets. Yesterday I got a bad hankering for one. Searching for a farmers market on a Tuesday, I saw one listed in Copley Square. Taking a huge detour on my bike trip from Kendall Square to Longwood, I stopped and got a bag of them. I was five minutes late to where I was going but had a tidy little stash of juicy sweet orbs tucked into my backpack and I felt smug and satsfied.

Anyway, one of the problems I’ve been avoiding is telling my daughter’s teacher about a vacation in mid-October which will necessitate my daughter being out of school for a day. Those of you who are parents know that a vacation day such as this is an unexcused absence, and no laughing matter in the arena of elementary school.

Another problem is a ‘teacher professional day’ that is also happening sometime in mid-October. I detest ‘professional days’. The school closes down arbitrarily, and working parents are supposed to I-do-not-know what… beg babysitters? Bring ones child to work? Who knows. Anyway, I’d been avoiding thinking about it but this week I finally looked it up in the calendar.

It was incomprehensible. I checked and double checked. The vacation day and the professional day are the same day.

The school psychologist and I talked on the phone last week and although she had many lovely things to say about Rada — her personality, her enthusiasm, her verbal intelligence, etc. — the psychologist also brought up what appear to be several pronounced limitations around visio-spacial ability, hand-eye coordination, and extremely weak upper-body muscle tone. Apparently some of these can be ameliorated with continuing OT and PT, but with all the kindness and compassion that she could muster, the psychologist saw clear limitations to Rada’s ability to participate in serious athletics. Hearing this felt like a gate clanging shut for Rada’s future. I listened with tears in my eyes, and kept telling myself that this fabulous daughter had many other talents, passions and skills. A life without athletics would still be a full one.

But the next day on the soccer field as I was sitting watching Rada play, I realized that the gate was in no way shut… in fact it was very much ajar.

Although fully 4 inches shorter than the rest of her team, Rada streaks down the field, opportunistically steals balls from the opposing team, throws lob kicks that completely reverse the ball’s direction, and then stands there only slightly-out-of-breath ready for the next challenge, while team members and fans scream, “Way to go Rada!”

Visio-spatial challenges? Hand-eye coordination?

Whatever.

Recently, Rada took ‘Ben’ under her wing. Ben is a lovely dull brown earth worm who appears to have been residing in the back yard. Rada and I found a plastic container, punched holes for air, filled it with earth and leaves and brought it into the house with Ben inside. Rada spent the rest of the afternoon, talking to and training Ben.

“Come, Ben. Come here! No, Ben! Bad worm. Ben, listen to me… don’t do that… come here. Good worm! Hey, Mom: I trained him to come when I called!”

This morning however, Rada informed me that Ben’s ‘cage’ smelled awful. ‘He must have pooped’. So we decided to re-release Ben back to his natural surroundings. Hopefully Ben is doing fine and has moved on to other habitats, though Rada was sure she saw him among the hostas this afternoon when we came home.

We’d seen some cute little green ones owned by our neighbors, and they seemed easy to care for. So after a long discussion on responsibility and ownership, we headed to the pet store. Rada had already picked out names for them and was very excited.

The clerk, however, was scandalized at our request, informing us that turtle ownership was illegal in Massachusetts. “You might buy them under the table in Chinatown,” he said, “but you won’t find them here.” Thinking back, I remembered that those turtles we saw did belong to a pleasant Asian family…

Anyway, there we were, stalled in the pet store. Rada looked crestfallen and ready to cry. But instead, like a “phoenix rising from the ashes” of her disappointment, I saw a stubborn determination emerge. And then it slowly dawned on me. I wasn’t going to get out of the place without bringing home some sort of living being in a cardboard box, bowl or plastic bag.

Rada started looking around purposefully for her Plan B pet. Hoping to sway her choice, I pointed out the colorful the betta fish ($1.99 each) but instead she looked admiringly at some bearded lizards ($39.99). Negotiations continued as I ooh-ed and aah-ed over the golden hamsters ($4.99). But she turned up her nose, promptly leading me to the ferrets ($55.99).

Worried that we were headed for a stand-off, I noticed a cage full of white mice. Scrawny little things with red eyes and pink tails, but at $2.29 a piece, I was game. Rada immediately took interest. We found a clerk to help us with our purchase. He was quite surprised and whispered to me that most white mice were purchased… um… for food (the store had a large reptile section).

I nodded pleasantly, assuring him that we definitely wanted them as pets. So he set us up with a cage, wheel, food, bedding, etc. And we took them home.

The next day, they were still there, but more downtrodden:

And today there was still an echo of color in the street:

The team:

The strategies:

Aikena climbs.

On Rebecca’s shoulders, Rada picks cherries that would otherwise be out of reach.

Here is the result:

Worried that she would not be able to spend such a long span ot time away from me, I brought Rada to my sister’s house with the tentative plan to leave her there, but only if she was doing OK. After 4 days, it looked like she was pretty comfortable. We had a slightly teary goodbye and then I went off to enjoy a few days of child-free time. 

I’ve been calling every day to check in and so far the reports are good. Rada loves camp and is comfortable with my sister. They went to the town festival and Rada played all the kid games: bean bag toss, relay races, and even entered in the pie eating contest (!?!) The last few times I’ve called, Rada has either been too busy to talk or has been off playing with the 4 year old next door.

I was worried she would miss me too much, but now I’m worried she won’t want to come home.

“It is a procession to see the Queen”

and…

“Friends come to visit the bird in its nest.”

Its a Celtics player slam dunking the ball. Note the arrows pointing its trajectory. The player is #20, apparently of great meaning to a devotee such as Eric.

The inside of the card further celebrates Celtics pride:

with a trophy in the upper right corner.

This week has been different. My daughter is in special day camp in Winchester and my mom is taking the train to Philadelphia.

This is what I did on Monday:

Trip started in Somerville, proceeded to Winchester to drop off daughter, on to Concord via Rte 128 to pick up mother, from there to train station in Westwood to drop mother off, and then back into town via Rte 93 and 3. Traffic was sluggish on Rte 93 north and there were bad traffic jams on Rte 128 and Rte 3. Total trip time 3.25 hours.

On Tuesday the circle was in the other direction:

First was the warm-up trip to Winchester and then back to Cambridge; from there proceeded to Newton for afternoon conference at BC, after which I tackled the 128 ‘C’ up to Winchester to pick up daughter and then back to Somerville. Exacerbated by rain and hail, the traffic on 128 slowed to a crawl. Trying to skirt some of the horror, I cut off to Rte 3A south only to run into a bumper-to-bumper parking lot from Woburn to Winchester, and adding insult to injury: 93 South was jammed going in to town at 6:15 in the evening. Total trip time 2.45 hours.

Today is Wednesday and I am driving the streets with constant homicidal urges and barely constrained civility. Rte 93 at 8:45 am will do this to a person, as will Rte 128 at 5:15 pm and Rte 3A south at 5:45. I do not understand how people can drive these roads day after day and remain halfway sane.

Unicorn with plastic bottle.

Polar bear with hair clip and elk.

Dance party.

T-rex giving two baby bears a ride.

She sets them up absentmindedly, and then forgets about them. Aren’t they cool?

After that, she decided she wanted to lick the floor to clean it, like any good dog. I quickly stopped her, explaining I didn’t want her tummy to get sick from the germs. Turning to the fridge door, she said”OK, I’ll lick this instead”. But I had to stop her, since the fridge door had not been cleaned since, um, the previous millennium. Then she said, “OK, I’ll lick the folding chairs by the table.” But I had to stop her from that for the same reason.

I offered plates and pans, but they weren’t what she wanted. Frustration finally overtaking her, ‘Shadow’ collapsed in the middle of the kitchen floor, sobbing uncontrollably, looking at me with intense betrayal and anger because, horrid mother that I am, I had been unable to provide her with furniture or a part of the house to lick.

Realizing that there was nothing I could do (short of a purgative cleaning which was unlikely to happen in my lifetime, let alone hers) I told her to snap out of it, stop being ridiculous and would she like to listen to her Chitty Chitty Bang Bang CD. She nodded yes. Sniffling, ‘Shadow’ sat down and started to eat dinner.

Ten minutes later she’d forgotten about it. I write these things because they are so implausible. Who knew that I would have ‘Shadow’ the dog in my kitchen this evening?

Blinking, I looked at her, uncomprehending. What was she talking about? I always kissed her goodbye in the morning. She said, “No, its OK, Mom. Please don’t kiss me. You don’t have to. I’ll say goodbye to you here.”

Shaken, I helped fasten her backpack on her shoulders and waved goodbye as she walked the rest of the way alone.

Of course, I don’t have to kiss her goodbye. Of course she doesn’t it need it anymore. But I do.

I was counting on a few more years before she pulled away. What do you think? Should I insist on planting a goodbye kiss on that deliciously chubby cheek of hers … or should I let her go?

… and here is the show:

You can just see Rada’s arm and forehead behind the ’stage’.

“Caio!

…peace out.”

When I play with Rada, however, its hard to take it very seriously. She jumps up and down when her favorite piece gets to move. She makes a face when I take her piece or growls when I do something she doesn’t want. And she has her king and queen play lovey-dovey while waiting their turn. Rada likes to win, but mostly chess is a just a way to pass the afternoon.

Though we appear all relaxed and easy going on the outside, Poul and I are deadly earnest, each in it to win. But Rada plays it as something to do: a diversion.

I was good today.

I like my self.

Furious, I considered the lunacy of people who ride the wrong way in that treacherous gutter between the cars and the sidewalk. I prepared to lash out at him with some terse words about: “making the streets unsafe for everybody” and worse: “drive on the right side of the street you jerk!”

And then I noticed him. I saw who he was.

With stained pants, teetering on a rickety bike, he was holding a huge plastic bag so packed full that it dwarfed him. It had the bulk and mass of what must have been 50 empty soda bottles. And then I noticed his swarthy face, and calm vigilant eyes, and saw that it was trash day and he was obviously bringing in a haul of soda cans for reimburse.

In that moment I realized he probably didn’t speak English, and that he could very well be getting cash for food for his family. And that he was, in whatever way he could, making a living.

In that split second, I decided to keep my sharp and righteous words to myself, swerved to avoid hitting him and continued on my way.

… and the audience is assembled.

When I was a kid, I made a million of these for appreciative aunts and grandparents.

Don’t say anything, but Rada’s grandmother is going to get one for her birthday this weekend.

…after a long day on the construction site.

Anyway, I noticed that my daughter didn’t really like playing with the brown set of chess pieces. She always preferred the white set. But I forced her to alternate with me, so that each of us got equal chances at the two sets. She complained about it, and tried at every opportunity to wheedle herself more games with the white set.

About two weeks ago, I decided to mess with her head a little. I made it so that every time we played a game, no matter who was playing what color, the brown pieces always won. (I can do this because I still play a better chess game than her, though the advantage is fast diminishing). After a few weeks of this, my daughter started wanting only to play with the brown pieces. Nothing was said. She just ‘decided’ it was what she wanted, and once again tried to wheedle her way into more games with them.

Now I’m going to play with her head even more. I’m going to make it so that color advantage is totally random and winning has nothing to do with the color of the piece.

My questions for you are:

Will these mind games mean she’ll need more therapy later in life to cope with the emotional scar?

….or am I raising a child of the future, attuned to a more perfect union if you will…. a world where the rainbow rules and all colors can win?

I went to my study. Some whooshing noises came from the kitchen, and then a little while later the water went on and off. It was quiet in the house and it was easy for me to settle into some work at the computer. All was peaceful except for a few more soft swishing sounds. After a while, I got up to check on things.

My daughter was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

Delighted but alarmed, I wondered if she had taken ill. (This was the child for whom picking ones clothes off the floor appeared diametrically opposed to her essential her nature and for whom the simple task of removing her plates from the table and placing them on the counter had required 1,247 reminders.)

I checked her forehead. It was cool and dry. I pinched myself. I was not asleep. My dream child was cleaning the kitchen floor.

It’s a meeting. Diplomatic negotiations are underway.

Rada (noticing that people leave their cars running to warm them up): Thats wasteful

Me: Yes, it is.

Rada: Its bad for the earth.

Me: Yes.

Rada: God must see this and be angry.

Me: Perhaps.

Rada: How can God see everything?

Me: Well, I think God is everywhere.

Rada: No, it can’t be! You’re wrong.

Me: Its just my opinion. You’re welcome to another one.

Rada: God has one hundred eyes.

Me: Oh really?

Rada: Wait a minute. No, God’s got one hundred children. And each child is using their eyes to look out for God.

At Kidstock, Rada gets to try on several new identities.

I love the Burger King Whopper with bacon, cheese, tomato and extra pickles.

I love the cool mayonnaise on hamburger and the sweet-tartness of the pickles. I love the salty chewiness of the bacon, the meltedness of the cheese and the crunchiness of the onion. And I love the side of onion rings dipped in ketchup washed down with an ice cold carton of orange juice.

Every month or so, Rada and I have dinner at Burger King. Usually it is predicated by some urgency of schedule requiring us to stay ‘on the road’. This week was one of those occasions and BK did not disappoint. Rada relished in the chicken fingers and the happy meal toy (isn’t that Macdonald’s? … well, whatever… ) and she maneuvered a pick-up playdate with the girl in the booth behind us who showed Rada how to assemble her toy.

At dinner time, there are people in Burger King and they’re all… eating dinner. It amazes me that some people actually treat it like bona-fide food. I know this is both an irony and a sad commentary on the health of the nation and the economic realities of some families.

And for someone like me who verbally blasts Burger King at any possible opportunity averring that I avoid it like the plague and that because I’m such a good mother I’d NEVER let my daughter eat that stuff… I’m now confessing I was secretly glad we ‘had’ to eat at Burger King this week. My heart sang a little song in anticipation of my whopper with bacon, cheese, mayo and extra pickles.

While listening to the bored whines of my daughter, I perused the snow on the ground, considered the moderate temperature… and decided this would be the day to go cross-country skiing.

I had to practically drag Rada out the door. All she really wanted to do was to sit around and complain about not being able to roller skate.

But we made it to the ski place, and when she saw the big skis with poles, she got a little more interested. I signed her up for a beginning lesson and we put on our skis and poles and went out for a spin before the class started.

However her first minutes on the skis were a debacle. She could barely stand up, let alone propel herself forward. After 3 falls and a backward slide, she threw her poles on the ground and crying bitterly that she’d ’sprained’ her ankle, wailed, “I quit! I’m never never ever coming back here EVER again. I QUIT.” She stood there with furrowed brow and crossed arms.

Cajoling and threatening, I brought her inside for a early lunch/snack… trying to keep her coherent until the lesson. My hope was that the lesson might illuminate the mysteries of skiing enough for her to stay with it. I’d made a hefty investment on rentals and passes and was damned if I was going to leave 45 minutes after arriving.

Through a series of threats, pleas, leveraged bargaining and downright coercion she arrived at the class. The instructor was a cheerful young skier who slid along pole-less. She relieved the three kids in the class of their poles and immediately started playing a game…where they fell down deliberately and waved their feet in the air liked capsized turtles. I sat watching for a few minutes, and realized with relief that my daughter was not tantruming and actually seemed to be enjoying it.

Quietly sliding off to ski on my own, I stayed within yelling distance of the class, keeping a watch for any meltdowns or catastrophes. There appeared to be none… just alot of laughing and lying in the snow with ones skis up in the air. A half an hour later I looked over and to my amazement saw my daughter ski down a small incline.

When the lesson was finished she came up to me breathless, wanting to show all the stuff she could do. We took a spin on the ski trail, and again she slid effortlessly down the gentle slopes.

Soon it was time to go, but she made me promise we would come back. She was hooked, hook, line and sinker.

2/24/08 17:39:04…

Beth, Jo, Amy and Meg.

Shown below is the dreaded ‘double-upside-down-rook’ move…

My new job is in a building 3 blocks closer to home and my daughter’s school.

And those 3 mere blocks change everything. From the old building, it would take 29 minutes to walk from work to my daughter’s school to pick her up at extended day. And that was just a little too long to do, so I never walked. I rode the bike, took the bus, or drove.

But from my new job in the new building, its now just a 24 minute walk and somehow it doesn’t seem so bad. And here’s where Pythagorus makes it even better:

Since I had always traveled to my daughter’s school on a wheeled vehicle, I had entirely ignored a diagonal shortcut street because it was one-way in the wrong direction. However, since I now entertained the notion of walking to her school, I noticed that the shortcut was in effect a hypotenuse, thus diminishing the two major legs of the commute by an additional square root of the sum of the squares of the two other legs of the trip. If you work out the numbers, you save an additional 8.062 minutes.

Which makes it 15.938 minute walk at the end of the day.

Hailey’s dad Marc took photos of the girls playing with dress-up clothes. Here they are in their wigs, making their fashion statement, with grandparents looking on in the background.

In any case, treasured routines (like writing in blogs, washing dishes, and chatting on phone to friends) are left at the wayside.

Fortunately, Rada is in good form, more and more self-managed, and navigating school, extended day, and life in general very well.

So I just wanted to post a quick note here so you all wouldn’t think this blog had become a dead link!

And the pace will calm down at some point (um…. maybe 2009?) but in any case I will post more. So don’t remove me from your RSS reader quite yet.

Unable to finesse turkey preparation for another year, I landed the job of cooking. Rada helped at several stages: folding napkins, setting the table, and preparing the meal cart in Ritz dining-room style.

Not sure where she picked this up (since my idea of haute cuisine is S&S deli) but she posed as elegant waiter, complete with white shirt and apron.

While waiting for the turkey to cook, we visited the park down the street. I furtively looked in direction of my house every ten minutes, convinced that an un-monitored turkey would surely erupt in flames (even though placed in deep dish in middle of oven).

An extended family was there trying to work off their earlier meal, and I was invited to a pick-up game of touch football with them. The grandmother sat by watching, and Rada played with the younger kids.

Its nice to think about that day during this snowy rainy slushy darkness of mid-December.

My daughter, looking around wide-eyed, said “wow…its like a soft white blanket.”

I stopped for a moment to peer out from under my scarf and hat. She was right. It was utterly beautiful.

There is an irony to snow.

We arrived at the rink 20 minutes ahead of time and got her laced up and ready to go. Then we sat and watched what appeared to be the end of a group skating lesson. The children were about my daughter’s age… stumbling and falling but nonetheless trying very hard with an encouraging teacher who had them bending their knees, making babysteps and falling gracefully.

At 2 pm, the time that Rada’s class was to begin, we went out onto the ice and met the skating instructor. He said, “Oh we didn’t see you in class”.

Perplexed, I said,”what do you mean? We’re here to start the lesson”.

He said “Skating school is over. It goes from 1-2.”

My spirits fell. Somehow there had been a mistake in communication and we had missed her lesson. Looking at the crestfallen child next to me, I apologized to the teacher and said as cheerfully as possible, “well, we’ll do free skating now (thank goodness it was free skating) and we’ll see you next week.”

The instructor looked at Rada for a moment and said, “Wait here”. He went over and spoke to the school director for a minute and then came back to us and said to Rada, “Hey, lets you and me take a spin on the ice.”

And he proceeded to give her the equivalent of a 1/2 hour private lesson. It was pretty amazing. She ’skated’ the entire length of the rink, she fell with grace and got up again. She bent her knees and she did little bunny steps.

I thanked the instructor. My daughter was beaming. “I can skate!”

It was pretty neat.

How many girls can fit on the bed in Anne’s cottage…? Six.

Count them!

However, after considering the day’s schedule, it became clear that voting just wasn’t going to be possible. I had recently started a new job and did not think it would be good form to skip out mid-day for a visit to the polls. Furthermore, I was in the middle of trying to get over a nasty cold and didn’t want to be running around the city in the rain. Lastly, I didn’t want to drag my daughter to the polls with me after a long day when she’d be tired.

So I accepted that I wouldn’t vote.

Then, as I sat at a red light waiting to get my daughter from after-school, I looked over and happened to notice that I was idling right in front of my neighborhood polling place. Not only that, there was an empty parking space right next to me. Looking at my watch, I calculated a 12-minute window before having to get my daughter from school. I pulled into the parking space, walked briskly into the polling place (no line), cast my vote, got back in the car, and picked up my daughter with 6 minutes to spare.

However, a recent and fortunate set of circumstances has given me jurisdiction over two new computers, one Dell PC and one MacBookPro.

Here’s what happened when I tried to attach a camera…

to a Dell Inspiron:

“Huh? what the…? Oh yeah, so its a USB. Never seen one of these. Nope, not on our list. Sorry lady, go to the internet and see if you can find a set of drivers and then maybe we can do business. For now, Scram! Get off the OS.”

Compared to the MacBookPro:

“Good morning; I see you’ve attached a Nikon Coolpix 990. May I suggest routing your files to iPhoto? And… there they are. Lovely. Would madam like to view in thumbnail or preview mode?”

It was like night and day.

MacBook: please take me to your leader. I am ready to undergo conversion.

Bill supplied excellent loaner camera at the 11th hour. For which I am so grateful because I wouldn’t have known how to begin describing this 7-year old princess who is cuter than a button.

However, either in deference to national individualism or perhaps just to give parents a break from repeated launderings, the school allows a non-dress-code day once a month. And to further give the students a reason to break out and cheer, the non-dress-code days usually have a theme such as Whacky Hat Day, Pajama Day, or - as regards to today - Crazy Hair Day.

Planning has been in the works for months for Crazy Hair Day. Our stylish friend Clare (who regularly shows up for work at local venerable institution of higher learning with blue, green and purple splashes in her hair) has an ample selection of coloring materials, and she graciously gave me a sample of colors for my daughter.

Last night my daughter and I tried out the colors, and learned that the coloring is thick and slow to dry, but extremely bright and visible.

So this morning, we got ready to apply the colors all over her hair. However, things did not go as planned. Rada was extremely worried that she just didn’t look crazy enough and - even worse - that people just would not laugh at her.

I assured her that she looked absolutely outrageous and that everything would be fine, but she insisted on making numerous adjustments, adding several extra pony tails, more color on top, and at several point collapsed into sobs, worried that she just didn’t look right and that it just wasn’t CRAZY enough.

But finally we set out to school… she looking worried and tense.

When we got to the school yard, friends and teachers reacted with awe, amazement and glee, and Rada lit up as if she was an actress stepping into the limelight.

All her earlier grief of the morning had been akin to that of the moody star who throws fits and tantrums in her dressing room, only to finally emerge stunning and brilliant to the awe of her public.

And as lowly costume attendant, I was just glad to get her off to school in time.

I assumed, like the UPS folks (just love those guys and gals in their brown shorts), that DHL would come back later in the afternoon or early evening, but alas there was no sign of them. So I called the DHL number and after battling the menu system, finally talked to a human, and told her I don’t get home from work til 5:30.

“Ok, ” said Virginia, “we’ll have them come after that.”

But Tuesday evening, there was another DHL slip saying they’d again tried to deliver at 12:30.

I called again, and spoke to Samantha. She apologized for the confusion and asked me what was the earliest that I could be home on Wednesday. I said if I rushed, I could get there by 5:15.

So Wednesday afternoon, I ran through yellow lights, rushed to after-school, nudged my daughter into the car, and high-tailed it home only to see another attempted delivery slip on my door.

Now beginning to feel the rise of temperature, and the smoke coming out my ears, I called DHL AGAIN, and asked Brian exactly what WAS the problem, and did he know that I’d called THREE times already about this VERY situation. Brian apologized sincerely for the mishap and assured me that there was a truck in the area that could swing by sometime that evening before 8:45 pm.

8:45 came and went, and as is my wont on Wednesday evenings of a busy week, I collapsed into a dreamless sleep at about 9:15, disappointed, wondering if I’d ever lay eyes on the equipment that I had so dearly payed for, and contemplating what I would have to do or say tomorrow to get them to deliver it to me.

Several hours later I was awoken by a tap tapping noise. I bounded out of bed, ran into my daughter’s room, thinking she was trying to escape out the window. But she was resting peacefully. I looked up at the ceiling thinking perhaps it was starting to fall down, but it was sitting there holding up the kitchen walls very nicely.

I heard the tap tapping again. It was coming from the front door. I crept fearfully to the door and asked “who is it?”, looking at the clock and realizing it was 11 pm at night… thinking it could very well be an axe murder.

“DHL” came the answer on the other side.

DHL??? at 11 pm?

I opened the door fearfully, stuck between fear of being murdered and the hope that this actually might be my new computer. There at the doorstep stood a man with a medium sized box in his hand. I signed on the dotted LED screen, and took the box inside. It had the words Dell on it. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep.

Apparently it was the main topic of discussion at after-school that day. There was going to be a night game and although the Sox were not playing the Yankees, it was going to be a really good game. Everyone at after-school was going to tune in and and watch it. Rada wanted to watch, too. I looked at her, smiling blandly, feeling a desperate horror. (Does one watch baseball on TV?? Is it network TV or must one subscribe to cable? Isn’t it at ungodly late hour at night? How do I find out about this?)

And of course I suspect watching the game on TV is only the beginning. Images of Fenway Park loom leeringly in my consciousness, with the smell of hot dogs and beer. How did this happen to my daughter? What a surprise!

And how will I cope? Is it possible to learn how to understand baseball scores late in life?

Ayce took these from the next booth. She asked Rada to make some silly faces, and Rada dove into the task with sincere abandon.

To mark the event, Rada and I took a celebratory trip to Target. In an extravagant mood and I got her a:

• cheetah halloween costume
• pumpkin halloween candy bucket
• set of pink, purple, and green bunny barrettes
• pack of socks in vibrant pastels
• 5 multi-colored hair bands

She wore her cheetah costume all evening and spent hours trying on her new hair care items. She was in great spirits, probably infected by the festive mood and energy.

I’m a lucky person. Sometimes the planets do align.

What started out as several phone calls turned into a logistical nightmare: Babysitter is to pick up daughter at school. Babysitter cannot leave van unattended with other children inside. School is located on street that prohibits double parking. School requires children be ‘escorted’ from schoolyard to waiting vehicles. What to do?

And another:

Parent’s employer discourages employees bringing motor vehicles to work. Parent rides bike. Pick-up of child from babysitter requires vehicle to transport child. Parent’s employer requires a 9 hour day. Babysitter has commitments limiting evening availability. How to switch transportation modes on-the-fly and reach the goal within babysitter’s temporal parameters?

I did figure out solutions to both of the above, but only through the strategic use of cell phones, the targeted placement of grandmothers, and the merciful serendipity of traffic. The challenge of it finally convinced me once and for all, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that motherhood IS rocket science, and that I am a genius.

Who is aided by one rockin’ grandmother.

Rada’s 7th birthday party was a study in chaos and redemption. Planned for the outside, it was on one of those days where the weather never figured out what to do: threatening, hinting and teasing at rain, but never actually down-pouring. Party guests ran wildly over dinosaurs and hippos played miniature golf while dark clouds swarmed over head with occasional droplets, so we bailed to a nearby pizza parlor for lunch.

When we arrived, I discovered to my horror that they were in the process of going out of business and refused to serve a party of 24. I begged and pleaded, assuring them that all we needed were 4 hot pizzas. I had plates, cups, drinks, napkins, and basically everything else, due to the original preparations for outside picnic. Finally, I laid a $10 bill on the server’s hand, pointed to the 12 hungry children streaming in the door, and said “I am at your mercy”.

They were merciful. 4 pizzas arrived 20 minutes later.

Gwen took lovely photos of the event. I can’t stop looking at them:

Here is Rada teeing-off. Note dinosaur and hippo in the background.

Talented Marjorie led guests in Simon Says… and saved the day during the long wait for pizza.

Casey and Rada played movie star with their bad-girl sunglasses.

No sooner did the birthday hubbub die down, but preparations for school began.

Rada has been in 1st grade for 4 days now and beside her initial push-back to the notion of getting up early and out the door, she’s been doing well. She heads into the big red brick school house every day, and I don’t really know much of what goes on, except scattered and vague reports about the new music teacher’s crocodile, and lunchtime when chicken nuggets have value as local currency, traded among students for chocolate milk and extra ketchup.

But this time it was different. She seemed to warm up to the other people, and she held her own in several conversations which did not even focus on horses or lions. Furthermore, in order to accommodate the differing points of view, the other guests generously alternated between discussing real-estate pricing and playing ‘telephone’ around the table. So everyone got a little of what they wanted, and no one felt unduly left out. My daughter listened quietly while condo fees were discussed, and the other guests sportingly played ‘telephone’ with the same enthusiasm as if they’d just played it yesterday, instead of 20 years ago.

At one point, the host disappeared with my daughter to the other side of the roof-top deck, behind a wall, where the dining table was. In her absence, I enjoyed being able to give the other guests my full attention. The minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of my daughter or the host. Finally, about a half an hour later, Rada re-appeared and announced that dinner was ready. She and the host had brought up food, plates, and other tableware to the roof, set it up, and served the meal.

I was amazed. How can I get her to do this for me every night… at home?

After what seemed like years of frowing fings on fursdays, she just started throwing things on thursdays. She was so excited she had to show me. ‘Look mom, look!”

And I watched as she put her tongue just under her upper teeth and blew out, and there it was, a faltering ‘th’ sound, but it was, nonetheless.

We danced around the kitchen celebrating that she’d got it.

I would have burst into The Rain in Spain, but the risk of getting one of those ‘oh mom you are too crazy’ looks constrained me.

Rada got to try out the controls on Poul’s plane.

These are the excellent clothes of a six-year old at mid-summer.

The condition of what she’s wearing offers me concrete indicators of how she spent her day. I get clues about what she did, where she went, etc. and I learn more from what her clothes than from what she remembers to tell me.

One day, a few weeks ago, she came home with sparkles all over her. Earlier that afternoon she had decorated her clay sculpture and she’d gotten sparkles on her clothes, face, and hair. I noticed, after a few days, that the sparkles were still in her hair. An extra vigorous shampoo succeeded in getting out most of them but a few were still there. A few days later I did another vigorous shampoo, with more scrubbing, but several sparkles still remained. They appeared to be glued to her skull. It is now 4 weeks later and the sparkles are still there. About 10 of them are on her head; you can see them if you look from the top down.

Should I scrub harder? Is there a special shampoo for getting out sparkles? Am I a bad mother for not being more worried about this?

The reception was in an airy barn overlooking blueberry and raspberry fields. When young guests grew weary of the wedding protocol, or got hungry before the meal was served, they wandered out to the berries and snacked.

All this past week, my daughter has been systematically marrying off her stuffed animals. Her dragons have taken vows, several plastic cows have walked up the aisle, and this morning two hobby horses stood up in front of an officiating minister (who simultaneously ate cereal while dispensing the vows). Later the same minister swept floors while exhorting the wedding couple to “have and to hold” (its amazing how far the reaches of multitasking can extend).

For the curious among you, this morning’s horse bride looked lovely in a white tulle veil (formerly