Yesterday we had a fun playdate with Carrie and her kids. I feel like I was neglecting an assignment and now I’ve finally gotten a good start on it! See, Brenda and Carrie are blog friends from way back. When Brenda and Bug were here helping us unpack last spring, Carrie and her son Erik came over for lunch one day, and we had a blast, kids and moms alike. Brenda ordered me and Carrie to become good friends and have lots of playdates so she could live vicariously through us. I had every intention of following her orders, because Carrie is smart and funny and interesting and I liked her very much, and also I don’t have very many local friends!

But you know how life goes. First, we were busy unpacking and settling in. Then, Carrie and her husband Mike had a baby girl, Elsa, and were deep in the newborn stage of just trying to keep their heads above water with no extra time for playdates. Then Annalie and I went to Omaha for a visit. Then it was Annalie’s birthday, and my mom was in town for a few weeks. And of course by then I was dealing with first-trimester exhaustion all the time, and then we went on another trip to Omaha.

But finally, all the stars aligned and we had simultaneous free afternoons! So Annalie and I went over to their house to play and eat Carrie’s yummy version of my spicy veggie stir-fry with peanut sauce, which I just realized I’ve never blogged despite it being one of those recipes that everyone always asks for when I make it. Then Annalie and Erik wandered downstairs to the playroom while Carrie and I gabbed away for more than an hour. We were so busy talking (mostly about cloth diapers—more on that in a bit) that we neglected to check on our kids even once. But it was okay, because they got along great! They prepared a delicious pretend vegetable soup garnished with maple syrup for us.

Then we changed into our swimsuits and went to the splash park! There is an awesome park in their town that is full of fun things to do, among them this excellent splash park next door to a miniature golf course. Annalie has been to a half-dozen different spraygrounds in her life, so they’re no big deal to her, but when we walked into this place her eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Oh, wow! This is so cool!” She barely stood in one place long enough for me to spray sunblock on her, she was so excited to go play. (Incidentally, I’d like to kiss whoever invented spray sunblock. I love that stuff.)

Annalie and Erik both took off as soon as they were sunblocked. I grabbed my camera and followed them, persuading them to pose for a quick photo before they ditched me to play. I followed Annalie around as she checked out the “big mushrooms” and the waterfall cave and took a moment to spin the wheel on a spray fountain. I grabbed her for a quick arm’s-length self-portrait by the water maze, forgetting that I’d zoomed in for the previous photo and the result was a surprisingly good close-up shot.

Annalie fell in love with this blue whale, whom she said was named Daisy. There was a bit of drama over the fact that other kids kept climbing onto the whale with her, which would make Annalie hop off and pout till they’d left. Then she would race back over and climb on the whale’s back again. I think we are providing her with a sibling (and hopefully some perspective) not a moment too soon. Erik, meanwhile, spent a few minutes perched on the frog’s back, encouraging it to hop. “C’mon, Frog, HOP!” He didn’t seem to mind that the frog ignored him.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I pointed my camera at Erik, who tried to thwart me by sticking his hands in front of his face. So I just raised the camera and pointed it down at his head. Ha! At least to a 4-year-old, I’m still tall.

Most of the time we were there, both kids were in the water maze. I spent some time in there myself, since Annalie wanted me to go in with her a couple of times—purely for fun, not because she was afraid. I actually spent a few minutes contemplating how great it was that she wasn’t the least bit afraid of the noisy jets of water; that she just charged right into their midst, laughing. I bet last summer she would have had to spend a while working up her courage, and then she would have only gone in if someone had been there holding her hand. I love watching my kid grow up. No crying on my baby’s first day of kindergarten for me, thank you!

Well, she’s home-schooled, so her first day of kindergarten was at home with me. But that’s beside the point. My point is that I genuinely delight in her growing confidence, knowledge, and skills. Did you know she can totally make her own microwave popcorn now, starting with getting the package out of the pantry and all the way to dumping it in a bowl and adding a sprinkle of salt? She can also get her own bowl of cereal, pour herself a glass of lemonade without spilling, and get herself out of the shower, dried off, and into her pajamas. I love age six!

I admit that when I think ahead to her being a college student I might sigh a little, but then Annalie tells me that she doesn’t want to live in a dorm when she is in college because she would be too sad to leave me and Troy and her little sister. I take that with a grain of salt of course, because she probably will change her tune over the next 12 years. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t. She is just that kind of person. Hey, my younger brother lived with my parents for six or seven years in his late 20s, just because he liked living with them, and I am forever telling Annalie how much she reminds me of her Unky Ben! So we’ll see….

…but I digress! I was telling you about how the big water maze was the main attraction for both Annalie and Erik. Even Carrie (with Elsa asleep on her chest) and I enjoyed standing near it. The shallow water cooled our feet and the mist from the fountain sprayed our faces and arms and kept us from overheating while we chatted about how we wished we had waterproof cameras and kept an eye on the kids. Though it was actually perfect splash park weather yesterday, not horrifically hot like it was last week.

Eventually, we noticed that the kids were getting tired, and were just sort of hanging out near us. It was almost time for us to head home anyway, to give us a chance to beat the afternoon rush. So we casually mentioned the magic words “ice cream” and Annalie and Erik immediately announced that they were ready to leave and rushed over to dry themselves off and put their shoes on so they could go pick out their ice cream treats. Not a bad way to end an afternoon at the splash park and a summer playdate!

Thanks again for the fun afternoon, Carrie, Erik & Elsa! We’re already looking forward to next time.

Oh, remember how I mentioned up there that Carrie and I were talking about cloth diapers while our kids played? Yep, I think we’re gonna cloth diaper this time.

I’ve been really intrigued by cloth-diapering since right around the time Annalie was potty-trained. I’d been watching my friend Lynn use cloth on her daughters for a couple of years by then, and I’d had several conversations about the whole thing with OMSH, who is a staunch advocate of cloth diapers.

Then I moved to San Diego and became friends with Sonja in real life. She’s a cloth-diaperer who also works at a shop that sells natural, organic and earth-friendly products for parents and kids, including a wide range of cloth diapering, breastfeeding, and babywearing products. So she’s kind of an expert. My friend Madge also used cloth diapers on her kids. And now Carrie, too. Much like with homeschooling, the more I considered using cloth diapers on a theoretical second child, the more people I discovered around me who had been cloth diaperers. Troy and I talked it over, and we decided we’d give it a shot.

Which leads me to the above photo. Carrie’s daughter Elsa, at 3.5 months old, is ahead of the growth curve and has already outgrown a lot of her size small diapers. Carrie had mentioned that she was trying to sell them online, but that she was running into a lot of people who weren’t willing to pay her (more than fair) asking price. I offered to buy a few from her, thus getting me started on my stash, and preventing her from having to deal with crazy bargain-hunters and shipping hassles.

Which is why I left the playdate yesterday with ten size small cloth diapers (and a sample of Rockin’ Green detergent and a couple of little cubes used for making wipes solution that Carrie generously shared with me). When we arrived back home and I opened Annalie’s door so I could grab the shopping bag of diapers, Annalie hopped out with a grin on her face and her doll Greta clutched in one arm—and Greta was now wearing the blue and purple diaper that had been at the top of the bag. Even Annalie thinks cloth diapering is a good idea, apparently.

Taking at-arm’s-length self-portraits with babies is fun! Do more of these with your second kid.

And keep doing them with your first kid and your niece, because they’re both really cute.

We’ve been writing a lot of thank-you notes lately around here. I’ve always been a big believer in thank-you notes, especially for gifts that were mailed to me. If nothing else they let the giver know that the gift was received. I like handwritten notes best, but I think emailed thank-yous are just as thoughtful and polite.

In previous years, I would just have Annalie dictate her thank-you notes to me, and she would sign her name and maybe draw a little picture. This year, it was a whole different ballgame. Annalie is reading and writing more and more on her own. That means that now, thank-you notes are a chance for her to practice handwriting, spelling, sentence structure, and letter-writing.

I’ve often remarked on how much Annalie is like my younger brother. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a stronger resemblance between Annalie and her Unky Ben than in their similar approach to thank-you notes, which can be summed up succinctly in three words: DO NOT WANT.

When I was a kid, I loved writing thank-you notes. I still do, though I might occasionally lack the time-management to get them done in a timely manner. My brother, on the other hand, fought writing thank-you notes tooth and nail. He just didn’t like to write, or sit still. I loved doing both.

It’s all in the approach, though. If you’d taken my brother to the house of each person who’d given him a present, I’m sure he would have gladly run to the door, rung the doorbell, and effusively thanked each friend or relative in person, complete with hugs and kisses and detailed descriptions of how he planned to play with each new toy. If you’d tried to make me go door-to-door and thank everyone in person, I probably would have slouched down under my seatbelt, crossed my arms, scowled, and refused to get out of the car. Have I mentioned that my brother and I are very different in some ways?

Here’s the thing about Annalie: when it’s her idea, she loves to write and draw and make lists. She does it almost compulsively on her own, while she’s watching TV, while someone is reading to her, while we’re driving, while she’s waiting for her food in a restaurant. If I try to make her write when she doesn’t want to, it often turns into a long, drawn-out battle of wills (see the updates at the end of that post) that just exhausts us both and makes me question my fitness for motherhood.

Mostly, writing thank-you notes this time around has been a pleasant surprise. I’ve been trying to catch her in the mood to write, which has helped a lot. And I guess she is six years old, after all! It’s amazing what a difference a year can make.

When we started I wrote out a sample note for her that said, “Dear ________, Thank you for the ________. Love, Annalie.” That way she could see she didn’t have to write very much, and that at least half of the words she had to write were words she already knew.

At first she groaned and complained a bit. We talked several times about how kind it was of her friends and relatives to take the time to think about her, pick a present she would like, wrap it prettily and send it to her; and about how taking five minutes to write a thank-you note was a small gesture of gratitude in return for that thoughtfulness. I made the mistake of joking to her once that I could tell everyone she didn’t want gifts next year because thank-you notes were too much trouble to write, and she got genuinely upset. Oops. Reminder to self: six-year-olds might be more mature than five-year-olds, but they don’t always get sarcastic humor.

After she got a few notes done, the complaints were fewer and farther between. Yesterday, writing what was probably her 12th or 13th thank-you note in recent weeks, she pretty much wrote the whole thing on her own. She only needed help with one or two words that she didn’t know!

I told her I was proud of her, and pointed out that she seemed to have learned how to spell “dear” and “thank.” She replied in a rather annoyed tone, “No, I was just guessing! I don’t know how to spell them!” She reacts the same way when we point out a word she read on her own, telling us she didn’t really know what it said, that she just saw the letters and guessed. It’s no use telling her that that is reading. She’s so funny.

But hey, she’s writing thank-you notes, and learning while she’s doing it. Even if she isn’t ready to admit it.

(Thanks, Mom, for taking both the photos in this post!)

Isn’t this skirt great? I bought from Rebecca Brayton’s Etsy shop as a birthday present for Annalie, hoping it would take the place of the tulle underskirt that goes with the Cinderella dress CC made for her three years ago, the one she wears all the time, despite the fact that it’s got a waist-high slit and is not a skirt but a petticoat. Anyway, this seems to have done the trick. I have not seen her wearing the increasingly ratty petticoat since it arrived. And it’s fun to twirl in!

I just looked at the date on my previous post. How have I not written anything new for four days!? The time, she gets away from me. It’s partly because we had a birthday party to attend this weekend out of town, which meant an overnight stay in a really nice hotel with a great swimming pool, which I would have enjoyed a lot more if Annalie had not woken up at 5:50am (after not falling asleep till 10pm the night before) asking if it was time to go swimming yet. Oy. But then my mom and I got to go paint pottery tonight with my friend Rebekah, which was awesome. I forget how painting makes me feel all calm and energized at the same time till I’m doing it again. And tonight I even painted something non-dotty, which I don’t do very often so whenever I do I’m all pleased with myself for breaking out of my rut.

Also, that cold that Troy had for four days a couple of weeks back, the one that required him to blow his nose a dozen times or so? I caught that cold, which means I went through more Puffs Plus on my first day of being sick than he did in the whole duration of his cold. If I’m lucky I’ll be all better by June. So instead of staying up late to blog about Annalie’s birthday party which was last weekend, I’m going to bed. If I don’t post anything new for a few days, just assume I’m busy blowing my nose and drinking mug after mug of hot peppermint tea with honey. And let’s all hope that before I know it, I’m back to feeling like Annalie looks in this photo.

A few days ago, Annalie asked if she could watch TV. It was a beautiful day, and in a burst of inspiration I told her to take her sketchbook outside and draw five things that start with T. When she had done that, then she could come inside and watch a show.

For some reason, this caught her imagination immediately. This confirmed my suspicion that 9 times out of 10 when she wants to watch TV, she just can’t think of anything better to do. She bustled around the house, gathering her box of crayons, her Skittles-wrapper sketchbook (best impulse buy I ever made at Toys ‘R Us), Fluffy the kitten, a rug and a blanket to sit on, and an apple.

The violets were covering the slopes of our backyard still, so I followed her outside to take a few photos. We discussed things she could draw that started with T. She decided she wanted to draw other things first, before she drew the T things, and I said that was fine, she could do the list whenever she was ready.

I went back up to the house, and Annalie stayed outside. She soon abandoned the sketching completely and got lost in some make-believe game involving her kitten. The box of crayons turned into Fluffy’s bed. Once when I looked out there they were both “asleep.”

Another time I checked on her she was running around the yard, grabbing handfuls of wild onions and sniffing deeply before carrying them back to the blanket and adding them to her pile, which she later picked up and scattered all over the yard.

I expected her to come in after a few minutes. Though it was sunny it wasn’t that warm. But she must have been enjoying the fresh air because she stayed outside for a good hour. I hollered down at her from the deck occasionally to ask if she needed anything or how she was doing, and her standard response was, “I’m OK!”

Eventually she came back inside and asked to watch TV again. I asked if she’d finished her list. She had drawn a tree, but nothing else. I told her that she could watch TV when she finished the list. She asked, “Can I just write five things that start with T instead of drawing them?” And that’s what she did. I helped a little, but mostly she sounded them out on her own, as you can see from her spelling of telephone.

I could try this experiment again today and it might fail miserably. Annalie would likely grouse and complain about having to list five things before she actually did it. I don’t know why it worked out so well that day, but it did. So I told Annalie how proud I was of her that she’d played outside for an hour, using her imagination and enjoying the fresh air; I praised her spelling and writing and her attempt at a long, tricky word; and I patted myself on the back and enjoyed one of those lovely moments where I feel like I know what I’m doing at this mom thing.

Update: I talked to Annalie about it, and said that I’d like her to write five words each time she wants to watch a show from now on. She was agreeable till she wanted to watch TV. Since then we’ve had two crying tantrums and three epic battles of will about it. She did write a list of P words earlier (plant, popcorn, pork, pet, polish, and papa), and got as far as writing apple for an A list before she decided she’d rather just draw. That was before she nearly destroyed a dry-erase pen and ran sobbing to her room. *Sigh.*

Update 2: She decided she wanted to watch Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, and wrote ant and Aang in about 15 seconds flat, no tears. Sheesh. Parenthood is not for the weak or easily confused!

Annalie picked out her own basket at Target, with removable, wearable butterfly wings. It was filled with the usual assortment of candy, sidewalk chalk, and small toys. Rather than spend ten bucks on a basket for Troy that I didn’t really want, I spent $30 on a basket I did really want, then filled it with chips and beer and sausage for Troy. Happy Easter to both of us!

We didn’t dye eggs till Sunday afternoon, after we got home from church. I don’t know why. We just didn’t get around to it till then. I did manage to boil the eggs ahead of time at least.

When my brother and I were kids, we always used to race through the two dozen eggs my mom had boiled for us, and then beg for more to dye. Annalie was no different. I had boiled 18 eggs, and when those were gone Annalie immediately asked if we could boil some more. What is it about dyeing eggs that’s so incredibly fun? Maybe because we only do it once a year?

You’d never know it’s only an annual event from watching Annalie at it. She’s a pro.

I only did one or two eggs, then left Troy and Annalie to it while I slipped outside to “check on how the Easter Bunny was doing with hiding the eggs.” Annalie rolled her eyes and said in an exasperated tone, “Mo-om, there’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny. It’s you hiding the eggs!” Annalie has always known that certain characters are make-believe, but we’ve always pretended just for fun. She’s not even six years old and she’s already jaded. Hmmph. So of course I made sure to mention the Easter Bunny at every chance and played dumb when she told me that she knew I’d hidden the eggs, just because it was fun to see her get all huffy each time I did so. I love being a mom.

We have an excellent backyard for Easter egg hunts. I was almost sorry we only had sixteen eggs! Next year we’ll have to make sure we host an Easter party of some kind so we can have a big old hunt with a ton of kids. I offered to go hide the eggs again for Annalie, just for kicks, but she was more interested in eating the jellybeans and chocolate and cheese puffs and counting her coins. Can’t say I blame her. I’m partial to a lot of Easter candy. In fact, I think I’ll go have another Peep right now, or maybe a creme egg.

…right after I show you this photo of Annalie wearing her new butterfly earrings that were an Easter gift from Gramaw. What I won’t show you is a family photo, because we forgot to take one; or a photo of Annalie and her Cabbage Patch doll Greta in their matching Easter dresses, because by the time I thought of taking one Annalie was done with posing and then she changed into play clothes. Oh well.

Hope you all had a wonderful, shiny, blessed Easter this year!

Today was a good day. Annalie and I hung out at home in our jammies most of the morning. We had peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, Annalie spent almost an hour telling me an elaborate story about how she was born in Mexico but her parents couldn’t take care of her so she had to live at a children’s helping place and then we adopted her, but not before her abuela taught her how to cook a soup with carrots…only they aren’t really carrots, they’re yellow onions and they have to be cut up very small. That last part she told me while she was using a paring knife to chop up five or six baby carrots into 1/4-inch pieces, which she then put in a bowl and snacked on while she watched The Electric Company.

We ran some errands, including the pottery studio, where I was just going to pick up a couple of mugs to paint later. But while we were there, Annalie said she wanted to paint something. Usually I’m lucky if she’ll paint for ten minutes, and then I’ll try to distract her with snacks for another half-hour before giving up and coming back another day to finish my project. Today I was able to almost finish both mugs (and would have completely finished them except I didn’t have information I needed to write something on the bottom of the mugs). Annalie knew exactly what she wanted to do, and spent 45 minutes painting one thing, then almost as long painting a second item. I offered to wrap my mugs up and take her home when she was done, but she said, “No, that’s okay. I’ll color with markers till you’re done.” And that was on top of earlier today when she was going downstairs for some reason, and she turned back and said, “Can I get you a snack while I’m downstairs? Or a Diet Coke maybe?”

As some commenters noted on my last post, 5 1/2 is just one of those ages where there’s a lot of questioning and challenging going on with most kids. And Annalie certainly does miss her daddy. We talk about Troy all the time and pray for him every night. We take a photo for him every day, and she’s always drawing him pictures or typing him emails. Goodness knows that when I am having a bad day, I’m often thinking Waaah, I want Troy! so it makes perfect sense that she’d be thinking the same thing when she’s having a bad day.

I’m sure we’ll have plenty more time-outs and talks about anger and not letting your temper get the better of you, but for now things are back to normal. Maybe even a little better than normal.

*Troy asked me what the title of this post meant, since it seemed like the day I wrote about had been a pretty good day. It’s actually a line of the song “Bad Day” from Barenaked Ladies’ album SNACKTIME!, the one they wrote with kids in mind. You can find the lyrics and play the song here.

We’ve had a rather rough few days around here. It hasn’t been all bad, we’ve had plenty of storytelling and tickling and other pleasant interactions. But we’ve also had way more than our usual share of time-outs and dicussions about why it’s not okay to disobey your mother, or to speak rudely, or to throw books, or to hit. We’ve talked about how it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to say, “I’m really angry about this,” but it’s not okay to lose your temper and take your anger out on the people around you.

I don’t think there’s any particular reason Annalie has been testing limits lately. She’s been eating and sleeping normally. Our routine is settling back down after travels and houseguests and sickness, so that’s probably part of it. I think it’s mostly just one of those things that kids do from time to time, checking to see if all the rules are still the same. Or maybe God thought I hadn’t been challenged enough lately. Who knows.

In any case, today was Annalie’s half-birthday—that is, the day she turned 5 1/2. My piano teacher’s family used to celebrate half-birthdays with half a cake, just for fun. Troy and I have celebrated each other’s half-birthdays a few times over the years (mine is 9/11, which has a whole new meaning the past eight years), when we’ve been apart on our actual birthdays. Today I decided to surprise Annalie with a half-cake because I thought we could use a fun surprise.

I tried to be sneaky about it. When I was in the kitchen cleaning up and Annalie was upstairs drawing and watching Cyberchase, I whipped up a small one-layer lemon cake as quietly as I could. I didn’t use my big stand mixer because I figured Annalie might hear it. While it was baking, I went back upstairs and played a game of UNO with Annalie, then went back downstairs to take out the trash and recycling, and take the cake out of the oven and make some frosting.

I discovered I could not make the frosting without using the stand mixer. Sure enough, within two seconds of turning it on, I heard Annalie jump off the couch and come clattering downstairs. I flicked the mixer off, met Annalie in the kitchen doorway and said, “You can’t come in! It’s a surprise for you and it’s not ready yet.”

Annalie grinned and asked, “Is it cake? It smells like lemon cake!”

“It’s a surprise, that’s all I’m saying. Can you please stay upstairs for a few more minutes? And not try to sneak into the kitchen? I really want it to be a fun surprise,” I answered.

Annalie, still grinning, replied, “Okay, Mama! I won’t try to sneak down, I promise.” Then, true to her word, she went back upstairs and stayed put till I was done assembling and frosting the cake. I was quite proud of her for that.

When I went upstairs to tell her she could come down and see her surprise, she fairly flew down the stairs, then giggled with delight when she saw the cake. I asked her if she knew why I made her half a cake. She didn’t, so I told her that today was her half-birthday, that today she was officially 5 1/2 years old. She laughed, then ran to get plates and forks.

We put candles in the cake, I sang to her, we took a photo for Troy, and she blew out her candles. We had tall glasses of milk and lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting for dinner. Annalie smiled and chattered nonstop the whole time, and gave me about 17 hugs and kisses while we were eating and talking about the fact that now she’s closer to being six than she is to five.

After dinner we turned on the Christmas lights still strung on our house and in the lemon tree, and went outside to play a game Annalie invented, called “Look, Gramaw sent me a care package!” Annalie put a bunch of stuffed animals and her Halloween candy in a big box, wrote “Gramaw” for the return address and scribbled fake cursive lines for the delivery address, and set it outside the sliding glass door. Then we came inside and went back outside, pretending to be surprised by the big box on the patio. Annalie spent a good 15 minutes exclaiming over the box’s contents and naming each of her “new” stuffed animals. She put the candy back in her Halloween pumpkin, saying she didn’t want any candy right then, since she’d just eaten cake. Very sensible of her, I thought.

Right before bedtime, Annalie almost lost it because she wanted to take a shower upstairs, not downstairs. I’d already switched from a bath to a shower because she insisted that she’d told me she wanted a shower (even though she had told me she wanted a bath), and didn’t feel like switching bathrooms. I told her that she could have a shower upstairs tomorrow, but tonight we were staying downstairs. Oh, the drama. Then she yelled at me because I grabbed the wrong cupcake pajamas from her dresser, she wanted the shorts ones, not the stupid long pants ones! Cue me counting to ten under my breath and saying a prayer for patience.

Compared to the defiance I’ve been dealing with in the past few days, this evening was actually pretty mild. I stayed calm and offered Annalie the choice between downstairs shower or going to bed early, and she backed down, grumbling, and even offered an apology for yelling at me. After her shower we were talking about the fact that when a grown-up says, “This is what we’re doing,” it’s not okay for a kid to yell just because they don’t like what the grown-up said. I asked Annalie why she thought she’d been having so much trouble controlling her temper the last few days, and she shook her head and said, “I just don’t know, Mom! It’s a mystery.”

Maybe it’s just because she’s 5 1/2 now. Life does get more complicated as you get older. I won’t make the mistake of thinking that a 5 1/2-year-old can’t be troubled or worried. I remember being 5 1/2, and in my experience childhood was not all gumdrops and roses. I guess all Troy and I can do is love her, teach her, guide her, give her as much freedom as we safely can, and surprise her with the occasional half-birthday cake.

Annalie is going through a bit of a testing phase right now, as kids do from time to time, just to make sure the grown-ups are paying attention. Lately she’s been testing the rules, testing the boundaries of good behavior, and testing my patience. It’s frustrating but normal.

Considering the testing, I shouldn’t have been that surprised the other day when I found a smiley face the size of a quarter drawn on our couch in marker. I was surprised, though. Annalie has been using washable markers since she was a toddler, and she’s always been pretty good about using them only on paper or other approved surfaces. Occasionally she goes a bit crazy and draws all over her legs or arms, but that’s generally allowed in our house because hey, washable.

After I saw the markered smiley face, I called Annalie upstairs and asked her to tell me about it. She admitted to having done it almost immediately. I told her I was disappointed because she’s old enough to know that drawing on the furniture is never okay. She shrugged and said she was sorry, but the flippant way she did so only made me hotter under the collar.

I struggled to maintain my temper as I had her help me clean up the marker. I also explained that the consequences of not remembering the rules about where to use markers meant she was going to lose her markers for the next couple of days. She wasn’t very happy about that, because I had just bought her a cool new marker set, but she sighed and said she understood.

Then I told her, “I’m really quite upset about this, Annalie. I don’t understand why you deliberately did something that you know is against the rules. I think you might have an extra punishment, but I’m going to have to think about it for a while.” Again she shrugged, before asking if she could have something to eat.

After I fixed her a snack, I emailed Troy to tell him about the Markering Incident and to ask if he had any ideas. I didn’t really expect to hear back from him anytime soon, since he’s basically on the opposite schedule from us on the other side of the world right now, but I felt better once I wrote it all out. Then I took to Twitter and asked if anyone had any thoughts or advice for me.

Almost everyone who answered me suggested that I have her clean it up and take away the markers, both of which I’d already done. At least I felt reassured in those actions. I still felt like this was something that warranted further action, like it was a no-brainer rule that she had to have deliberately broken. After consideration, I decided to have her go to bed an hour early. Annalie hates going to bed early, so I thought it would have an impact. Also, she’d had a busy couple of days and I figured she probably did need the extra sleep.

When I told Annalie that as punishment for markering on the couch she would have an early bedtime, she immediately wailed, “Oh, WHEN will you stop PUNISHING ME!?” I stifled a laugh at her melodramatic response and told her that we’d still read and cuddle before she went to sleep, it was just going to be an hour earlier than normal. She grumbled a bit, but when we finished a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods and I turned off the light, she curled into me and was fast asleep in about two minutes flat.

Yesterday I gave her the markers back and reminded her of the rules. She immediately said, “I know, only on paper. I’ll remember this time.” And she did. She was drawing on her little pad of paper on and off all day yesterday with those markers, and we never had a problem. I breathed a little easier.

This afternoon Bonnie had invited us to a homeschoolers’ knitting group/playgroup. We were both looking forward to it. Annalie had been sniffling and sneezing the past couple of days with a little cold, so we’d been sticking close to home. Today she was feeling much better and we were both looking forward to getting out of the house. Annalie was excited about seeing M and E again, and making some new friends. I was packing up a crochet project to bring with me when I turned around and saw that Annalie had used a marker to draw on the front of her dress.

“Annalie, did you just draw on your dress with a marker?”

She glanced down at her dress, then looked back up at me sheepishly. “Yessss…”

She knew she was in trouble. I sighed, then told her to gather up all her markers and put them in the zipper case. When she was done she handed the case to me, and I told her the markers would be off-limits for a few days again since she had forgotten or ignored the rule to only draw on paper.

Annalie’s response was an almost-jaunty, “Okay, mom!”

I hesitated for a moment. I knew what I had to do. I wanted to get the message across to my little boundary-tester that it was NOT okay to marker on anything but paper. The most immediate way to do that was…

“Annalie, I’m really sorry, but we’re not going to be able to go to the playgroup now.”

Her face crumpled. “What!? But I wanted to go meet some new friends! I haven’t gone to a playgroup since we lived in Maryland and I really want to go to this one!”

That nearly broke my heart. Sometimes I hate having to be consistent. Especially times like this when punishing Annalie meant punishing me too. I’d really been looking forward to that knitting group. But from her reaction I knew I’d done the right thing. I told her that I knew she really wanted to go, but I also knew that she knew the rules about markers. I said I hoped that the next time she was tempted to draw on her clothes or the couch or anything else but paper, she would remember how sad she was to miss out on the playgroup this week. I assured her that we could still go next week.

Annalie’s sadness quickly morphed into anger. She stomped off to her room, declaring her need for private time and her intention to never ever go anywhere again with me. I rolled my eyes and privately debated keeping the markers put away at least till after next week’s knitting group.

A few minutes later, Annalie called to me from her room. I went downstairs and stood in the doorway. She was busy playing with an electronic game and didn’t even notice me at first. When she did look up, she asked if I could bring the book down to her room and read to her for a while.

We spent an hour or so lying on her bed, me reading the rest of our book out loud while she quietly played, occasionally snuggling up next to me to study an illustration of Ma and Laura making cheese, or Pa watching a doe and her yearling fawn from his perch in a tree. When the book was finished, Annalie asked if she could swim, so we filled up the pool and she swam and splashed for a good hour while I read and made notes on something I’m editing for a friend.

We ran some errands: the craft store, the grocery store, Starbucks. Back at home Annalie put on her pajamas and brushed her teeth, and we watched an episode of Chuck at Annalie’s request. We sat on my bed as I read two chapters of Little House on the Prairie while Annalie pretended to wash and cut my hair. I turned out the light and Annalie twined her legs and arms around me, her head pillowed on my arm, just as she’s done since she was a baby. She requested sleepily that I sing to her.

Despite the Second Markering Incident, it was a good day.

On our last night in North Carolina, we went for a pre-bedtime swim at the hotel. By the time we got back from Dana & Paul’s house, it was really past bedtime, but Annalie basically regards hotels as large buildings built around swimming pools. She spends most of her time at any hotel asking if we can swim, when we can swim, how long till we can swim again, and so on. I felt it would be cruel to stay at a hotel for two nights and only let her swim once, especially since we had a room that looked out onto the pool.

We quickly put our suits and Annalie’s lifejacket on and went out to the pool. Annalie didn’t hesitate or test the water first, she just splashed down the steps into the shallow end of the unheated pool, laughing the whole time. I took a few pictures, since the day before I hadn’t taken any. Then I put down the camera and got in the pool with her.

Almost as soon as I got in, Annalie asked if she could take off her lifejacket. She had taken it off the last ten minutes or so of our swim the day before and stayed mostly in the shallow end of the pool or in the hot tub. I said sure, that was fine.

I helped her out of the almost-too-small vest and draped it on a poolside chair to drip. When I got back in the pool, Annalie informed me that she was going to swim into the deep end. “And I don’t want you to help me, Mama, I just want you to walk by me.”

She set off, furiously doggy-paddling and panting loudly as though she were swimming the English Channel, not a 10-meter kidney-shaped pool. I walked alongside her, offering encouragement but no physical assistance. Once or twice her face went under but she bobbed right back up, coughing a little, and kept going. I reminded her that she could always turn over onto her back and float if she needed a little break, and she did that a couple of times for a few seconds, then flipped right back over and continued her energetic swimming.

She swam the length of the pool, then turned around and swam back to the shallow end. She was proud of herself. I was proud of her. The older ladies who were there with their grandkids were proud of her, and told her so. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile any bigger.

As we walked back to our room she mentioned how hungry she was. “You know what would be really good?” she asked hopefully. “Some ice cream.”

I considered it, then said, “Sure. Since you swam all the way across the pool and back, you can have some ice cream before bedtime.” She whooped and ran down the hall to the vending machine that sold frozen treats. That was another one of those saying-yes-when-your-kid-expects-no moments. I love those.

And hey—Annalie’s on her way to swimming! That deserves some ice cream, don’t you think?

p.s. We’re in Virginia Beach now, visiting Meg & Sam.

More about that, and about our super-fun visit with Dana & Paul and Brett & Leo in NC, soon! For now you can see photos in the photosets on Flickr North Carolina – Aug 2009 and Virginia Beach – August 2009