Hectic

Things have been busy lately. Busy enough that I felt dizzy all weekend until I sat on my rear for a few hours Sunday afternoon and just knitted and watched whattheheckever was on Hulu.

Yesterday, Princess asked me in a sort of plaintive tone "mom, you said we'd be going to Michael's some time. When can we go?"

Her teacher talked to me a couple of weeks ago and said that she had been acting very distracted in school, forgetting her homework, and having episodes of crying in the classroom. This all began when I started school, which of course coincided with that accident.

I walked away from that meeting determined to do something to bouy her spirits, something that would help me spend time with her and otherwise give her a skill with which she could be happy. She had kind of letting the knitting go after a while due to difficulty with getting the right tension without having the yarn flip off (she was wrapping it tightly enough that I had to break the yarn to get it off of the pegs). So I told her that we could go to Michael's, browse for a long time, and see what we could bring home for her.

Her question struck something deep within me, and I thought about it for about three seconds. "Tonight, right after dinner." Family Home Evening wasn't going to happen anyway, so I made an executive decision to go on an immediate date with my daughter.

I helped her hurry the dishes into the washer and away we went. We had a great time, stopping first at Costco to get her a bathing suit for the summer, then going to WalMart to pick up a couple of shirts that she absolutely loves. Finally, we stopped at Michael's. We got her a very small counted cross stitch project and a small latchhook project, and she used her own money to buy a book where you can use a stylus to scratch at a black page to reveal colored foil, creating designs with the rainbow-on-black look. Also, scrapbook organizing supplies were 40% off, so I got a GREAT DEAL on an organizing thingy that will make my craft room breath in relief. (can't find it online, you'll just have to trust that Raul has a girlfriend now, Siobhan.) It's small but glorious.

And Princess talked. She talked and talked, and I responded and we laughed. She made jokes and her face glowed when I laughed. She told me about school, and about her friends, and about how excited she was about her grandparents to all visit this week. She told me about the colors she loves and the objects she'd like to have some day (usually in reference to things we don't keep in the house because the little girls either scatter them or draw on the walls with them) and, by the time we came home, she looked contented despite how much her feet hurt from all the walking.

We'll have to do that more often.