Mean girls? Already?

This is the new game Cora has wanted to play lately: I have to be one of her classmates (let's call her Ann) and she is herself. Then she wants me to call her stupid, and then say her mommy is stupid.

Really?

Now Ann was also linked to Cora's introduction to the word stupid and the world of namecalling, so while a 3 year old's report on what happened a school is sometimes worth regarding with skepticism (you had pizza for lunch every day this week? really?), when something keeps coming up in the same way, there must be something to it.

And I can tell that Cora is mulling all this over. Sometimes she will ask me, "Momma, are you stupid...or not?" And her tone is genuinely quizzical. We've talked about what "stupid" means and when it is okay to say it and when it isn't and what we should say to people who call us stupid. And I'm not completely living in my rosy-colored world; I know kids call kids names and that I neither can nor should protect my girl from everything. Still. I had hoped we would make it a little longer before we had to talk about why some people are mean to other people.

Princess small talk

This evening Cora convinced me to play princesses with her. This involved scrubbing the porch floor with damp paper towels, while she was Cinderella and I was Sleeping Beauty.

Cora/Cinderella: Sleeping Beauty, I'm glad you came over to my house today.
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Well, it's always nice to scrub someone else's floor for a change.
Cora/Cinderella: I have a fairy godmother.
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Really?
Cora/Cinderella: Yes. How many fairy godmothers do you have?
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Oh, I have three.
Cora/Cinderella: Well, what are their names?

And so on.

The new year

The start of the school year always feels to me like the real New Year's Day and this year more than ever because this also the start of a new phase in my family's lives. Chris is installed in his faculty housing apartment in ND, and Cora and I are figuring out our new routine as it unfolds. So far she is coping pretty well - considering how much time she spends with her dad, how involved he has always been with her, how much she must feel his absence. She gets sad once in a while, and cries, and tells me she is worried about him. Oddly enough, there are not a lot of books out there for kids about dads who have to go teach in another state, so that she might see her experience reflected. Or maybe there are, and I haven't found them yet.

We are about to the middle of our first two week stretch without him. We made a paper chain to count down the days until we see him again. I plan to make a big calendar, too, for September, but things have been busy and I haven't gotten to it yet.

Part of the busyness is the night time...our bedtime routine doesn't seem to be working anymore. She's been stretching it out into three hours or more and she is obsessed with the idea of going to bed at the same time as me, and wants to sleep in my bed. Which on the one hand, I wouldn't mind, except that I don't want to go to bed at 7:30, for one thing.

In watching her dealing with this, I see myself. In the way she doesn't want to be asked about it, wants to bring it up on her own, in the way she waits to know how she feels and tries to put it into words, but often feels it in her body first. And in the way she can be fine, just fine, all day long, and then struggle at night.

I think we will be fine, in the long run, but I think we still have a way to go to get there.

Home Again: Countdown in session

We just, just, got hmoe from 10 days in California - first in Santa Barbara for a reunion with Chris's immediate family. Cora finally met her cousins on that side (and loved them) and we enjoyed revisiting the UCSB campus, the bookstore where we met, and other nostalgic places (Freebirds burritos - the original shop - still awesome). Then a few short days with my parents and grandma really relaxing, with no agenda other than to hit the pool, open a bottle of wine, and otherwise just hang out together.

Now, here we are home again, with a million things to do before Chris heads off to North Dakota. And it is hard. And I am trying to remain the cheerful and capable person everyone likes me to be, but I am also really sad. And nervous.

A brief snippet from our day yesterday. We were watching some episodes of Jamie Oliver's cooking show that my mom and DVRed and Cora wanted to know why we were laughing at the show.

Me: Because he's kind of a silly person.
Cora: Why is he silly?
Me: I think he was just born that way.
Cora: Well, *I* was born happy!

Indeed. She was, again, an excellent traveller. (Except for an episode of carsickness on the drive from SB to Irvine. Um, YUCK!)

Is this thing working?

We had the opportunity to make a little movie with Tricia's camera while she was here. Although I have not yet been able to make them play on my computer, I learned (from the wonderful Tricia) that Blogger will load it up and you can watch it on the blog.

Here is Cora singing a song she learned after hearing me sing it six or eight times: Aura Lee.

Career path? What career path?

(Me, circa 1979, possibly designing my "girl detective" business cards.)

Today I gave my seventh of nine presentations to incoming firstyear college students about the academic expectations at the institution where I teach - about 10 of these sessions run concurrently and a large percentage of incoming students attend. The two main points of the presentation are the classes they need to take to graduate (aside from their major) and how college will be different from high school.

There are two sets of statistics I like to quote to them. One is that the average college student changes his or her major three times over the course of their undergraduate years. The other is that the average person will have seven discrete changes of career in his or her working life - and two of those probably don't exist at the time you are in college.

They seem to find this discouraging - along with the fact that in college you don't get time in class to do your homework. And, that homework? It isn't crossword puzzles of vocab terms. (Horrifying!)

Anyway, this has set me to thinking back and remembering all the careers I imagined for myself over the years. I'm leaving out "girl detective" - a Nancy Drew inspired choice - and mainly thinking of once I hit high school and through college.

So, my aspirations included: UN translator, marine biologist, oceanologist, bookstore owner, teacher, writer. (Writer: check. But that has hardly been a career. A vocation, yes. Definitely NOT a hobby. ) (Teacher: check - or maybe I get a check-minus for only being part-time? Without that precious published book, it's as far as I am likely to get.)

Career paths actually walked: bookstore clerk and then asst. manager, library services, technical writing, graphic layouts, marketing manager, adjunct professor, and virtual database manager (a new one! also part-time, like the teaching).

But tonight I was especially thinking about "bookstore owner" and I was remembering that I actually spent quite a bit of time, as an undergraduate and shortly after graduating, drawing up layouts of my store, thinking about programs I would have. So, this is back in 1992-1993, and Chris and I were figuring out where the cafe would go, where there would be a space for live performances, making sure there was room in the kids section for kids to actually flop down and look at books, where authors would stand to give their readings. And so on.

Don't get me wrong - I like what I am doing now. I'm pretty happy with my working life (though it could pay more, and hey part time people like health insurance too). But tonight I'm feeling a little sad about dreams gone by or dreams held in abeyance. I am pretty sure I've missed the boat on UN translator - the languages I used to be pretty fluent in are slipping away. But I'm not quite ready to completely close the door on the bookstore dream. Not yet.

A Flurry of Activity

That's what we have around here these days! We had lovely guests in town for a week, and I hope soon to be able to post some pictures and even a video from the visit. Once I figure out, you know, how to make it play.

We're getting ready to send Daddy off to ND for the school year, collecting all sorts of kitchen stuff he will need and furniture and trying to think of everything NOW so that we can relax and enjoy our time with him come August. I hope we are all as prepared as we can be when it comes time for him to drive off - we'll see.

I'm getting ready for fall semester and all the wonderful readings and assignments I'll have for my students. I'm also doing some sessions on "Academic Expectations" (the subtitle should be: how college is not like high school and why you should be worried) for orientation days this month.

And I've taken on another part time job working with the mailings to sponsors and donors for a really amazing organization. I'm hoping this work will fit in as well as I believe it will with my schedule.

And I have an artist grant application to complete in the next six days.

So, really, you see, it is all very smooth sailing over here.