A Good Day

Any Monday that begins with a one-hour sleep-in is bound to be a good one. I actually woke before Frances yesterday, and had gone downstairs to check the weather forecast online when I heard "Good morning Mama" from the top of the stairs.

I'm not sure why I'm Mama again. I was Mummy, then Mommy, then Mom for a few days; now Mama. In any case, I carried my sleepy girl in her mermaid pyjamas downstairs and set her up with a minigo and another watching of Shrek 3 (for the babies at the end, you see. The rest of the movie is just leading up to the part where the shrek babies appear and she can ooh and aah over how cute they are) while I blogged, after which we played ("Psst," I whispered, and when she leaned in, "I love you." "Psst," she whispered, and when I leaned in, "You're a great mommy") and got dressed and then I rode her to school in the bike. It was a nice enough day that she got to wear her crinkly pink skirt and her pink t-shirt with the butterfly on the front that makes her look, as she says, like a ballerina. An especially adorable one, since the preschooler belly pushes the skirt down a bit in front so that it poofs up behind her.

I had a lot to get done while she was at school yesterday afternoon; so after dropping her off I rode my bike down to the Don for an hour (#1--exercise), then went home and changed and headed off to Ikea on foot to get some organizing things to tackle some of the messes that developed over the winter and take care of a few nagging issues that are more apparent now that we've been living there for a while, and also a bathroom mirror so that Frances can brush her own teeth (#2). Took the subway home and reorganized the front hall and the closet, and good god, I have shelf space after all, also the floor is no longer littered with shoes of various sizes (#3). Put the other organizing gizmo in my closet and got all the sweaters my Mom gave me off the floor, where they'd been living for a few months because I have nowhere else to put them, and I'm not quite sure when or if I will ever wear so many sweaters (she was downsizing after changing careers herself) but they have to go somewhere (which reminds me: anyone in the Toronto area interested in some sweaters? Or some size 8 or 10P clothes? They're nice, I'm just not short enough for them) (#4). Put the clean dishes away, cleaned the bathrooms, engaged in the never-ending battle against the sand that Frances tracks in and dumps from her shoes to the floor (#5). Off to the mall across the street for a pitstop at the toy store and to pick up a few groceries I'd missed on Saturday (#6).

There's all kinds of plans I have for organizing the apartment over the summer; like, getting all the christmas stuff into semi-attractive storage boxes and keeping them over the kitchen cupboards, since there is all kinds of space up there that is otherwise going unused. Then taking the empty storage cabinet from the storage room and putting it outside, to use as a shed for Frances's outdoors toys (which otherwise get muddy or leafy or stolen), since it is waterproof and has space for a lock. This will clear up space in the storage room, so I can keep my bike there instead of in the living room; which will clear up a handy bit of space that could be used for a small bookcase, when I get around to getting one, for all the books currently stacked on the floor of my bedroom. At which point I could entertain getting a small desk for the computer gadgets that have nowhere to go right now; and I will probably get rid of the small green desk currently in the dining area because I never use it with the kitchen table right there, and it ends up just holding crap; so I'd take that out and maybe store it at my parents' and then get a small shelving unit to hold the crafty stuff instead. But one thing has to lead to another, so the first thing is to get the storage boxes that will fit over the cabinets in the kitchen.

Anyway.

It was a busy afternoon; after which I picked up my girl from the school and we walked home. At times she would let go of my hand and run off, small legs pumping, ponytail bouncing, staring back over her shoulder at me to see how I was taking it as she laughed. "Look at you go!" I'd say. "You'll never catch me," she'd reply. "You're right. I'll never catch you. You're too fast. Look at you!" At other times she would grab my hand and kiss the back and tell me she loves me.

"I have a surprise for you at home," I said.

"You do? What is it?"

"I can't tell you, or it won't be a surprise. Let's go home quickly so I can show you."

We got home and she found the plastic bag from the toystore in the front hall, and in it, two new balls to replace the ones that were evidently stolen from our front walk in the last few weeks. "Balls!" she said. "Oooh, I like this one, it's pretty." It is, too; it's a pink-and-white-and-purle o-ball with sparkles in it. "Let's go outside and play with them!"

"OK, but now we have a new rule: we can take one ball outside at a time, and when we're done we bring it back inside so it doesn't get lost again."

She picked the blue ball with green polkadots to start with and we went out front and played catch, Frances giggling all the while, and laughing harder when she missed and went to chase it than when she caught it. Soon C and two other neighbourhood children, both older than her, came riding by on their bicycles. "We're having a party by the rocks," said C. "Do you want to come, Frances? It'll be fun. We're going to have balloons and snacks and prizes and everything."

Frances jumped. "A party! How exciting!"

The mother of the older boy was also there. After a few minutes of chatting about this very exciting party, she said, "She's so advanced for her age! My goodness, look at you, walking already."

"Actually," I said, shifting my weight from one leg to the other, "she's four."

"Oh, my goodness. Isn't she adorable. I'd just like to eat you up!"

I laughed. "See, Frances, it's not just me. Everyone wants to eat you."

"It's true." The other mother knelt down. "I'd like to eat you with salt," she said, miming a salt shaker over Frances's head; "and pepper, and ketchup, and mustard," while Frances laughed. "Can I? No? Oh." She stood, and sighed. "She is so adorable. And you can just see her personality in her face, it draws you in."

I beamed. It's true, you know, but I never mind hearing it from other people.

The party was to start at seven. We played catch for a while longer and then went inside so Frances could have a small supper and call her father before it started. Good thing she was already in her party clothes, we both agreed. We came back outside and C joined us and said she'd been fired from the party so she wasn't going anymore, so here were the prizes and they could play their own game, and they did, and Frances "won" a few of C's small toys. Her favourite was the little fairy with the orange bendy wings, from which she could hardly tear her eyes; then C's mother came outside and took her to the park.

We went to where the party was supposed to be, but while the two older kids were there, no one else was; and (without addressing either of us, I'd like to mention) they decided to postpone it. I felt like telling them that when you fire your friends from the party you can't really be surprised when no one shows up. Frances was disappointed and didn't at first believe me when I said there wasn't going to be a party after all; I could hardly just take her home to bed after such a build-up, could I? So we went to the park, too.

She ran, she climbed chain ladders and bridges that looked much too big for her while I hovered anxiously behind in case she needed help, which she didn't; she went down big slippery slides. I remember the first yellow toddler slides only about half my own height two houses ago, and the light in her eyes when she first went down them. Now here she is zipping down some contraption way over my head, fearlessly. I watched the parents of the toddlers stare at us in something like fear or amazement or both, because Frances doesn't look older than their children but there she is on the big kids' playset and there I am, letting her. Then a few minutes in the chair swing and a very, very unhappy decision to go home to bed when it was already twenty minutes past her bedtime. "We'll come back on the next nice day," I promised her, "except for tomorrow because I'm going to need to give you a bath. Look at those filthy little feet!"

At home were two more surprises: a little nightlight that looks like a ghost from Ikea that will live on her flower table downstairs (except a bulb looked to be flickering a bit this morning, so I might need to exchange it), and her new mirror upstairs, where she brushed her own teeth for the first time (with some help) in her mermaid jammies before reading Little Miss Fun all snuggled up on the big bed, and then sleep.

Then eight hundred words for the novel, more tidying up, a talk with the boyfriend, and bed.

It was a perfectly ordinary, absolutely wonderful day; the kind I wish I could somehow trap in amber so I could always go back and see it again just as it was, every detail unaltered. The way her soft little lips pressed the back of my hand when she said, "I love you Mama." Her giggly grin over her shoulder as she ran, those tiny muscled legs winking. Patting the head of the ghost nightlight. Her tiny feet all crusted over with sand, the way kids' feet should be after a beautiful summery day, and her face streaked with dirt where she had rubbed it with her grimy little fingers. Laughing while she is admired by others, and showing off her pink ballerina skirt that rides up in the back. I want every bit of it etched in translucent stone so that twenty or forty years from now, it's still there. One of those days when even if you could, you wouldn't trade your life for anyone's.

Posted by Andrea at May 27, 2008 9:18 AM under Beanie Baby Brags , Me

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