Yesterday in the car, on the way back from carpool, we had an interesting discussion. I asked T., as I always do, how her day went, who she had sat next to at lunch, who she had played with at recess. The response is usually the same--she rattles off a string of girls' names, one of whom is always a girl named S., her BFF from the neighborhood. But yesterday she left S. out, and the girls' names were different ones from the usual.

"You didn't sit with S.?" I asked. "Or G.? Or K.?"

As it turned out, S. had decided that this week she and G. and K. would sit with some different girls, because she had "promised" them that this would be "their" week and not T.'s. As she told the story her face looked a little lost, the way it gets when she's processing something difficult, or especially confusing. I have been bracing myself for this type of thing. It's hard to be the new kid at school, and although she and her friend S. do love each other, S. has already built up a little pool of friends. I expected the dynamics to be present some problems--just not this early in the school year.

"Hmmmm...." I said, which is my customary response when I'm trying to sort something out for my children, but also trying to tread carefully. Better not to make a big deal out of it, I decided. T. didn't seem too upset and there was no reason to give her cause to feel badly about it.

L., however, was quick with his reply. "You know, I just don't understand girls," he said.

"What don't you understand?" I asked.

"All these games," he said. "The popular stuff, the I'll-sit-with-you-today-but-not-tomorrow games. Why does it have to be like that?"

I sighed. "I don't understand it either," I said. Why does it have to be like that?

We didn't sign the kids up for any camps this summer, despite the good intentions we had back in March, when we pulled catalogs and sat down and tried to pick camps. The only camps L. would even half-way consider were computer camps and since most of our time is spent wrestling L. away from his beloved computer, it seemed silly to spend $175 for the purpose of giving L. more computer time. Experience has shown us that signing L. up for a camp he has no motivation to attend ends in disastrous and damaging ways, so getting him to buy into the experience is critical. But months passed and we didn't do anything about the camps. I admit it: we flaked out. We did have discussions about budget, and about whether or not we should spend close to $400 on camps for the kids, or instead use that money for family activities. In the end, we decided in favor of family activities and outings, instead of sending each child to a half-day camp for a week. 

Of course, now that we're almost into August, I'm really regretting the choice.

Or, rather, I'm spending a lot of time wishing my kids would just get along. Maybe $400 would have been a fair amount to pay to get the kids away from each other, if even for four hours. We live in a house of extremes, unfortunately. L. is either moody and withdrawn and wants nothing to do with anyone, or he and T. are going at it--arguing over everything. I'm never sure whether to be happy they are interacting on some level, even if if it's over who owns the two pence coin T. found in her piggy bank.

It doesn't help either that T., so desperate for some level of interaction with her brother, has decided that picking fights and pushing his buttons is better than nothing. And, boy, can that girl push her brother's buttons.

A few years ago, L. surprised us out of the blue by telling us that the happiest day of his life was when T. was born. He then went on to recount in great and startling detail the facts of T.'s birth ending with his first sight of her, as she lay between my legs. L.'s long-term memory never ceases to blow me away, time and time again. He witnessed her birth, after all--right there, up close and personal, while Clifford the Big Red Dog played on the wall-mounted hospital room television. He's never talked much about her birth before. He was, after all, only 3 1/2 years old at the time. We hadn't planned on his being in the room when T. was born, but she came ten days early and we had no family or neighbors we could count on. What could we do?

I was surprised and happy to hear L.'s pronouncement, because I remember things so differently. I remember laboring for hours to M.A.S.H. reruns in the basement, while Scott frantically made provisions for his classes. I remember waking L. up at 2:00 a.m. so we could all drive to the hospital. I remember how small he seemed, standing on the white step stool to use the bathroom, the window above a dark square that seemed so exciting and mysterious to him. I remember holding his hand as we walked into the hospital and feeling my heart crumble a little, with overwhelming and protective love for him, and also in anticipation of meeting this new person, who would soon be in the world. L. carried his best teddy bear and a toy doctor's kit into the hospital and was all nervous excitement--until, that is, he realized it wasn't a game. He took one look at the hospital room, and the IV in my hand and said, lips shaking, "I want to go home."

My kids are 3.5 years apart in age and while that will be no sweat when they are 23 and almost 27 , at 11 months and almost 5 the gap is big, huge even. Already my daughter follows after my son , grabs at his toys and he yells for help knowing that I may be angry if he grabs things back from her too forcefully. Imagine my complete joy when on a really rainy day ( we live in WA state so you can imagine for us to call it rainy it's like a monsoon) we built a fort.

I know it's not rocket science but it was something new for us and something that despite their age difference that they could both play with.

My son popped in and out of different entrances and my daughter howled with glee every time she saw his face.

They both got under it , sang songs ( well she babbled along with his) and it's the first time they really really played together without an adult facilitating it or my son entertaining his sister.

So dust off your blankets, lick some cushions off the couch and make a fort.

I don't know where to begin! The weekend was certainly not an uneventful one. There were storms and tornadoes back home in North Carolina on Saturday, and lots of text messages back and forth between neighbors to check on the status of the house, Annie the cat, and the power (the downside of keeping fish tanks is the fear over what could happen with a power outage--we've been lucky so far). The campus where I teach was hit hard, and classes were cancelled yesterday, which gave me a chance to recover from the ups and downs of the weekend.

When T. wakes up, she likes to get busy right away. Sometimes she'll sit at the kitchen table with crayons and start on an elaborate picture. Other times, like yesterday morning, she'll find a book and commence reading out loud to whoever might be listening. Monday morning she took pencil and paper and created a detailed behavior chart:

Her column is on the left, L.'s on the right. At the top she put the dollar amount for what she thought the two of them earned: $10/each.

My brother called on Monday night, to check up on our trip back and on a skating-related injury I sustained on Sunday (more on that later) and we both agreed that it had been particularly relaxing, low-maintenance Christmas holiday this year, as far as keeping all the kids happy and peaceful together.

The other day I was lamenting to Scott that T. could really have used a little sister--maybe just two years apart in age; someone she could play with, someone who would fill in the gaps (or chasms, as the case may be at times) in her relationship with her brother.

We don't leave our kids much. When they were babies, we had the occasional night out, timed for when grandparents visited. In the past few years, our sitter money has gone to cover meetings, and every now and then, we have left the kids with a grandparent and skipped out to see a film. But that is more of an annual, or semi-annual occurrence--certainly not a monthly one. Will it shock you too much to know we have never, ever, the both of us together, left them for a whole night?

Oh wait, you were expecting chocolate-pumpkin brownies, weren't you?