Doing Great.

Having buckled the girls into their high chairs, and having plopped two heaps of Annie's Mac 'n cheese on their plates, I was sitting on the kitchen stool drinking an apple juice/Bacardi rum combo and devouring the new issue of Mothering Magazine. Yes, we usually wait for Daddy, eat around the table together, pray, talk about our days, etc. but it was 6:15, Daddy was running late, the girls were stealing the neighbor's bagel at the greenbelt across the street out of hunger, and after a day like that, I wasn’t doing too great and I really needed to put them on autopilot for 20 minutes.

Now that Mothering Magazine only comes every other month, I am so needy for its natural family validation and advice that I am known to hibernate with it until I finish each issue. This one didn't disappoint. A thought-provoking article by a pacifist on why banning war play and violent games can actually backfire (it turns out that children, especially boys, use violent play to explore important developmental issues such as power, control, authority, and healing). A tear jerker from a mom who had the unknown biological sibling of her two adopted children contact them when they were all teenagers, forcing her and her husband to revisit their children’s discomfort with why their birth mom would give away yet another baby (it turns out the teens were overjoyed to meet this newfound family member and it made them feel even more wanted by their blood family, not less). Natural toy choices for the holiday season (check out this cool website for many of my favorites, especially the cooperation-minded board games for preschoolers and costumes/dramatic play items. Yes that is a hint, family members). I interspersed each article with sips of the overly sweet but somehow perfect cocktail, creating just the right buzz and allowing me to feel I had achieved "me time." (Don’t fault me for the kiddy cocktail. We are out of red wine.)

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Grace reaching for Natalie's plate and I focus to see if I need to intervene. Their laughter invades my concentration on a great letter to the editor about our bottle-feeding culture as I look up to see the girls swapping plates and cracking each other up. "Okay, Nally, you want this one?" Hysterical laughter from Natalie as Grace thrusts one plate towards her. "Or this one?" More laughter as Grace throws her head back, smiling and exclaiming to no one in particular, "She doesn't even KNOW what she wants!"

I begin to crack up and return to my magazine. This scene is repeated several times as Natalie now decides to take Grace's plate and now Grace pretends to be the baby who doesn’t know which plate is hers. Their happy interaction begins to shame me for my self-absorbed cocktail and magazine me-time. What fun parenting moment am I missing out on for the sake of some above average rum and stories about not missing out on parenting? I roll my eyes at the irony as I close the magazine and turn to involve myself in their fun when it hits me. This is their fun. I didn't orchestrate this moment. It wasn't brought to you my mom and the letter C. It grew organically despite my lack of attention, or (I began to realize) perhaps because of my lack of attention.

So, laugh on, girls. You have officially both replaced me as each other's most important companion. It seems sudden, but this has actually been in the works for a while. Both of you as babies wouldn't sleep anywhere except next to mom in the big bed, and now you lie beside each other on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom you share. You who would beg for mom to get in the tub for your nightly bath now close the sliding door to us and dump water on each other's heads and laugh.

Daddy walks in on this laughing/smashing pasta/apple juice cocktail dinner about 10 minutes later, and exclaims, "Wow. You look great. You all do." I can see on his face that he might have been expecting pandemonium and saw something different this night. "We are great," I reply. "They are great," pointing to the girls, "And I am great," I finish, turning away from them towards my magazine. And I am. Feeling great, that is.