The first half of the 14th

I decided to write everything that I did today à la Little Jenny Wren. It is not a complete accounting because I wrote in detail, maybe too much detail. I didn't edit it and about every sentence starts with "I" which drives me nuts.

I woke up around 7ish with an elbow or a knee in my back. Fiona had come in, during the night. As I shifted I realized that J's alarm clock was on very quietly. It was time to get up.

Fiona asked if it was a movie day, no, I said, it is Monday today. She cried that she wanted to watch a movie. I said no, but offered her her vitamins which she had brought into the bedroom a day or two before. She found a ribbon in the bed and asked her dad to tie up his hands. He did. Then she wanted their hands tied together. Then she wanted to be foxes living in a den. She crawled under J's comforter.

When I got up I noticed that it was a gray and raining out. I offered to make hot cereal for breakfast. I went downstairs to use the bathroom and when I came back up Fiona was a fox, J was a bear, and our little siamese bi-color cat was a monster. She is a monster, too, because she loves to knock things down, especially glassware.

J went down to have a shower and Fiona and I went off to the kitchen to make breakfast. I had to wash the pot because we are behind on dishes right now. I put the water on to boil for the coffee and measured out the water and cereal. Fiona played at the table with a book and the salt and pepper shakers. She was singing a little song of her own devising to herself. I washed the french press, measured out the coffee. I washed off the table, and cleared a couple of dishes that had been left there over night.

We needed three spoons, three bowls and three mugs. Fiona had a Hello Kitty bowl, an orange spoon and her favorite mug, the dragon mug. She likes warm milk to drink. Fiona poured the cereal into the pot while I stirred. The electric kettle clicked off and I poured the water into the french press. It smelled so good. I love the way the coffee grounds sort of bubble up and are such a dark, glossy brown. I set the timer for four minutes and stirred the cereal again. I used a soup plate for my cereal, because they allow everything to spread out and cool. J got a cereal bowl for his cereal. I had to wash a spoon for him. We are really behind on dishes, but it doesn't help that we only own a few spoons that aren't plastic kid spoons.

The cereal was ready. Five seconds later the coffee was ready. I dished some cereal for Fiona and brought out the milk and maple syrup. I splashed a little milk on her cereal and she stirred it around to cool it off, and then just a little bit of syrup. Yum. I called to J but he wasn't done getting ready yet. I dished up for myself. A bit more maple syrup for me, because well, I'm a naughty adult and have a well developed sweet tooth. J comes up just after I've a had a bite or two. He dishes up the remaining cereal for himself. It is quite a large mound of cereal. He has two cups of coffee. I have one.

Fiona finishes her cereal and starts pretending to be a dik dik. I am a sloth and J is David Attenborough. David Attenborough is surprised to find a dik dik under the table patting his knees. The sloth sits very still and drinks a cup of sloth coffee. That is coffee for sloths, not made of sloths, not slothlent coffee (play on soylent green) says David Attenborough. Then the dik dik climbs up into David Attenboroughs lap and snuggles. He then gets up to brush his teeth.

Fiona puts the maple syrup and the milk away in the fridge, then she sees a yogurt. She asks if she can have one. Of course. She chooses the Dulce de Leche flavor. Unfortunately she knocked it over on paper gingerbread man that she decorated two Christmases ago. Luckily there is a lot of yogurt still left and the yogurt rinses off the paper without much damage. She gulps down the rest of the yogurt. J picks out music for his iPod for the drive to work. I read my blogroll. I saved Little Jenny Wren's for last because I knew she was writing out her day, I wanted to make sure I had enough time to read it all. Fiona wanted to read some stories. J left for work. We read Little Bear, Frog and Toad All Year, Cinderella, The Paper Bag Princess and an issue of BabyBug magazine.

I went downstairs to the laundry room and picked out some clean clothes for Fiona. I brought them up with a warm washcloth. She got all washed up and dressed. She decided that she was going on a train and then a plane to visit her friend Amelia. I became her friend Amelia and I lived in the desert very far away. Seeing the images of Frog and Toad sharing tea and cake had made me wish for cake. Remember that sweet tooth I mentioned. We went back to the kitchen around 10:45 and I made black tea with a lot of milk and a mite of sugar. Fiona and I both had a piece of cinnamon toast as we didn't have any cake.

Fiona started playing with the ceramic chopstick holders that were in the back of the silverware drawer. She was building all sorts of things and making patterns, happily amusing herself. I sat down to read Little Jenny Wren's account of her day. I was inspired and so I started writing down what I could remember of my day.

Fiona wanted me to read to her. I explained that I had to finish writing first. She was mad. We went back and forth for a while. Her asking me to read to her or play cars with her. At one point she started driving her car down my shoulder and onto my breast. I told her not to do that, that it made me uncomfortable. She said she was just driving her car. I explained that just like she can tell someone to stop touching her body if it made her uncomfortable, I could do the same thing. She was not happy but she stopped.

She asked me to read a book again while she ate her toast. I suggested that she look at a book while she ate her toast. Finally she agreed, but she chose a paperback book that wouldn't lie flat and kept falling off the table. She came to me crying. I helped her choose a hard bound book with lots of pictures to look at while she finished her toast. I continued to write. She then asked for more toast. There were two small heels of bread left, so I toasted those for her. She asked for me to read to her, so I read to her what I had written so far. She smiled several times. Then she asked if she could type, too. You will find her work at the end of this post. She started playing by herself again. She changed into a pair of pajamas, then another pair of pajamas, and after a bit came to show me that she had found a pair of her scissors. She held them up like she was going to cut her hair. I said it wasn't a good idea if she wanted to have long hair. She said what if I cut this part just to here? I said it wouldn't be a good idea because then she would just have a chunk missing and that it wasn't a good idea for children to cut their own hair because they might cut themselves. She said she wanted paper to cut and went to her paper bin. She wanted to cut a heart. She got very frustrated. She begged me to do it. I helped her do it instead, but she wanted me to draw a line on the heart so I did, after much frustration.

I had planned on doing dishes this morning and tidying the living room, but time ran out. At noon I put in a load of whites to wash. Fiona wears fuzzy bunz to bed, so we do a load of whites every couple of days. Next I got in the shower, while Fiona cried because I wouldn't read to her. As soon as I was in the shower though, she busied herself with rearranging various things found in the cupboard in the bathroom. She put them in order from largest to smallest and then she would mix them up and laugh because they weren't in order any more.

I used the hair dryer because it was a cold rainy day. After getting dressed, I helped Fiona put her clothes back on again. I put a lemon yogurt in a little white paper sack and wrote Fiona's name in fuchsia ink with a little swishy swash underneath. It was her snack for school. I had a doctor's appt this afternoon, so she was going to aftercare at her school for the afternoon. She does have a cloth lunch bag, but when I went to grab it it had something in it from the last time it was used and we were in a hurry. I grabbed a couple of cloth grocery bags so I could run to the store later.

We went out to the car. Fiona had brought a magic wand with her. She pretended that our garden had no flowers and that she did some magic and now we had flowers. We got clicked into the car, which is lovingly called Gus. Off we went. We went through the drive though at Taco Bell to get a quick lunch and then stopped at Starbucks to get an organic milk for Fiona. I also got a peanut butter cookie. Trust me, I am so not proud of this. We arrived at her school at about ten minutes after one. We walked in and her best friend at school was right there inside the gate. They gave each other a big hug. I took her yogurt inside, then said goodbye. I made it all the way to the gate and Fiona just broke down. She didn't want me to leave. I held her and then took her inside. Her friend followed us. The teacher was still tidying up after lunch but said the two girls could play inside if they liked. I asked Fiona's friend to take care of Fiona and give her hugs if she needed them. She agreed and gave Fiona a big hug. Then the two of them were off playing.

I drove to my doctor's appt. I arrived about 20 minutes early, so I sat in the car and listened to NPR. There was a program on talking about the Dalai Lama's Seeds of Compassion event that was going on in Seattle. It started raining, again. As I walked up to the building where my appt was I saw a worm on the pavement trying to get away from the water. I thought about stopping to pick it up and move it, but I didn't, there was the weather, my appt and I needed to use the bathroom. Then I saw a piece of paper on the ground. I should've picked it up, but I didn't.

And on and on and on it went.


The following is Fiona's version of events.

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