Emma Grace received her first American Girls catalog today. We looked through it together (after she looked through it while she was waiting for me to look through it with her), and then we looked through it again, this time with a Sharpie marker wielded perilously by her hand, circling the (many) items she might like to have.
Christmas could be pricey this year.
I ordered the catalog for her several weeks ago, at her request. She has, since then (beginning, in fact, the Very Next Day), checked the mail routinely. I had just resigned myself to returning to the website to send a re-request, when a squeal came from the mailbox. It Had Arrived!
Her question for me at dinner tonight: “Mom, could you just tell me which things you are going to order for me from the catalog?”
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Will departs Friday afternoon for his First Ever youth group retreat. Is it time for this already? I remember mine vividly: the big and fancy rented bus, the game where we all put one shoe in the center of the room and then…. what did we do?, the staying up entirely too late, the skiing, the couples forming, the skits, the huge fire in the huge stone fireplace, the coming home decided that God was far more real than I had ever given Him credit for. I remember it well….
Will’s supply list is short and reasonable. It includes “deodorant.” It also includes “Bible,” listed twice. Will has a Bible, but I realized tonight that its label says “Kid’s Bible,” and that we bought it for him when he turned six. I also realized that this Bible, for this trip, Won’t Do.
It’s a middle school youth group retreat. Middle School. Like I said, is it time for this already?
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Yesterday marked the first anniversary of Minnie’s disappearance. Our dear cat, our friend and pet of fifteen years. She just didn’t come home one morning, and we found her body– so close to our home– a few days later.
I haven’t written about it yet. Not here anyway. But we still miss her All The Time.
The other day Everett came home with a little clay something-or-other. It was purple and white and yellow, and it sat on a paper plate on which he had written some follow-up instructions: “Bake at 275 for fifteen minutes. Cool.”
I asked him what it was, as it’s shape and markings didn’t express anything immediately obvious.
“Minnie,” he said.
And then I could see the shape he intended. And the colors, while inaccurate, were deliberately and strategically placed. Of all the children, Everett spent the most time with Minnie. He would lie next to her on the floor and pet her quietly. This was often the case, even when he was very small. She liked that.
I baked the little sculpture for him this evening, and he thanked me, and asked me to put it with the “treasure box,” which is filled with bits and pieces of his cozy ba I’ve saved over the years. For awhile, Minnie’s collar rested on top of this pile of worn blanket pieces until one day, sadly, it disappeared.
So Minnie will rest with Everett’s blanket in effigy, and this little sculpture is the perfect size to do so. It seems, somehow, appropriate.
