I took a half-day this afternoon to pick up the Lone Star Baby and take her to her "new school" for a little assessment of her academic skills for next year. I had thought that I might have time to drop by the Girl Scout office to turn in a field trip registration and/or City Hall to register for summer swim league (Girl) and more swimming lessons (Baby) on my way to pick her up, as those places are on the way from work to her school and that sort of errand is really hard to squeeze in when you teach school, but my sub. was 45 minutes late so I was rushing to get the LSB to her appointment on time instead. This turned out great, though, because we got to hit City Hall and the Girl Scout office together after her appointment and before picking her sister up from school.
Errands with a five-year-old can be a certain kind of transcendent joy.
At City Hall, I registered the LSG for summer swim league but was told that we'd have to register the LSB for her lessons at Collier Pool next Tuesday between 4 and 7pm (at the Nat - arrgh!). It would be easy to have been totally annoyed by her creeping around behind me in the Parks and Recreation office and sneaking into the hallway dangerously close to the third-story rail around the open center of the building, and I certainly did get annoyed, but there was also:
...her desire to experience the escalator over and over (only up) once she got over her initial fear....
...the elevator rides down in which she told me not to hold her hand because she liked that feeling when everything went UP, this child who screamed in terror at that feeling as a baby....
Taking the time to ride the escalator and the elevator with her was such a privilege.
Again, the pain of buckling her into and out of the car seat and squelching her desire to touch everything at the Girl Scout store could have easily overpowered the joy of the parking meter and the walk to and from the office on another day. Instead, she proudly put the quarter in the parking meter and stepped on every sidewalk crack along the way while I made dramatic "ow!" noises. It was beautiful.
How soon these simple magics will fade from our daily errands for her and so for me. How hard it is to enjoy them every day even though I know how much they will be missed. I am so glad we had them today.
3 comments:
"transcendent joy"...I'll have to pay more attention to that now that I have two fiveyearolds.
I know. There are certain things I miss from the earlier years, too, and things I will miss as my daughter gets older. I'm glad LSB finds parking meters magical!
Sometimes, when I pick my daughter up from school, we walk by a wall where there are snails tucked under the little overhangs. Did you know that you have to be very, very quiet when you walk by snails so that you don't bother them? I didn't, and I relish my daughter's hushed tones.
That's wonderful.
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