Good Things Come in Threes

Lu: Grade Three

This big girl started third grade a couple of weeks ago. She has a big brain and big feelings — every day I see something more nuanced and mature in her, which I both love and mourn. Current big concerns: getting to school via bus or bike, keeping track of homework and finding ways to incorporate a sweater-coat into her wardrobe when the high is 92.

Milo: Three Years Old

Milo turned three earlier this month. He's potty-trained, he uses complete sentences and has a raucous sense of humor. He still loves "guys" — in fact, we are awash in tiny plastic people because we're still giving him prizes after he goes potty. He really needs to move out of his crib, but I'm not ready yet.

Developmental Delay?

After a couple of rough weeks in the new three-year-old classroom (Milo was coming home exhausted, grouchy and slightly violent), we decided to move Milo back to the two-year-old classroom. We'd been concerned that he'd be bored, way ahead of the younger two-year-old set developmentally. Hardly. Not only is he not fully potty-trained like most of these younger kids, many of them know shapes and colors, the dates of their birthdays. Milo knows none of those things. What he does know, as we discovered this morning, is how to swear. Milo, after falling out of his chair at breakfast: "DAMMIT!"

Jason: "Milo, don't say that word. That's not a nice word, and it's only for grown-ups."

Milo: "I cannot say 'dammit'?"

Jason: "No, Milo, don't say that?"

Milo: "Can I say 'poo-poo-head'?"

Jason: "Don't say that either."

We couldn't be more proud.

The Chocolate Thief

Me, noticing the chocolate smears around his mouth: "Milo, what are you eating?" Milo, holding out an empty foil wrapper: "Chocolate."

Me: "Where is the chocolate?"

Milo: "In my tummy." Lifts shirt, points to belly button. "See, right here."

Me: "Where was it before?"

Milo: "In my mouth."

Me: "But where did you get it?"

Milo: "My room."

I know he has a stash in his room somewhere, pilfered from the snack drawer. I just haven't found it yet.

Homecoming

Coming home from camp is like returning from an enchanted forest through a wardrobe, or re-entering earth's atmostphere from space: you are leaving a magical place for an ordinary one. Home: a place you missed, filled with people you love but who just don't understand.

When I went to get Lu from Lantern Creek on Friday, I was semi-prepared for this bittersweet adventurer's homecoming. I wasn't prepared for how tall and tan and self-possessed she would be. How her teeth would fit her head better. How she would seem so in command of herself and her world.

She took me on a tour of camp, where I've been a few times, and feel like I know intimately because I've watched Liz and Sunni give birth to it these last two years. But I hadn't seen it through her eyes.

She showed me the Muse (the theater), where she played Wendy in their version of Peter Pan. I met Courtney, her BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. I met various campers and counselors named Shout, Cupcake, Snowflake, Nando, Table, Shiva, and Vulture (fun exercise: what's your camp name? I am still working on mine). When I asked "Toad" her real name, she looked at me earnestly. "Just Toad," she said. And I liked that.

Lucy showed me the place she learned to use a drill and wield a hammer. Where she built and nailed her "one word" on a sign post (her word was "brave"). On the way to Mr. Barrett's Lake, she pointed out the tall grass where the ogres live, noting that ogres are only a little bigger than gnomes, but a lot uglier (I always thought ogres were really big, but I am not an expert on magical creatures).  At the lake, she showed me where Pixie (Liz) taught her to canoe. (Note: Liz also taught me to canoe. I was cool and didn't cry.) Lu tried to introduce me to Jerry, the rabbit who lives in a thicket near the garden, but he was otherwise engaged.

We walked by the room where the Dames meet — the Dames is her camp team, one of three teams alongside the Terras and the Gypsies. On the car ride home, I asked her what is means to be a Dame and she said, "Dames are confident and brave. You know, Mom — a Dame? A female warrior?" Duh. I always knew what I had on my hands, but until she drew the purple bead marking her as such, I didn't have such a perfect name for it.

Jason asked her about Jane's Night, a Ren-fair-style evening program that's a magical celebration of the legendary founder of Lantern Creek: the Dread Pirate Jane Brilliant. Now, I have known the founders of Lantern Creek since the early 80s, and neither of them are pirates (unless you count some unfortunate hoop earrings). Jason asked who Jane Brilliant was, and Lu, exasperated, said, "She invented the stars, Dad." Duh. This is the power of magic.

On the way home from camp, we stopped to eat at a Subway in Navasota (perhaps one of the least magical places in Southern U.S.), and she sat in the plastic booth staring into her bag of Sunchips, a bereft version of the self-possessed girl I'd seen at camp.

"What's wrong, babe?"

"I just don't feel right."

"Are you sick?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm glad to be coming home, but I just don't feel right not being at Lantern Creek. I belong there."

It's like she had the emotional bends.

Yesterday, we went to see April in the hospital, where is she recovering well from a mitral valve replacement that will (fingers crossed) give her a huge and long overdue quality of life improvement. April chose "Luna" as her Lantern Creek name, and in her honor, the girls at Lantern Creek sing every evening in a ceremony they call "Circle Luna." As a get-well card, Lu drew April a picture of Circle Luna, with all the girls saying goodnight. As Lu described camp to April, I could tell she thought April got it more than I did (April has a strong capacity for magic).

My adventuress-astronaut-dame was home all of 44 hours before we put her on a plane (gulp) all by herself to see Baga and Opa in El Paso. And that was just enough time for her to do her own laundry. A skill she learned at Lantern Creek.

So big. So great.

Happy Camper

All evidence indicates that Lucy is doing okay at camp. They are posting regular photos, and from what can I tell she is clean, well-fed, sun-protected and wearing clothing that appears to change at appropriate intervals. Oh, and she looks positively radiant in every single photo. Plus, a little bird has informed me that she is starring as Wendy in the camp production of "Peter Pan," she did a part of the ropes course called "the Screamer" and she peed behind a tree. So, yeah, I think it's going okay. What do you think?

What it Looks Like When Your Dream Comes True

For a long time, camp was the only place I ever felt like I belonged. My real self would hibernate until summer, when I could go to a place that celebrated all my enthusiasm, creativity and strangeness. At camp, I was seen and known and loved.

And part of what helped me feel that way were these two counselors I had, who have now become my great friends. They graduated from camp and into their own "real lives," but had this lingering idea: what if we had our own camp?

After eight years of imagining, handwringing, sketching and dreaming, they bought 100 acres and some stark cabins in the piney woods of East Texas. And you know what those crazy fools did? They made a summer camp.

A place of belonging. A place for girls to make their art, tell their story, find their voice. If I could have conjured the ideal place for my enthusiastic, creative and strange daughter — and my own eight-year-old self — it would be Lantern Creek. She's there now, just wrapping up the evening's closing circle, watching the sun set on a dream come true.

Oh, and that's the two of them — Piper and Pixie (a.k.a. Sunni and Liz) — in the photo above. Just another day at the office.

Conversations with Milo

I have many things to share with you, dear reader(s), and I will, don't worry. But, in the mean time, I leave you with this snippet of conversation, which captures the verbal and rhetorical advances he's made since I last wrote. Milo, after throwing a colossal fit and weedling his way into being rocked to sleep: "Mama, I like to rock."

Me: "I like to rock, too."

Milo: "I like rocket ships. Do you like rocket ships?"

Me: "I do."

Milo: "I don't like bugs. Do you like bugs?"

Me: "I like some bugs. Ladybugs are bugs. Butterflies are bugs."

Milo: "No, they not."

Me: "They are bugs."

Milo: "No, they not — I like them. Can you sing a song now?"

I grasped mentally for a song about bugs, then defaulted to Beatles without explaining myself to him, but felt superior nonetheless.

Can I Go With You?

I will write a lot about the smart, strange, sweaty world of Hong Kong later this weekend. For now, I can I only write about the through-the-looking-glass-of-the-web-cam-via-skype moments that defined my relationship with my family for the last two weeks. The 13-hour time difference was just right: I woke up just early enough to see them off to bed every night. Jason told the kids they had to say goodnight to the sun so I could say hello to it in the morning. This occasionally worked. Milo got so used to seeing Lauren on the web cam with me that he went from wondering "Where you friend?" (as in, where's that auburn head that normally pops up on Skype?) to asking, "You have Lauwen?"

Jason would just put the computer on the kitchen island so I could watch and hear them play. Milo would do occasional drive-bys to the camera, and when I'd sign off in the mornings to go work or play (so they could go to bed), he'd ask, "Can I go with you?"

Child - Good Hair, Partially Potty-Trained - Best Offer or Free (Austin)

Craigslist won't officially let you sell children, but, at current writing, I am willing to let Milo go for a really good price on the black market. Milo, a student of the Lu school of dramatic arts, is  just a turban and some eyeliner away from his close-up, Mr. de Mille. Only he doesn't fully speak English and he still poops his pants.

Seller would also consider rental.

[It's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests or other children. Because we have plenty of those already.]