Having started the tradition of interviewing Chloe for her birthday last year, here are her thoughts on finally entering the era of Teenageddon.
The moral of the story is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Chloe did not look at last year’s entry before finishing this one and was surprised at how similar her answers were.
After years of acting like a teenager, Chloe has officially entered the realm of teenagers. It’s hard to fathom, especially since I can still see myself – as if it were yesterday – holding her as an infant in my arms.
I’ve written about this phenomenon before. Once every year or two, Chloe and Sophie actually get along during their waking hours. It’s a rare occurrence. A bit like witnessing a total solar eclipse.
At the risk of jinxing this most recent episode of sisterly love, I find it necessary to document it on this blog now, lest the girls forget that there were times during their tender years when they didn’t fight.
Fade in to a restaurant dinner scene. It’s family pizza night at Grimaldi’s. A Mom, Papa and their two daughters, Chloe and Sophie, are patiently awaiting their food. The camera pans in on the midst of their animated conversation about Chloe’s 12-year old male French cousin who has a girlfriend.
“What would you say if I told you I had a boyfriend?” asks Chloe.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sophie’s two precious towels, which have comforted her since infancy and which I last wrote about in September 2012, are continuing their slow but inevitable decline into dust. Random pieces of fabric fall off on a regular basis. They are filled with holes. You’d never know from looking at them that they were once square-shaped. We haven’t washed them in at least a couple of years because they would never survive the ordeal.
It’s the little things that often remind me of how quickly the girls are growing up. The most recent examples of this phenomenon occurred with Sophie over the holiday break, and involve a new desk and a solar system. Who’d have guessed that these two random things – a surface on which to write and a bunch of painted spheres – would make me feel incredibly happy to be Sophie’s mom, yet bittersweet about the little girl in her ceding space to the big girl increasingly asserting her individuality?
Continue reading Sometimes All It Takes Is a Desk (and a Solar System)
I asked the girls to write about their New Year’s resolutions for 2014. I expected a sarcastic list from Chloe and a heartwarming list from Sophie. Instead, they wrote tirades about the stupidity of New Year’s resolutions (you can read them below, if you dare).
Continue reading Chloe and Sophie Say Resolutions Are Stupid – Happy 2014!
After we opened the presents, it was time. And Sophie handled the news like a trooper, although I think that she’ll always believe in Santa deep down inside.
Continue reading With a Tinge of Sadness, Santa Lets Sophie In On His Big Secret
I am the first to admit that there are days when I just want to throw in the towel and escape to an island with a beautiful white sand beach, turquoise water rippling with rainbows of tropical fish, hotel staff wanting nothing more than to ensure my happiness, and most of all, quiet. Quiet from the kids and quiet from the day to day trials and tribulations of parenthood.
Continue reading When Being A Mom Is All That It’s Cracked Up To Be
Sophie has never really loved to read on her own. She’s never had the patience or the desire to attempt any tome without illustrations (the artist in her enjoys graphic novels) unless we’re the ones reading to her. This, of course, is in startling contrast to her sister, who was reading lengthy chapter books at six years old.
But we all march to the beat of our own drummers, and Sophie is no different. She takes her time. She’s deliberate without being a perfectionist. She’s a creator and a bit of a scientist. She’s a fashionista. And although she’s reluctantly read several books since the start of the school year for her language arts class, the other day she officially joined the ranks of children everywhere who have conquered their first big-kid, several-hundred-page-long novel.
And in Sophie’s case, that several-hundred-page-long novel was not Harry Potter. On Sunday night, she came running into the TV room, giddy with excitement. She was jumping up and down, screaming, “I finished it! I finished it!” The novel in question, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer (yes, of “Glee” fame), held her in rapt attention for three weeks as she slowly absorbed a 438-page story about twins who enter a land inhabited by their favorite fairy tale characters.
Sophie was extremely proud of her accomplishment. For the first time ever, she read and read and read. Some evenings, she’d read for 90 minutes straight. No TV, no video games. Just the book. For a kid who used to moan and groan if she had to read for 15 minutes, this was momentous. And to hear her laugh as she read a funny passage was priceless.
I don’t think that Sophie will necessarily become as fervent a reader as Chloe. But she’s enthusiastically started her next novel, “Flora & Ulysses” by Kate DiCamillo, and in between critical commentaries about the book jumping around a little too much, her laughter is ringing through the house all over again. And that’s music to this mom’s ears.
