It’s the night before we start our grand adventure.  Everyone has gone to bed anticipating a great day.  Annie and I have talked about our plans for the week, and she’s excited.  I’m somewhere between scared stiff and thrilled.  On the one hand, I think we’re ready.  I’ve been preparing for how to handle discipline and creating incentive plans for hard work and concentration.  I’ve tried to imagine ways to keep mother-daughter frustrations at bay while creating an atmosphere of respect during our “school” time.  Mostly, I’m worried now about what happens to the relationship between the two girls.

Since September, Annie left in the morning to go to her school and Pippi sometimes left in the morning to go to her own school or to play with a friend.  Before the end of the day, Pip couldn’t stand waiting any longer to pick Annie up from school.  Pippi practically burst up the stairs at “pick up” and would tackle her sister full of things to tell her, candy or treats that she saved for her, and eager to have any of her sister’s time and attention.  She asked all the time why she couldn’t see Annie at her own school and continually asked if they could be together more.  Annie, though a bit more reluctant to admit it, was often the same way.  She saved things for Pippi.  She drew pictures for her and even created a set of paper dolls for Pippi to play with during “center time.”  As the adage goes, though, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds… well… in our case… fatigue.  Even after 3 solid weeks of playing practically solely with one another, the girls still get along.  However, there is more competition for attention than there had been.  Tempers are shorter, and the quick push or pull or tearing of dress up clothes sets in sooner and sooner each day.  So, I’m beginning to wonder how the homeschooling will affect sibling harmony.

I know that there are no quick or easy fixes for sibling harmony.  The girls need to work together on many things.  They have a joint sticker chart for cleaning up and following directions.  They can earn stickers independently or by working together.  Working together, however, yields quicker results and this has created moments of genuine teamwork and cooperation.  However, for sisters who sleep together in the same room, play together in the same play areas, and now learn together in the same play spaces… I’m worried that they need a few things that are just their own.

There are 2 areas I know where I can do this.  Firstly, Pippi loves gymnastics.  Both she and Annie started doing toddler tumbling when they were about 18 months.  Pippi, however, is a natural climber.  She has exhaustive amounts of energy and is constantly moving.  On Mondays, she goes to gymnastics with my mother, her Grandmom.  This is her special time during the week.  She also spends time with her friend Matthew on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  His mother and I swap children so that we can get an extra day’s worth of work in each week.  On Tuesdays, Pippi goes with Matthew and his mother on adventures ranging from visits to the farm to trips to the train store.  She looks forward to *every* Tuesday.  These are her special times, and I think it’s important that she maintain these as her very own.

I’m still finding my way with Annie.  She loves to perform.  Singing, dancing, and acting capture and hold her attention longer than any other activity.  A child who has never really played with toys other than those she can “make believe” with, Annie can occupy herself for hours by adopting ever-changing personas.  For years it was Cinderella or Snow White.  The roles have branched from the specific such as Fancy Nancy, Felicity, Orphan Annie, Clara from the Nutcracker, the Velveteen Rabbit to the less specific “an orphan,” “a saint,” “a dog,” “a mouse,” “a vet,” etc.  I would really like to find a class for her that would help her to explore her natural tendency to perform.  She would love to take a ballet class, as well, and I’d like to help her with that.  Finally, she has been involved in the church choir, and this activity has become very important to her.  So I’d like to preserve that as an important part of her own independent self.  The challenge, now, is for me to find a couple areas where she can grow and shine in her own way apart from her sister so that while they share and cooperate so frequently, she (and Pip) can have some activities all of their own.

For those of you who experienced that period of life between the end of naptime and when kindergarten begins, this will come as no surprise. For those of you who still get regular naps from your child and think this will never happen to you, herein lies a cautionary tale.

Today, Pippi (aka potty-training-with-attitude) called in her sticker chart reward: a trip to “Chuck E Cheese.” Don’t worry, it’s Tuesday at 10 AM. Believe it or not, there are only about 3 people at Chuck E Cheese at this time. (No, it doesn’t disappear into some Dr. Who time warp where everyone is always hungry, whiny, and under 4-feet tall … as I had suspected it might before we tried it the first time.) When we go, we do so with 10 tokens each, no food, and I smuggle in drinks. It usually takes us about 1-1 ½ hours to use all the tokens, climb the indoor equipment, dance in front of the blue screen, and then cash in 20 tickets for 2 overpriced lollipops. Still, so far we’re grinning ear to ear at the end every time, and that was no different today. We were a tad bit later on our arrival (10:30), but we still managed to end happy by 11:45 or so. Next, we ventured to the nearby Safeway to stock up for my attempt at a Cinco de Mayo dinner celebration. We also bought a $5 cheese freezer pizza and gnawed on two “sample” oatmeal, raisin cookies before making our way back to the car. This, however, was the beginning of the end. Having pushed our excursion past 12:15 meant the beginning of what I call, “The Great-American Whine.” “When will we eeeeeeat? My tummy is so hungry it is going to explode!!!” and “I NEEEED a DRIIIIINK!!!! I’m dyyYying of thirst… Don’t you care mommy?!?!?!?” Which at home melded nicely into a battle royal over Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and a blanket. (“Mommy knows you’re tired sweetie because you’re crying at ‘Mr. Roger’s,’ and he’s on the TV.”) Anyway, we suffered our way through pizza, potty time, and the beginning of a nap when Annie realized… she’s about to take a nap. This realization, so thoroughly jarring and startling to her senses caused an inverse reaction: imaginative play with paper doll princesses who only speak in screeching, loud voices. As she played with her dolls (and as Pippi who *needs* a nap had begun to settle down), Annie’s voice crept higher and higher. I went back to the “quiet zone” (the name of the room being the first indication of my expectations) to gently remind her that she needed to keep her voice down. Five minutes later… her voice is back up, and worse… she’s wandered out into the hallway directly in front of the room where Pippi is napping. Standing in the hallway, I whispered to explain, “This is your final warning. Your voice needs to be a whisper. If I hear you again, I’ll take away one of your dresses.” (This, of course, being one of the ultimate disincentives… I could take anything away from her… any privilege, and she’d shrug it off… but not the dresses!) She took one step back to the room, turned to me and asked, “Which dress?” Not thinking that far ahead, I was caught and paused to think about what dresses were hers… which were clean… which needed laundering… , and when she volunteered, “*Gasp* NOT my kitty-cat one!” I jumped at the opportunity. “Yes, dear. I’m afraid that’s the one.” She turned, “sobbing” into her arm, took one more step, and turned back around, dry-eyed. She looked at me and asked, “For how long? A week?” The “ee” in week approached a pitch only heard by our dog, Sasha, and which I only understood because “whine” is my second language. Again, I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and it seemed adequately long enough for waking Pippi from the early stages of a nap, so I said solemnly, “yes.” Taking one more step back to the room, Annie turned mid-stride, smiled and explained, “That’s ok. A week is only seven days, Mommy, and it takes you that long to do the laundry anyway.”
I have reached an all-time low: duped by a 5-year old. Here’s hopin’ Pippi naps every day until she’s 18!