Demonic Inhalations

Mark and I took the girls on separate outings today.

Mark took Kallan back to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, where she spent several hours doing all of the physics and chemistry experiments she was allowed to do.  They had a very good time.  And she got to eat a plate of nachos for lunch, something that would never happen on Mom’s watch.

And I took Maj to see a waterfall at Multnomah Falls near the Columbia River.  The best views of the waterfall are from the bottom of the mountain, but we did the whole 1.2 mile hike up the mountain and then back again (the way down is much easier, in case you were wondering).  It was beautiful.  Maj and I talked and walked and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery.

Our best photo of the waterfall at Multnomah.

It is nice to occasionally get a glimpse of Maj as she will be as a young woman.  Mature and polite and lovely.  She spends so much of her time lately tormenting her little sister that it is sometimes difficult to remember what a wonderful person she can be.  I hope this latest sister stage of constant bickering and fighting and antagonizing one another has almost run its course, because I am exhausted.

So with me, today, Maj was a delight.  And from all reports, Kallan was exceptionally pleasant on her outing with Daddy as well.  Both girls were individually incredibly well-behaved and lovely to have as companions.  I guess they were both destined to be only children.

Which sucks for them.

And for us.  Within minutes of arriving back home, both girls had refused to pour me a cup of coffee, Maj had shoved Kallan out of the way to get to the swing first, Kallan had thrown a screaming back-yard tantrum, Maj had stomped around the yard yelling about how life was unfair, and I had been called annoying.  Which made me just want to take a nap.

Instead, I engaged Maj in yet another discussion of how I am not going to allow her to buy an enormous length of thick rope to hang from a tree branch so that she can climb high into the air “over the rooftop” of the house.  Apparently, the gymnasium at school has huge ropes for the kids to climb up to the ceiling, and I guess Maj is pretty good at it.  They have huge mats under the ropes . . . but it still sounds insanely dangerous.  Especially for my clutzy Maj, who regularly trips on the floor as she is walking across the room.  But if I don’t have to watch it, I guess I am ok with Maj climbing the ropes at school.

But in our back yard?  Over the rooftop?  Without mats?  And with Kallan holding the bottom of the rope trying to shake her sister to the ground below?

I don’t think so.

So I will have to go on being annoying, thwarting my daughter’s dreams.

Speaking of gym class . . . Kallan was telling us about a thrilling game they play in her gym class at school.  Half of the class wraps Velcro-closured hula skirts around their waists.  They then run crazily around the playground trying to evade the other half of the class, whose job it is to rip the Velcro-skirts off of their screaming, fleeing, skirt-wearing classmates.  The best part?  When there are only a few people left wearing the skirts and the other team sends its biggest fastest boys after you.  Kallan’s voice as she describes the pounding feet of the pursuers at this final stage of the game is part fear, part horror, and part unadulterated joy.

Part flag football, part tag, part . . . rape/seduction fantasy?

I should probably check in with the gym teacher.

I remember my favorite activity in elementary gym class was an activity reserved for rainy or blizzardish days on which we had to play inside.  The teacher would give each of us what was basically a wooden board with wheels.  And we would race and crash and bump and spin over the wax-slicked gymnasium floors.  It was enormous thrilling fun until someone got hurt.  And someone always got hurt.  Always.  Squished fingers, smashed hands, banged heads, bruises and bumps everywhere.  It was absolutely my favorite thing to do in gym.

I was going to say that those were the old days, and that such a toy would never be allowed today.  But I found it, unchanged in design (except for rubber edging to “protect the walls”), on a website aimed at educators and gym teachers.  Check it out.  How crazy is that?

In other news, Maj has perfected a weird monstery voice that she accomplishes by speaking as she inhales instead of exhales.  It’s creepy (try it!) and it drives Kallan nuts.  Even a simple, “Hello, Kallan,” when spoken through sucked-in air, sounds ugly and rude.  Much cause for celebration on Maj’s part as she delights in the discovery of something so small and yet so powerful.

“Mom!  Maj is being mean to me!  Maj is being scary and mean!”

“All I said was, ‘Hello, sweet sister!’” This from Maj as she offers up innocent and widespread palms of puzzlement.  “What could be wrong with saying hello to my sweet little sister?”

Nothing.  Unless those sweet sister greetings sound as though they are being delivered by a demon from hell.  And demons from hell must be punched and pinched and hair-pulled into submission.

“AUGHHH!!!  Kallan won’t stop hitting me and pinching me and pulling my hair!!!”

And so it goes . . .

This is a stage, right?