Cinderella Slaves

As the girls were getting ready to walk out the door yesterday morning, Kallan swung her backpack over her shoulder and bashed her sister (who was kneeling to tie her shoes) in the head.  As Maj rose in a fury, Kallan turned to her, her face an expression of deep concern.

“Gloria, are you alright, Gloria?”

Maj was confused and stopped mid-rant, “Gloria?”

Kallan continued in patient solicitous tones, “No, I’m not Gloria. You’re Gloria. You hit that doorknob pretty hard. Are you alright?”

Maj stared at Kallan, “What are you talking about?”

“Mom!!” Kallan screamed, “Gloria hit her head and I think she has amnesia!”

It’s like I live in a sitcom. Kallan has pretty good material.

She also has a really heavy backpack. For three days in a row, she has carried about five pounds of her rock collection back and forth to school, hoping to get the chance to share them during lunch-time show and tell. An opportunity that is unlikely to arise, because I don’t think Kallan has ever asked her teacher if she can share the rocks with the class. I’m not sure what that’s about.

My guess is that Kallan walks into class exaggeratedly burdened by the weight of her load, flinging the backpack to the ground with an excess of noise and great exhalations of breath, hoping that the teacher will ask her, “What have you got in there, Kallan? Rocks?”

One of Kallan's rocks.

Parent-teacher conferences are coming up. I fully expect to hear from Kallan’s teacher about how Kallan seems to be having trouble getting herself organized for school.

“Kallan tends toward the dramatic,” I imagine Kallan’s teacher reporting, “She spends a lot of time before class every morning behaving as though she is a pack mule who has been asked to clear the rocks from the tunnel after the blasting.”

How to explain?

The girls are both home from school today so that their teachers can prepare for the conferences. Maj welcomed the chance to sleep in, but Kallan got up early. I could hear her rustling around in the kitchen making herself breakfast. Mark followed soon after, and I pulled the covers over my head and tried to ignore the morning.

And then Mark came stomping back upstairs to pull the covers aside and ask me an accusing question. “Kallan says that you let her have Hershey’s chocolate syrup on her pancakes. Really?!?  That’s basically just candy for breakfast.”

Nice try, Kallan.

So then I was up. Up to face another rainy chilly day in which my children tell self-serving lies about me.

That’s right! In a stunning turn of events, it is raining! Again. In Oregon. Who knew?

Took Jack the stupid smaller dog for a walk around the neighborhood this morning during a (too short) break between downpours. The stupid smaller dog apparently gets his stupid from me, because I had not thought to bring a raincoat or an umbrella. As we hurried home, Jack’s fluffy hair turned to soggy blond ringlets and my own hair slicked against my skull (always an attractive look). Maj, who had finally decided to get out of bed, greeted me at the door with, “You look stupid. And you smell like wet dog.”

She sniffed the air.

“Or else Jack smells like wet Mom. Hard to tell.”

Wet mom smell.

Maj and Kallan are antsy in the background as I type this, wanting to know what fun things I have planned for their day. They are dumbstruck when I suggest they straighten their rooms. Well, not dumbstruck, exactly, because that would suggest that my suggestion was met with some period of silence. Which it was not. They were, in fact, whinestruck.

Apparently, they just cleaned their rooms a week ago. And a day off of school isn’t supposed to be a day of jobs. And they have nothing to do. Nothing, because this family and this house and this life are so very very dull.

They stare at Mark and me sullenly and list their unhappinesses: The games are all boring, the crafts are all stupid, the books have all been read, and the yard is wet and cold. The dogs are sleeping, everyone they know owes them a letter or an email, there is no one to call on the phone, and Mark and I are ignoring them. They would be content to sit in front of the television all day, but in a spectacular demonstration of cruelty, I have vetoed this plan.

I try to tell them that the reason their father and I had two children was so, on days exactly like this, they could play together. But they remember all the times I have told them that the reason their father and I had two children was so that we could turn them into slaves and make them do our bidding. Of the two explanations, the second has the ring of truth to their ears.

“Fine,” I tell them, “either find something to do or I will give you chores.”

Which reminds me of a time a few years ago when I handed a whiny crabby Kallan the Windex and a roll of paper towels and told her to wipe down the counters in her bathroom.  I suggested that she take that moment of cleaning solitude to adjust her attitude. That she just keep finding things to clean until she had managed to transform herself into a pleasant little girl again.

She stopped on the stairs and turned to glare at me, “I’m not just your Cinderella slave, you know.”

Maj and Kallan . . . Cinderella slaves.

Now about those rooms.