Mag Pie

A couple of stories about my Magpie -

This year, she has been completely absorbed by the Harry Potter books, which thrills me beyond belief. I don't remember any books, aside from the Boxcar Children, from my childhood that I really, really loved. I didn't really start to love reading until I was older, so to have her so enthralled with these books makes my heart very happy. We have the last four books on CD and the library has all of them so she can check out books 1 - 3 to listen to. She is just finishing up listening to the series for a 2nd time this year. Well, often, she brings the CD's in the car with her to listen to while we drive places or she'll listen to them in the kitchen while I am cooking or doing dishes. I listened to about 70% of book 6 with her, but finished it before her on my own - it's the perfect backdrop to folding laundry etc... When she found out that I had started book 7 and she wasn't done with book 6, she was not happy with me. I guess, maybe a few times I have had her wait to listen to something until I can be in the room. So she felt a little betrayed. On Thursday last week, the day after my mom had gone and I was feeling a little bit melancholy, I had lots of laundry to do, and I decided to put Harry Potter in while Paige was sleeping and I was folding, sorting etc.. I looked everywhere and couldn't find the cd's. Then, it hit me: she must have hidden them somewhere so that I couldn't listen to them while she was at school. I looked everywhere I could think that she would have hidden them and still could NOT find them. Why? Because she had taken them to school with her. Yup, she just loaded the whole series into her box and took them to school. So, to get back, I didn't do ANY laundry and just sat and read the whole afternoon away.

And

This year for the first time since we have lived here, we have to get up early during the week. The elementary school that both girls have attended until now doesn't start until 9:30. So unless I had something pressing to do in the mornings, we just slept until we woke up. But, now Maggie attends a different school that starts at 8:00 am, her bus comes around 7:20. During the first part of the year, I woke her up. After a while, she lost confidence in my ability/willingness to wake her at the time she wanted. Now she sets her alarm for 6:30. I usually sleep until about 7:00 when she comes in to get me to help her make her lunch. Today was pizza day at the school. She buys her lunch every pizza day. So, when the alarm went off at 6:30 this morning I stumbled out of bed to turn up the heat and bumped into my darling daughter in the hall. I think I said good morning to her and may have also indicated that I would just be finding socks or something and return to the kitchen shortly. I climbed back into bed to get warm and the next thing I knew it was 7:30 and Maggie was long gone. How's that for great parenting. For a while I considered calling the school to make sure that she had made it, but wasn't sure how I would explain that I had been sleeping when she left. Now, if someone could just tell me who to call to collect my "World's Best Parent" award....