partly

Myr has had an incredibly busy couple of weeks and it got even busier these last few days. Wednesday she put her play (The Wizard of Oz) on twice for the kids in the Middle School. I went to see the second performance and it was wonderful. Thursday night they put the play on for the public. Another standing-ovation performance.

Yesterday she went to a church lock-in. 7 pm to 7 am. Wil and I went along to hang out and watch the kids -- Myr wanted us to go along. Yay, us. They had a terrific "anti-drug" presentation before the fun started. One of the local detective was part of the presentation and he brought actual show and tell items like cocaine, LSD and marijuana. It goes to show the kind of life that I and my husband have led that we have never actually seen these things. The closest I've come to illicit drug use is second hand exposure to the very icky stink of marijuana. They spent a great deal of time talking about methamphetamines since that is the major drug us in the area. It was educational and more than a little terrifying.

Myr and Wil arrived home at 7 am this morning, as I didn't feel good enough to last the whole night. Wil was up at 10:30 and off to Medford for a card tournament, Myr slept until 12:30, but then was up.

Tonight we went to my brother's church for their Dinner Theatre called "Catastrophe at the Convention" -- The Annual Convention of the SPCI (The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Insects) is the setting for this highly comedic mystery. Four regional candidates vie for the highly esteemed position of President of the SPCI. Guests will hear stirring campaign speeches and cast ballots to determine who will lead this champion organization for the bugs of America into the next century. A highlight of the evening is T.P. Barnum and his world famous flea circus! When tragedy strikes, who is to blame? Would one of the candidates resort to murder? It was completely hysterical and great fun.

We got home at nine and despite how tired Myr is she can't really fall asleep so we try to wind down and she gets to bed at ten. Fifteen minutes later she calls me in.

"Could you read to me, Mom?"

Six of the best words in the world, still spoken to me by my twelve-year-old. She only does it when she's feeling overwhelmed and needs to believe that I'm there to make everything all right again. Needless to say, I read to her. She wanted to hear one of my favorite books from my childhood: "How Fletcher Was Hatcehd" (which I actually posted about before). Every once in a while, she'll even want me to sing to her, but that usually requires her to be sick, not just tired. Then I'll sit with her and try to sign all the songs I can remember from my childhood -- "In the Good Old Summertime", "Till We Meet Again", "Jesus Loves Me", "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". She's very found of "Battle Hymn of the Republic".

I encourage such "comfort behaviors". These coming years are going to be hard on her and I'm going to do everything in my power to make her feel that home is the one place where she can come when she's totally overwhelmed and feeling unable to be as grown-up as the world demands.

There is a kid's book that I love, Love You Forever". It's a story of how the mother always rocks her son when he needs it, saying: I'll love you forever / I'll like you for always / As long as I'm living / My baby you'll be. The book shows how the security of his mother's love comes with him whenever he needs it – it shows her climbing in his window when he's an adult and holding and rocking him. It ends with him rocking her when she is too old and frail to rock him. I want Myr to have to memory, that knowledge that she can be held and comforted and loved.

Singing a couple of songs and reading a couple of books seems such a small price to pay to give her that.