This morning I drew horses for OmegaDotter, then cut them out. A horse-drawer, I am not. Most of my horses' heads have an unfortunate tendency to look somewhat like ducks'.
But the dotter, though she is becoming more discriminating, was still pleased. Before I cut them out, she decorated them with saddles, reins, and bridles. She also extended the legs of one of the horsies by adding little round hooves, which made them look more horse-like; I had wondered why they looked so stubby. Mothers everywhere will understand the following complaint: HOW on earth can one small child expand her STUFF to fill the entire universe?? She has been drawing while the TV plays in the background, and the coffee table and environs are draped in sheets of construction paper and printer paper with various beginnings of drawings--one cute little tentacled thingummy which she informed me was an "alien"; wildly decorated stencil horsies, bull heads, conestoga wagons, and dawgs; rainbows and a big green blob that she told me was a swimming pool. There are markers and crayons scattered in heaps on the table, and strewn across the floor. There's a Pretty Pony flopped on the floor beneath the table. There are four of my colorful scarves carefully draped across pillows on the futon. (God forbid you should disarrange them!) Baskets and containers are on their sides, contained items escaping. I clean up the detritus, head off to do something else, and return, and the detritus is strewn again. Yesterday, after our pool and nap drive and ice cream interlude, she decided to draw letters. After I admired them, she demanded I give her words to draw, so we worked on easy words: boy, girl, horse (of course!), cat, dog, dance, ribbon...She eagerly presented them to OmegaDad when he arrived back from his errands, and he dutifully admired. The dotter's daycare (an offshoot of a Baptist church) was doing Vacation Bible School this week--"SonTreasure Island". Family night was Friday night; it was announced by a poorly hand-drawn sign taped to the front door on Wednesday. I am used to her daycare giving us such short notice, and with three years' of VBS history, knew it was coming. So Friday afternoon, OmegaDad presented the dotter with a Beautiful! Yellow! Dress! which he had picked up at the trading post while he was out in the field. We dressed, we got in the car, we realized we were very early, and decided to drive around beforehand. This distressed OmegaDotter: "But my performance! We can't be late! Oh, NO!" But (of course) we got there in plenty of time, the dotter hooked up with K., her latest Best Friend Forever, they sang religious propaganda songs and looked unutterably cute, and we got lots of pics most of which are unsalvageable.

---

Many thanks to all for the thoughts on how to deal with my need to be alone versus her need to Be With Me. I marched off to the doc on Friday and got a new prescription for the pretty blue pills, which I had weaned myself off of back in January. I told the PA I needed them because of "menopausal snarkiness and bitchiness", which she was amused by. The medicos always say that it takes weeks for them to take effect; I have never needed weeks, perhaps a reflection of my low tolerance to various meds. So whether it's a placebo effect or the Real Thing, two days of LBPs has made me much more mellow. Or perhaps it's the fact that I know I won't have to deal with work this week--hurray! I've got the week off! OmegaMom does the Snoopy Dance. I plan to swim, hike, putter around, and do nothing. Ahhhhh. Anyway, it's nice to know that there are others out there who also have the loner-versus-clinger conundrum to deal with. Thanks for the various ideas; I will have to put some of them into effect. (Though, VM, the idea of taking the dotter on hikes with me can sometimes backfire--when I hike, I want to walk fast and far, both of which are somewhat out of the dotter's abilities right now. Also, the peace and quiet of the forest is...um..."demolished" is the word...by a four-and-a-half year old!)