“I want a step- dad.”

I am silent as I have no idea where this is coming from. My daughter is eleven and has never wanted a dad.

“I want a step dad who can teach me to fly.”

Ah, This is starting to make sense.

She loves Wendy Mass and is currently reading For Every Soul a Star… in which one of the character’s step dad teaches him to… fly!

For the longest time, my daughter included “author” in the list of professions she wanted when she grew up. She spent hours writing stories followed by time illustrating them.

This past summer, she decided that she wasn’t going to be an author or an illustrator. She started thinking about all the other things she could be. She stopped writing stories, but wrote a poem now and again. She fell in love with science and found a stronger taste for math.

(As I write I find myself thinking… is this still my daughter?)

Before her writing test last week, I handed her a copy of Spilling Ink. “You can read this to prepare for writing your essay.”

Having rejected reading the hard copy I bought when it was first released (donated to her class library) and showing no interest in reading the paperback I bought for her at home, she decided to give it a try, for the test.

And she is still reading it.

And she is writing stories.

And she has discovered new creativity and imagination – stories with humor and a completely different voice than in the past.

This book, Spilling Ink, at the right time… opened her eyes and her mind and reminded her of the delight she found in writing.

When I found the book in her pack last night, I assumed she had finished it. “Oh no,” she said. “I accidently put it in.”

So back to school it went today. She reads a little, writes a lot, and returns to the pages of the book.

She found a new copy of Stone Soup – the periodical written by kids – last night… reading and enjoying it cover to cover – appreciating, a new, what it takes to write a story. Perhaps she was even reading the kid’s stories with a different perspective.

Thank you to the authors of Spilling Ink and to the blogs I have read that encouraged me to buy the book and to donate it to the class library. Several kids in the class have read it – and now my daughter is finding the magic it offers to those who dare to open the cover!

It has been one of those day

You know those days…

From the moment I walked into my office

To the moment I log off the machine

I am exhausted and it is just now 4!

We sat together at the bar – her homework done, our meal completed

Notebook traveling back and forth

A sort of Pictionary

My pictures penned

Lines off, not connecting

Simple outlines

Vaguely, perhaps, resembling the word in mind.

Her drawings

Detailed, exact

Creative in presentation

Word expressed clearly in black ink

And we laughed

Chatted

Enjoyed our afternoon

The clock does not say 6.

It has to say 5.

I look out the window to find more than just a gray day… it is dark.

It can’t be 6 I think as I snuggle back under the quilt with the cat.

But the clock is chiming (something it does only after 6) and I know, in my heart of hearts that it is, actually, now after 6.

At my house, there are many signs of spring – trees budding, grass turning green, birds moving from spring training to full choral performances… and there are frogs. The music of the frogs begins in early evening after the sun has set and as the sky moves from pale blue to dark. It is spring music; tones only heard during these first weeks of the season.

The frog lullaby has started! Soon I will be able to open my bedroom windows at night, curl beneath the quilt and allow their hopeful songs to move me to sleep.

“Do you want to run ahead and order?” I ask as I stand at the counter waiting for the server to return.

“Yes!” Off she goes.

I receive the expected answer and return to our table to collect two backpacks and two large umbrellas. Gathering everything into the most comfortable position possible, I navigate my way through signs, people, and “wet floor” signs. As I walk out the door, I notice that it has, for the moment, stopped raining.

Making my way to the middle of the shopping center, through another door, and to my daughter’s side where she is waiting in line for dessert – a chocolate, peanut butter petite… delicious! We have changed our regular routine to include this stop at Starbucks – currently celebrating their 40^th anniversary.

A birthday, a free petite that is all about chocolate and peanut butter… that is worth celebrating!

My umbrella blew inside out as I walked to the coffee shop. Somehow I don’t think this ever happened to Mary Poppins... my thought as I twisted and turned suggesting that the wind playfully return the umbrella to its correct position.

As I sighed thanking the weather report for “Not” mentioning the gusts of swirling wind this rainy morning, I consider Marry Poppins.

While I am not a stranger to singing and dancing anywhere at any time, I am not sure I do with it with the grace and talent (or the costumes) Marry enjoys. Unfortunately, I cannot make medicine taste good, have toys and other items put themselves away, or adventure through chalk drawings. As for flying… even with my big striped umbrella, flying is not an option (though my daughter has tried)

Reaching into my carpet bag to find “just the thing” would be a wonderful piece of magic.

But, Mary Poppins I am not.

As I peered from beneath the bottom edge of my umbrella, forcing it before me like a shield pushing the wind back or holding it at bay, I realized that, in several ways, I am like Mary…

I can create magic through words and ideas – no carpet bag necessary.

I sing and dance - but also walk and talk and enjoy the birds, no costumes needed.

And I don’t need to disappear into a chalk drawing to discover anything – I can quiet my mind and see the magic of the world around me.

Though I wouldn’t mind the flying part; and, I would love to know how she controls her umbrella in a playful wind… I am not Mary Poppins. I am me!

“Was it good?” I asked my daughter as we walked to get a quick snack before ballet. She had the first part of her writing test yesterday and read 1.5 books while she waited for the class to finish.

“It was okay.”

Standard answer. It was okay. Rarely is there a book that she loves or one that receives a “good.” Most of them are simply “okay.” Sometimes I find this disheartening as I do love books; and yet, she reads; she loves to read; to finishes the books and understands what she is reading; and how many books do I, also an avid reader, “love?”

There are books that touched my life – Where the Red Fern Grows (which I just ordered for her); Little Women; Les Miserable’s (Loved this one); Because of Winn-Dixie…Tale of Two Cities…And yet, to read this list, I find that they are books I read years ago. Is it only in retrospect that we can see the books that touched our lives or turned us “on” as readers?

My daughter is reading Spilling Ink today in preparation for her writing test tomorrow. Her favorite books to date: Familiars; Savvy; Lost States of America; The Girl Who Could Fly; Ballet Shoes; Moxie Roosevelt; But the one that has touched her life – Umbrella Summer, oh, and the graphic novel Smile. (She loves Winn-Dixie too and has for years)

I wonder though, in years, as she ages, what works she will remember.