Teen Angel

Everybody (or at least every mom) needs an Anika. She is Molly's middle school buddy who comes over to play and babysit on Wednesdays after school. I got the idea from Eric and Mary, and I have to say it's been a high point of my week ever since. I usually go out and run errands but today I stayed home to do some work; I listened to the two of them run (and I pretty much mean run) around for the whole afternoon. I should say, Molly runs Anika around and she obligingly goes along with things. I usually hit my limit when I've done three or four of something in a row -- read the same story in triplicate, repeated the same answer to a question in quadruplicate, built garages/gardens/houses out of blocks only to have King Kong Molly come through and wreak havoc once, twice, three, many, many times, etc. Really, it can feel like ground hog day around here a lot. Anika, though... that girl has stamina. I listened to her read and then act out Curious George for almost an hour today, staged, of course, by little miss director pants. Not only that, but Anika is a really, really good artist (as in, you can tell what her drawings look like every time), and she made Molly a Curious George mask just for fun. I thought I was crafty but she makes me look like amateur hour. Molly adores older kids (girls and boys, unfortunately. She's already tried sneaking off at the beach with some older boys. Ay yey yey), and having Anika come is exciting for Molly each week, too. They can be wacky and zany together and it's really sweet to listen to the squeals of happiness (from Molly). As much as I love spending my days with my small people, I think the old Momski routine gets a little old and it's nice to spice things up with some fresh energy (thank you in advance to our summer visitors/helpers). It also provides me the opportunity to have one on one time with Jack. Even though we're often running around getting errands done (in about an eighth of the time it would take me if I had both of them with me), we always get our moments to blow raspberries or give belly laughs or actually linger somewhere. I take my moments with him whenever I can but it's nice to know I have some dedicated time.

I have never been a huge fan of the middle school years (mine included), but I think I'm being convinced that teenage girls aren't complete mutants (I should have already known this because we very much enjoy the company of our non-mutant teenage family members). It also might mean that I might occasionally wiggle my way out of doing something for a fourth, fifth, eighteenth time because it's Molly and Anika's special thing to do together... maybe, just maybe.