Priorities

Olivia was sitting next to me at the table saying out names of her kindergarten classmates. She was saying them slowly and pointedly, and I realized that she needed a playdate with them and I was being very remiss as a mother.

My school and student teaching ate up time voraciously, and I know that Olivia could use some good old-fashioned, stay-at-home momming. You know, the kind where you obsess over cupcake color and stacking the towels perfectly in alternating colors in the closet. I know how she feels: I am juuuuust beginning to reach out to old friends I have dearly missed, and throw away piles of unnecessary papers, and get life in some kind of order that doesn't include hours of studying a day. And, blinking from the bright light as an emerging hermit must do, I now realize with Olivia's chanting of long-lost names from May that I must make some school-friend calls for my daughter.

"Honey," I say to her. "Are you naming all the friends you are missing?"

"No," she said. "I am going through all the people in my class who have been to Sea World, and you can see my name is not on that list."