Library, a Place for Everybody

So Rachel is turning 10. She is getting there. Speaking of the usually troublesome teenage years, I said to her, in front of her parents, "Rachel, if you ever want to run away from Mom and Dad, come to stay with us." "I don't have a vehicle to come to your place," she sounded serious with my offer. "Hey, you make a phone call wherever you are!" I was no joking either.

Saturday night, she stayed at our place for sleepover anyways. If I have to say it fairly, Sienna is the calmer one between the two of them. She let Rachel watch what she wanted on TV. They both sat on my Yoga mat on the floor. Rachel, by turn, played out her Tea Kown Do moves, recited the commercial lines and then took off her socks for a pedicure herself. By turn, Sienna looked at TV screen and then at Rachel... She had changed into her beautifully-laced princess dress. She needed to have grace and poise, for goodness sake. Sienna is the one who looked at Rachel running around in our back yard and smiled.

Rachel had long declared that she hated her house first and ours the second. That doesn't mean she wants us to send her home. These are the two houses where she stays for longer time than she is willing to. She wishes she had the power to get us out in the world. In a nice evening over the summer, she did get us out for a walk. At the edge of the ravine breathing the refreshed air, we commented how we would have missed it all if we didn't listen to her. Rachel went, "What do you guys do without me?"

Yesterday morning, Rachel was thankful because I took Sienna and her out in the snow for tobogganing in the morning. Clearly, it would be an ok day as I accomplished that. But to really make a day for Rachel, I had to cook up something else. "What about library?" I asked. Rachel jumped on the idea.

We spent a couple of hours in the library before I took Rachel home ready for her ballet. Rachel was getting her books and reading. Sienna picked a couple of books for herself. I noticed that she approached other kids, strangers to her, to play blocks with her. I discovered a series of books by author of "Good night Moon", Margaret Wise Brown. A great and sensitive writer so in tune to children's moods... So everybody was happy at the library.

Without Rachel, we couldn't have experienced these. She is very different from Sienna and precious in her own way. That's why we couldn't do it without her.