Dora had a great day today. She seemed relaxed and genuine for the majority of the day. She and Kyle and Beth walked to the top of the steps at the Alpine Visitor Center on Trail Ridge Road. Can you spot the girls in their tie-dyed sweatshirts?


After that we went to Ride-A-Kart (Amy worked here one summer!) and had two rides each on the go-karts. Beth was thrilled that she was finally tall enough to drive her own kart. Dora rode first with Marie and then with me … her decision. We returned home and went to dinner at my folks’ favorite place across the street from their house. After dinner I told the girls to get ready for bed.


I rocked Dora first. She has quickly grown accustomed to spending time in the rocking chair and appears to love it quite a bit. Having said that, however, she also feels the intimacy associated with it, and shies away from the vulnerability to some extent. She does that by becoming wiggly or chattery or shifting into major “DQ” mode—Drama Queen. I called her on it and she settled down somewhat. We rocked for about 15 minutes and she headed to bed.


Next it was Beth’s turn. She climbed into my lap. From my perspective, she and Dora had a great day. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company throughout all the different activities. No doubt there were a few bumps, but no derailments that I could discern. So when Beth climbed into my lap and started through her list of “wrongs” for the day, including how it bothered her that Dora had begun calling Kyle her “Big Bother” (Beth’s nickname for Kyle when Beth was 3 years old, and a long-standing family joke) … well, I didn’t respond too compassionately. I do understand some of the issues behind the usurping of Beth’s special name for Kyle; however, the fact that Beth followed that complaint with a somewhat petty list of “she did this” and “you did that” and the fact that I spent all last night dealing with both girls and their emotions, and the fact that part of me thinks Beth is just going to need to come to grips with some of this, much like any “displaced” only child needs to adjust (and she's jerking my chain just a wee bit) ... I just wasn’t ready to spend another evening trying to glue Beth together. Kyle and Marie were preparing to show their pictures from Kenya and I had missed all of last night’s show … so I told Beth I wasn’t interested in going down this same path tonight. She responded with her increasingly frequent pre-hormonal “canned” reaction (saying one thing but body language saying the complete opposite) and I just couldn’t do this again tonight. I said, “If you need a good cry, head upstairs and do it.” And off she went. I sat down to view pictures … but quite soon the crescendo of her crying became difficult to ignore.

To be continued...