Then there was Friday.

School Girl’s best friend had her 8th birthday party Friday and Saturday. Yes, it was a sleepover. It was a really long sleepover, involving a trip to our local mall, a gigantic mountain of candy at home, and just the thrill for Best Friend’s mother of having 7 wound-up 7-year-olds desperately trying not to sleep.

School Girl said she had a pretty good time. We did get a phone call around 10 or so; she was having a hard time dealing with all the noise, which has gotten better over time but something that’s always been a problem. Evil Dad and I talked her into trying again. By the time we checked in on her in half an hour, things were going much better.

I should say that we’re not into gigundous parties involving everyone in the class, magicians, rented bouncy castles, or epic voyages. We’ve got a small house, and I’ve always let School Girl choose who she’d like to invite. Up to about 6 people. So far, we’ve had parties with 8 (3 invitees and Best Friend’s family) and parties with 5. Last year’s party wasn’t too bad. The kids had a game of balloon soccer going in the living room, we made dry-ice lemonade to go with the vegan cupcakes, and they got to watch Scooby-Doo. Everybody apparently had a good time. School Girl had a good time too, which was the whole point of the afternoon.

I’m trying to talk School Girl into a weekend trip this year, maybe even down to the Springs, for her birthday. Let’s see how far I get with that one, shall we?

It’ll be a good thing for him: he’ll get to see one of the main locations he’ll be working with, he’ll give the customer more confidence in his company – and he’ll be able to visit his family over the weekend. That alone is a wonderful thing. I’ve said too much already.

I’m writing this with a puppy curled up at my hip and a hacking mess stretched out on the other side of the couch. I’m hoping she’ll be well enough to head off for our weekend plans. This week is Spinning and Weaving Week, and our local yarn shop has a couple of events that looked pretty good. Plus I might look at some looms while we’re there…

September 11, 2001 is the birth date of my nieces, my sister’s twin daughters. The horror of what happened to almost 3,000 people in a single day is almust surreal. The exceptions are few from that day: freaking out because I couldn’t reach my uncle and aunt in Lower Manhattan by phone for over an hour, then realizing that he had no idea what was happening outside (at the time, my aunt was dying from emphysema and they had other things on their minds than the end of the outside world); trying to find Evil Dad, and seeing if he’d be allowed to even come home that day; gratitude that the twins’ father wasn’t on his usual flight to Detroit that morning.

Does anyone know what happened to Osama bin Laden? You remember him – the person actually responsible for the coordination and funding of the attacks on that day? Me neither. More importantly, nobody seems to care anymore – except maybe the families of the dead.

Finally, if anybody has any doubts about the statement “religion kills”, just remember what happened 8 years ago in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field just below Jennerstown.

And yet…the only thing that matters to me are those babies. They’re 8 today. They’ll be having a party at school, a dinner with most of the family tonight (damn, how I wish we could be there), and a big party complete with a bouncy castle tomorrow for 6 of their friends.

Her classroom is closest to the door, almost exactly where her 1st grade class was save for the location of the hallway. Last Wednesday Evil Dad and I walked School Girl over, along with 2 bags filled with school supplies. This year, parents were allowed to go in and help carry the bags-o-stuff into their classroom. Last year, we had assessments/form completion time for the first two days of school, so parents were expected to go in and helped set up all the supply stations.

I also got to briefly meet the teacher. She’s an older, much more experienced teacher, with an East Coast attitude. I like her already, and I think School Girl likes her too. They’ve been busy this past week setting up the classroom, doing “getting to know you” activities, and generally doing what they can without actually breaking the kids into ability groups right away.

School Girl has loved, and really needed, getting back to her routine of school-reading-evening stuff. Without getting too involved, it’s been an upside-down sort of summer here; so a return to some sort of normal is very welcome indeed.

We talked about her reading level last night. Apparently it’s even higher than it was last spring, which opens up the possibility of letting her read some of my favorite SF books from when I was a kid. I think we might give this one a try, primarily to try to counteract some of the things she’s been watching on TV/at the movies this summer. It’s nice, and rare, to see an intelligent girl as the hero in any sort of story; and frankly, the plot of this one is pretty damn cool. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be reading it to her or letting her give it a shot on her own.

So about 3 weeks ago I got an email about a local secular parenting group. And when I say “local”, it’s not just Denver, Boulder and Ft. Collins (decidedly, um, not so local as one might suppose), it’s much, much closer to us. Close enough to actually have some of the activities within 5 miles of us.

One of the activities was heading out to one of our local-ish parks for the TrainRideandPettingZoo. School Girl loves petting zoos, no matter how sad and lame they actually turn out to be. In fairness, the petting zoo at the Stock Show pretty much outstrips every other petting zoo on earth in terms of sheer awesomeness, so she’s a bit jaded. Never even mentioned the train. Last week we went to the Railroad Museum, so that kind of spoiled her a bit on the “baby train” thing.

So after our 2nd hospital visit (just a recheck on some things) in 2 days, we had breakfast, packed some water and an extra shirt and headed off for the park.

It was…better than I had feared. Of the 8 people that said they were coming, there were 3 mums there with a total of 6 kids, including School Girl. One of them was having a homestudy meeting with her SW, so she wound up not making it. One of the other mums was an adoptive parent as well; their youngest had had her finalization back in April, and she had two other kids, both school age but a little older than School Girl.

And the other mum, who I wound up spending the most time with, had two kids. School Girl spent a huge amount of time playing in the creek with her new buddy. They sat and talked in the grass for a while, played on the rocks in the creek, wound up getting soaked from head to toe (I didn’t ask – no actual screams of terror were involved, and some things you just don’t want to know), and we wound up having an invitation for a sleepover. Think we might start with a playdate during the day first…

It was so nice to be able to let my guard down, ever so slightly. I had people I could commiserate with over the increasing lack of church-state separation at school, what an uphill slog it can be to teach critical thinking skills without school support, and being able to talk about kids’ stuff without the blank stares most often (sadly) found at skeptic gatherings in general. We (as in possibly all 3 of us) are going to have to go back for another playday.