Deuces

It was family traditions reporting day at school.  One of Alana’s first Spanish presentations, I was eager to hear how it went. “Did any of your friends have cool traditions? How about Eli? And Everly? What about Isabel? It was at ‘Isabel’ that Alana remarked she “actually has *two* friends name Isabel...” I added the fun fact that my grandmother’s name was Isabel, too.  Wasting no time, Alana inquired: “Is she still alive?” Slowly, and with an air of reminiscence, I replied “No sweetheart, she isn’t alive any more…” To which she immediately left out an audible sigh of relief, adding “oh, that’s good! That would be too many Isabels for me to remember”. I smiled.  I love how young kids think. And since Sayler has hit the age of dread over her, or her family, dying, I take solace in knowing it’s no big deal for Alana, at least.  That phase of realization that we’re all mere mortals has not yet crept up and I am so grateful for how singularly-minded Alana is.  In fact, I was exactly her a

Alana lost her first tooth yesterday.  And I wasn’t ready for it.  Though she’s been saying for the last 2 weeks her tooth is “wiggly” I wasn’t prepared for her holding her hand to her little mouth as I sat draped over the blue chair that’s become synonymous with all-day TV binges of late. (I’m neither proud nor ashamed to admit that). And as she clutched her mouth, hiding whatever toothless grin lay beneath she told me her “tooth fell out” I immediately thought it was a prank. Only a few years prior hadn’t her older sister tried to extort the tooth fairy with playdough creations and soppy white paper towels crafted into look-alike teeth? Nestled beneath her pillow awaiting some payday that the fairy never delivered on, I had become accustomed to all the ways Sayler could negotiate or lovingly, and without malice, con someone out of their loose change or a five dollar bill because she had done a chore that she should have been doing anyway.  And here she was- that older sister turned p