I should have known. There was a storm coming.
Always, afterward, I say, "No wonder."
The no wonder is that Miss Jenna goes completely and utterly manic for what at first glance is little-to-no reason, and then the storm comes. My little weather girl, our personal barometric pressure sensor, a chip off her daddy's block. Both of them climb and slide into another place just before a storm--brewing and stewing and growling, or reeling and squeeling--all before anyone except maybe Channel 2 has a notion that bad weather's on its way.
As soon as the storm hits outside our windows, the storm in them subsides. Sleep often follows, or peaceful play, which was the case today, when just after reaching the zenith of mad-kid antics, she was sitting quietly in her chair, imagining and pretending, with Barbie teaching Little Kellys how to write their names in her notebook. The yawning was unmistakable. It's always the storm before the calm here.
We made it out. After all that. Once the thunder passed.
Headed off to Big Lots, where I hauled home a week's worth of "the stuff no one carries anymore," frozen dinners, her favorite fruit loops, some Gino's Pizza Rolls, and various non sequiturs, which is what Big Lots is all about.
That and a trip through the dreaded McDonald's drive through for a number 9 and a kid's happy meal made the near-meaningless day complete. Got a glimpse of some road rage on the way home--a pickup truck full of hicks going at it with a car full of punks, flipping eachother off and racing down the road ahead of me. Somehow, it felt good. I wanted to follow them, but supressed the urge. Parked the minivan I hate in the comtemporary attached cedar-sided garage, hit the garage door opener to seal us in, threw some frozen stuff in the freezer that lives in our garage, and dragged the rest of it upstairs.
She's dancing now, in the cool new dress-up shoes courtesy of Big Lots, a deal at $4.99. They're all sparkley and plastic, three pairs in their own little cardboard dresser, fancy and loud, bows and flowers. She's off to her room to check herself out in the mirror her grandma bought for her. She walks with airs, clunkiness aside, eyes saying: Ain't I Something?
The hard, hollow, plastic soles clack against the wood floor just now, and I wonder if my head could feel any worse.
I'm pretty sure it can't.
