Revisiting Connections

We missed her as soon as we left her behind in her mother's house. The drive back to our own home seemed quieter, less eventful, somehow lacking some critical element of satisfaction, signaling a loss. Yes, I was a little apprehensive beforehand. How to keep a ten-year-old little girl busy, engaged and happy? Now I know. Just let it happen. And it does.

She followed me around like a little puppy. Always curious, renewing old habits, reacquainting herself with what was once so familiar to her everyday life. Wherever I was, there she would be too. In the kitchen, offering to help with the baking, the cooking, the cleaning up. Relaxing in the family room, sitting with us, engrossed in one of her books while we read the newspapers.

On the last full day she was with us the weather had turned icy again and the trails in the ravine followed suit. So she pulled on the cleats over her boots and set out with us for this new experience, and enjoyed clambering wherever she wanted over the ice. Despite the inclement weather we saw robins finally returned after their winter getaway.

At breakfast I sectioned her grapefruit, set it alongside a banana, broke two eggs into a little bowl, so she could beat them with a fork, add a slight amount of milk, warm up the pan, melt butter in it to fizzle, then drizzle her eggs into the pan, and methodically move them about until they were as dry and well cooked as she liked. And then she ground fresh pepper on the eggs and brought them to table.

Toasted challah, thank you Bubbe. And then spread it liberally with smoked-salmon cream cheese spread. She had oven-roasted potato slices with fresh salmon and loved it. She enjoyed breaded chicken cutlets along with rosti potatoes and onions. She thought highly of chicken fricassee, and panzerotto. We made vegetable-filled egg rolls together, and chocolate-chip cookies.

She ate candied carrots, buttered corn, oven-baked asparagus, and green peas, but rejected tomatoes and avocados. We ran out of chocolate milk. No plain yoghurt, thanks, but the fruit-bottomed is just fine. Food is just so very important to her, and it's always what're we having for lunch, dinner, breakfast?

She won't eat bacon, but did eat bacon slices made of chicken. And she enjoyed the process of making waffles. I can hardly believe the amount of food a child her age can consume. She loves strawberries and fresh pineapple, apples and nectarines. She even enjoyed overseeing the dogs' special treats after breakfast when each is given a tiny bowl of doggy biscuits.

She's now able to shower on her own, wash her own hair, look after her own needs in regularly changing her clothing, and rushing to do little things like opening the doors for the dogs' ingress and egress. She still loves climbing into the big tub in our bathroom and sliding about in it as she did when she was little.

Although she really wasn't all that interested in the chapters I read to her from a book of insights and experiences of various children living in war zones, she listened and then we had small discussions. She likes discussions; she is an incessant babbler, like her grandmother.

She's now companionable, a sensitive and sensible human being.