The Wright Place: What I Think About When I Fear the Kids are Growing too Quickly

My baby girl is in first grade. She reads and writes notes to me. She makes up jokes and has an encyclopedic memory of every season of her favorite TV shows. She can pray down heaven and can out maneuver me often in sneaky attempts to avoid her school work. My heart aches a little sometimes because she seems to be getting older faster than her siblings did. Some days I just want to hear that little voice again and hold those little pudgy hands...but then I remember what those little hands used to do...often...

{From the archives January 2010}

It's all because I was a Girl Scout. I know how to build a campfire using two different configurations of wood, how to make and use a sit-upon, how to make a fire-starter out of dryer lint and paraffin, how to fry an egg on a coffee can, how to sell a bunch of fine tasting cookies, how to apply basic first-aid, and of course, how to lend a hand. Girl Scouts are honor bound to "do my best to serve God, my country, and mankind and to live by the Girl-Scout law."

I was in the service of mankind or "mother-kind" as it were. I was setting my sites on preparing dinner for the gang when the phone rang. It was my Mom looking for a nearby outlet mall. She'd gotten a little turned around and since my Man and I are shoppin' fools surely I could give her a little help. Not a problem. I gave vague directions and moved to the computer to get the specifics. After giving aid, I hung up the phone and returned to thoughts of supper.

"Mooooommmmm!" the voice called from my bedroom. "Molly...oh Molly...Mom look at her."

"What 'cha got there Molly?"

L'orael 892, Raisin Rapture.

Oh Raisin Rapture, you did the job. You were my "purse tube", always there for me when I needed a touch up, never too dark, never too deep like my regular stuff. Oh, Raisin Rapture, I'll miss you so.

Her sibling almost caught her in time to prevent the damage that was sure to come at that hand. Almost but not quite...

Look at that cute little lipstick hand print on my bedroom carpet. There was one to match it on the light tan bedspread. I wasn't that enRaptured by the color and therefore ran to the computer for help after tossing "Mary Kay" into the bathtub under the watch of her brother.

Googling "lipstick stain removal" yielded many results, most of which involved alcohol and dish washing soap.

Perhaps they meant for me to take a swig of the alcohol before using the dish soap on the lipstick, because the alcohol applied to the stain itself did nothing. Unfortunately, the dish soap wasn't the solution either.

"Goo-Gone," said my Sister.
"Goo-Gone," said my Mom, "then use the dish soap to get the Goo-Gone out." (My Mom was our Girl Scout leader for a year or two, can ya hear it in her voice?)

We keep this orange oily cleaner around for the supreme task of removing "sticker guck" from our books after the price tags have been removed. Who would have thought to attack Raisin Rapture with it? Goo-Gone was indeed the ticket. Goo-Gone for the carpet, Vaseline for the baby.