The disappointment of the Jersey-bound family was extreme. They threatened lawsuits, which we laughed off. They attempted an occult summoning, but our many wards and talismans thwarted their so-called wizard.

    Ultimately they settled on paying for Heather’s airfare. Samantha had been looking forward to the trip more than anyone else, as she missed her second-cousins a lot, so I agreed to pay her way, while Riley and myself remained in Michigan in order to defend our house from looters.

    Mere hours after her arrival in the Garden State I received a text message stating that Samantha had fallen out of a bunk-bed, had hurt her arm, and was to be dropped off at a godless NJ emergency room by a party bus on its way to inebriate the entire family.

    X-rays revealed a broken elbow, and while the trip still involved some amount of fun for all involved, it will forever be remembered as the time that New Jersey broke Samantha.

    So its been a week, and while Sam has been fairly sanguine about the ordeal–at least as sanguine as an ADHD addled 8-year old can ever be–she is still suffering from aches and itches in equal measure.

    And since the whole enterprise had such a miserable ending I can’t even parlay the fact that I didn’t get to go into any sort of credit towards gaining some momentary personal freedom this weekend. *sigh*

    She was sent to school wearing a tiara: an opulent plastic tiara with imitation diamonds made of simulated glass* and bearing a box of Hannah Montana cupcakes–something I’m certain delighted the little boys most of all**.

    Heather bought Sam some nice printed bed sheets. Instead of wrapping the pillowy and awkwardly shaped sheet-bag, a covert operation was successfully executed to dress her bed in the middle of the night. So during the day Heather surreptitiously laundered the new sheets and secreted them within our bedroom.

    At approximately 10pm I scooped her little sleeping form up in my arms along with a tag-along teddy bear, carried her silently down the hall and laid her in our bed.
It was a few minutes later that we’d removed the several dozen books from her bed, stripped it, and carefully installed the replacement sheets, pillow case and comforter.

    I then gathered the little birthday girl up in my arms, carried her back to bed and laid her down amidst the new bedsheets.
    In the morning she spent a few seconds in confusion and a few minutes in delight. Any more time than that would imply an attention span my little girl simply doesn’t have.

    In the evening we laid waste to a local Chuck E Cheese per her specific request.
    It was here that Riley lived some anxious moments fearing the animatronic rodent and then wasted about a half-hour attempting to get its attention. Samantha ran wild; like a gazelle with opposable thumbs and a slight mean streak.

    At night-night time I read her the first two chapters of a new Lauren Child “Clarice Bean” book and thus ended the eight anniversary of my initial parentage.

    Recently we began reading through Eleanor H. Porter’s nearly-century-old novel, “Pollyanna.” Consuming a few chapters a night, we began to crawl through the book. I had no interest in it, and looked forward to each evening’s passages the same way I look forward to mowing the lawn.

    As chapter 14 drew to a close with a mysterious bit of business involving an as-yet unrevealed past between Aunt Polly and injured Mr. Pendleton, I closed the book for the evening and asked Sam what she thought was “the deal with Aunt Polly and Mr. Pendleton”. Her reply was surprising detailed.

    ”Sam, have you been reading ahead?”
    She answered a bit sheepishly, “Yes, but you can still read it to me.”

    I was proud of her for doing such a good job reading independently, and told her so. I certainly wasn’t reading chapter books on my own when I was 7.

    She took the book with her the next morning for use in daily independent reading sessions at her grade school.

    I discovered to my surprise that I was bummed out by the fact that I now have no idea what was going to happen next to Pollyanna, Aunt Polly and Mr. Pendleton.

    While the story seemed oddly calf’s foot jelly centered, the non-calf’s foot jelly parts were entertaining and now I may never know the ending. I can only assume that the exciting conclusion involves some last-minute calf’s foot jelly distribution.

    It seemed to me that young Pollyanna spent 92.38% of her waking hours delivering calf’s foot jelly to various notables throughout her local area. The other 8% was spent dealing with the ice-bitchiness of Aunt Polly and, presumably, placing calf’s foot jelly in jars.

    Nice coat, you say? Yeah, grandparents are good for that sort of thing.

    Bona-fide “Hannah Montana” merchandise, the coat signifies Sam’s enthusiastic endorsement of a fictional persona adopted by a real manufactured celebrity who is herself the offspring of a manufactured country “star”.

    Miley and her alter-ego, the only slightly less real Hannah.