One of my favorite lines in Loving Frank is between Mamah and her oldest, dearest friend, Mattie. Reunited after a long separation, Mattie comments on how much Mamah’s daughter, Martha (named after Mattie) looks like her. Mamah replies:

“Nature has settled a score,” Mamah said. “I’m raising myself.”

Oh how this is true with Gracie. She has been oscillating wildly between horrifying and wonderful lately, in a way that’s chillingly familiar to me! This morning we had a really lovely time, though, just walking and doing errands. She was whiny and tantrummy and frantic about absolutely nothing and so Matt informed her she was not welcome on the playground trip with Whit. She sat on the steps and sniffled and cried and I decided we’d just walk it out. We walked down to the drycleaner at Porter Square, which was not open yet (does 9am strike anyone else as incredibly late to open on a Saturday morning?) then walked several more blocks to Starbucks, then back to Zoots, and then home. We walked and chatted for about a full hour. She began whining about her legs being tired early on but I shut that down with a promise of a lollipop from the drycleaner if she didn’t say a word again about that. Amazing how bribery works. She was frankly fantastic company and we have vowed to have more walks. Maybe there’s some truth to that notion of firmly changing contexts when children are misbehaving.