Little Roo

Dangling from my ears today was this lovely silver and lavender pair of earrings that my daughter Kathe bought for me at an international festival in Lafayette, LA last year. I put them on to go shopping with my two daughters this morning. How I love spending time with my girls, watching them joke and laugh and share. Phoebe headed off to celebrate a friend's birthday, leaving me alone with Kathe for a few hours. I love one-on-one time with my kids, too.

When she was a baby, I nicknamed Kathe, "Kathe-roo." I carried her about in a pouch and called her "my little Roo." For a while, her favorite animal was the kangaroo and her favorite place was Australia. She loved Winnie-the-Pooh stories and movies and toys, all of which were associated with Kanga and Little Roo, and hence were hers.

Kathe is home visiting this weekend, having come to attend the local wedding reception of a highschool friend who was married in Utah recently. Since the couple is Mormon, the party will be quite different from the many wedding receptions that Kathe has attended in the past few years.

A little before 5 this evening, with two hours before the reception was to begin, I offered her a glass of wine: Little Roo Shiraz, product of Australia, purchased with thoughts of Kathe. We sipped our wine and chatted about teaching writing while I read some letters that her sixth grade students had written to her explaining their thoughts about themselves as writers. Many of them discovered that they like to write this year, because they were given freedom, time, and enough structure to get them started.

Kathe-roo: my colleague, my friend, my daughter.