Well, we start right away with all the information about
everybody, since Kristy is thinking about family and what makes a family. Karen bounds in and wants to know what Kristy
is in her room and Kristy replies that it’s been a rough week at school. “But it’s our first night here!” whines
Karen. If I was Kristy, I'd smack her across the head and tell her to leave me alone (I did that with my little sister all the time). DM distracts her and she takes
off, leaving Kristy alone. Really,
that’s pretty much the end of the chapter and the only plot advancement is that
Kristy is thinking about what makes a family.
We leap from Friday night to Monday’s meeting and suddenly
Kristy realizes Mother’s day is coming up.
All the girls start discussing what to get their mother when MA
whispers, “I don’t have that problem.” Mommy
Moment? Common Sense Moment? A Moment:
I feel very sad for MA in that her mother died before they were able to
spend time together and have a very real relationship. At the same time, MA’s mother died before she
could remember her, so…this sadness seems kind of contrived. Like maybe she would have moved on if she
didn’t keep re-opening the scab.
So of course everybody else sits there and feels bad because they have
mothers and MA’s died.
On that happy thought, Kristy goes home to a big family
meal. Karen and Andrew are there because
Lisa and Seth are on a “business trip” for several weeks, everyone is home, no
one has a date and Elizabeth and Watson are all smiling and happy as they look
at their wonderful family. Elizabeth asks the kids
if they’d like another sibling and the younger kids flip out at the thought of
a baby while the older kids are ok with it.
Boo-Boo comes in with a live mole in his mouth, so that ends the
discussion. Kristy spends the rest of
the evening trying to think of a great Mother’s Day gift and comes up with a
great idea. She’s so excited she can’t
wait until the next BSC meeting to tell everyone. Common Sense Moment: Don’t these girls eat lunch together every
day? Why would Kristy have to wait
almost 2 days to tell her friends her idea?
Somehow I can’t see Kristy being that
patient. She spills her idea as
soon as everyone is assembled: let’s
give the moms of the club a break and take the kids on a field trip. What a great Mother’s Day gift! Mommy
Moment: It actually is pretty
awesome. They decide to use money
from the treasury to fund the trip. The
only conundrum is where they should go that isn’t too expensive and is in
walking distance. For most of the girls
in the club, it will work as their Mother’s Day present. Claudia and Dawn are the only ones who need
something else and they hang back after the meeting to plan. MA is sad and quiet and Kristy starts to
worry about her.
Claudia sits for the Newtons
on Friday and finds a flier for Sudsy’s Carnival. The answer to the conundrum!
The girls decide to take the kids to Sudsy’s in the morning,
have a picnic lunch and then spend a quiet afternoon at Claudia’s house so that
the little kids can rest and the older kids can make an art project. The start listing kids that could come to the
carnival. Mommy Moment: They say Marnie Barrett is too young to come, yet plan to
invite Gabby Perkins. The two are the
same age, my dears. Also, when MA brings up inviting Jenny P, Kristy’s
response is “EW!” What a great
sitter. She really loves her charges. The grand total is 29 kids and they can’t
handle quite that many. They decide to
call Stacey and see if she can come for the weekend to help – and she can! It’s settled.
They spend Saturday making the invitations and Kristy takes
hers home to her mom. Elizabeth bursts into tears and Kristy
questions her mom if she’s pregnant. Elizabeth says no, but
again asks if Kristy would like another brother or sister. While they’re chatting, Watson leans out the
window with the phone, tells Elizabeth
it’s and “important one” and she dashes off like an Olympic sprinter. Kristy turns to hear the younger three
arguing about which parent loves which child more and how their family is still
split into Brewers and Thomases. Mommy
Moment: Because I didn’t have any
kids, this wasn’t really much of an issue until Adam was born. Even then, we had been a family for a few
years already and the boys were older so we were able to talk about these
things with them. We had time to PREPARE.
So, the BSC finally has the final count of kids that will be
coming: 21. With 7 sitters, that means 3
kids apiece. They finally get the groups
organized and are all prepared for the carnival day…
…which we skip right ahead to. Time flies fast in this book. We start in April and end after Mother’s
Day. Actually, we land at Friday’s
meeting, where Stacey has already arrived and everyone is squeeing with joy
over seeing her. Then they get down to
the business of running through the schedule for the following day and making
sure they’re all set with things. At one
point Mimi wanders into the room looking for “the cow” in some vivid
foreshadowing. (I really hope I’m not
the one who draws #27). By the end of
the meeting, the girls are all set!
Claudia Outfit: pale
blue baggy shirt over black-and-blue leopard-spotted pants that tied in knots
at her ankles. On her feet she wore
purple high-tops.
All the girls at Claudia’s by 8 and start organizing for the
day. The kids arrive and, after calming
criers and spending ½ hour in the bathroom, they’re ready to go.
They arrive at the carnival, which is relatively small, but
the kids are impressed. They start with
the haunted house, Margo Pike gets sick on the Merry-Go-Round, they play games
and get their faces made up. When the
kids start asking for treats around noon, they know it’s time to head to the
park for lunch. Kristy tells Margo to
eat slowly, which she does, so she’s still eating by the time the kids start
running around the park. After lunch,
they head back to Claudia’s for rest time.
They sing songs, read books and make Mother’s Day cards until the dads
come to pick up their kids to take them home.
The BSC finishes cleaning up just as Sam and Charlie pull in
to pick up Kristy and the kids. They
arrive home to see their parents smiling happily at them as they come in the
door. They have big news…they’ve adopted
a little girl named Emily Michelle.
She’s Vietnamese and will be arriving the next day. They’ve been working on this for while, but
didn’t want to tell the other kids in case it didn’t work out Mommy Moment: So…you’re giving
them less than 24 hours to adjust to the idea of a new sibling? Yes, not only do the kids have less than a
day to get ready for EM, they have less than a day to purchase items for her,
such as a crib, dresser, changing table, etc…Common Sense Moment I don’t know what
adoption was like in the ‘80s, but nowdays there is a home inspection and
several meetings to ensure the home is ready.
Unless all of this was done without the kids’ knowledge…There is no way
this would fly today. Perhaps this isn’t
a legit adoption agency??
They wake early the next morning to finish preparations
while Elizabeth and Watson head to the airport to pick up EM. Kristy invites the BSC over to bake cookies
and meet her new sister when she comes home.
Mommy
Moment: If I had just adopted a child, I
would want the first meeting to be private, but then, this is the BSC and their
noses are in everybody’s business at all times.
Finally Watson and Elizabeth return home with Emily
Michelle, who is sleeping. Kristy sees
her as the baby who belongs to everyone, who will unite the family together in
a way the wedding hadn’t. Mommy Moment: I really hope Watson and Elizabeth didn’t adopt EM just
in hopes of uniting their blended family.
Adding a child rarely accomplishes that.
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