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They've changed the station I'll be working at the Disabilities Awareness Workshop. I'll be doing the boots, mats and walker station in the gym. The kids get kind of excited about some of the stations in the gym because they get to try things that are physically challenging. I don't know that they necessarily understand the difficulty of constantly facing the challenges they find so much fun. The station I'll be doing will be more challenging for me because I'll have to be constantly getting kids into and out of the boots that simulate mobility impairments. (I'd have more to say, but I can't open the document that's supposed to explain the whole thing to me. It's a .docx. Pages tried and failed. I've asked the organizer to send it to me in a different format.)

Scott's having difficulty scheduling practices for his Science Olympiad event. One of the second graders spends weekends with her father who is not interested in getting her to practices. Last Sunday, her mother attended in her place to get the information to pass on to her daughter. Scott has scheduled a practice with just the second graders here at our house for this Friday evening. He's figured out how to use our TV to display stars and planets from his laptop. I think this weekend's practice (which we're hoping to have on Saturday so that we can visit Scott's sister on Sunday) will be just the fourth graders. Scott said something about some math that the fourth graders need to know that the second graders don't.

We made an expedition to Whole Foods last night for treats. I got baklava. Cordelia got a cinnamon bun that I cut in half for her. She'll finish it after school today. Scott got a raspberry square. We also picked up a bar of soap for the bathroom. The one we've been using is almost gone.

I think the trip to Whole Foods was kind of excessive. I said that I wanted something but didn't know what. Scott always takes that to mean baklava, but I don't think that was really what I wanted. I think I was more wanting some meat; we had vegetarian white lasagna for dinner. But Scott was so set on providing me with baklava as a solution that I didn't have the heart to tell him no.

Usually, we'd get baklava at the Syrian place that's relatively near us, but they close at eight, and Scott was in the middle of composing a long e-mail to his Science Olympiad parents. That took him nearly half an hour, and by the time he was done, it was after eight.

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Cordelia says that she wants to go to the middle school because it will mean riding the bus. I don't find that a compelling argument, but Scott interpreted it in a way that makes me hesitate. He thinks that what she really wants is some sort of formal marker that she's getting older and growing up. Going to middle school is a definite step into a larger world. Staying at her current school may well feel to Cordelia like being stuck as a small child.

I'm trying to think of ways to acknowledge that Cordelia's older and more mature without necessarily sending her to the middle school. I might teach her to ride the bus to downtown so that she can go to the library when she wants to. I don't know, though; that seems inadequate. It's not like she wants to go to the library a lot and can't.

I do remember that fifth and sixth grade were when I started exploring downtown and a bit toward campus (we lived in Ann Arbor until I finished sixth grade). It wasn't the same because I could walk and bike while Cordelia would have to take the bus. There aren't the same businesses around that area any longer. I used to go to the library then walk to a Burger King or a movie theater. The Burger King and McDonald's are gone. The closest thing to fast food in that area is a little booth that sells hotdogs. The movie theaters have changed radically. Neither of the ones in that area show movies that would be of the slightest interest to Cordelia. One place tends toward art films. The other shows films sporadically, mostly at night, and all of them aimed at college students.

Downtown doesn't have many stores that would welcome a child, even one with a little money (most of them, one needs a lot of money to buy anything). Ann Arbor's downtown is mostly expensive restaurants and stores selling products for people with more money than sense (That's probably not fair. I just know there are only two or three stores along the several blocks of Main Street that carry anything I'd even consider looking at let alone buying. There isn't even a good place to buy a candy bar).

Of course, Cordelia could just as easily take the bus to central campus. There are some museums there that she might enjoy. There's fast food in the League and the Union. There's bubble tea, too. She'd have to cross some fairly busy streets that don't have lights in order to get anywhere, however. I also, for some reason, feel more uneasy about Cordelia alone on central campus than I do about her downtown. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm associating downtown entirely with the library and thinking that's kid friendly.

The divide between 'central campus' and 'downtown' is more semantics than anything, really. It's only four or five blocks from the central bus station to the Diag. I can't let her go to one place and not the other.

Unlike me, I don't think she'd want to go alone. She hates doing anything alone. I can't think who she'd go with. Her best friend lives far enough away that getting here involves transferring buses. For that matter, I think getting downtown for her involves transferring buses. I believe the bus that goes right by where she lives is a connector that doesn't go downtown or to central campus. The neighborhood kids Cordelia's age are all boys. The one she actually plays with has younger siblings and isn't allowed to do much of anything without including them.

To teach Cordelia to ride the bus, I'd have to spend an awful lot of time on the bus and on navigating downtown. I don't think that once or even twice would be enough. That would be very hard for me. It would also be hard to let Cordelia go so far away. It seems guaranteed to set off parental anxiety. On the other hand, we have to do it eventually, and she is a very responsible child. I don't know. Is eleven too young to be given that kind of autonomy? If she goes to the middle school, I'll have to teach her to ride the city bus to get to and from school if she misses the school bus.

Can anybody think of a way to make Cordelia feel like the world is acknowledging that she's growing up? I don't have many ideas.