my best girl

Sophie, my pretend child, is back from her extended trip out west (where she got to see Kater, lucky both of them). She's been gone for over 2 weeks and it was like to kill me. As was not seeing her mama.

You see, Sophie is my girl. I've been keeping her since she was 3 - almost 9 years now - and the connection I have with her and her mother is one of the most amazing ones in my life. Sophie tried to teach me to ride a bike and her mama found my donor for me, because as she says, she's going to get me pregnant or die trying. They are my family. (An addition, not a replacement - my blood family is great, too.)

And, as public schools start again tomorrow, we are back in the swing of things. I'll pick her up from the usual place at the back of her school, under the tree, *after* the buses have pulled out (it's clusterfuck with the buses there), and we'll come home. She'll sit in the chair by the stove to do her homework and I'll wish she'd use the table, and she'll interrupt herself to get a drink of water from the tiny glasses I put on a low shelf for her years ago when she was little.

Or maybe we'll go to the coffee shop for coffee and ice cream instead.