If I’d had the sense to remain standing, I would have stayed pretty unbesmirched from the navel up. But I sat down to get closer to the abstract assemblage Sandra was absorbed in, and some little bastard snuck up and scored a double handful on my head, improving my hair and filling up one ear. I smiled and told him what a big boy he was, and wondered what he would look like completely buried in the muck, with only his cute little feet showing.

Hosing them down in the shower was fun. Everything is fun to them unless it’s an earthshaking tragedy, only solvable by adult attention. They were a handful, trying to elude the water and then luxuriating in it; I would have done them one at a time, but I was certain they’d just dive back in the mud if I didn’t keep them all together.

They should put some toys in the stall to distract the little darlings. While I was shampooing myself, Sandra took a sudden deep interest in pubic hair, and started her collection with one painful yank. Not supposed to express anger; that’s Robin’s job. So I just told her she was going to be in for a big surprise in about ten years. Mother! Are you some kind of pervert? No, dear. Just reliving your childhood.

I don’t know whether she’ll ever call me Mother. It’s Mair Ann now, or just Mair.

I almost wish I could take her home with me. It would be worth the bother, to be able to watch her grow, touch her, pick her up. She changes so fast I’m afraid I’m going to miss something. But that is Robin’s job and she’s good at it. When Sandra’s eight I can have her part time. What will she be like then?

I had lunch with Charlee down in the new picnic area they’ve opened on the ag level. They serve only raw vegetables, but it’s a bright, airy place. She’s got a birthday coming up, thirty-eight, in two weeks. We talked about milestones and such. She opted to stop cycling a couple of years ago, because for some reason the cramps got worse and worse. I’m going to let the thing run its course, even though it’s just the body fooling itself; no eggs to make the monthly journey. I told Charlee I like the sense of the body’s seasons, the womanliness of it, and will miss it. She thinks I’m a lunatic. Maybe so, given the etymology of that word.

All of us women bringing the memory of Earth’s Moon to another world. Epsilon’s moon has a month that is less than two days shorter. I wonder if there will be some effect, over generations.