Travelingjenny

This is February vacation week, when most lucky Mainers head to Florida for some sun — to re-energize in order to be able to survive the rest of this long winter. Then there are those of us sorry souls who are stuck at home, desperately looking forward to a vacation at another time. Most kids' activities (dance/music classes, library story times, etc.) are cancelled for the week, and we're forced to entertain our children with few options — and limited outside, running-around time due to the massive amounts of snow and cold, gray weather. While these days can be a bit long and stressful for me, they provide the girls with quite a bit of playtime together. Mostly, this goes well, and I am grateful that they have each other for entertainment. I am constantly amazed by Grace's ability to come up with creative things to do — today they took their animal friends to the "park" and yesterday they made musical instruments for family band time (see the water-bottle-and-button shakers and rubber-band guitar below). Grace is generally very sweet to her sister, and truly enjoys teaching Tess things and recruiting her to take part in imaginary scenarios. And I admire Tess's ability to enthusiastically play along without question, and to put up with Grace's crazy energy. What scares me a little, though — when it's not making me laugh — is the fact they are starting to plot against me, by holding tightly onto each other in a civil disobedience kind of way, when I interrupt their fun for terrible things like getting dressed (see first and last photos).