Navigating the hilly terrain of motherhood
We had a great time in Colorado. After all, it's pretty awesome to do cartwheels on Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. (And by the way, who even thinks of doing cartwheels on a frozen lake at 9,450 feet?!) Stay tuned for more of our mountain adventures…
Yesterday I took the girls to visit Herbie, an approximately 240-year-old elm tree that will be chopped down next week. All this time, we had New England's oldest elm right here in Yarmouth, and we never even knew it until Adam read about it online. Herbie has survived fourteen bouts of Dutch elm disease, thanks to a devoted caretaker who is now 101-years old. But now Herbie is sick again, and this time he's not strong enough to survive. So we went to say goodbye, and to give him a hug.
{On another note: Tomorrow I am flying to Colorado with the girls — on our first solo trip — so I'll be signing off for a week. When I return, I'll let you know how I fared…}
The other day, the girls got professional haircuts, which was especially exciting after months of me hacking at their hair myself. They felt beautiful and decided to accessorize with their fanciest jewels — clip-on earrings from their Auntie M. Grace was already wearing her pajamas, but no matter — jewels make all outfits feel fancy.
Those of you who have come within a two-mile radius of us within the past two months or so are already aware of Grace's obsession with the Rainbow Magic series of fairy books. It all started when a classmate brought a couple of these fairy books to school, and Grace took an immediate interest in them. It probably helped that her friend's books were from the "Pet Fairy" series. I mean, girls who have fairy friends and help them find their lost fairy pets? That's a 6-year-old animal lover's dream.
So, when I came across these books at the store, I bought Grace a couple of them. And then she scraped her allowance money together to buy a couple more. And then Santa brought her some for Christmas, and suddenly the kid has 12 fairy books! And she carries them with her around the house, and wherever we go outside of the house. In fact, I had to make a special trip to the store to buy her a special bag to haul her special books around in. When she comes in to wake us up in the morning, she has her 12 books with her. While she is waiting for her breakfast, she lines them up in order. And she talks about them. Constantly. Adam, who has bedtime story duty, has read most of them to her twice already. And he has never once complained about it. Because now that kid loves books. And when she comes home from school, she puts on her pajamas, grabs her books, and sits quietly (quietly!) on the couch with them. She reads the chapter headings, and tries to read whole sentences, and looks at the pictures and thinks about the story. I can't wait until she can read these books to us, and she can hardly wait, either.
Just before Christmas, Tess pulled out one of Grace's 100-piece puzzles and started working on it. She asked for my help, but did a lot of it by herself. I found it astonishing that she had the patience to diligently work at such a complex task, but then again, it sort of fits with her personality. As luck would have it, she received several puzzles for Christmas, so the puzzle fascination continues. (Note in these photos that she is doing it upside down.) One day last week, she did her monkey puzzle six (!!) times — 3 times at homes and 3 times at the coffee shop while I chatted with a friend. Thank goodness for the puzzle obsession.
On New Year's Eve we took the girls ice skating, for the first time this winter. Grace has cool new hockey skates, and it only took her a few minutes to get the hang of skating again. It was Tess's very first time on ice skates, though, and she did very well. She could stand by herself, and liked to hold onto the old milk crate we brought along for stability. But she refused any help, so anytime she tried to actually move around, she fell. Then she'd linger on the ice for a while, watching Grace and Elyse. She was just happy to be out on the ice with the big girls. I like that about her.
Adam used to make fun of the fact that when I was a kid, we sometimes had ice cream sundaes for dinner. (Sundae Sundays — how cool is that?!) A few days ago, it was suggested to us that we should have a special dinner to celebrate the girls' excellent behavior during our eleven days of house guests. So Adam suggested banana splits for dinner tonight, and I fell in love with him all over again.
At school recently, Grace learned how to finger-knit using four fingers. This is an improvement over the simple style she learned last year (see below). One afternoon last month, she made herself a scarf and wore it proudly (after she insisted we stop on the way home for more yarn). Now she comes home from school nearly every day with a partially completed knitting project. Today it was a scarf for her polar bear. Her teacher has wisely figured out that this is precisely the kind of activity that will actually enable the sweet child to sit still. I'm all for it, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with all of these bits and pieces of finger-knitting…
Today I realized that I haven't really mentioned the holidays here, mainly because approximately 75% of my readers were here with us. We had house guests for eleven days, and it was wonderful. That's right, I never once thought about kicking anyone out into the snow. After all, it was incredibly fun, and joyful, and being together is what this time of year is all about, right?!
One of the best parts was watching two sweet little girls revel in the magic together. From entertaining us with Christmas carols…
To setting out snacks and a letter for Santa…
To waiting, very excitedly (and fully dressed in their Christmas finest — per their insistence), to go in to see what Santa had brought…
To giving and receiving gifts (and thank-you hugs and kisses)…
To indulging mommy in a few photo ops…
To spending quality time with their favorite (and very patient) cousin.
And after being surrounded by that much love for so many days, we're feeling a little lonely around here. I guess we'll just have to hug each other a little tighter (which I don't think will be a problem).
Today marks the end of the girls' two-week break from school, and Adam's two-week vacation. It's been great, with eleven days of house guests followed by a few days with just the four of us. We seem to have found a rhythm, helped greatly by Grace's sudden love of books and Uno (a change from last year, when she was bouncing off the walls). The three-day snowstorm, which just now ended, provided us (finally!) with enough snow for sledding and snowy hikes through the woods. And we've realized something great about this winter — Tess is finally old enough to spend time outside in the snow and actually enjoy it. So, I'm feeling a little sad about having to send Grace and Adam off into reality tomorrow, but I'm already looking forward to more snowy family adventures next weekend.
Travelingjenny 
