Ginger and Merry Anne, as they told us their names are started off by bringing us an inflatable snow globe. Of course, since they are elves and a little mischievous, they blew it up in our kitchen.

Next, they hung from the fan and helped make the girls breakfast.

They made snow angels in powdered sugar on the counter, which really was a mess to clean up. Last night, they took over a game of scrabble Katie and I had been playing while I cooked dinner and played the game themselves. It is hard to see in the picture, but all the words played on the board have to do with Christmas (Christmas, angel, merry, wonder, Jesus, jolly and star)

I resisted the elves at first. They have been visiting some of the girls’ friends for years, and we’ve always wondered if we would have come to our home, too. I was not entirely thrilled when they came that first morning, but they have become a welcome addition. The girls have resisted getting out of bed much less since Ginger and Merry Anne started visiting, since they want to get downstairs to see what they did overnight. There is still fighting and whining, but I think it might be just a little bit less because they know that Ginger and Merry Anne are telling Santa what they see and hear in the house.

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Bringing her suitcase to the trailers with Stagg

Getting her horseback riding evaluation

Katie, however, had issues with the drop off. She suddenly decided that she REALLY wanted to stay at camp. She had answers for everything: no clothes? no problem. She’d just wear what she had on for a week. She didn’t have to change her underwear or brush her teeth. No bathing suit? The pool would just be her shower and washing machine. And she would just go sleep with Maggie since she didn’t have a sleeping bag.

I, of course, was the big party-pooper, pointing out that she had never had a single sleep over when Maggie wasn’t with her, and that some of the sleep overs she had tried ended with me picking her up early. No camping for Katie until next year.

Katie's reaction to my no camping edict

Check in went smoothly, and the girls were thrilled to find their assigned bunks in their cabin. They made their beds, stored their clothes and were ready for us to leave.

Happy Girls

I think it will be a good week!

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For Katie’s birthday, which we spent in CT, we gave her a gift certificate for a brand new bicycle. So far, all Katie’s bikes have been hand me downs, including her current bike, which is very definitely a boy bike, handed down from her buddy across the street. She has never been upset about riding a hand me down bike, but the idea of something brand new, that she could pick out herself was pretty tantalizing. Stagg was a big proponent of the brand new bike charge. It has bugged him that she has not had a bike that has only been hers for a long time, and he has talked about getting her one for a while.

In January, Stagg and I tried to figure out what size bike she needed. She was between two sizes, and she wanted the smaller one, but she would have outgrown it within minutes of buying it. The idea of riding a bike the size of her sister’s, though, was intimidating. Further complicating everything was that a) we were testing this in January, when neither of the girls had ridden a bike in months and b) we were riding bikes in the living room because there was still some ice on the ground after our major ice storm. We ended up packing the bikes in the car, taking the girls up to school, and riding. Katie tried Maggie’s bike out and decided it would be ok.

When we went to the store to look at the bikes in person, Maggie immediately found the bike she wanted for her birthday. Katie looked and looked, and ended up deciding on one that Stagg and I both recognized as the bike Maggie already had. We decided to wait for a little while to see if new models came in so we wouldn’t end up having two identical bikes in the garage.

Katie hemmed and hawed for weeks, while Maggie waxed euphoric about the bike she knew she wanted to get for her birthday. I believe during this period, Katie was calculating that if Maggie got a new bike in April, she could have the hand me down that was exactly she wanted. She started asking if she could substitute something else for the bike. I said sure, and we went to the store to look at what else she might want.

In the end, Katie got a brand new camera that made Maggie green with envy because it is fancier than the camera she got for her 7th birthday (cameras have improved in 2 years and come down in price considerably). And, of course, sine Maggie got the new bike she was hoping for, Katie got the purple number she wanted after all.

This is one smart kid.

Maggie and Katie were 2 and 3 when the movie Curious George came out in theaters. We took them to see it, and even though they were still a little young for a full fledged movie, they liked it. Maggie really enjoyed that there was a character named Maggie in the movie, and who doesn’t love a monkey? It also helped that Katie’s favorite color was yellow, and there was lots of yellow in the movie. Stagg and I enjoyed the movie, and I loved the music, too.

One night not long after we saw it, I brought the CD home and slipped it into the girls’ CD player as they were going to bed. We had tried other music to help calm them when they were getting ready for bed, and the results were hit and miss. Dave Matthew’s Band did well for short periods, as did Enya and The Beatles. But what seemed to calm them down one night agitated them a few days later, and we looked for something that would last a little longer.

The Curious George CD, Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George by Jack Johnson and Friends worked the first night. The girls liked the new music, asked if it was from the movie, and fell asleep. A week later, they were reminding me to put their night time music on so they could listen to it as they were falling asleep. A month later, they STILL wanted to hear their songs. It seemed we had found a winner.

Five years later, the girls still listen to the same songs every single night. We’ve tried switching things up a couple times. John Mayer made an appearance for a couple nights, and when Jack Johnson came out with a new CD, that got played for a couple nights. But they came back to Sing a Longs and Lullabies because it is their music. For 5 years.

It is hard not to love these songs. Since I sit in the special chair in their room at night while they are settling down, I hear the songs every night, too. My first favorite was “We are Going to Be Friends” about friendship and generally having fun. By now, they are all my favorites. It makes me happy to know that the messages being sent into my children’s ears as they are falling asleep are so positive and uplifting.

It is hard for me not to think of that when I make cookies for an after school snack and ask them about their day. And I can only hope that this message has cemented itself into their subconscious:

They get excited when they hear Jack Johnson singing on the radio in the car when we are driving around town. It almost always means a few minutes of driving that are just a little bit quieter. Sometimes they sing along, sometimes they just take a little break. Every once in a while, they continue chatting and bickering about whatever was happening before they noticed who was singing on the radio.

The thing I find most amusing, though, is how possessive they are about these songs. Each year, I make the girls a CD of music to hand out at their birthday parties. They feature the songs they like, both old school songs of my own youth (MMMBop and Jessie’s Girl are surprise favorites), and newer songs they have found on their own. There have been times when I have suggested including a Jack Johnson song on these CDs because they are such a fixture in their lives. Both girls are adamant. No way, mom. Those are our night time songs. They do not go on the CD. In their minds, at least, Jack Johnson belongs to them.

Most of the time, Lucy and I have walked around the block, which, in my case, is 1.25 miles, and has plenty of hills.

Last night was the first time I took Lucy out after dinner. The time worked for me, but I’m not so sure Lucy was a fan. She was happy enough when I grabbed the leash and took her outside, and for the first quarter mile, she seemed happy. But after the first break in the first hill, she started struggling against me. We had a little chat, walked a few more steps, and she struggled again. This time, she sat down, stood back up, shook her head, and managed to get her leash off her head.

For a few seconds, we stared at each other. This was unexpected. Then she realized she was free, and bounded off down the road. I followed, she ran further, circling me, but always out of reach. I walked the other way to see if she’d follow, but she didn’t. Eventually, she must have gotten bored with her freedom, and she trotted back to the garage and the door to the house. When I got there with the leash in my hand, she was excited to see me, and sat down to have the leash placed back on her head.

Off we went again, up the street. Once again, about a quarter of a mile in, she resisted. I encouraged, she sat. I pulled, she pulled back. I gave up and we walked home with no idea what had bugged her so much.

My girls are also big readers. This sometimes complicates the process of telling me when the light has turned green. I’ve had to remind both girls more than once that walking and reading is a bad combination, and witnessed some impressive multi-tasking attempts with a book in hand. Watching their tastes in books develop has been a wonderful process.

For this year, when I talk about reading 10 books, I’m automatically discounting the pure fluff, “mental sorbet” that I have a tendency to pick up at times. While I enjoy these books, in my mind, they are books only as much as candy is food. Technically falling into the category, but practically missing the mark. For my list of 10, I’m looking for the major food groups of books.

So, the first book I’m counting toward my list of 10 is Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. This is the book the movie 127 hours was based on. I heard about the movie first, and stumbled across the book later, and after hearing the movie was harrowing, I decided to see what I thought of the book. Harrowing? yes. Still want to see the movie? also, yes. The idea of being trapped for so long and then cutting off my own arm? Something I’d rather not think about too much.

So what can I take away from this story without focusing on the gore? The first thing is that we are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. What Aron was capable of is incredible. It was a hard choice that makes most people wonder if they’d be able to cut off their own arm to survive. The answer there seems obvious to me: of course you would. How could you not? What got to me even more than that was how much he had to do afterwards in engineering his own rescue.

The second, and larger thing I choose to take from this is the power of a cool head. The thing that struck me most about Aron was that he was able to think clearly through most of his ordeal. Even afterwards when rescue was so close he could taste it, he kept a cool head, and that helped save his life. I don’t do a great job about keeping calm and carrying on. I let myself get caught up in the minutiae and freak out about things that are really not important: at the end of the week, it is simply not going to matter that one of my girls yelled at the other one before bedtime and they got into an argument. Obviously, a cool head coming in to diffuse the situation is going to be far more helpful than me coming in and yelling to settle it. And yet… I lose sight of that in the moment because I just want it over. So I’ll work on that some.

And the last was a Goethe quote that I love and need to remember more:

Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing enough is not enough, we must do.”

See above. Now is time to put the pedal to the metal.

While I was reading about Aron, I thought a lot about my little brother. There are some personality traits that the two share, as well as an affinity for the same sort of music. That Aron left a corporate day job to pursue his bliss also reminded me a bit of my brother, since he also places more importance on what he wants to do rather than what he wants to have. About halfway through the book, Aron mentioned his birthday, which is the same as my brother’s. Aron is a year younger, but it still took me by surprise. Its all about the little connections, right?

Similarly, Aron fell the day before Maggie’s first birthday, so I could picture what was doing on the days he was trapped. It made for an interesting juxtaposition.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book It was an interesting ride.

In time, though, she started sleeping through the night, and actually turned into a pretty good sleeper. She woke up when she needed to use the bathroom on her own, and then went back to sleep in her own bed without waking us up.

Now, she is usually a good sleeper, but is occasionally plagued with bouts of insomnia. There are nights when she settles down to sleep, visibly tired, even admitting that she is exhausted, and just cannot put herself to sleep. In an effort to put her mind to rest, she has learned prayers, said the rosary, memorized her multiplication tables and planned family vacations. She has grown fond of warm milk and championed the benefits of exercising during the day to help her wear herself out. Most of the time, it works well. But there are still nights she (and we) struggle.

More troubling are the nights she wakes up in the wee small hours of the morning and decides she can’t get back to sleep. Being 8, she has determined that this is her own problem that she should not bother me about. She knows how much I love my sleep, and loathes the idea of waking me up to tell me she can’t do it. So she has gone downstairs and watched TV for hours or read a book, quietly staying awake on her own.

I’ve told her that she needs to wake me on these mornings, and that I will help her get back to sleep. Often, it just takes a warm bed and a tired body to coax her back to sleep. But my girl, she is stubborn, and she seems to “forget” about this process on occasion. And then we get caught in a horrible pattern where she is completely spent during the day, unable to think straight, tantrums running into one another, suffering from stomach aches by the evening because her body has learned this is a way to remind her that sleep is important.

We’re just working our way out of one of these patterns right now; one that I had a hand in setting in motion, albeit inadvertently. It amazes me how much disruption a little too little sleep can bring to our lives: early mornings, late nights, middle of the night wake-ups, missed practices, arguments between sisters, friends, parents and children, forgotten assignments and after school activities. Frayed nerves, upset tummies and short tempers don’t help matters, either. And it seems that once these symptoms hits one of us, they spread like wildfire through the family until we have an inferno of discontent on our hands. It reminds me of the months we spent wishing her to sleep for more than a couple hours at a time. And it makes me long for the days when she was little and getting her to sleep was the biggest issue we had.

They were fascinated by the fondue pot and, and the different pieces. They thought the skewers were amazing, and loved that they had colored dots on the end so that we’d be able to tell who’s was whose even if we got confused. They were in awe of the alcohol holder, and completely blown away when I lit it, and the blue flame came out. Their one great regret was that I wouldn’t let them adjust the flame on their own because it was hot. They did, however, like watching me do it, and asked me to do it many times.

We had bread, broccoli and chicken to dip, and the girls ate some of each. We were going to have apples for dessert, but we ran out of cheese, so we couldn’t. They ate and ate (more bread than broccoli, of course, but so what) and talked up a storm the whole time. It was really a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner. They have high hopes that one day we will try chocolate fondue and make all their dreams come true.

The part that surprised me most about all the things they loved about Fondue night was our smaller table. When we were setting up the fondue, I realized that our dining room table was probably going to invite a lot of stretching and climbing on the table to reach the fondue pot. So I took out the middle leaf and turned our oval into a smaller circle. My girls think I’m magic. Both of them asked, separately, DID YOU KNOW THE TABLE COULD DO THAT? Yes, actually, I did.

They’ve been walking by the smaller table for two days now and are still impressed and hope that we can keep it small for a while. A smaller table where they are more willing to talk to us and think I’m cool as heck for changing things up? Why, yes, I think that is a definite possibility. Valentine’s Day win.

We participate as we can in many of these. This year, my girls and I will help drive the food collected at school to a local church and then organize it into family meals. They are looking forward to the experience. Katie started to run around the house in search of things she could fill her stocking with, and was very disappointed when I pointed out that they were requesting only new items. Both girls donated more than half their candy to the troops; Maggie even included some stickers with the hope that they would brighten some soldier’s day.

And still, I wonder how much of this actually registers with them as giving, as charity. Do they understand there are people who are actually less fortunate than they are? We talk about it from time to time (and not just in reference to ‘eat your dinner because there are children starving in Africa’), but I don’t think less fortunate really registers with them. I wonder what it means to them that I buy extra food and they bring it into school where it disappears. Where do they think the toys go after they put them in the bin at school?

I’m torn about wanting them to understand. There is a part of me that wants them to see how fortunate they are to have all they have. I want them to appreciate that we are all healthy, that we have a nice home to live in, cars to drive, enough food that we can throw away the leftovers and enough money that we can afford to purchase extras and give them away. I want them to treasure the school they go to with the wonderful teachers and the ample supplies and the science and computer labs.

But for now, I am content to let them take all of this for granted. I make small comments that might sink in one day, but I don’t push it. Instead, I am grateful that I am fortunate to have my children grow up with this blissful ignorance. I will consider it protecting their innocence to let them believe that everyone is surrounded by warmth, safety and abundance for a little while longer. It won’t last forever, but I will hold it dear for another day.

Really, though, I think that March in Atlanta should be snow free.