A formal invitation for brunch

For many families, Sunday brunch is a time for family tradition, for gourmet cooking, for a smorgasbord of flavors and tastes that excite the senses.

And then, there's our family:

Yes, yes indeed, this is our table on Sunday afternoon. Let me see...we have a full box of rainbow Goldfish crackers, a half a loaf of bread, and an open jar of peanut butter, which served multiple uses that day: it was used to make a peanut butter sandwich for Marissa, was smeared on Wheat Thins for me, and Lindsey ate peanut butter right off the knife, too. (Which is why the knife is now across the top of the peanut butter and not back in the jar. Hey, we do have SOME standards!)

Yes, that is a giant bag of baby carrots in front of Wayne (he looks thrilled, doesn't he?). He had to pull out two tubs of veggie dip because Marissa refused to eat out of the one that was nearly gone, so he finished that one off and let her break into the new one. Note the pint of baby tomatoes in front of Marissa. She pretty much eats those every meal but breakfast. I think she ate almost a full pint at lunch then ate the rest at dinner.

The ice cream cones are not really cones, they are plastic play things because before lunch Marissa decided to "set the table." That is also why you will see random play-sized plates and cups strewn throughout this fine setting.

Lindsey enjoyed two bowls of macaroni and cheese...minus the cheese. I'm not sure why, but she has taken to enjoying my cooking up Kraft macaroni and cheese, setting aside two bowls of the macaroni for her without the cheese on it, and then I make up the rest as macaroni WITH the cheese for Marissa and I to share. I'm not sure why it's better than when I just cook up regular old pasta, but she requests it frequently. That was part of this day's gourmet eating choices, too.

Note the lovely dining habits as she eats the macaroni straight out of the bowl and uses the provided spoon as a stabilizer when she brings the bowl up to her mouth.

This is all finished off by some healthy beverage choices:

Oh dear, her eyes are already bugging out of her head. Put away the Diet Coke and let's get outside before they tear the house apart. We'll pick all this stuff up later.

Apple eating contests are not in Lindsey's near future

If you remember from a previous post, Lindsey recently lost her front tooth, only after it hung on for dear life about a month after it should have come out.

Since she was in such a habit of wiggling it that once it was gone she had nothing to wiggle but the OTHER front tooth, which is quickly becoming quite unstable.

Which makes for a funny picture when you see her try to eat anything of any substance. She was craving green apples the other day and I bought a few for her. She took one out and promptly began gnawing away at it with the apple carefully positioned on the right side of her mouth. After about 10 attempts, she finally managed to break through the apple skin with her one loose tooth. It took her about another hour to get through half the apple.

Marissa's Emotional Side: Exhibits A and B

Marissa, show me your happy face:

Show me your mad face:

Why do both of your faces involve opening your mouth and sticking your tongue out?

Funny Weather

This morning I drove to work under gray skies and fog -- typical for this time of year, when the temps get warm enough to melt the snow, which dissipates into the air to become fog.

As I drove into St. Paul, I was interested by how dark and gray it was getting, but wasn't sure what to make of it. Was it just foggier? It wasn't raining yet -- I did not have to turn on my windshield wipers once. Well, whatever, I pulled into the parking ramp, parked my car and walked out.

I walked out into a complete downpour, with the sound of thunder rumbling in the background. Now that was a big surprise, especially considering that 1 minute earlier I had driven into the ramp with no rain whatsoever. So THAT'S what it means when the sky gets dark. A thunderstorm! Awesome! It's been six, seven months since we've had one, I'm so excited!

The "F" Word has entered our home

I know, that in itself isn't a surprise to people who know us, but unfortunately it has now entered the realm of Lindsey's vocabulary.

I'm happy to say that she did not hear it repeated from either of her parents, but I'm still not happy about it.

She and I were driving to her art class last Saturday morning. It was a beautiful February day in Minnesota -- all of 35 degrees! Many drivers, myself included, had windows down to catch some fresh air.

We got held up at the light where Lake Street and Excelsior Blvd adjoin -- it's a bit confusing with two streets angling together to become one, while traffic coming from the opposite direction can either go straight on Excelsior or turn slightly right to go onto Lake Street.

As we are making our way through the intersection, I see a car in the oncoming traffic with her left blinker on, waiting patiently for all the cars to go by. While she didn't have the right of way, traffic was backed up and cars couldn't go through the intersection from my direction, so she could have made her turn in front of us. She didn't -- she sat there through the green, to yellow, to red.

I was able to make it through the intersection before the red, and the guy who was behind this woman yelled out his window, "Move the f**k out of the way!"

Unfortunately he happened to yell it as we were passing him with OUR window open, and he practically yelled it directly into our car.

I didn't say anything, and not 10 seconds later Lindsey says, "Mommy, did that guy say 'move the f**k out of my way?' What does that mean?"

I just told her it was a really REALLY naughty word and it was like saying "move the crap out of my way." She understood and I haven't heard it from her since. I hope she's forgotten it, but that would be too lucky. She has the mind of a steel trap.

Wordless Wednesday: My Commute

The Sleepover

Lindsey has been asking for a while to have a sleepover with two of her best friends...at the same time. We've done sleepovers with each of them separately, but pretty soon all three girls were bugging their parents for a tres amigas sleepover. I finally obliged (I'm so easy).

This was how the sleepover began -- they all raided Lindsey's closet, pulling out various outfits and dresses and put on a fashion show for me, which I recorded to be played back at their high school graduation in 11 years.

Loose Tooth Finally Gone!

That tooth of Lindsey's that I've been expecting to fall out for a month now FINALLY let go today while she was at school. But not before it looked like this before she left this morning:

Gross.

She brought her tooth box to school with her today, because I told her she WOULD be losing that tooth today, it doesn't look like it wants to hang on anymore.

And I was right, here was her smile this evening.

Thank goodness that one finally gave up the ghost!

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

What an impactful story.

The version of Frederick Douglass' autobiography that I purchased had a substantial introduction to it which was written over 100 years after the original writing. By the time I started the actual original writing by Douglass, I was more than halfway through the physical book itself.

I can understand why this writing was able to help turn the tide against slavery at the time. It is a relatively fast read, it's factual, and the pictures he can draw with the words he chooses are heart-wrenching. Not to mention that it was written by a black man, someone who, according to many at that time, was incapable of intelligent thought or emotion. It's amazing to think that this autobiography was published when he was just 27, and the experiences that he had lived through up to that point were well beyond what many of us could ever endure.

He makes a case for how slavery turned humans into brutes by their very treatment, thus making it appear to the slaveholders that they were indeed brutes who needed to be treated that way. He also makes a strong case for how slaveholding brought out the worst in those who had power over other humans, bringing both master and slave to the basest human condition.

He suffered his first whipping at the tender age of 6. That's my oldest daughter's age. Whenever I read something where the age of the children in the story is the equivalent of my children's age at the time, it's hard for me to not draw parallels.

The other night I was giving my oldest daughter a bedtime backrub at her request. She trustingly lifted up her pajama top to let me lightly use my fingernails on her back, knowing that I wouldn't tickle her. I cannot imagine what it would be like if when I saw her back she had the raised scars of whip marks at that age. Even moreso, I cannot imagine the state of mind of the adult who could inflict that kind of hurt upon a child.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has not yet read it. It's a period of history that is not even 150 years behind us -- that's about six generations ago. Perhaps that seems like ancient history to some, but in considering the span of human history, it's not long enough.

Frankisms by Marissa

I feel like I can't call them Marissa-isms anymore, there are too many posts under that name. So perhaps I will begin calling them Frankism's, because she's just so frank.

It started this evening when I picked her up from her school. There were two men walking down the hall away from us. One of them was very tall and broad-shouldered and he had as big an afro as I've seen since the 1970s. All you could see from behind was a big halo of curly black hair.

"Lookit that guy!" says Marissa loud enough for him to overhear, "He has super big fuffy hair." He turned a little bit, smiled, and kept walking. Thank God he smiled, that's all I have to say.

Then, while driving home, we saw a bicyclist biking towards us on the street. He was wearing a bright all-orange vest which reflected the light. Since it was dusk, it was busy reflecting the lights of our headlights.

"Whoa," says Marissa, "That guy is super bright!"

As with all things related to what Marissa says, it's not what she says but how she says it that's so endearing. Wish I could've captured these quips on audio.

Lindsey's Loose Tooth

http://

Homework: The "I Told You So's"

There are two "I told you so's" in this one: my own parents laughing at how my behavior as a youngster comes back to me as a parent of a child with similar behavor, and I told you you could do it!

A few nights ago Lindsey was working on her 1st grade homework: measurement. The homework pictured a single crayon which was the same length as three drawn paperclips, then asked the question, "If the book is two crayons long, how long is it in paperclips?"

Lindsey asked me for help; I gave her a method on how she could figure it out and she immediately went to work to on the problem. Two minutes later I hear her yelling, "I can't do it! It's too hard!" and the paper and the pencil go flying across the room.

At this point I can't talk her off the ledge -- she needs to get herself calmed down and I can't help her do it. So I let her sit there in a ball on the chair in frustration. All I could do is say, "Lindsey, I know you are a smart girl, I know you can figure this out." But she won't let me do anything more than that.

After a few minutes Wayne comes downstairs from helping Marissa with something. He picks up her homework that's on the floor and starts to read over what she's done so far. She says in frustration, "You do it for me!" and he says, "Oh, I'm just looking over what you did already."

He proceeds to read each problem that she's already completed as if he doesn't already know the answer, and then reads her answer as if he hadn't known that already, as if she's enlightening him for the first time. Then he finally comes to the question she got stuck on, and he asks her, "So Lindsey, how many paper clips long IS the book?" and she immediately answers, "Six." Her face lit up and she says, "Oooohhhhh!" You could literally see the lightbulb go off over her head. She runs over and picks up her pencil, then finishes the rest of her homework in about 5 minutes flat.

She then comes over to me, shows me her completed homework and says, "Mom, you were right! I AM smart!" and gives me a big hug.

It's times like these that I realize how very differently Wayne and I approach problems, and how important it is that the two of us work together in parenting. I could have never gotten Lindsey to get to that solution on her own -- she just stays too emotional when working with me, or perhaps I focus too much on trying to calm her down. But when Wayne just focused on the work, she was able to put the frustration aside and get it done. What a great Dad!

It's all in the ingredients

I've had lots of compliments over the years about my baked goods, with many people attempting my same recipes and getting different results. Not sure what the difference is, but I can tell you one secret: ingredients.

For example:

I made some brownies tonight to bring some in to work tomorrow as it's the Friday before Valentine's Day. The recipe calls for 2/3 C of baking cocoa. So I used 1/3 C of your regular old, run-of-the-mill Hershey's baking cocoa, and 1/3 C of a gourmet dark baking cocoa that a former co-worker of mine gave special from his stash. The stuff is expensive and custom ordered from the internet only, but is worth every cent.

Just look at the difference in color:

He warned me against doing a full substitute to the dark cocoa, because it's so rich it would overpower the entire recipe, thus my solution of half and half.

We'll see if my co-workers agree that my substitution worked. Lucky co-workers...

A cultural reference fades into history

It recently occurred to me that the TV series Seinfeld has been off the air for more years than it aired. It officially aired from 1989 to 1998, or for 9 seasons. It's now been OFF the air for 12 years.

There was a time when anyone in the country could say, "Remember that time that Kramer..." or "no soup for you!" or whatever the line was, and everyone in the room knew exactly what you meant? You could say that someone danced like Elaine, and everyone knew that was not a compliment. Or, if you live within my circle of the fundraising community, you could talk about supporting The Human Group, and everyone knew that was George Costanza's charity that he made up so he could collect donations at work and keep the money for himself.

Those days are gone. Think about it: this year's high school graduates were age 6 when Seinfeld went off the air. And unless their parents thought that Seinfeld was a great thing to expose their kindergarteners and 1st graders to, they probably never saw it in primetime.

What's the new show that everyone knows about, that everyone knows the characters to or the lines from? The only one I can think of which came up after Seinfeld is American Idol, but that one isn't really a story line, or characters that are consistent from year to year. I do know some people who can tell you about Lakisha from season 6, or can recount all of Sanjaya's hairstyles. Not the same as a comedy series which unites people around storylines, though.

Lindsey's Observation on a Superbowl Ad

Our family was glued to our seats while watching the Superbowl yesterday, moreso during the commercials than during the actual play, to be honest.

Lindsey watched the commercial with Jay, Dave and Oprah for the Late Show with more rapt attention than usual.

"Wait a minute..."she said, thinking. I thought for sure she was trying to place Oprah, who she sees on the cover of my Oprah magazine every month.

"Are they eating the same chips I am?" she finally asks.

Classic.

Lindsey's Smile

Take a good look at this photo.

How many teeth has Lindsey lost on the top?

If you guessed anything more than zero, you would be wrong.

I am continually amazed at the human body. Lindsey has a front big tooth that is amazingly loose -- it should honestly probably be out by now, but she takes her time in wiggling the thing and we don't press her, so there it is still.

In the meantime, the secondary tooth has moved so far over that there is a gap between those two teeth now that is the size of a tooth. Clearly whatever front tooth she has in the works is a doozy, and will be taking up a lot of space in her mouth.

I think it's so amazing that her baby teeth are moving on their own, making room for the permanent ones.

I've heard lots of stories of friends and co-workers who put their kids into braces at ages 7 and 8, knowing that in 5 years they'll probably be putting them back in braces again. If you just look at the size of your kids' head when they start losing their baby teeth and growing their adult teeth, they still have so much growing to do, there will be plenty of room for those adult teeth once their mouth is full grown. And so far I'm finding that if you just leave the body alone, the teeth will find their own places in their mouth.

I had braces as a child; my husband didn't. I don't believe any of his siblings did. You can't tell. Truly, you can't. His families teeth are as straight as my sister's and mine, both of whom went through years of orthodontia. (Full disclosure: I know that one of his sisters got braces as an adult because their lack of straightness bothered her, but they weren't crooked enough for others to think "gee, look at the crooked teeth on that woman.")

I am in no hurry to straighten my kids' teeth. I think some parents hurry it up, thinking that it's a miserable thing to be in braces as a teenager, so they want to get them over with and done before the teenage years. I know that during my own development my parents put me in braces at the same time as my sister because it was convenient to have to trek the two of us back and forth to the orthodontist at the same time. I was in 4th grade. And I ended up having to have braces again as an adult because my teeth had moved so much in the interim.

So my kids might hate me at the time, but if they need braces they'll be getting them their junior/senior year of high school. Sorry kids. The good news is that photographers nowadays use Photoshop to erase them if you're wearing them when you have your senior picture taken.

Pokin' around Seward...

If you read my prior post about my small little introduction to the Seward neighborhood, you'll know that I must be (and I am!) VERY excited about an outing in Seward this coming weekend.

Lindsey has a 10 am class on Saturdays in Seward, at a place called Articulture. Through my prior post, I found that a friend of mine lives in Seward -- I had no idea!! She offered to take me on a little walk of the neighborhood and explore a few of the places that I've been only driving by.

So thank you, Laura, I'm looking forward to our outing, and thank you, Dad, for your encouragement to broaden horizons. Can't wait!

A Bootstrap Neighborhood

I've recently come to the conclusion that my world is incredibly small, despite my living in a metropolitan community. I go to the same places, I drive the same city streets, I take my kids to the same our or five kid places for entertainment, because hey, they aren't tired of them yet, and I just haven't found new places to take them yet.

That's changed a bit with my job change, which requires me to travel to...dum dum duuuuuum!! The other side of the river.

That would be St. Paul.  You know, land of twisty streets since those drunken Irishmen made them (thank you, Governor Ventura, for pointing that out), capitol of our fine state, home to many a Fortune 500 company even though I can't think of any right now.

My commute to work is not much longer than my old commute -- about 30 minutes instead of 20, but in the opposite direction. Getting home, however, is another story, as I found that the city of Minneapolis is apparently in a perpetual rush hour, with both morning and evening traffic in to the city being the heaviest traveled. Since I have to drive in to Minneapolis from St. Paul to get home, it can take me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to get to my daughter's school to pick her up, much less home from there.

The interstate backs up to an imperceptible crawl, which has required some new exploration on my part -- on to city streets I go, winding through some St. Paul neighborhoods, some Minneapolis neighborhoods, and finding new routes and new sights along the way.

Which has led to my discovery of the Seward neighborhood.

Seward (pronounced SOO-wird) is just south of downtown Minneapolis, and I cut through it on Franklin Ave. It is an interesting, eclectic mix of old and new. There is a significant East African presence, primarily Somali immigrants, who have settled here, resulting in an amazing mix of grocery stores and restaurants. When I first get on Franklin Ave, I can smell the fresh garlic smell of one of the neighborhood restaurants. I haven't figured out which one, but I plan on finding out. Later on down the street, I pass the Franklin Ave Bakery, a two-story building, and the yeasty smell of fresh baked bread overwhelms the senses. The smell literally wafts through the vents of my car in this cold weather; I can't wait to smell it when the weather is warmer.

I go through a little retail area with lots of pedestrian crosswalks. There are lots of people walking here. They are waiting for buses, leaving work, walking to one of those grocery stores for some provisions before heading home. There's one building in particular that always has a lot of traffic when I'm going by, people visiting out in front, students coming and going. I finally got a closer look and saw that it's a branch of the library. It looked so vibrant it made me want to stop to see what that library had that other Minneapolis library branches didn't have.

There are some new buildings along this area -- those retail/residential mix buildings that are so popular right now. Yet you won't see many chain retail stores taking up the retail spaces, they seem to be mostly local or niche businesses.

Within all of this is a mix of struggle and success. There are several community outreach organizations operating in the area: an employment and training center, a Native American community center, a trade and skills center, along with a store to sell the goods that they trained people to make. And then there are the accompanying successes of those efforts: the locally owned artisan store, the immigrant owned grocery store, the East African pottery place.

The first time I drove through this area I was a bit worried about where I was at -- I was surprised when I checked the street signs and they all said "South Franklin," or "South 26th Ave." Here I was, 6 miles north of my Minneapolis home, and I was still in SOUTH Minneapolis. I need to get out more.

Recently Lindsey began taking a Saturday morning art class at one of the local shops there, a place called Articulture. She is loving this class, and I am loving that I get to explore a new neighborhood while she's there. Can't wait to expand my horizons.

Lindsey's Report Card

Okay, I have to boast a little, 'cuz I'm just so damn proud of my kids.

We got Lindsey's report card this past week. In 1st grade they don't get As, Bs, Cs, but instead a numbering system: 4=above standard, 3=at standard, 2=approaching standard, 1=get thee to a tutor.

She got all 3's and in reading got 4's across the board. I was a little surprised by this, because at her parent/teacher conference at the beginning of the year she was at the lowest level of reading for 1st grade. You kind of expect that at the beginning of the year; after all, she was just entering 1st grade, but I fully expected that she would perhaps reach the expected standard reading level by the end of the year, not be above the standards mid-year.

And as if that wasn't good enough, Lindsey started in the Accelerated Reading program starting in January. She had to take a little reading test to see if she qualified, and she did. Now every Tuesday morning she goes to the library for a while with other kids in the AR program and does special reading activities. There's some kind of program on the PCs that they use, and then they get to check out 3 or 4 books.

I am especially thrilled at this, because reading is the key to all learning. You can't get good at science if you spend half your time decifering the science project instructions, rather than actually doing the project. You can't understand math if you struggle to understand the problem, and so on and so forth.

I am so proud of her!

Teaching Philanthropy

The Haitian earthquake and the outpouring of relief in its aftermath have had an impact on Lindsey's perception of the world.

First, I made the mistake of allowing her to browse my new iTouch. She went straight to the video app which defaults to showing all of the top viewed videos...which were all of the Haiti relief. Videos of mountains of rubble, of injured people being pulled from the remains of buildings, of food and water being distributed. She only watched these videos for maybe 5 or 10 minutes while I cooked dinner, but it definitely made an impact.

Suddenly she came running up to me to show me one of the videos. It was the one of Michelle Obama, asking people to text "Haiti" to 90999 to donate $10 to Haitian relief. Lindsey's response was, "We can help those people! Let's do this so we can help them!"

Sure, absolutely.

I showed Lindsey as I texted this on my cell phone. I immediately got a response asking me to confirm that I am donating $10 to the American Red Cross. I texted "yes," and got a thank you text in response.

"There," I said, "We just donated some money to help them."

Lindsey felt really good, and I felt really good about teaching her philanthropy. Or so I thought.

A couple of days later Lindsey asked me when our dollars were going to make a difference. Hmmm...what do you mean?

Well, she still heard about the disaster, and there were still people trapped under the rubble, and people without food or water, and babies dying, and when was the ten dollars that we donated going to help make all of this go away?

I wish it were that simple. What a great lesson for me in learning the instantaneous gratification that she desires in life: she wants a toy, she gets it. She wants to have a playdate, she has one. She wants to make a difference, she wants to make a difference today.

It is frustrating to think that those millions that were donated could not immediately make the Port au Prince airport go from 30 incoming flights to 130 flights daily, that it will take time, possibly years, for Haiti to recover from this.

I think that it's time that we do some volunteering together. Then she can feel that instant gratification of helping people...right now.

The Impact of Haitian Donations

The whole phenomenon of the fundraising that occurred via texting in response to the Haiti earthquake was amazing. And what a telethon -- $57MM raised from the telethon alone at last count, with millions of that coming via texted donations.

People may not remember this but the 9/11 event was the first time that there was an outpouring of donations via online giving. The American Red Cross website actually shut down for a day after 9/11 because they couldn't handle the amount of traffic of people trying to make online donations to them. It cost them many millions in lost donations when that happened, and opened up the whole new way to give: online.

Prior to 9/11, online donations were possible but not likely. Nonprofits often didn't have a way to accept online donations and the security of the credit card transactions was inconsistent based on the technology. After 9/11, nonprofits tried everything they could to get people to migrate to the web -- it's much less costly to get people to donate online than to create a direct mail piece, print it, stamp it, send it out, then process the paper donations upon their return. What a way to open up to a whole new generation of donors, people for whom the internet is an integral part of their lives, including shopping, purchasing, entertaining, ultimately living.

After 9/11, nonprofits finally made in-roads in their attempts to drive people to the web. Trust in online giving increased and a breakthrough was made.

The millions that were texted to the American Red Cross in response to Haiti is yet another break through in giving.

A way of transacting that was previously known to a small subset of the population has gone mainstream. People like myself, who have never texted any kind of financial transaction, and have hardly texted at all, gave via texting for the first time. The intrastructure which allows for this kind of donating was already in place -- no systems went down, no donations were rejected, all went smoothly.

A new channel for giving has been opened up.

Now the question is, what will nonprofits be able to do with the new channel? Will they once again go through the process of trying to drive people to give via texting, only to find that generating content and reasons to migrate to the nonprofit will be immensely more powerful than pushing people there? Only time will tell. I'm excited to be a part of this new world in philanthropy, to be able to test things out and see what works.

The Power of Persuasion

"Mommy! Mommy!"

"Yes Lindsey..."

"Come see what's on TV! Oh, you missed it. Well, they have these pillows, but they are also animals, and you release a flap and it turns into a pillow from an animal. And they have a dolphin one that I want. You can go to www.pillowpets.com, it's only $19.99 plus shipping and handling. Can I get one...pleeeeeeeease?????"

"You remembered all that from a 30 second commercial?"

"Pleeeeeeeease?????"

"Let me think about it...no. But good try, kid."

Lyrics by Marissa

Marissa is our little singer. She sings a lot, various songs that she's heard either from school or from us.

Recently she's been heard singing "Joy to the World," which she heard frequently over the holiday season. The words go something like this:

Joy to the World, the lore has come.
Let earth.....see....her King!
Let everyone....be everyone....
And hebbin and she sure sing, and hebbin and she sure sing,
and hebbin and hebbin and she sure sing.

She hasn't quite learned the second verse yet, but she asks me to sing it to her on the ride home at night, so maybe she'll learn that one soon, too.

Another Marissa-ism

Tonight I made chicken enchiladas for dinner.  It's a meal only for Wayne and I actually, the girls usually won't touch it. So I put out a tray of raw carrots and red peppers with dill dip for the girls, along with a salad which Lindsey also chowed down on.

Marissa immediately came running to the table when she saw me set down the fresh veggies. Seriously, I don't know how we got our kids so turned on to fresh fruits and vegetables, but I'll take it as long as I can. Shortly after, I pulled the enchiladas out of the oven and set them on the table. Here they were, little tortillas of chicken and cheese, covered with a red enchilada sauce and bubbling cheddar cheese. For most people (or most Americans, I should say), the sight would bring on some tummy rumblings, salivation, or other such effects.

Marissa takes one look, waves her hand at it, turns her head away and says, "Ugh! Bisgusting." Wayne and I both had to laugh, despite our attempts to hide it.

Our little Einstein

On Saturday I took Marissa to get screened for kindergarten. While it may seem early to some, we're actually quite late in doing this -- they recommend screening as early as 3 so that if there are developmental issues they can be addressed early before even getting to school age.

But we weren't worried with Marissa, she seemed pretty smart to us so we waited until now, when we also have to pick her school, get her school choice card in, turn in her immunization records, etc.

The test consists of various exercises: building a block tower the same size as the one shown, asking if an object is over/under/behind, etc, knowing what your elbow is, writing your name, etc. Children need to score a 30 out of 64 to be able to get into kindergarten without needing additional screening.

Marissa scored a 63 out of the possible 64. When the tester was giving me her results, she asked me if I thought she seemed challenged in her pre-school program, and said that boredom may be an issue for her.

Wow. I had no idea.

We also talked a little bit about her acting out in school, in not being able to share with other children or getting along. The issues have nothing to do with taking direction or listening -- when it comes to the teachers and the curriculum, she's fully engaged. But she gets into trouble during free play time, because she gets into altercations with other children.

The screener had some great advice for me, first was that I should NOT tell Lake Harriet school about these issues. She said that we wouldn't want her to be labeled as a troublemaker right from the onset. And second, she said to remember that since she's 97th percentile for height and 84th for weight, she may not be pushing or hitting any more than other kids, but she's so much bigger than all the other kids that she gets caught more often, because there's more of a reaction. I thought that was pretty good advice, I'll be keeping that in mind.

In the meantime, I am so proud of our little girl for being such a smarty pants!

It Finally Happened

Dax bit Lindsey on the nose today.

I didn't see him actually do it. I just know that last I looked, Lindsey was using Dax as a pillow, and he seemed to be tolerating it amazingly well. I went upstairs and next thing I know I hear his snarl that means "you've gone too far this time, girl," and Marissa immediately comes upstairs. Before she's even in front of me to tell me what happened I hear Lindsey crying downstairs.

I suppose because she'd been so close to his face in such close quarters it was inevitable that his snarl would catch her.

And maybe this is just what she needed to have happen to finally FINALLY leave the damn dog alone. A few weeks ago she wrenched on him in such a tight hug that his neck hurt so that he couldn't eat that night. We had to hold his dish up to his face because he couldn't bend down to eat. Thankfully that injury seemed to heal itself in a single day, but she continues to pester and pester him.

It was obvious that Dax felt really bad about it. He came up with her and while I was applying first aid, he kept trying to get near her, which, of course, she would have none of. Finally, after she'd settled down and things were better, he came over to her and licked every inch of her hands. (Licking people is his way of saying "I'm sorry.") Then he licked her face too, which I immediately put a stop to due to the scratches on her face.

Lindsey did stay away from him for a while, but by this evening all were back to their normal selves -- the girls were arguing over who gets to sit next to Dax, while he was content curling up next to me, his protector from little girls.

Random Photos from Christmas Break

Here's one of many scoring sheets Lindsey kept during our Uno playing marathon. Unfortunately I was winning this one, but she was thrilled to be doing two-digit math.

In the interim, Marissa was entertaining us with music in the next room. She had the pink piano playing a rhythm piece, while she accompanied herself on the drum and cymbal. Note the tongue sticking out of her mouth. I imagine when I see this photo that she is saying in her head: "ANIMAL! ANIMAL!"

Last photo: Breakfast? Note the disheveled hair, the nightgown, the bowl of cereal with accompanying bowl of fruit. However, it's dark outside, is it breakfast? No, no my friends, this is what dinner looks like some evenings during Christmas break. Who felt like getting dressed that day? No one. Who felt like leaving the house? No one. Who felt like cooking dinner? No one. Breakfast for dinner? Absolutely!

Back when I was pregnant...

I realized this story is nowhere on my blog, and it still deserves telling.

Back when I was pregnant with Marissa, my sister came to visit a month or two before my due date. She and I made a trip to the liquor store to get some beer for the household (meaning she and Wayne). We happened to take Lindsey along with us.

While we were in line to check out, there was a lady standing behind us who was clearly looking at me and the toddler running around, thinking that as a pregnant woman I shouldn't be buying beer. BUYING beer, people, not drinking beer. Both Kristi and I noticed her judgmental expression, at which point Kristi turns and says to me, "Jenny, are you sure your doctor said it's okay for you to drink while you're pregnant?"

To which I replied, "Why not? After all, SHE turned out all right" (Pointing to Lindsey).

At that point the two of us cracked up hysterically as the woman behind us looked at us in disgust.

It was awesome.

Winter Driving or why my commute takes twice as long

Dear City of Minneapolis,

I know, budget cuts SUCK.

So take this grumbling in light of the fact that I know you've cut down on plowing to save a buck or two.

And that over Christmas, when we were getting dumped on day after day, you really didn't want to pay drivers triple time to plow the roads over the holidays. I get that. But the problem is...I still have to live here.

You see, there is a 3 foot tall hump of ice to turn right onto 47th St from France Ave now, and unless I take it at 2 mph it likes to grate against the bottom of my poor little Civic, and that's not very nice. And the dumbasses behind me with their big SUVs and four-wheel drives honk loudly when they see me come to what seems to be a complete stop in order to turn onto my street.

Since I-94 is a parking lot in the evenings as I attempt to come home from work, I leave the comfort of stop-and-go traffic to take my chances on city streets. Usually I'd rather sit at a stoplight with opportunities of actual movement between stoplights than sit on a highway that's supposed to be 55 mph but is actually 10. Except now I also have to account for which streets may or may not be clear of ice and snow as I attempt to pick my route through the city streets.

On the remainder of the city streets, the non-emergency routes which did NOT get plowed for 4 days over Christmas, my poor suspension squeaks and pops if I go more than 10 mph and God help me if I leave the two wheel groove that goes in the middle of the road, or I am in even-bumpier-ville.

But sometimes I need to leave those two-lane grooves, because there is this thing called ON-COMING TRAFFIC, see, you know, cars coming toward me on a street that's supposed to be two-way? And I understand that you couldn't get ALL the snow off the street, and that people have the right to park on both sides of the street even still, but when they do that only allows one car to pass at a time. Which means I either have to leave the grooves and pull over to the side, or wait within the grooves for the other car to pass and then hope to God I can get traction to get started again within the ice grooves that our roads have turned into.

My saving salvation, Portland Ave S, which I take for approximately 5 miles south, used to be a nicely moving 3-lane one-way street. But now it's a 2 and three-quarters one-way street, with the poor people who have to park their cars on that street wondering which is worse: parking their car into the snowbank or taking a chance that someone might sideswipe their car if they park it just a little, itty bit into the driving lane. So now it's a game of bob-and-weave between drivers attempting to use the farthest right-hand lane and the middle lane, wondering if the car moving next to you is going to have to drive in your driving lane in order to avoid a parked car.

Just in case you think I'm alone in thinking that the roads are worse than they've ever been this winter, I am obviously not alone:

Don't Like MN weather? Too bad! (Star Tribune)
Anybody Seen Our Roads? (St Paul Pioneer Press)

And now that it's been below zero and in the single digits, there isn't a damn thing we can do about it until it warms up enough to allow the salt and chemicals to do their job. But even after it turns into slop and slush, I suspect that it will just continue to sit there on our roads, creating deep, icy ruts when it finally re-freezes, unless you once again fire up the snowplows and get the damn stuff off the roads while it's still movable.

So please, find something else to cut -- got some extra legislative aids who are not earning their keep working 60 hrs a week for $10/hr? Cut those slackers and plow our roads.

"Scribbly" hair and other such stories

Yesterday marked the first day back to our schedules after a long holiday break. The girls were excited to see their friends again after a long hiatus, though Lindsey was a bit sad in the morning about not being able to stay in her jammers all day and just stay home. I was too -- after all, it was 9 below zero when we left the house yesterday morning, makes for a difficult re-entry into our regular schedules.

But all sadness of the holidays being over seemed to dissipate when we got home in the evening and heard about the girls' days. First Lindsey gave us a practical blow-by-blow description of playing Uno, her new favorite game, with her friends at Mpls KIDS. Her friend Emma got Uno for Christmas, so she was super excited that her best friend knew how to play too!

Then we heard from Marissa about how her friend Kira got a haircut. I'm not sure which child this is, but Wayne knew her and mentioned how much curlier the girl's hair looks now that it's a bit shorter.

"Yeah," Marissa agreed, "Now it's all scribbly." And she made a gesture like she was scribbling on a piece of paper. I like that adjective, that's a new one -- instead of frizzy hair, it's scribbly hair.

And Marissa was so tired that during their "resting" time right after lunch she actually fell asleep and napped. That's a new one!

A Visit to my Workplace

This past week, while Wayne was off with the girls all week, he brought the girls to my new workplace for a visit.

This was a kind of a big deal, both to me and to them, because my kids have some wonderful memories and experiences at my former employer. PM always put on an incredible "Bring Your Child to Work Day" program, which both of my kids took part in from very early on. I've brought them in occasionally on weekends to pick up some work or do some printing, and they've always loved the long pretty halls, the white boards begging to be written on and all the little chatchkas in my office that they can play with.

I figured that the earlier they learned that my workplace has changed the better. Even though they both know I have a different job, until they see the new place, I am sure that PM would continue to be in their minds as to where I go to everyday.

December 31st is a good day for a kid visit, since it's usually a bit slower, not many people in the office, etc. They could see where I worked, meet my new co-workers and have lunch with me in the cafeteria at the hospital.

I met them in the lobby and brought them up to the 3rd floor. Our outside wall is lined with offices and Marissa asked to see my "new room." Well, that's one big change, no more office for mommy. So then they had to ask what a "cube" was, which they understood when they saw it.

First thing Lindsey saw was a draft of the latest newsletter sitting on my desk with a photo of a little boy in ICU, along with a photo of him today. We talked a while about what happened to him, that he was hit by a car when he was 7 years old and was in the hospital for many, many weeks before regaining consciousness and mobility. I told her how his family allowed us to tell his story in order to raise money so they can continue to help children like him...and there was another good lesson in looking both ways before crossing the street.

Then we put on our coats to walk over to the hospital for lunch. There were lots of questions about if that boy was at the hospital now, and Lindsey also wanted to know if Noah was there. Noah? Oh yeah, Noah is the little boy with cerebral palsy who is featured on the billboards around town, including one in our neighborhood. I think she wanted to meet Noah.

As I suspected, the cafeteria was a big hit, with lots of choices to be had, so lunch was a good time. They then came back to my office to meet my co-workers, who had all been at lunch when they arrived earlier. They got some Gillette branded slinkies from one person, some chocolate from another, and had lots of fun making artwork in my cube to decorate it, because the walls were clearly lacking in their minds. Lindsey made me a sign that said, "I love Gillette Hospital, it is so so so so so much fun."

Then it was time to go, and we said our good-byes.

When I got home that evening, Lindsey told me that she wanted to cry a little when she left, because she had been so excited about coming to see me at work and now the visit was over. She has the reaction to events that she considers to be big visits-- she's sad when we come home from Tracy, from Wisconsin, etc. I was surprised that a visit to my workplace counted among the visits worthy of being sad when they are done. But actually, I felt that way a little bit, too. I'm so proud of my kids and was looking forward to showing them off to my new co-workers, who are all so nice and appreciative of kids. (Caring for kids is kind of ingrained in everybody at Gillette, as you may expect.)

There will be many opportunities for my kids to come and visit. And maybe someday Lindsey can meet Noah.

Another Benefit to Uno

After playing a few hands of Uno with Lindsey today, I told her that if we were playing "for real" (meaning keeping score), that she probably would have won. So she wanted to play "for real," and SHE wanted to be the one who kept score.

Hmmm...okay, we can give this a shot.

The first few were easy -- the person who lost only had 7 points, or 9 points, etc, but eventually we got to adding together 26+19 or 38+17, which calls for carrying numbers to get to the correct total.

So I taught her how to carry numbers.

She understood it, she got it, and she had lots of practice doing it this afternoon.

We decided to only play to 100 just to keep it easier, but we played several games like that, and she kept score every time. What a smart little mathematician!

Playing Uno

Just yesterday Lindsey discovered our Uno game that we've had for some time but that she's never played with us. So she and I sat down and began playing -- she's pretty good!

She's not very good, though, at having a poker face. When I would deal the cards, she'd get all wide-eyed and gasp when she would get a wild card, or a draw two or something. So while I was dealing one time I told her that you really didn't want the other person to know when you had good cards, so it was best to pretend and not get excited when you got good cards.

The next time I dealt, after a couple of cards she got all wide-eyed again, then she looked at me and then tried to put on a straight face, looked back at her cards and said, "Nothing interesting here!"

I cracked up laughing.

A timely holiday injury

On Christmas Eve while I was washing dishes, I did something my jr high home-ec teacher warned us to never do: 1) never put a whole bunch of sharp knives in the sink to wash, and, 2) if you're dumb enough to do this, always look before reaching into the water.

I never did adhere to rule #1, I've always put all knives in the dishwater to soak a bit instead of washing them one-by-one. I've done this for years and have never cut myself reaching for those submerged knives. But I was surprised on Christmas Eve when in my haste I reached into the water and sliced my left thumb with a knife.  I've recently been keeping all of my knives pretty sharp, and this one was definitely in its prime.

The cut wasn't deep, but it was almost the entire width of the meatiest part of my thumb. It bled profusely at first, and I continued to wash up the dishes despite the cut, figuring that the soapy water was probably pretty good for it. But I did have to double rinse the knives to get the extra spot of blood off the handles.

Finally I attended to the cut -- like I said, shallow, but long, so it was hard to get a band-aid to cover the whole thing. And it's been probably one of the most annoying injuries I've had of late. Do you know how many times you use your thumb, even your non-dominant thumb? I've re-opened the cut numerous times doing dumb stuff like turning a doorknob, turning on the water, closing the washing machine door, etc.

Just four days later it's mostly healed up, but still hurts depending on what I'm doing. So I think this means this is my last post of the night if I want to be able to type at work tomorrow.

Update: Ugly Cake Again

It just wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't attempt my mom's infamous sour cream coffee cake in a bundt pan, would it?

And it REALLY wouldn't be Christmas if I got the damn thing to turn out, would it?

No, it wouldn't.

I was telling my new co-workers about my various failed attempts to make this coffee cake year after year. One asked, "You aren't going to try it again this year, are you?" Are you kidding? By this time it's tradition! Of COURSE I'm going to try to make it, that's half the fun!

And it did look beautiful. Truly beautiful! Unfortunately the filling on one half of the cake had sunk to the bottom of the pan and stuck again, so it did not come out of the pan as planned. But it did still taste delicious -- we ate it all in about 3 days.

When I finally went to take it out of the pan, the girls both accompanied me to the kitchen for the unveiling. When I was having a hard time getting it out, Lindsey watched in anticipation for a while, then she abruptly turned and left, saying, "I can't watch this."

Like I said, it's tradition by this point, it will be a shame the day I finally get it to work.

Our Children are Spoiled and Don't Even Know It

What can I say? By the end of our gift opening, which lasted all of 50 minutes, the entire floor was covered with bits of wrapping paper, boxes, tags and twisty tie thingys that we had to un-do to get to some of the toys. This after Wayne told me of his Christmases growing up when they got one gift each.

We got the girls to bed a little too late on Christmas Eve. They were downstairs watching A Christmas Story while Wayne and I were upstairs, enjoying a glass of wine and some uninterrupted conversation. Uninterrupted conversation! What IS that?! We were loathe to end it by ending the movie early, but at 9:00 Lindsey finally came up and said, "It's over and Marissa's sleeping." Oops, Marissa's sleeping. Uh oh...

It took all of 10 minutes to put them to bed, then we traipsed downstairs to get "Santa's" gifts out of the closet and put them under the tree. Then off to bed we went.

We were awoken at 5:30 am by a squeal from Lindsey's room. "Eeeee!" she said. Then little footsteps as she ran into our room and jumped into our bed. "I think Santa's been here!" she says. Ummm...maybe, but we ain't checkin' at 5:30 in the morning to find out.

We got her to go lay there for another hour but she didn't go back to sleep. We finally got up at 6:30; Lindsey ran downstairs quickly to confirm that yes indeed, Santa had been to our house and left a whole bunch of presents! By this time Marissa was up -- she was about to start crying from being woken up, then she remembered it was Christmas! So downstairs we all went to check out the presents with instructions to look but not touch.

I was in the kitchen making coffee and Wayne was opening the blinds when I heard Lindsey exclaim, "How come Santa has the same wrapping paper as we do?!"  Hmmm...guess we'll have to change that little fact next year. Hopefully she won't remember that Santa uses paper that she bought with me at the store.

Favorite gifts were definitely the Snuggie (thank you, Aunt Shelly and Uncle Steve!) and the new nightgowns from Grandpa Tom & Meme. This was followed by the Strawberry house for Lindsey and the Tinkerbell playset for Marissa. We've been getting a lot of use out of Connect Four as well, a gift Wayne and I picked out that Lindsey hadn't asked for.

Marissa had asked Santa for dress up ballet clothes, which she did get, sans the ballet slippers. She said, "Maybe he forgotted that I wanted ballet slippers." Well, maybe the dress up set we bought didn't come w/ballet slippers! Thankfully Lindsey's got ballet slippers around...somewhere, we'll just have to find them for Marissa.

She had also asked for a game called Elefun for both she and Lindsey, which they also received. Ironically, that game has gotten the least attention and been played with the smallest amount of time. Shocking.

Lindsey had asked for a swing for her backyard from Santa, but surprisingly hasn't mentioned disappointment at not getting it. Perhaps that's because there's a good 2 feet of snow on the ground outside and she hasn't actually breathed in fresh air for more than 2 minutes in about 3 days.

The rest of Christmas Day was...well, to be totally honest it was trying. We had two sleep-deprived girls trying to play with their own toys in the same space (why, oh why do they insist on playing in the same room?) We had to separate them several times and they needed constant parental supervision to not get into scraps with each other. Marissa threw her own Tinkerbell toy and now has a door on it that is constantly falling off and needs to be put back on about every five minutes. She now knows the rule that if she throws her toys she loses them for the rest of that day, so no more toys were thrown that day.

They were well behaved during dinner at least, which was good so that we could all enjoy it. Marissa our vegetarian decided that she didn't want the steak and found a pint of grape tomatoes in the frig that she devoured instead. Works for me.

They were both in bed by a reasonable hour and slept past 7:00 the next morning, so the 26th was a MUCH more pleasant day. They took turns w/each other, had fun, and both got separate play time in their own room with their own toys for a while, a needed break from each other. And Wayne and I both enjoyed playing games with them alternately. I'm sure it will be so much fun when both girls are at a closer developmental level when we can play games the four of us. Right now we have to play one-on-one with one or the other -- Marissa can't follow the rules of many of Lindsey's games, and Lindsey doesn't care to play many of Marissa's younger games. So we kept the Christmas enjoyment up through the rest of the weekend.

Christmas Eve 2009 Activities

I'm putting a few posts up from the last few days of activities. This was part of the lovely Christmas Eve that the girls and I had while Wayne worked one last day before taking off work for a week and a half.

Marissa's Doggy Diet

Recently Marissa fed Dax a treat after having him roll over, then said, "I wish I could have that."

"Have what?" I asked. I thought perhaps she wanted to learn how to roll over.

She pointed to the dog biscuit that Dax was devouring and said, "Have THAT."

So I told her to go ahead and eat a dog biscuit. Seriously, there's nothing in there harmful to humans, it's just that most humans don't prefer dog food.

She helped herself to a dog biscuit and then asked for another. I think that dog biscuits and crackers taste the same to her.

I cut her off at one.

Our Cruise Ship Home

Our cleaning lady came yesterday, just before Christmas, so our house is nice and clean for the holidays. Can I just say how much I LOVE having a cleaning lady?? It's so nice to not have to clean on days off, I can do other things, like go sledding with the girls, make cookies, and so on.

One of the other cool things is that she makes the girls' beds. She would actually change the sheets for us if we wanted, but that seemed weird to me to have someone else totally make my kids' beds, so she just makes the beds for us. And since I think it's weird for her to make our bed, I make sure our bed is made before we leave in the morning.

Every time we come home it's like a little surprise to see how she's arranged their beds. Every time, there are different blankets or stuffed animals on the beds. Sometimes there are books buried deep in the covers. She'll find them and put them on top of the bed. It's like how I've heard cruise ships are, when every time you come back into your room you find your towels in various shapes of animals, plants, etc.

Yesterday she had Marissa's little hippo pillow on top of her blankie, and Lindsey's two stuffies were lined up on the bed, ready to snooze. And she had neatly folded both of their jammers on top of their pillows and blankies. The girls were both delighted by how she had arranged their rooms.

Christmas Steve

That is what Marissa calls "Christmas Eve." This from the same girl who says "stister" instead of sister.

Don't try to correct her, it's Christmas Steve.

Two Christmas Traditions

Our house is filled with all kinds of Christmas traditions -- many which involve food, but two that I feel impelled to highlight.

The first is not my family's Christmas tradition, it's a neighbors, but we benefit from it. Every year since we had kids after moving onto this block, we've received a plate of gingerbread cookies from a neighbor of ours. And not just any gingerbread cookies -- cookies in shapes of a man, a woman, and little tykes. Even babies! All have our own names iced onto them.

I've taken some pictures in some years, other years they get eaten too quickly to snap a photo. Because not only do they look awesome, they are also ALWAYS delicious! My girls LOVE getting these gingerbread cookies. Thanks to our neighbor Bridget who makes part of her holiday tradition baking all of these cookies up for her friends and family.

The other tradition...also involving food...well, let's just take a quick look at our reminder of what happened last year, shall we?

Yes, yes it is time once again for me to attempt my annual coffee cake. Or as it is now affectionately called in this house, ugly cake. Because it is more often ugly than not, but always delicious.

I shall report back in a few days on my progress on this project!

Little Miss Muffet...New Cast

And if you didn't catch it, check out the prelude by Daddy in the background before the narrator began.

Lindsey as Little Miss Muffet

This is the re-enactment of the infamous "Little Miss Muffet" first performed by Jenny and Kristi Floria in the early 70's. In the original, the younger sister was played by a baby, who actually crawled toward the little starlet, and the starlet sat on a little stool, and not a full-sized chair.

So while today's adaptation is not true to the original, one piece of the set is historically accurate: the bonnet being worn is the same used by the original players so far back in time.

Commuting Thoughts

While my new job is only a few miles further in the opposite direction of my old job, I am finding that my commute back home from work...let's just face it...sucks. It takes me 30 minutes to drive to work, and usually betwen 45 minutes and an hour to get back home. Turns out that traffic is ALWAYS going towards Minneapolis, both morning and evening. Poop.

This, of course, gives me lots of thinking time, something that can be very dangerous depending on the day and the mood. Yesterday evening I was driving home, crawling along at 8 mph per my GPS and I was taking in the sunset. The entire sky was the tapestry, with long fingers of pink, red and orange extending across the entire sky. The colors grew deeper and deeper as twilight slid up behind me. I was stuck on an overpass (8 mph, folks, it takes a while to cross a bridge at that pace) and watching the spaghetti fingers of traffic coming toward me, and overlapping the other exits and lanes that were interconnecting while this incredible light show of a sunset was happening over the entire scene. The sunset was huge, larger than the whole movement of all of the cars within my sight.

As I took it in, the cars and their headlights took on the personality of ants, and I couldn't help but think that humans are not meant long for this world. Long after we are here, the sunsets will still happen, the sky will still deepen, but we will not be here to witness them. Deep thoughts for a commute.

And then..this evening's commute.

It was a bit later when I started out and I ended up taking a different way out of St. Paul. For a while I was at a streetlight in front of the St. Paul Cathedral, a beautiful building that has a gorgeous church belltower on top, with architectural lights lighting up the various stone edifices. The sunset was long gone with twilight well settled in, yet there was still a deep blue tinge to the sky behind the cathedral. And tonight, as I gazed upon this landscape, I thought about what an incredible feat this piece of architecture was, and that it would probably be standing there for hundreds of years to come.

We'll see what tomorrow's commute brings.

A Visit with Santa

As I mentioned in the prior post, one of the things we did this past weekend was take the girls to see Santa Claus at Southdale Mall. It seems that most of the santas we see around now have real beards -- none of that fluffy white fake stuff for them.

I'm not sure at what age kids start doubting whether or not Santa is real, but I think Lindsey is getting to that age. We watched "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" the other night, the old stop-action show which has Santa Claus as a baby, then as a young man bringing toys to a town called Sombertown, where Herr BurgerMeister has outlawed toys. Throughout the story it explains everything from why he wears a red suit, why he enters via the chimney, to why presents are stuffed in stockings on the mantle. Afterwards, she asked if that story was true. I said, "Well, no one knows for sure, but some people think that that's how Santa Claus came to be." Then she asked if he ever died, if he was around when we were little, when the grandparents were little, etc.

When we were driving to the mall to see Santa, she asked if this would be the real Santa or Santa's "helper," as we call other people who dress up like Santa. "That's a good question," I said, "You can probably ask him that."

I don't think she did ask him, but she did walk away whispering, "I think he was the real Santa." We had a picture taken of them with Santa, and when we got home we put in on the mantle, next to a picture from a few years ago of them with Santa again. It's obvious from the photos that they are clearly two different men -- one's beard is completely white, the other was white with a little grey, etc. She looked at the two photos side-by-side and announced that she believes the Santa she saw this year was the real one, and the one from a few years ago was just a helper.

It was really sweet seeing them both with Santa. They both wanted to speak to him separately, to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. (This was promptly followed by a last-minute purchase for a dress-up ballerina costume for Marissa that Wayne bought online.) Lindsey asked for two swings for the backyard so she can swing at our house and not have to go to the park. (Hmmmm...not sure what to do with that one.)