Skipping Town

When Greta turned five in October, I told her she could get her ears pierced whenever she wanted--at five, ear piercing was open to her. Lucia couldn't wait to get hers done--she'd asked to have it done for about a year before turning five, and I took her to have it done a week or so after her fifth birthday. Greta, on the other hand, was adamantly against it. She had no desire whatsoever. There was a reasonable explanation: we had problems with one of Lucia's ears; it got infected, it was terribly painful, and the hole ultimately closed and had to be re-pierced. None of that was any fun to watch. But now Lucia's ears are fine, and she gets to wear fun earrings, including dangly earrings; and one of Greta's pre-K friends got hers pierced. So, out of the blue last week, Greta announced she wanted to get her ears pierced. She didn't go back on it once. I asked her about a hundred times since her announcement, giving her many easy outs, telling her she could do i...

Christmas is over. And it was as magical as we could have hoped. WHEW. This fall, I was so afraid that Lucia wouldn’t believe in Santa for this Christmas. She’s in a class with first and second graders, and I was dreading a precocious kid talking too much on the playground. But I needn’t have feared. Her belief in Santa was as strong as ever. Still, these Santa years are few. It’s important to me to make them magical. Our kiddos deserve nothing less. We drove to Connellsville on December 23 and began our Christmas adventure. Molly and Luca were there, and Christmas Eve was a whirlwind of playing and excitement. We went to church in the late afternoon and sat up in the choir loft, which I hadn’t done for years and years. I brought Christmas coloring books and crayons for the long wait for Mass to begin; but once it did, Lucia and Greta were both interested in watching the people in the pews down below. And Lucia was very excited to be able to say the Our Father (thanks, CCD...