Skipping Town

Dear Elsa, "Elsa" is what you prefer to go by these days, as we've lost you to Frozen fever. You've loved shows before and learned favorite songs from "Sofia the First" and "Doc McStuffins," but nothing--nothing--has captivated you quite like Frozen. Like every other child in the country, you belt out "Let It Go" over and over again for much of the day, adding more of Elsa's motions each time--shrugging off her cape, tossing away her crown, conjuring the ice castle, stomping to create a giant snowflake, running up an ice staircase. You and Greta (who's always Anna, of course) reenact scenes from the movie, with you feeding lines to Greta and then bursting into song. I never thought I'd have so much fun seeing a child of mine swept away by Disney, but there we are. You're sick of winter. We all are. For the past couple of days you and I have lamented all of the wonderful things we'll do once summer finally get...

We were a busy household last week. Andrew flew to California last Sunday, and Mom and Dad arrived a little after that to help out for a few days. The girls were thrilled to see them, of course. Lucia had a busy schedule of preschool and a birthday party, so Greta got lots of one-on-one time with Gra and Pop-Pop. Both girls were beyond excited last Tuesday, when our Frozen DVD arrived in the mail--we marked the occasion by giving them each Elsa and Anna dolls. Lucia's reaction when she pulled them out of her bag was priceless--a gasp, a scream, a face of total disbelief and joy. She should be excited: these dolls are sold out everywhere. Mom and Dad got the Annas after searching several places in Southwestern PA; and Andrew had made a late-night run to a Target in a nearby town after the Target website claimed to have the Elsas in stock. Neither girl has been without her dolls since. A highlight of the week was a dance party in the basement, with both Lucia and Greta dancing movi...

Every single night, when I go up to check on the girls after they've fallen asleep, I find a random assortment of things in Greta's crib, which Lucia has tossed in. All the pacifiers are always in there, and I've also found bath toys, Greta's night light, stuffed animals from her storage basket, and much more. One time I found a large "artwork"--styrofoam peanuts on cardboard. Every night, I tell Lucia not to go in Greta's room. Greta always falls asleep quickly, and I'm afraid, one of these nights, Lucia will wake her up when she makes her crib deliveries. "But she wants them," Lucia has said. "She likes when I come in." I've always discounted her claims. We've tried to get this to stop, to no avail. At least, this has been my impression of how things go. Last night, I learned more. About ten minutes after I went downstairs after finishing up Lucia's stories, I heard Lucia walk into Greta's room--and Greta start t...

Dear Baby Grets, Way back, when you were a tiny, cooperative little baby, cute as a button and doing everything exactly right--sleeping well, eating spectacularly, going with the flow--it was impossible for me to imagine ever getting mad at you, or ever having reason for anger at all. Oh ho, little one, how low you have brought me. You are still cute as a button, still beloved and lovable, but you are also the most willful, stubborn, uncooperative two-year-old I've ever had the joy of raising. Your terrible-twoness coincided, unfortunately, with this endless winter, and leaving the house--which of course requires socks, boots, and a coat--has become all but impossible. A trip to Target or Trader Joe's used to get us through a particularly long morning; but now, the nightmare of getting you ready renders such trips pointless. No perusal of the dollar bins can possibly be worth what we have to do to get out the door. But you are also lots of fun right now. You love playing wi...

Dear Little Lulu, This is a very late letter, but at least it's here. This has been a crazy month, highlighting one of the central frustrations and phenomena of parenting: the more time we're cooped up at home, the less time I have to do anything. We've been at home a lot a lot a lot the past few weeks because of this crazy winter, so things like timely blog post have fallen by the wayside. Anyway. It's been apparent for a month or so now that you are becoming much more kid-like. You have friends at preschool whom you enjoy playing with. You love Thursdays, when you get to stay for "Lunch Bunch" and soccer. You have an amazing memory and are almost too observant; you forget, and miss, nothing. You aren't all that interested in playing games on the iPad anymore, but when you do play games like Fruit Pop, you're uncannily skilled: swiping your finger to link three fruits, connecting fruit chains to coconuts, spotting groups of fruit faster than me so...

Today, after Quiet Time, Lucia said she didn't want to use the iPad: she wanted to make peg dolls instead. "Can we make peg dolls, Mama?" she asked, excitedly clutching a new shipment of wooden pegs that had arrived in the mail. Yes, little one. Yes, yes, we can. Greta woke up from her nap just before we began, so make no mistake: this was not an hour of quiet mother-and-daughter crafting at the kitchen table. It was more a scenario of the girls spreading all of my felt across the kitchen floor to make an "island" and me madly glue-gunning as they attempted again and again to unwind all my yarn, like pesky kittens. Still: any request for crafting, especially when it's chosen over something like the iPad, is, I will say, a satisfying moment for this mama.

After another snowy week last week, I was counting the seconds until we could go to Connellsville and have a few days of R n' R, where it wouldn't matter if we were snowed in because Lucia and Greta wouldn't even know we were there, so focused they would be on Gra and Pop-Pop. Alas, we got another snowstorm on Thursday, so we couldn't leave that afternoon as we'd planned. I wanted to just get in the car and go; Andrew pointed out we couldn't even leave our driveway. Friday, we gave the girls their Valentine's Day gifts in the morning. I'll digress here to say that after years of assuming everyone gave Valentine's Day gifts to their kiddos, I see now I was wrong. It doesn't matter. I like planning their little Valentine's Day surprises, and this year I (fine, WE) gave them each a mermaid Hello Kitty, some colored pens, a few tiny notebooks, a unicorn necklace, a book, a coloring book, and a tiny teaset featuring the very kawaii Rikkukuma bea...

Another Tuesday. Tuesdays can go so many ways. They're always long, with no preschool or babysitter, and in such snowy, cold weather we're always completely cooped up. Running an errand is usually a good thing to do, except when trying to get Greta ready for an outing is more stressful than just staying home. So today we stayed home. I thought I'd try to remember and record all the many things we did and played with today, just for fun: Reading books (including a new book Andrew brought home from work--"Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie") Having a snack (granola bars) Setting up a large expanse of pillows, doll crib, and doll bed and putting a variety of stuffed animals down for a nap Coloring. Lots of coloring. Sit N' Spin / rocking horse trade-offs Fort-building in the basement, with the red storage bins I still haven't used for organizing my life Dancing (Greta) Shopping-cart pushing (Greta) Clothespin fairies--they're lost in t...

Lucia at dinnertime:  "Eating dinner is not fun. I like playing and drawing." Lucia, looking at the refrigerator: "Mama, when are we getting a new refrigerator?" "When we get a new kitchen." [Panic-stricken face:] "But...but...When we get a new kitchen we have to TAKE ALL THE FOOD OUT OF THIS REFRIGERATOR FIRST!" We let the girls watch some Olympic figure skating this afternoon, which they loved. But Lucia seemed troubled that each skater was on the ice by herself. "Where are her friends?" she kept asking. She seemed relieved when the skaters returned to their coaches and teammates. Lucia and Andrew played outside in the ice-snow for a long time today. Andrew pulled Lucia on the sled; Lucia sucked on icicles; and they played an elaborate game of princess/giant/witch/etc. Greta, for her part, refused to go outside or even put on any socks. For one second, she agreed to go outside; I got as far as her snowpants before she mutinied. ...

This has been the longest week of my entire life. I feel like the past six days have pummeled me. I last posted on Tuesday, and the rest of the week proved to still be long and ridiculous. Wednesday morning we woke to yet another wintry wonderland, everything snow-covered, all the tree branches coated in ice. School and sitter: cancelled. Andrew worked from home, but the day was just long, long, long. I have no memory of how we spent it. I'm sure it involved coloring and dancing and the Sit N Spin, maybe the Squinkie fairies, perhaps the "slide" I make for them out of an old Ikea shelf. Yes: we did the slide. I remember now. There was a lot of jostling and arguing and pushing and it all ended very unhappily for all. That afternoon, pushed to the limit of feasible activities, I dumped the food-coloring-tinted ice cubes into a Pyrex baking dish, announced "Rainbow ice!", and left them to it. They squealed with excitement and managed to find ways to play with the...

Monday: snow day. Just a ton of snow. Snow and snow and snow. Snow covering our car and coating all the tree branches. Preschool was cancelled; I had to cancel the sitter since it was too dangerous to drive. At least Andrew worked from home so at least I didn't go totally insane. Still, our across-the-street neighbor does occasionally wonder if we're all dead inside, since on days like this our car just sits there in the driveway, snow-covered, and not a soul is seen outside our house. Our entire life on these winter days takes place within these walls. And then today--Tuesday is always my long day, and today was doubly long since it followed an identical yesterday. At least the roads were clear today, so I took the girls to Target, where the "fun carts" were not only buried in snow but also encrusted in ice. With my boot, I kicked and cleared one well enough to push inside; and then a very nice employee helped me clear and dry off the rest. So at least we had some ...

Dear Baby Grets, Little baby, you are an endless source of frustration and joy. When you are good, you are so very, very good: giggling, joking, dancing with wild abandon and surprisingly good rhythm. When you are...not so good, you are writhing and screaming on the floor instead of letting me put on your coat; you are taking off your socks and shoes as fast as I can put them on you; you are grabbing things from Lucia and running as fast as you can (which is pretty fast) around the house. You are full of opinions, more and more each day: you've even insisted on picking out your own clothes and pjs a few times. But you are so cute, and so silly, that we'll still keep you around. You love to pretend to put things in your mouth or into a cup of our coffee, watching for our reaction and then saying with high hilarity, "Noooo!" A tiny fairy Squinkie in Mama's coffee? Noooo! Does a plastic coin go in Greta's mouth? Nooo! And on and on. You find this hilarious...

Winter with little kids is hard. It is easier to be here, in a house, than it was to be cooped up in our apartment in Brooklyn. Here, at least, we have various areas to be cooped up in--we can be cooped up in the living room or play area; we can be cooped up in the kitchen; we can be cooped up in the basement playroom. Still, we are cooped up. It has been snowy and frigid, so there has been no opportunity whatsoever for going outside, and until this morning our car was snowed in. And so the past few days have been long, long, long. Tuesdays are always tough for me, since there's no preschool and no babysitter, and this Tuesday was made even harder by an early Greta wakeup, an early departure of Andrew for work, a long freezing day, and Andrew's post-work drinks, which meant he missed bedtime. (He actually skipped the drinks because of the snow, but then had a ridiculous two-hour commute; but I digress.) The day did not start promisingly: the girls' scream-laughing chase a...

Friday night, we had dinner plans with friends. We had reservations; we had a sitter all lined up; we had on nice clothes. We'd planned to leave once the girls were in bed. Andrew was giving them their bath when suddenly the power went out. Our entire neighborhood was pitch-black. There were some minutes of chaos as we grabbed the girls out of the water and put their (battery-operated) night-lights on. The power stayed off for an hour, putting our dinner plans in jeopardy; but five minutes before we needed to be at the restaurant, the lights came back on. We speed-walked into town and had a lovely dinner. On our way home, we ran into a neighbor walking her dog and accepted her invitation to come in for a drink. It was nice to be so free-wheeling until reality struck with Greta's 6:30am wakeup. Sigh. Sunday, our same dinner-friends came over in the morning, and the dads watched all five kiddos while the moms went to yoga. Then Andrew and our friend went out to chain-saw some l...

Dear Little Lulu, You're growing up so fast. It's suddenly apparent that you are not such a tiny little girl anymore--your hair is getting longer, your preferences for clothing more outrageous and personal. You love wearing tights, and spend most days in some sort of dress-up outfit, usually a leotard or leotard-with-attached-skirt. You are not bothered by the wintry cold in such outfits. I walk around the house in two sweaters, and there you are in a leotard. Right now you love playing hide and seek, and though our range is limited--you have yet to realize you can hide absolutely anywhere in the house and always just stick to whatever floor we're on--you manage to find inventive places, like covering yourself with pillows on the couch. It's hilarious when you and Greta both play. You both hide in the same place, and though you understand the point is to hide quietly, Greta squeals and scream-laughs, often popping out to see where I am then darting back into your...

Just backed up all my pictures (ha!) and thought I'd post a few more from our winter and holiday activities. Fun in the snow: Cookie baking: A folded-book Christmas gift: Playing "resting":

Two things happened to make our return journey memorable: it rained the entire way, both days, and Andrew erased all the content (pictures, contacts) on my iPhone. We got an early start on the 28th, drove in the rain, stopped for lunch at another great BBQ restaurant called Duke’s in Orangeburg, SC; drove in more rain. We stopped for the night in Christiansburg, Virginia, and made peanut butter sandwiches in the hotel room for the girls. Andrew and I ate takeout Olive Garden. (And I went to a Target just down the road before picking up our food to buy some 70%-off Christmas stuff.) The next day—breakfast at the hotel, and then more rain, and then a very unwise stop at a pub in Winchester, Virginia, where Greta was teetering dangerously on the edge of a total meltdown. I thought some videos would get us through lunch; couldn’t get the YouTube app because my iPhone hadn’t been updated in forever; Andrew decided he knew how to update my operating system; and then—everything was gone. My ...

We spent Christmas week in Jacksonville this year, a lovely reprieve from the winter back home. When we arrived, it was in the eighties; the girls got to play outside and run through the hose. They were ecstatic. They shared a room at Andrew’s parents’ house, which we weren’t sure was a great idea, but it worked out fine—once again showing us that we’re slowly approaching a time when we’ll once again be able to travel with some degree of sanity. The weather cooled but remained nice for most of the week, and we kept the girls outside as much as possible—going to playgrounds, looking for cats, playing with toys on the deck. The day after Christmas, Andrew, Lucia, Greta, and I even went out to Atlantic Beach. It was pretty cold that day, but the girls still took off their socks and shoes and ran in the surf. Greta made designs with shells in the sand. Lucia built an elaborate structure from sticks she found in the dunes. Andrew and I were freezing, but the girls were in no hurry to l...

Last Saturday, we set out for a new adventure: our first road trip with Lucia and Greta. Andrew and I took many a road trip in our pre-children days, tooling around Spain and California, taking the long way, going off the map, pulling into small, newly discovered towns and worrying about a hotel only at the last minute; or finding great luxury rooms in San Francisco through Priceline or Hotwire, not caring where we stayed. We took a few short road trips with Lucia when she was a few months old, to San Francisco and wine country; and of course we've driven to Connellsville and up to New Hampshire. But sixteen hours from New Jersey to Jacksonville was taking our family road trips to a new level. We planned the trip from necessity--four holiday-season plane tickets and mountains of presents made flying unrealistic--and really didn't know what to expect. Andrew took command of the itinerary and planned our route down I-95, and in a rented SUV (our small station wagon wouldn't...

Dear Baby Grets, Oh, but you love being two. You've embraced it. You revel in it. The power of no! The power of your own will! It's intoxicating. You have learned that you can assert yourself and your whims in this family with just as much force as anyone else, and there's no going back. Your worst fits are triggered by having to put on your clothes, socks, shoes, and coat. You also don't like to be told no, or to give up something you want to hold onto, or to stop doing something you want to do. You have learned exactly how to enrage Lucia--grabbing her stuff and running away with it and refusing to give it back. When you're particularly angry, you don't just yell "No"--you scream it at an ear-splitting pitch and volume. If there were ever any considerations of a third child (there have not been), your two-ness would have squashed it expediently. After you are done with all this, we will be free of age two forever! All this said, you are also co...