Skipping Town

Walking home from preschool a couple of weeks ago, on a sunny but windy day, Greta and I unfortunately came upon a newborn squirrel writhing on the sidewalk, clearly just fallen from the nest on a tree branch high above us. It was pink and wrinkled, eyes not even open, and it was grotesque and heartbreaking. Greta is an extremely sensitive, nurturing, animal-loving child. I cursed my decision to enjoy the sunshine. This is why I should just stay permanently in our SUV. But, standing over the baby squirrel, I was forced into one of those parenting moments where one is forced to weigh the truth (this baby squirrel will die) with the reaction one's child will have to that truth (wrenching sadness). I could have gone back for the squirrel and put it into a shoebox with a blanket, but to what end? So the girls could become attached to it and have their hearts broken when it died (which it would)? Reader, I lied. I told Greta the mother would come for the baby and it would be fine. ...

Early last week, Andrew realized that a voucher he'd received for a free night's stay in a Hilton property was expiring on Sunday, so we made a last-minute plan to spend Saturday night in the city just for fun. We were all excited. Lucia and Greta couldn't wait for our "city day," and we started off with a deli lunch on the Upper East Side and then a visit to the Met--the girls' first time. It was so much fun. We started off with the Temple of Dendur and the mummies. L&G loved wandering into the tombs and seeing all the hieroglyphics. Lucia was enthralled at the idea the real dead bodies were inside the wrappings. (I have no idea if this is true. My knowledge of Ancient Egypt needs some brushing up.) Next we went to the European paintings, my favorite part. L&G were drawn, morbidly, to the religious paintings showing the crucifixion. "I want to see another one where Jesus dies," Greta kept saying in a loud voice. They also liked a giant pai...

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...

Last weekend, we went to NH for my birthday--our last trip of the season, which meant we had to say goodbye until next May. Usually we get to go once more in November, but this year we can't. We were all very sad to leave. It was a quick trip--Friday night through Sunday late afternoon--but worth it, as it always is. I love being up there in the fall--this October trip always feels so moody and final. It's not a place that's all that welcoming for outsiders once the weather drops, and there's the feeling of being ushered out, we who don't really belong there, we who won't be around when the snow piles up around the barn. It's time to leave the house, and the woods, to the ghosts--whose presence we both feel strongly, especially once summer draws to a close. It was not only cold this weekend but rainy, but we managed to squeeze in the things we love. Saturday, we went to our favorite farm to pick pumpkins and run through the corn maze. We celebrated my bi...

Halloween 2016 was a great success. The chosen costume for both girls this year: spies. They wore black pants, black shirts, black vests, black boots, and black hats, and each had a black bag full of "spy tools": flashlight, red-dot laser, rope, calculator, old cell phone, notebook, pen. (Neither girl would wear the hat for her school Halloween parade, which made them look more like New Yorkers than spies.) For trick-or-treating, they added night-vision spy goggles I'd gotten them--blue-lens glasses with little lights at either side. The day was packed very very full. First, Greta's parade at preschool. Next, Lucia's parade at school. Then trick-or-treating at the shops in the village. A quick dinner at home, then trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. The girls had so much fun. What a change from two years ago, when we barely managed to do all the houses on our street--this year, they would have gone on and on. (Last year, of course, we didn't trick-or-...

Baby Grets, Happy happy birthday!! Five is HUGE. A game changer. You've already changed so much in the past couple of months, and so much more will come this year. Though no one can match the birthday excitement of your sister, you were pretty excited about your big day. I had balloons for you in the morning, and you opened two presents--a Pusheen plush eating a donut, and an Applejack Equestria Girl. You requested chocolate croissants for breakfast (Pillsbury croissants baked with chocolate hazlenut spread). Then you went off to school, where the kids sang Happy Birthday and shared the treat you brought in--vampire donuts. After school, you had a playdate here with a friend whose parents needed some last-minute help. (A hilarious comment I overheard you make as you showed her around your room: "Would you like to see some of my magical things from Disney World?") When Lucia got home, you finally got to open the rest of your presents. You were thrilled with them all,...

One of my least favorite things is when Andrew is away for the weekend. Being alone with the kids during the week has gotten easier--we're so busy with school and activities--but the weekends just feel so isolating. Sigh. Fortunately, Lucia and Greta had lots and lots of things to do today, and we were busy all day long as they played with gifts from yesterday's birthday celebration. Both of them are wild about the Legos we bought at the Lego Store, and we spent most of today working on their sets. Lucia is so good at it--has been for a while but it's always fun to watch her build. The set she chose is the biggest and most challenging she's had yet, and she didn't come anywhere close to finishing it. It's a multi-day set for sure. She loved building it and she also loved just playing with the little characters that came with it. Greta is starting to come into her own with Lego building too--today she worked on the Friends hot dog stand, and she was doing it on...

Dear Lucia, Happy happy 7th birthday, little love. You were so excited about your birthday this year. Every year you're excited--but more so this year than any other so far. You couldn't wait to turn seven (and have stated definitively that you now, in fact, feel seven). You counted down the days till your birthday for weeks; and you were just beside yourself with excitement as the big day approached. So much excitement is adorable, and touching--but it also puts a lot of pressure on me, as your mother, to make sure you have a day that lives up to your expectations. When I remarked to your daddy this week that I was feeling overwhelmed with birthday preparations in the midst of an already crazy week, he suggested I cut some things out--like not bother getting you helium balloons to greet you in the morning, which you had specifically requested. Would you have withered in despair without balloons? No. But I went to the Dollar Tree at 9pm last night to get them anyway. And ...

Ah, fall in New Hampshire. We love coming up here so much in the summer, and usually only make it once or twice in the fall, but somehow our fall visits are among my favorites. We still get outside, but not as much in the cold and damp, so we spend much of the days just here inside, the four of us, enjoying the quiet and stillness. Well, Andrew and I enjoy the quiet and stillness. The girls keep themselves as busy as anywhere else. A rundown of our days so far: Friday, Sept. 30 We drove to NH after Lucia got home from school--a long, endless drive with lots of traffic. Saturday, Oct. 1 L&G started off our weekend with their go-to NH activity: playing doctor with antique kitchen gadgets. Then on to hide and seek. We also played Candyland and Memory. Wary of a rainy weekend, we seized the afternoon to go apple picking at our favorite spot, Riverview Farm. We picked apples, went on a hayride through the orchard and blueberry fields, ate maple ice cream, took pictures by pu...

There were no tears from Greta on the first day of pre-K! As I said in my last post, I really thought it could go either way--no tears or big tears. But she was excited to go, and joined the children in the pre-K line with nary a backward glance. And it's been like that all week. She's talking about new friends, the pre-K kindness cheer, and center time. At the end of the day, she plays on the hill outside the school with her friends. There's something about the pre-K teachers that's truly magic. Even after just one week, I see a change in the little miss. This makes me happy....and sad. She's my baby! One of the things I've had to talk to L&G about a lot lately is tone. From school and YouTube videos, they'd picked up "Duh!" with its attendant insolence and eye-rolling. I explained that saying "duh" isn't polite, that it is, in fact, rude, and they took it to heart. If they slip, they theatrically clap their hands over the...

We made it through the first week of the school year. Lucia has settled into first grade with nary a blip. She seems very happy. She was also very happy for the weekend, when she and Greta could just stay home and play. All weekend they played with Shopkins, ponies, and Magna Tiles. Lucia also requested we do a craft: she wanted to make homes for her toys. So we made a few box-homes with wallpaper and carpet scraps. We did have some disruption on Saturday because we're doing a facelift of our bedroom, and the workers were in our house all day replacing the windows in our bedroom and my office. Tomorrow, they'll paint. We're trying to find wallpaper for one wall of the bedroom but have so far failed to find anything we like. This is proving to be difficult. But the new windows look amazing. Today I went to yoga and then we just stayed home and relaxed. Andrew made fried chicken for dinner--our summer favorite, made in a cast-iron skillet on the grill. We're gearing u...

Lucia was so excited about starting first grade. Without all the unknowns of last year, she was a little freer to just enjoy the excitement of beginning a new school year. We all walked to the bus stop, and then, once she was on the bus, we drove to school to meet her. We got to see her classroom and meet her new teacher. She has a few friends in the class, which is great. She was a teeny bit sad when we left, saying she'd miss us, but she got off the bus at the end of the day happy. She told us she knows she's in real school now because there's no rest time and no play time. Just work. I had to go to Target yet again after bedtime for still more school supplies. I don't even know how many times I've been to Target over the past week. I threatened to just buy a tent and set it up in the parking lot. Sigh.