Right this minute.

Miss Spider is making carrot stew.

Ainsley is doing some home improvement.

Don't worry, she's barely tapping.

And Grayson ...

I've got no idea.

Wooly Weather.

Our nearest city was hosting a 'Cabin Fever' day and one of the activities was a weather show at the planetarium.

The planetarium? There's a planetarium? Awkward. My constellation loving child (see: Family Dog Named After Her Favorite Constellation) would probably have loved that back when she was obsessed with them.

So we went to the weather show, Hannah and I. On the way there, she listened to three or four books on tape that I'd randomly chosen at the library - Orcas, fables, and Wooly Mammoths. After the Mammoth book, she said "I want to go to a building where they have lots of dinosaur bones all set up so that we can look at them. Can we do that?" Sure, honey, I'll look into it. I already have some ideas (thank you Steph!).

Then we walked into the museum/planetarium and look what greeted us.

I was in a state of giddy shock, as was Hannah. Serendipitous, indeed.

Hannah wanted me to take a picture of her by it's leg. "It could crush 25 people! It could even crush my daddy!"

We have never been in this small museum before - didn't even know of its existence. It has quite a few fun things. Footprints,

skulls,

big teeth.
We're going back. There are two more rooms we didn't explore. One of those we won't be exploring with the girls until their current exhibit is gone. Check it.

Go ahead, click on it to blow it up. "High Plains Hamlet", they call it. "An Idaho Frontier Tragedy." Gruesome, I call it. Cowboy and Native skeletons riding horses. A dead Native - or white guy, I didn't get close enough to see which it was - with arrows all over him, including one sticking out of his groin. A massive poster with scalped men. I don't even want to know how many bakus we would need around her bed to combat what she would see in that room.

So, yeah, she didn't go in that room.

She made it.

I made it.

When I called first thing in the morning, she said "Don't hurry to get me."

When we met up with her at the library, the first thing she said was "Can I stay two more nights?"

When I said that wasn't going to work, she wanted to know when the next time she could spend the night was.

It went very well. She went from a very attached (some have said too attached) child to a child who is still very much attached but confident enough (seemingly overnight) to do a sleepover with not a single glitch.

She seems determined to grow up.

Damn it.

*Many thanks to my sister for the sleepover pictures.

"Do you want to spend the night?"

It's always been a safe question to ask when we're at Aunt Ria's and she doesn't want to go home but we really need to. Even if she answers yes, she changes her mind when she realizes that that means she won't be with Mother when it gets dark.

So I felt pretty comfortable asking her "Do you want to spend the night?" when she didn't want to leave but we really needed to because there was ice cream in the trunk of the car. Then she said yes and meant it. Then my younger daughter was very sad because she couldn't spend the night also. She's probably more ready than the elder, but I was not about to leave Aunt Ria with two nieces while she has a young baby, and I told Ainsley that.

"That OK. I sleep with Emma." Problem solved, apparently. But it wasn't, and we had to leave.

I know you've never seen my Ains cry, so let me explain the process for you. She hates to cry and never uses it as a tool to sway you. When something is bad enough for her to cry - usually severely hurt feelings - her face becomes completely still. Then her eyes well up. Then her bottom lip comes out just a bit and starts to quiver violently as she fights with everything inside of her to hold it in. If she can't hold it in, her whole face will dissolve into the saddest cry you've heard and you will feel like you'll do anything to fix the situation. This is what happened as she was getting buckled into the car. She badly wanted to be with her Aunt Ria and Aunt Ria's princess dress-up clothes. "I old enough!" "I not ohvohwhem (overwhelm) Aunt Ria!" "If she get sick, I make her Mergen-C (Emergen-C) and she get bettuh. She *needs* me." Folks, the only thing that helped me drive away with her without giving in was the thought of my sister shooting me.** She really didn't need two extra kids today.

We were seven minutes down the road when the crying started getting softer and then petered out. All of a sudden a bright voice pipes up and says "Hannah not be at home? I pay wif Hannah's toys and she not be mad! I pay wif Nettie and ..." and she started listing off Hannah's toys that she would get to play with when she got home. Happy again. I put the kabosh on her playing with Hannah's special toys, but the dolls and the games and the books that are usually fodder for sibling sadness? Go for it.

We're not expecting Hannah to make it through the night - to be honest I'm surprised she even made it *to* the night - so she has our numbers on her aunt's phone and promises to call if she needs us to come get her.

Crossing my fingers it all goes well, for everybody's sake.

**About my sister - she wouldn't shoot me. She doesn't own a gun.

That girl.

Ainsley: "Hannah, you want to pay with me? I paying princesses."

Hannah: "Ainsley, I'm getting older. As you get older, you don't want to play as much. You start getting interested in other stuff. Like reading, and writing, and doing your ABC's better. You'll start to want to help Mother with the animals more, and be aware of the billy goat more, and want to be nicer. ... ... Can I be Aurora?"

Happy New Year from my little knights and me.

May you always have enough protection.

Even if it is just a cardboard box.

Oh, yeah. Our Christmas.

Got busy and forgot to post Christmas. Then I went through my pictures organizing them, and had to put some up. Here it is.

First, Hannah's present to Ainsley.

My parents did something fantastic at Christmas. All ten of us kids gave a gift to all ten of our siblings. It made for a marathon present opening session on Christmas morning, but it did something wonderful for us. We all got excited about what we were getting, but were more excited about what we were *giving* and the response of the recipient. There was a lot of whispering, secret meetings, and giggling leading up to Christmas. My mom even involved the youngest by having them pick cookie shapes, decorate, box, and wrap them for each sibling. When you got a box with five cookies in it that were more icing and nonpareils than cookies, you were expected to be very excited about it. Ten kids on a sugar high for four days must have been a sight.

This year was the first that I saw Hannah (or Ainsley) really get into the giving. It didn't start out smoothly. Hannah found a mermaid and a truck for her siblings which she hid under her coat in the cart. She then spent the rest of the trip suggesting things that Ains could get for her.

Gray decorated cookies for both. Ains worked hard painting the nutcracker ($1 at a craft store) for Hannah, who has a thing for nutcrackers, and she made chocolate candies for our little candy vaccuum. Hannah assembled and painted a fire truck for Gray ($1 at the craft store) and she took four days to assemble this for Ains.

Folks, it was a masterpiece. That was a $3 investment ($1 for each of the castles that she assembled and painted, and $1 for the mermaid that she painted) and lots of creativity as she circled my craft room countless times looking for more ideas. It includes a board from our outside stash that had to be sanded and painted - which she happily did by herself, shells, glitter, a styrofoam ball with fabric 'patchworked' into it with the edge of a spoon, foam waves, a foam treasure chest, mouse and dinosaur buttons (with an elaborate story about underwater dinosaurs), pieces of fake flower stems that are seaweed... It's a regular underwater playground for that lucky mermaid and Ains has loved it.

Best of all, Hannah got to feel the joy of spending a lot of time and effort making something that was thoroughly enjoyed by the one she made it for.

Back to Christmas morning. This was the least blurry shot I got before they ran downstairs, youngest first.

They were thrilled with the dollhouse and spent varied amounts of time at it. Hannah was approximately 15 seconds before she looked over and saw Rosetta - ROSETTA!!! - peeking out of her stocking. Farewell, dollhouse.

Ains, however had to be dragged away from the dollhouse to empty her stocking.

Stocking stuffers are some of the most fun presents to find since they are so tailored to each person. Among Hannah's treasures were a magic trick, a science experiment, and a fan (she's been wanting a fan for weeks). Ains' most desired item was a box of 'fancy' earrings, the first earrings she's been able to wear apart from the ones she got when her ears were pierced. She was *so* excited, ooh'd and aah'd, put them in, admired them, took them out, put them in the box, handed them to Hannah and said "You can have dese. I no want holes in mine ears no more." I couldn't have been more shocked. Gray got wooden cars and noise makers. Oh, the big noise maker was a hit.

When Ains felt she'd done her duty by her stocking, she went back to the dollhouse and has rarely left it since.

*Mother sighs blissfully*

Gray's favorite present was this Spiderman 4-wheeler from his dad. Awesome.

My present for both girls was a little tin tea set that they'll be able to be a bit more careless with (as is not possible with the tea set patched together from thrift stores).

It was a quiet hit, not a lot of excitement, but steady play. The cups are the perfect size for Gray. It cracks me up how proper he is when he holds the cup. Matt says I should teach him stick his pinkie out.

The afternoon was spent discovering and rediscovering all that we got. This was a gamble - Mystery Garden. I'm always looking for good games. Some are instant hits, some are instant duds. This one is so much fun - even Ains can play (in her 3-year-old way). If you're looking for an educational game, this would qualify. There's a board with a picture of a garden on it that includes dozens of little details. There are dozens of little tiles with one detail (a unicorn, a hedgehog, a beehive, etc) on each. You draw a tile and everyone else tries to guess what it is by asking yes/no questions.

Ains worked with her 'sticker storybook'.

And the train track got moved downstairs where it became a 'viewing train around a dinosaur zoo'.

Sorry it's up so late!

Right this minute.

That was 'right this minute' this morning. Then things got busy - knights, dancing, books, and dress-up - and now, right this minute, Gray's listening to music in a tape recorder beside me, occassionally getting up to dance, and smiling the whole time, and Hannah (the animal doctor) has set up shop upstairs while Ains brings her animals one at a time from downstairs, carrying the poor broken things on a little pillow to the doctor. There is loud cheering when they are fixed, and they're brought to me so that I'll be amazed and Ains gets a candy to pay Hannah.

They say...

After fifteen Bear Hunts, Hannah decided that we were going on a fairy hunt, we were gonna catch a miniature one, what a beautiful day, we weren't scared! When we found the toadstool ring, I pretended like she'd turned me into a newt and fell on the bed. Ainsley landed beside me with an exclamation of "She turn me into polar beer!" Then Hannah landed with a "She turned me into a coati!"

Strange little child.

------------------------------------------------

Me: (holding up a small pair of underwear) Hannah, these were in my pile, but I don't think they're mine.

H: "Why not?"

Me: Well, they're size 6. I don't wear a size 6.

H: (giggling) "No. You wear a size Weeble Wobble."

Was that strictly necessary?

-----------------------------------------------

Hannah: "Ainsley, are you confused? We're not going to a costume party, we're going to a ball. And balls are not for fun, like costume parties. They're where you find your love for the rest of your life. You need to wear a fancier hat."

-------------------------------------------------

To follow that last one ...

Hannah walked by me singing a song that sounded like the "Dreams are a wish your heart makes" song from Cinderella. I was just about to give up any hope of raising feminist daughters when I heard what she was singing to the tune.

"Dreams are what your heart wants, when you want something bad. If you want it, you have to dream of it, but don't forget to work and work and work hard for it. Then you'll get it. If you woooooooorrrrrrk! And dream. But mostly work."

And I was happy.

Starting the day with cuisenaire.

As soon as she woke up this morning, Hannah turned to me and said "Am I six today?"

No, sweetie, you're still five. But you're more than five-and-a-half now, you're only two months away from being six!

*blank look* "I want to be six NOW! It's taking so loooooong."

So I got out the cuisenaire rods and showed her how big twelve was and we counted out the months she's already lived since turning five.

She was excited that there were only two left to go (two looks like a very short time compared to ten). I even went for the '3/4' which got me an eye roll.

Then she started thinking of presents she wanted for her birthday and the 'It's so long until my birthday' refrain started back up.

I told her that it did, indeed, seem like a long time for her, but for me every day that she got older was a day closer to her growing up, so it seemed like time was moving very fast to me.

She got a concerned look on her face, crawled into my lap, took my face between her hands, and, looking in my eyes, said in a very calming voice, "It's not the years that I want, Mother. It's the presents."

That's all right then.

Aw, yeah.

It took all of these books to get them to sleep tonight.

Cookies and milk left out near a chair. "Cause he's so tired from lugging that big sack all night, you know."

The children are snug in their beds. (While visions of chihuahuas, little plastic princesses, and trucks dance in their heads.)

Two out of three ain't bad. No chihuahua this year.

The magic is arranged.

This is what it's all about.

Sliding into Christmas.

Solstice has passed. We did more for Solstice this year, and both girls really got into it. An awesome Solstice gift didn't hurt. During the day, we had cousins over and we ('we' being my sister and I, for the most part) made treats for the birds.



The kids did make their pinecone feeders before running off to twirl.

Quick question for you - how many kids are in this picture?

After cousins left and Daddy came home, the girls got to open their Solstice present.

It was well received.



The last few days have been spent making ornaments,



experimenting with hair,



playing games,

writing letters to friends,

asking to go outside,

going outside,

and eating lots of brownies.

That was the last few days.

Last night saw Hannah adding last minute items to her Santa List.

A chihuahua and tulip seeds.

She's highly optimistic about the chihuahua. She shouldn't be.

This morning has already seen frantic last minute gift finishing for siblings, secret wrapping, screams of 'Don't let her come in here!!!', and Smurfs.


Happy Holidays to you and yours, readers. I've enjoyed sharing the past year with you and hope that next year is filled with all that you need.