Our Frozen Oasis

Posted on March 14, 2015 by missemtoo

Here’s the thing about having a skating rink in your backyard: it’s not for the faint of heart.

It seems so sweet and idyllic, right? Your own private skating oasis; gleaming ice ready any time you want to use it; no one rushing you or bumping into you, no waiting for the Zamboni to finish, no new-fangled music that’s all the rage with kids these days; a cozy house to warm up inside; hot chocolate simmering on the stove.

In reality, you do have your own oasis – that much is true – but you have got to work for it, from the moment you lay down the framing and the tarp to the day you call it quits for the season. It’s a commitment, this rink thing – one that, in many ways, must be undertaken by the entire family. (I remember a neighbor, years ago, telling me that they too used to have a backyard rink but they’d finally scrapped it after she got tired of her husband calling when he was out of town and asking her to shovel it. I laughed at the time.

Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.)

We’ve had our rink for four or five years now, and each year we learn something new: how and when to flood it (a layer at a time or all at once? Before the first big freeze or not until you’ve got several sub-freezing days in a row?), how deep to fill it, where in the yard to put it, how often – and with what – to clear it off, how to smooth out the inevitable bumps, how to avoid chips and cracks, what kind of tarp to use, how to secure the tarp, how large the frame should be, and so on.

This year, we wound up having to flood the rink in a hurry to take advantage of some particularly frigid temperatures…

… which would explain why Ella and Nick are doing this at night in a snowstorm…

But, in the end, the hard work paid off because two days later: strong, skate-ready ice.

We were so excited to use it, we couldn’t wait until the following morning.

Who needs sun when you have floodlights??

What followed have been – absolutely – many many idyllic afternoons, evenings, mornings, and weekends spent on that rink.

We’ve skated…

We’ve tried our hands (and skates) at hockey…

We’ve invited friends over to share in the fun…

We’ve gone through gallons (literally) of hot cocoa, seemingly never-ending bowls of popcorn, numerous skate guards, at least one broken hockey stick, and dozens of pucks – long buried in the snow. In a lot of ways, it really has been sweet and idyllic.

This is pretty much my dream winter set-up: perfect rink, fire in the fire pit, path for friends and neighbors to join us.

Much to my dismay, however, a smooth, skateable, nicely maintained ice rink does not just happen by magic (no matter how many Harry Potter spells I try). First, there is shoveling.

When the snow is minimal, we use our indentured servants to help.

Next, there is more shoveling.

What’s more fun that shoving ten inches of snow off the driveway? Shoveling ten inches of snow off the driveway and the ice rink!

As we’ve learned the hard way, you can’t just let the snow sit on the rink, no matter how much you’d rather relax on the couch. It creates this insulated cover and blah blah insert something science-y here and before you know it, the ice is all melty and bumpy and weird and then you have to not only shovel but also scrape the lumps off and fill in the holes.

Exhibit A: the rink after our one and only day of sleet this year.
This was after I’d already shoveled. It was basically very cold sandpaper.

Exhibit B: the wonders of a scraper tool
That one corner took 45 minutes. THIS IS A LABOR OF LOVE, PEOPLE. A very labor-ful labor of love.

Long story short, it really works best to shovel that puppy clean as soon as you can – which, in our case, means removing snow from an 816 square foot surface. On purpose. Voluntarily. We choose to shovel 816 square feet of snow in addition to our driveway and front walk basically every time it snows – whether it’s an inch or a foot, whether Nick is home or out of town, whether it’s below zero or above freezing – because we have a doggone ice rink in the back yard and we’ll be damned if we let it go to hell in a hand basket!

See what I mean about the whole commitment thing?
A (functional) backyard ice rink is a really bad idea if you’d rather hibernate in the winter.

Beyond needing to keep the rink clear of snow, you need to remove everything else from its surface, too, be it paw prints (the dogs do not respect the sanctity of the rink) or twigs or errant pucks. (One time, the dogs knocked a goal and some pucks onto the rink overnight and when I found them in the morning, they’d already created little ice molds for themselves.)

I’m melllting! What a world!

In addition to shoveling and clearing, there is also the flooding of the rink – sometimes with the hose, sometimes with buckets of hot water; sometimes a thin layer over the entire surface, sometimes just a bit here and there. If you do it when it’s snowing, the snow can freeze into the ice layer and cause bumps. If you wait until it’s warmer, the ice won’t set properly. It’s a science, but a very inexact one; maybe this is what it’s like to be a meteorologist.

Oh! And there is also… shoveling.

There’s a rink out there somewhere…

First step: clear the edges and divide into fourths.
Next: make sure someone has a bottle of Aleve waiting inside.
Or a glass of wine.
At least you won’t need to go to the gym today!

Finally! If you’re not too sore, you can skate!

You might think, with all of the work – with the backaches and the frostbitten fingers, the late nights spent waiting for just the right time to lay down another coat of water – that it’s somehow not worth it.

But, oh. You’d be wrong.

It’s quiet in the backyard. You can barely see the cars in the cul-de-sac; for all you know, you’re the only people around. Your skates sound so crisp as they scrape along the ice, carving pathways and messages. No matter what else is going on – the vomiting dog, the broken car, the fighting children, the burned dinner, the crazy project, the looming deadline – everything seems to fade away the moment you step foot (skate?) on the ice.

With a backyard ice rink, everything you need is right there. In an instant, you can go from stressed to calm, worried to serene, simply by venturing out over those boards. (Or you can get out your aggression by slapping some pucks around. Either way, it’s a win.)

You see beauty, too, in places you hadn’t before – the ice takes on different hues depending on the time of day, how sunny it is, how much snow is surrounding the rink. It’s like looking out onto an ever-changing portrait… except nothing has changed at all but your perspective.

See what I mean? 8 a.m….

… and 3 p.m.
(I could have Photoshopped out the dog pee but I decided to keep it real. #NOFILTER, baby.)

As I mentioned earlier, this winter started off relatively mildly; we didn’t have much snow (for Rochester) through January. As February wore on, we saw not only the coldest month in Rochester’s history but also an additional 50″ of snow. Although we normally see that much snow (twice it, actually) over the course of each winter, it typically falls in a steadier fashion rather than a lot at once. This was, therefore, the first year where we had significant snow build-up around the outside of the rink.

Personally, I think it added to the isolated, idyllic feel.

Early January was pretty slow.

By mid-January, the ground cover was solid.

By early February, the rounded edges had begun to form.

Then came… OMG SO MUCH SNOW.
(See: piles along our walkway as tall as the girls.)

By the end of the month, the rink was completely encircled.

All of our previous rinks have been just fine, but there’s always been at least one problem with each of them. Some never properly froze over. Others were inadequately flooded, resulting in chipping ice and exposed tarp (we prefer more modest tarps over here). Still other years we didn’t get ourselves out to the ice quickly enough to clear away the snow; when you don’t commit, it isn’t pretty.

This year, the stars aligned. The cold February made for fantastic ice conditions. We finally understood how and when to fill the rink. We purchased portable floodlights so we could skate after dark. We learned from our past mistakes and were bound and determined to make sure that we took good care of the surface, to keep it clear and shoveled and smooth so that, any time – day or night – we can pop on our skates and go for a spin.

Quite frankly, we’ve all been loving it so much, it’s almost been easy. (In the emotional sense. Physically? NOT SO MUCH.) We’ve skated ourselves silly on that rink.

The frigid temperatures and unrelenting snow persisted well into March like a stubborn child’s tantrum – until, just like that, they’d exhausted themselves and were done. This week has brought forty degree temperature increases and days of glorious sunshine. Because the past month has been so brutal, the return of spring feels nothing short of miraculous.

But I am sad to say goodbye to our rink.

Yesterday morning, we awoke to temperatures in the 20s for the first time in five days – meaning that the ice, which had been evaporating and bump-filled all week, had somehow glazed over, leaving the surface just smooth enough to skate on. With the forecast calling for continued above-freezing days, I knew this was probably our last chance to go for a spin… and so, before school, the girls and I did just that.

An hour later, I texted Nick to tell him that he’d left his lunch in the fridge – and that if he wanted to come back and get it, the ice was still good enough for him to take one last skate. It was an offer too good to pass up; for thirty minutes, he and I went around on the rink, savoring every moment.

He came straight from work; note his dress shirt and bow tie. That’s how we (he) roll(s).

Soon enough, the remaining ice will turn to water. We’ll dismantle the boards and let it drain, carefully storing the pieces for the summer. I don’t know what next year’s winter holds; it’s certainly unlikely to be as record-settingly cold as this. No matter what happens, though, we’ll be ready to make backyard memories again – come hell or high ~~water~~ ice.

The Big Four-Oh

Posted on March 11, 2015 by missemtoo

If you’re a 39 year-old heterosexual American male considering how to ring in your 40th birthday, doing so aboard a Disney Cruise probably isn’t at the top of your list. But that’s exactly where Nick found himself after we booked our cruise and then realized that his big day fell smack dab in the middle of the trip.

Given that our choices were to embrace it or ignore it, we chose to go with the former – and by “embrace it” I mean that Nick worked on not being bummed that he would turn forty while ~~trapped with~~ surrounded by gazillions of screaming, hyped-up children and adults either taking advantage of the poolside bar by 10 a.m. or dressed in life-size princess and pirate costumes. Meanwhile, the girls and I worked on coming up with as many ways as possible to draw attention to Nick and let everyone within a five mile radius know that it was his birthday.

We’re sweet like that.

Nick had refused to open any birthday-related paraphernalia prior to his actual birth date, citing bad luck (umm, okay?), so we knew we’d either have to wait until we returned to give him his “real” birthday presents or we’d have to bring them with us. Given that we were already lugging several suitcases, that we planned to purchase more than a few souvenirs and gifts for family and friends, and that our stateroom – while lovely – wasn’t exactly palatial, we decided to give him the bulk of his presents back home… but that just meant we could go overboard* with the “fun” (read: embarrassing) stuff on the cruise.

* see what I did there?

The preparations began weeks before our sail date. I thought it might be neat to surprise Nick with some snacks, beverages, etc., in our stateroom, but I didn’t want to haul all of that stuff with me. I’d read about an awesome company that crafts custom-made gift baskets for folks in the Port Canaveral area; it seemed perfect, but unfortunately, Disney no longer allows off-site companies to deliver directly to their ships. Long story short (you’re welcome), after several weeks of phone calls and emails between that company, our taxi company, and myself — all without Nick’s knowledge — the gift basket lady met us at the entrance to the cruise terminal parking lot, our driver slyly pulled over and took the “delivery” into the front seat, and the porters quietly loaded the basket in with all of our other luggage, to be hidden away until the next morning. THAT’S what I’m talking about!

Nick’s sister, Emi, and her husband, Matt, had also sent a surprise wine and cheese platter to our room – but because of the whole “bad luck” thing, I knew I’d need to keep the goods out of sight until the following day. It was easy enough for me to enter our stateroom before anyone else (Nick was busy waiting in the interminable line to get a ticket so that Annie could meet Anna and Elsa), and it was easy enough to stash the wine and wine glasses in a cupboard… But the cheese plate a) would not fit in our tiny fridge and b) was super fresh and would have been, um, ~~poisonous~~ inedible if I’d tucked it away in a drawer or something… So, after conferring with Annie and Ella, we all dug right into lovely cheese plate that had been given to us by Disney as a way of thanking us for being repeat cruisers. (This was slightly less far-fetched than it sounds because there actually was a thank-you-for-going-on-your-second-cruise tote bag from Disney awaiting us on the bed.) Nick was skeptical (“They do this for everyone? Fresh cheese? Isn’t that kind of expensive?”), but with no one to say any differently, he had no choice but to buy into it.

Not a bad way to start the trip!

When Nick awoke the next morning (aka HIS BIRTHDAY), we presented him with our contraband gift basket, Emi and Matt’s bottle of wine, and the real story behind why “Disney” had given us a lovely cheese platter. The basket was a huge hit – Nick and the girls had Milano cookies right there at 7:30 a.m. – but we were just getting started.
Also inside: the beach toys Ella used during our “adventure” on Castaway Cay.

First, I presented Nick with… the shirts (found here; Etsy is a mystical place, you guys). There were four matching ones for Annie, Ella, GranMary, and me, but Nick had his own… special… version.

In case you can’t see them, our shirts say “This Girl Loves The Disney Dream” and Nick’s says “This Guy Turns 40 Today!”. VERY CLASSY.
Also, I’m just noticing now that Annie’s blue ears look like… my boobs. Very, VERY classy.

After putting them on, we headed up to breakfast — but not before stopping to admire our stateroom door, which looked slightly different than it had when I’d snuck out the night before to decorate it. (The doors are metal, meaning you can stick magnets on them. Many cruisers go all out with door decorations; it’s like an informal competition or a strange, impromptu art show.) The custom magnet (found here) was awesome, but even more fun was the white board – because as the day went on, fellow passengers left Nick birthday messages.

This is the “after” shot, taken upon returning to our room at bedtime…

As we arrived at breakfast, I pulled out our next birthday treat… our Mickey ears. Nick had known that I’d purchased ears while we were in Epcot — it had been his suggestion, actually, to get some embroidered so that GranMary could have her own, personalized pair — but he didn’t know that I’d snuck in a different order for his ears.

GranMary… Emily… Annie… Ella… 40 and Awesome!

Our big plans for the day began shortly after breakfast: while researching things to do in Nassau, we had decided upon a “dolphin excursion,” something that’s been on Nick’s bucket list for as long as he could remember. We were excited, but didn’t really know what to expect; the thirty minute boat ride over to Blue Lagoon was beautiful, but the girls were growing restless and Nick and I shot one another This Had Better Be Worth It looks.

Upon our arrival, we sat through a brief – and interesting – information session about dolphins, dolphin conservation, etc. Following the session, we were split into groups and sent out onto the docks to meet with our instructor/trainer and the dolphins. Our small group consisted of us and another family; they went first, allowing us to see just what we were getting into.

There was no doubt about it: this was going to be incredible.

When it was our turn, we could hardly wait to scramble down the ladder and onto the submerged platform where we’d hang out with the dolphins. The first group had warned us that the water was cold; still, we were unprepared for just how chilly it would be. There was no time to ease in, however, because “our” dolphin – Missy – was being instructed to pose for a photo with us… so we gathered our courage, bent our knees, held our breaths, and smiled.

Notice how the girls’ shoulders are up to their ears because there was no way they were ready to get that wet yet…

Missy – short for Miss Merlin – was fifteen years old, a nursing mama, blind in one eye, and just the absolute coolest, most fascinating animal I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. The trainer working with her was sarcastic and bold and more than willing to embarrass us in order to get a laugh; we liked her immediately.

I don’t quite know how to describe the excursion. I could tell you what it entailed: we – each of us, one at a time – got to hug Missy, dance with her (holding onto her front flippers and bobbing around together), run our hands along her back and head and belly (dolphins are unbelievably soft – there is little to compare her to that would make any sense because it’s a wholly unique feeling), kiss her (which may sound weird but which was SO VERY COOL), feed her (Nick was cajoled into feeding her by dangling a dead fish from his teeth – for real, yo), and sing with her (“Happy Birthday,” of course). We watched as she leapt into the air, doused us with water (at the trainer’s mischievous instruction), disappeared for a moment or two to check on her baby (who was hanging out in a separate, protected area so Missy could visit), scooted backward along the top of the water using only her flukes, blew bubbles under the surface, and made myriad crazy and amusing (to us humans) noises.

What I can’t put into words is the sheer joy, awe, and delight that coursed through all of us during the 15 minutes we spent with Missy. It was something that transcended happy and blissful and slid into a kind of euphoria – but contained, special, magic. We felt it; it was almost an out of body experience, except we were so incredibly present.

Near the end of our visit, the trainer told us to wait a moment – and, at her hidden command, the dolphin swam out of sight. The trainer explained to Nick that Missy would be bringing him something to commemorate his big day, and when she returned he had to take it – but if it was alive (!!), he’d need to put it back. A moment later, Missy resurfaced and swam to Nick holding something in her teeth. Stunned, Nick giddily took it from her; it was a rock (which, thank God, is not alive), collected from the bottom of the lagoon.

To put it another way, a dolphin specifically selected a gift for Nick and then gave it to him. NICK GOT A 40th BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM A DOLPHIN.

When we returned home, he ordered a plastic box from Amazon in which to store/display his gift. I am not even kidding.

There was lots of other stuff to do at Blue Lagoon – sea lion greeting, dolphin watching, a gorgeous Bahamian beach with inflatables on the water – but, agreeing that our experience with Missy couldn’t possibly be topped, we chose to simply head back to the ship.

It felt as though we didn’t touch the ground for hours. We ate lunch and got ice cream; the girls swam and rode the water slide; Ella got her hair braided all fancy-like; Nick and I relaxed and enjoyed the Drink of the Day. He was on such a high, he even proudly posed with the girls’ and my last gift of the day: a towel that my aunt had embroidered for him, loudly declaring his age. (The rest of his presents awaited him at home.)
This is maybe the softest towel in existence. I’ve totally stolen it for myself even though I AM NOWHERE NEAR 40, ahem.

I’d been informed that, at dinner, our waitstaff would present Nick with some kind of birthday treat; since he doesn’t really like dessert (or any sweets, for that matter; I KNOW), I decided not to order him a cake (see also: fridge too small to store leftover cake). It turned out perfectly.

Disney is nothing if not enthusiastic, especially when it comes to celebrations, and birthdays are certainly something to be celebrated. As such, when I stopped by the front desk the night before, the concierge eagerly forked over “I’m Celebrating” buttons for GranMary, the girls, and me as well as an “It’s My Birthday!” button for Nick. Those drew us some attention, but it was really the shirt that turned people’s heads. Nick insisted on wearing it all day (until dinner), explaining that it was the only day he could get away with it. I’d chuckled when I found it online, giggled when it arrived in the mail, laughed out loud when he actually put it on… but seeing other guests and cast members take notice of it, do a double take, and then stop to say, “Happy Birthday, man!” all day long was pretty much the ~~most amusing~~ best thing ever.

Speaking of cool things…

After dinner, GranMary presented Nick with his final gift: a clever and funny reworking of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” (complete with mouse ears and dancing grandchildren); it was a delightful capper on a pretty damned terrific day. When we got back to the room, we discovered that our attendant had folded our bath towels in the shape of a birthday cake.

Do you think they keep the ribbon on hand, just in case?

If you’d asked Nick what he envisioned doing on the day he turned 40, I doubt that he’d have described the day that he wound up having. Still, he was a tremendously good sport about everything – and, by the end, even he had to admit that as far as birthdays go, it wasn’t really so bad… In fact, it was pretty freakin’ great. We were in the Bahamas. It was a perfect, sunny day. He got some ~~dorky~~ fun swag, including a present from a dolphin.

He even got to check an item off his bucket list.

This photo makes me ridiculously happy.

At the very least, I hope there’s no doubt in his mind that he is pretty freakin’ adored by the rest of us. (Adored… and seen as fodder for embarrassment.)

But hey – you only turn 40 once. Might as well kick back with a Yellow Bird, soak in the sun, kiss a dolphin, and look out onto the incredible horizon stretching before you – in every possible way.

Awesome, indeed.

Changed (aka Perspective, Part Two)

Posted on March 2, 2015 by missemtoo

Coming off of our visit to the homeless shelter right before February break, I felt like little could match that experience. That feeling lasted all of ten days because a week ago, Annie and I joined her Girl Scout troop to host a birthday party at another local homeless shelter – but, unlike last time, this shelter is specifically for families with children rather than just adults.

You read that correctly: children. Kids, like my own… Except without homes.
Homeless children and their families.
It doesn’t get much more gut-punchingly real than that, y’all.

We had known the following going in: there were four children at the shelter with February birthdays and we were in charge of the birthday party. Our job was to provide goodie bags and some kind of craft – not only for those four kiddos, but for the other 24 children residing at the shelter. In keeping with the celebratory spirit, we elected to bring cupcakes and juice boxes for everyone (including the 14 adults living with them). We also brought some paper goods and simple decorations. The shelter itself would provide gifts for the birthday children.

And so the girls decorated the goodie bags (“Happy Birthday!” “Smile, it’s your day!”) and got together on Monday afternoon to decorate dozens of boldly-colored cupcakes. Then, on Tuesday evening, we climbed into our minivans to carpool to the shelter (since it’s in a not-so-great neighborhood, we’d been told to bring as few vehicles as possible, to leave nothing of value in the cars, and to not use our cell phones where anyone could see us), all prepared to make a difference in these impoverished children’s lives! Go, us!

We laughed at ourselves as we hung the decorations; I kept draping the streamers way too low and the “Happy Birthday” sign had come undone, so until we taped it back together it read, “HAPPY BI”. It was embarrassing, really – here we were, trying to make the room a little more festive because this was the only celebration these children would have, and it looked like somebody’s parody Pinterest page. Craft supplies were scattered across tables and our girls posed for pre-good-deed photos.

The wonderful woman in charge – S. – gathered the troops (literally, ahem) to tell them a bit more about who would be attending the party. There were twelve rooms in the shelter; each family was allotted one room. The kids were all ages, from not-yet-one to teenagers. Some were with both parents; others were with only their mothers (some of whom were escaping domestic violence). Families stayed an average of five to six weeks and then moved on; there was a monthly celebration for each child whose birthday occurred during that month and everyone was invited to attend.

S. talked about why these families were here, about how difficult it can be to hold onto a home, to pay rent. Our little ones cocked their heads, confused. “What’s rent?” they wanted to know. It was simultaneously hilarious and mortifying, these second-graders with absolutely no concept of what it means to not be able to afford a place to live, or food, or clothes. “What are food stamps? Like the kind of stamp you get on your hand at the end of dance class?”

Then, the residents were called in to join us… and our daughters, who moments ago had been yukking it up as they counted cupcakes, suddenly went silent. It all became very real: here were other kids their own age, kids they’d never met, kids who looked just like them… except they lived here, in this building in this dangerous neighborhood, because they didn’t have a home. There were infants toting bottles filled with juice; toddlers and pre-school-aged kids; quite a few children roughly our own girls’ ages; and several middle and high-schoolers. They were black, Latino, and white. I heard English, Spanish, and a language I didn’t recognize but that sounded maybe like it was from Eastern Europe. One girl wore a shirt that said, “Jesus Is The Way” while three other girls wore full, brilliantly-colored and bejeweled hijabs.

Seeing our daughters’ trepidation, we adults stepped in and began cajoling everyone – kids and parents alike – to the tables. “Want to make a craft? Come on over! There are really cool bookmarks! You can do one of these cute animals!” In no time, each table was filled with children and adults using glue and stickers to create their own masterpieces. There were smiles all around and lots of talking. “What’s your favorite color? How old are you? Isn’t it so cold out?” Our parental pride swelled as, gradually, our Scouts joined in, helping the littlest ones glue on googly eyes and chatting it up with the older kids.

In no time at all, our daughters had crossed the imaginary barrier separating us and them, quickly and cheerfully making casual friends the way that many children do so naturally. For me, however, it wasn’t quite that simple.

Breaking the ice was easy. “What’s your name? I’m Emily! What color bookmark would you like?” But as the conversations continued and I went from table to table, I discovered my own ignorance and awkwardness; I had no idea what to talk about. Obviously, asking where anyone lived or what they did for a living – two of my preferred get-to-know-you inquiries – were out of the question. (I later learned that many of the adults did have jobs; homeless and jobless are not synonymous by any means.) “What grade are you in?” seemed rude, because I didn’t know if the kiddos were currently attending school. I even felt uncomfortable with my “standby” small-talk topics, like favorite movies or books or restaurants, because it seemed wildly presumptuous of me to assume that anyone could easily afford to go to the movies – but, likewise, presumptuous to assume that they couldn’t afford to go to the movies simply because they were living in the shelter. I didn’t even know if asking about favorite sports teams or television shows was appropriate because I had no idea how often they could watch TV or keep up with their favorite players.

It was very strange, this no-man’s conversation land… Every topic that came into my head made me feel like I would either wind up sounding like a spoiled, clueless asshole – or like I felt sorry for or disapproved of them. Yes, they were homeless (something to which I cannot relate), but they were still so very human (something we, um, share in common)… and yet my liberal, socially progressive self didn’t know what to talk about.

As the crafting session came to an end, S. suggested that we play a game; after a vote, Bingo emerged the winner. You guys, this was no rinky-dink operation but a full-scale GAME — cards for everyone, colored markers, a spinny wire basket with Bingo balls and a large board on which to store them after they’d been chosen and called. It was on.

Our own girls didn’t get Bingo cards, instead helping the other children with their boards or simply cheering people on. It started off slowly, with a few disappointed groans as unpopular numbers were called (“Aw man, I don’t have B-13. I have B-14!”), but then it began to pick up speed. As one of our Scout’s fathers – the only dad in attendance – called out the numbers in his rich, booming baritone voice and each five-in-a-row was achieved with the jubilant “BINGO!” being declared, whoops and hollers erupted throughout the room as the victors thrust their fists triumphantly into the air. Every winner received a prize from the relatively sizable prize box, which our Scouts insisted on carrying/lugging themselves from table to table, commenting supportively on each selection (“That car is so cool!” “Ooh, crayons – I love to color, too!”).

It soon became apparent that we were going to continue playing until every child got at least one Bingo; we would not stop until everyone had won. As the games went on and the atmosphere became more electric, S. came over to me and whispered, “I know this is taking a long time, but over the four years that I’ve been running these parties, we’ve found that they really do make a difference.”

I was about to comment that, of course, the parties made a difference when S. continued, “I mean the games themselves – they make a difference. Whenever our residents come back to visit us years later, we ask them how they’re doing, what they remember. And every single one of them says that they remember playing Bingo. Not just that it was so joyful while they played – it was, yes – but also that it was one of only a handful of truly happy memories from that time. When they looked back over their mental rolodex of good things – you know, like we all do, like how you and I recall a vacation or going to the beach as something positive when we’re going through a rough patch? Well, these folks don’t have vacations, but they do have Bingo. They tell us that the memory of Bingo games is what they call upon when they’re struggling… so we will keep playing this game until everybody has had a chance to win so that we can keep this magic alive for as long as we can.”

That was the first time I had to hold back tears.

When Bingo was over and the prize box had been thoroughly examined by every kiddo, it was time to eat. We made sure that each table was cleared and that each child kept his or her crafts. As I looked over the bookmarks clutched possessively in their little fists, it occurred to me that many of these children might not even have a book in which to place their bookmark… but I didn’t have much time to contemplate this sad reality because help was needed in handing out the cupcakes and juice.

The frosting we’d chosen was absolutely, fantastically neon-bright. The juice boxes were small, but still, they were juice – containing sugar and all of the other stuff that, you know, juice contains. We had more than enough for everyone to have at least two, which we happily doled out, but I couldn’t help but think, “Man, we’re giving these kids a lot of junk tonight. Artificial colors and sweeteners and HFCS and who knows what other crap. I wonder how their parents feel about…”

And then it dawned on me: these parents do not have a home right now. They can afford very, very little; many – most? – cannot afford to feed their children. So actually, I’d guess that they feel pretty damned excited and happy that their sons and daughters get to have not one but two cupcakes and juice boxes tonight, to be able to give their babies juice in their bottles… because it’s food. Food is important. Food is good.

Earlier in the day, a friend of mine had shared an article on Facebook about seemingly child-friendly foods that we should “never” feed our children. I’d read it and found myself shaking my head in disgust at the foods to which I’d been subjecting Ella and Annie, from Goldfish to GoGurt. I’d vowed to look even more closely at what I feed them; like many families I know, we’ve already all but eliminated HFCS and food dyes, we make sure they drink soda and juice very sparingly, and we buy products made with as few (easily pronounceable) ingredients as possible… but we can do better, damn it!

It had never before occurred to me what an incredible luxury it is to feed my children healthily. To be able to worry about how much juice they drink. To be concerned with how much sugar they consume rather than worry that they won’t get enough food to keep them from being hungry. To be able to afford something other than juice for my baby’s bottle. We are positively spoiled – and I hadn’t even realized it. (This doesn’t mean that we’re gonna go stock up on Cheetos and Fanta. Because I do have the luxury of worrying about what my girls eat, I’ll still continue feeding them as well as I can… but wow. Perspective really is something. And, hey, maybe the judgment I’ve passed over the years when I see people feeding their kids less-than-stellar meals could be adjusted. Just a smidge.)

While everyone was digging into the celebratory bounty, S. began handing out the actual birthday presents – gift bags filled to the brim with items for every birthday kid. One boy was turning seven. One girl had just turned fourteen. Another I mistook for an adult; I assumed that her child was the one celebrating a birthday. But no, I now realize that she, herself, was not yet eighteen… So, even though she was a mama already, she was being honored at the children’s party. She may not have felt much like a kid anymore, but she certainly deserved to be treated like she was important and cared for just like the rest, if only for a day. Or an hour.

And then there was the baby. She was turning one in three days. One.

I remembered my own girls’ first birthdays – just simple, family celebrations (no full-on parties like many of our friends had done; we didn’t know that many people locally!), but still… They were special. I giddily made chocolate cakes because, according to our pediatrician, they could eat chocolate starting at 12 months. We bought presents – loads of them. We sang. We took countless photos. I spent hours painstakingly making birthday videos – because one is important, you know? Your baby’s first birthday? A milestone.

But here was this little girl celebrating in the shelter. Because she didn’t have a home. Turning one in the shelter.

And I felt my heart just kind of crumple into pieces. This time, I couldn’t hold back the tears.

I did turn around to compose myself, however, because it somehow felt very inappropriate to cry in front of everyone, because of everyone, as though I were looking at a motivational poster. “You! The underprivileged! Your plight has moved me! I see things differently now because I have witnessed your struggle! I am saddened by what you are going through! You have given me the gift of perspective! Thank you for sharing your challenges with me!”

It also felt wrong to cry for them. “How difficult this must be! I don’t know how you’re able to do this! You must be so broken down! My heart aches for you!” Yes, the residents at that shelter needed help. They needed compassion. They needed someone to listen. But no one needed my tears at that birthday party. They needed smiles and Bingo and cupcakes and juice and more smiles. So I got myself together and turned back just in time to see S. hauling out a milk crate filled to the brim with books.

Books. For every single child.

AND OMG THE TEARS AGAIN STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

You guys, when these kids saw the books… They honestly didn’t quite know what to do. Some were thrilled, others seemed bewildered (“My own book? Seriously?”), but everyone had the opportunity to take a brand new tome – or several – with them. They had a place to put their bookmarks. Suddenly, the overflowing bookshelves in our own home – the ones whose disarray I’ve bemoaned, on whom dust has gathered – seemed practically indulgent.

While the parents and kiddos munched on their cupcakes and admired their new books and chatted with our daughters (there were more than enough cupcakes for our girls to have one, too; they were ecstatic – and I, for once, could not have cared less about the neon frosting), the other Girl Scout moms and I flitted from table to table, clearing trash, engaging in conversation, making sure everyone had had their fill. For much of the last hour, Annie and her friend, A, had been sitting on either side of one of the residents – a little girl who appeared to be roughly their age. They’d oohed and ahhhed over her crafts, cheered her on during Bingo, and had eaten their cupcakes together.

All of a sudden, Annie motioned for A to get up from their seats and have a whispered conversation behind the other little girl’s back. They conferenced vigorously, shaking their heads emphatically, and were just returning to their original places beside this girl as I began to make my way over to chide Annie for her lack of manners. (Telling secrets! Behind someone else! HAVE I TAUGHT YOU NOTHING!!) Before I could say anything, however, Annie and A looked at one another, shrugged as if to say, “If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me,” and then asked in tandem, “So… do you want to be our friend?”

I’m pretty sure their new friend said yes but I can’t be certain BECAUSE OF THE TEARS THAT HAD AGAIN OVERTAKEN MY EYEBALLS.

I really felt like I could burst. Here were these kids, these strangers – some ridiculously privileged, others without a roof over their heads. They had just met an hour ago. And yet, there they were… friends. They were in second grade and they liked the color blue and they loved to laugh and do art and eat cupcakes and so, by God… friends. The rest – socioeconomic status, race, where they went to school, what clothing they wore, where they went on vacation or if they even could go on vacation or any of the other stuff that we (and by “we” I mean my own friends and myself) get so caught up in – meant absolutely nothing. Or at least not nearly enough to not be friends. It was really something.

When I turned around again, Annie and A and their new buddy were nowhere to be seen; they – and the other Girl Scouts – had absconded into the hallway and were showing off their cartwheels. And giggling. And running and hollering and having the grandest time of all. Part of me wanted to tell them to calm down, to lower their voices, not to disturb anyone… But I caught myself before I interceded because this was a celebration, damn it, and joy is not something you should contain; it’s something you should share.

While they played, I tidied – and tried (in vain) to take in all that I’d seen. It was more than I could consider, though, and I kept coming back to the people themselves. To the parents of the baby who was turning one and their outright astonishment when they opened her birthday gift bag and saw half a dozen brand new outfits for their little girl. To the other one year-old at their table, the little girl with the swollen eye who’d just returned from the ER where she’d spent the last three days, having bitten into a Tide pod (you know, the kind that you put in the washing machine) that, she decided, looked like a toy.

I thought of her parents, how exhausted and relieved they seemed after having been in and out of the hospital, blaming themselves for their daughter’s injury (despite the fact that, I was told, the ER sees 1-2 cases each week of children who have monkeyed with laundry and dishwasher detergent packets that then exploded in their faces. When you think about it, those little pods do look like toys. I know my own girls have touched them; how easily it could have been us…). The husband recounted how frantic he’d been when he received the call at work (yes, again, homeless people can have jobs); the wife told me she was so grateful to “make a memory” with her daughter doing these crafts and eating the cupcakes.

I thought of the three little girls in their gloriously-colored hijabs and how they were so genuinely thrilled for one another when one of them got a Bingo. I thought of the boy who was turning seven and how his mom told him to thank all of us for giving him a birthday celebration – and how he chose to thank us by doling out hugs. I thought of his sister, whose face I recognized the moment she sat down but who I couldn’t quite place. It stumped me; I wasn’t just familiar with her – I knew her. I’d spent time with her.

But… when? How could it even be possible that I knew this girl? Where on earth would I have come across her?

At last, I remembered: school. Teaching. My long-term sub job last year. This beautiful, cheerful girl with the mega-watt smile had been one of my 7th grade music students. She had come and gone with her classmates, completed all of her assignments on time (and well), participated openly in class, and had just been – you know – one of the gang. The idea that she had no home was more than I could wrap my head around.

The questions wouldn’t stop… how? When? What happened? I noticed nothing last year that would have told me her family was struggling. Were they, then, and I just never knew? Did something change? I mean, I teach in middle-class schools where students sport gleaming backpacks and new clothes and shiny lunch boxes. How is it even possible that some of those kids are homeless?

We talked; she said she knew me from somewhere but couldn’t recall where. When I reminded her that I’d been her music teacher, she gasped with recognition. “Oh yeah! I totally remember that now!”

It was her smile that gave her away; ear-to-ear, real, gorgeous. Whether they’d arrived at the shelter that week or last month or whether they’d been bouncing from place to place since last year, I don’t know. Whether they’ve struggled financially for a long time or whether an emergency situation took them from their home, I have no idea. I do know that, regardless of whatever else was going on, whatever led her family to the shelter, she kept on smiling – not on the surface, but way deep down. I obviously have a lot to learn from her.

All too soon, it was time for us to pack up and head out. As we gathered the leftover streamers and cupcakes, Annie and A’s new friend came over and gave me a full-body hug. “Thank you for the party!” While we all shouted our good-byes and nice-to-meet-yous, she came up again, saying, “I can’t remember – did I already give you a hug?” I told her that she had, but that if she wanted to, I’d love another. Her face lit up. “I love hugs!” Her arms only reached around my waist, but it was definitely my heart that felt the squeeze.

S. walked us to our cars, thanking us for coming out and providing all of the supplies. As we attempted to protest, she held up her hand. “I know – you want to thank me. I tell people this is always what happens; you think that you’re coming here to give back, but when all is said and done, you feel like you’re the ones who received the gifts. That’s why this place has birthday parties booked out for more than a year from now! Everyone wants to feel as incredible as you all do right now!”

Incredible is one word for it.
The others… Well, I don’t even know.

How do you find the words to describe an experience that made you reevaluate your life? How do you sum up what it meant to see everything you have, who you are, what you’re doing on this planet, from a completely different perspective? How do you attempt to gather your thoughts about something that has humbled you, made you cry, and prompted you to see your fellow human beings in a new light?

I guess you don’t.
Instead, you – I – vow that, from now on, I will appreciate more. I will let more roll off my back. I will be kind, be kind, be kind – because, seriously, you never know what someone is going through. I will view the other people with whom I share this planet – this town, this school – as humans, not statistics, not problems waiting to be fixed. Just humans, like us all, who sometimes – hell, a lot of times – need a little help.

(Also, I will write a ridiculously long blog post about it – but, really, how else was I to share this with you?)

And to think that this night never would have happened if our glorious group of Girl Scout slacker moms hadn’t decided that it might be good for our daughters to help out; to see what it’s like – just for an evening – to live a life that’s completely unlike their own, where rent and food stamps are a regular part of the vocabulary; to get outside of themselves for just a moment and maybe make a change…

I never imagined it would be I who would come away from that evening feeling so changed. Maybe we’re not such slackers* after all.

* we totally still are.
Even slackers can make things happen when we work together and have our hearts in the right place. That shelter is some place, y’all. Wow.

Perspective (part one)

Posted on February 27, 2015 by missemtoo

I had planned on continuing to talk about our vacation – the stories behind Nick’s birthday and my getting hypothermia are tremendously riveting – but something happened over the last couple of weeks that made me realize I need to take a slight detour.

Hang on.

Two days before break, the wonderful little women’s church community I’m a part of delivered dinner to a homeless shelter. We divvied up the cooking and supplies (pulled pork, cornbread, baked beans, coleslaw, and numerous drinks and homemade desserts), took everything to the shelter, and served the meal. We agreed that families would be invited to join in, so I brought Annie and Ella along.

(More accurately, our awesome babysitter, B, brought them because I was teaching piano lessons immediately prior to dinner. They arrived before me and I don’t think I’d ever seen their eyes wider than when I walked into the shelter and they found me.)

As far as homeless shelters go, this one seems to be pretty solid. They have a large, new warehouse space (after having recently made headlines when they were controversially kicked out of their tent city in December) – which, although lacking any cooking facilities or running water (hence the need to bring in prepared food; there are port-a-potties on site and a van takes the residents to other locations with bathing facilities), is almost cozy. Every resident appears to have his or her own tidily-kept sleeping space (with the vast majority on mattresses); donated and purchased winter clothing is handed out; there’s a communal TV and a few couches on which to watch it; employment-location services are provided.

I mean, it’s hardly posh – and I’m sure that all of the residents would rather be in their own homes (if they had them to return to…) – but I imagine that it beats huddling down beneath underpasses or in abandoned subway tunnels, especially in this particularly freezing Rochester winter.

It’s no secret that I’m amazingly fortunate to have grown up white, affluent, loved, and educated. Still, although I haven’t spent time in actual homeless shelters before, I have volunteered at soup kitchens, lived in the projects, worked with poverty-stricken kids, and made my way through Harlem (while in grad school) enough times to not have been shocked or taken aback by the experience at Sanctuary Village. My girls, however, had never seen anything like it – maybe not even on television or online. We’ve donated to disaster relief, watched videos of people displaced by tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes and violence, and discussed how very privileged we are… But, for them, seeing it in person was astounding.

They couldn’t believe that there were only mattresses, not beds (the lack of a bed was somehow very powerful to them). They were taken aback that so many people shared the same space (the shelter is absolutely overflowing beyond its capacity because of the weather). They could not comprehend that the belongings scattered around each person’s living area – most of which could fill a single trash bag – were likely everything that these people possessed.

Ella and Annie were also thrown off-guard by how exceedingly nice everyone was to them, to all of us. Here were these strangers who had seemingly everything in the world to complain about – or, at least, every right to be grumpy – and yet they were so kind. They thanked us up and down for bringing the food. They said “please” and “excuse me” when they lined up for dinner. They engaged us in pleasant, friendly conversation and told the girls they look like twins.

Our group, post-meal.
Photo from the Sanctuary Village and Sophia Community Facebook pages.

In short, they were… human beings. Not statistics. Not people who had made mistakes or who “should” be doing any number of things to get out of “this situation.” Just regular folks who found themselves unable to keep a home, for one reason or another, and who had no place else to turn. It was humbling and eye-opening and nothing short of incredible. We discussed it long into the night and vowed to better appreciate our own safe, comfortable, warm homes.

And then, our food supply completely depleted, we got in our warm car and drove to the grocery store and spent more money purchasing dinner from the prepared food bar for the three of us than I had procuring baked beans and coleslaw for 60.

We had never been more grateful for a meal.
Nor, I thought, had I ever had a more moving, potentially life-changing (or at least perspective-changing) experience.
Which shows you that I really do have another think coming…

(Part Two to be posted soon.)

Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by missemtoo

After our stopover in Epcot, we were totally stoked to depart on the cruise. GranMary met us at the hotel and we traveled from Orlando to Port Canaveral together, all set for the adventure to begin.

Annie had decided that she wanted to meet (and get autographs from ) as many characters as possible – and so, knowing that we’d have a slight wait at at the terminal, we took full advantage of the opportunity to get a little personal time with Goofy.

GranMary defined the term “good sport” for the entirety of the trip.

We’d elected to get a room with a balcony (actually, by the time we booked this cruise, all rooms except those with balconies were sold out, so it wasn’t much of an “election” but still…). While it’s hardly an essential, we did enjoy being able to hear the ocean and feel the temperature (something that came in quite handy by the end of our trip).

Not quire sure why, but I love this photo.

Nick turned 40 on the second day of the cruise and, as part of the celebration, he requested that we do the meet-the dolphin excursion at the Blue Lagoon while in Nassau, Bahamas. It was, hands down, one of the most incredible experiences any of us has ever had (more on that soon…).

It looks as though we’re shrugging in response to a question, but really, the water was just freakin’ cold.

Thumb war battles on the ferry back from Blue Lagoon.
Why was GranMary the one who got roped into declaring thumb wars? See: GOOD SPORT.

For the remainder of the trip, we simply enjoyed what Disney had to offer – and it was a lot. (I won’t go into everything [you’re welcome], although you can feel free to read a bit more about it here and here.)

We shuffleboarded (is that a verb? If not, it is now)…

GranMary and I lost, but we put up a good fight, I assure you.

We took in numerous ship-board activities…
Cheering babies on during the fastest crawler race.
I’m not kidding.
It was an absolute hoot.

Watching movies while swimming? Yes, please.

We – um, Annie – met characters. And characters. And more characters.

Captain Jack Sparrow took his role very seriously.

It was pretty damn great.

When we returned from last year’s cruise, we said that it was the best vacation ever. And it was. Hence, as excitement mounted for our cruise this year, Nick and I were careful to remind Ella and Annie (and ourselves) that this would be different. Not bad, not at all – but different. It was basically going to be impossible to top, or even match, last year’s experience.

Turns out? We were right.
And you know that? That’s okay.

Something that was way better on this ship: the AquaDuck water slide, which encircles the entire upper decks of the ship. Seriously awesome.
Doing their best princess waves as they passed by…

See, last year, we neeeeeeded that vacation. We’d lost Bill the previous summer and were still emotionally exhausted; I’d started a new job; the girls both took on additional activities which made it hard to find our legs beneath us as our schedules became absolutely nutty; and our winter had started off with ridiculously cold temperatures, meaning that even I – who adore snow and chilly days – was desperate to get warm.

This year, it’s different. We still miss Bill very much, of course – and talk about him often, with tears coming at unexpected times – but the pain is not quite so raw, the roller coaster a little more rounded and not quite so exhausting. My job has remained steady and Nick’s has changed for the better. We’ve grown accustomed to swimming and soccer and after-school craziness – which doesn’t make it less crazy, but makes it unsurprising, so we’re steadier on our feet (although our white boards are used just as often, thank you very much).

The mixology class did not necessarily make us steadier on our feet, but it was absolutely delicious.

And the weather… well. January started off just fine, even nicely. We Rochesterians commented to one another that this was a good winter — not frigid like last year, no huge snowstorms, just a good, even, steady, sunnier-than-usual winter. At least we’re not Boston, hahaha, amIright??

AND THEN CAME FEBRUARY. February, with piles and piles and FREAKING PILES of snow. February, which is already the second-coldest on record (and which, with single-digit temperatures forecasted this week, might become the coldest on record). February, which may be the shortest month of the year but OMG IT SEEMS LIKE IT WILL NEVER END.

If February had come before January, I would have been dragging my frozen butt on that airplane just as maniacally as I’d done last year. But because it hadn’t – because our winter had started off nicely and evenly – none of us was absolutely out of our minds to get someplace warm. (After being home with historically low temperatures, however, we might just storm the airport and try to stow away.)

Which, as luck would have it, was a good thing because this delightful cold front slid right down the eastern coast of the USA, meaning Florida and The Bahamas? Not so warm. Record setting cold in Orlando, as a matter of fact! I even got mild hypothermia while at Castaway Cay!! (There are two exclamation points there which makes it seem like I’m jesting or laughing, but in all seriousness… hypothermia. But that’s another story…)

In addition to being chilly, it was also more than a little overcast and stormy on the day we landed at Castaway Cay…

… which basically meant that we had the snorkeling area to ourselves.

So, the weather was a definite bummer. While we were tremendously grateful to be, you know, on vacation – I won’t go whining about it or anything – it was still a bit of a letdown to miss out on the activities we’d planned (plus, being cold in the Bahamas just feels wrong, yo!). Additionally, high seas and choppy conditions caused most of us, but Ella and me in particular, to become quite seasick – something we hadn’t experienced at all on our previous cruise.

And you know those storied kids clubs that I raved about last year and that the girls couldn’t wait to visit again?? The ones where Ella spent nearly all of her time using the computer bays to write elaborate stories and create digital cartoon thingies? Well, it seems that not all Disney kids clubs are created equal; the ones on this ship didn’t offer the same computer programs (apparently, because our other ship – the Disney Magic – had recently been retrofitted and revamped, they updated their kids club technology). Which meant that Ella didn’t really want to spend time in the clubs. Which… was not awesome.

Also not awesome? The line to meet Elsa and Anna.
I do love how Anna has her hands on her hips, though. Very method.

As such – with the weather, the seasickness, and the change in the clubs – this trip had some hiccups, whereas last year’s had none. (We didn’t help ourselves by going to Epcot for a day this year and not Universal; when you’ve walked a mile in Harry Potter‘s shoes, almost nothing else can live up to that hype.) It’s difficult – impossible, really – to compete with perfection.

Thankfully, we didn’t need to enter that competition because we didn’t need this vacation in the same way we did a year ago. It could just be exactly what it was – fantastic.

If anything, the bumps in the road (the waves on the sea? How far can I stretch this metaphor?) showed us that last year wasn’t just a fluke: we really do love Disney cruises, even when things don’t always go as planned. It was particularly neat to be able to share this year’s experience with GranMary – to laugh with her while we watched the girls zoom in and out of the pools, to stifle groans as we waited in line to meet the princesses (GranMary helps the time pass by much more quickly!), to see her come waaaay out of her comfort zone time and time again (let’s just say that dressing as a pirate and kissing a dolphin on the lips are not usually part of GranMary’s routine), to watch as she and Ella and Annie sang and hugged and took in every moment of vacation and joy and fun.
Although she is very convincing here, I can assure you that Mary does not typically “arrr!” like a pirate.

As I sit here listening to the dripping of the icicles inside our front door (no, for real, inside the door; when all of this begins its meltdown [because, for the love of all things holy, IT MUST MELT AT SOME POINT, right??] it’s not going to be pretty), squinting as the sunlight reflects off the feet of snow in the backyard (but at least it’s sunny!!), the memories of our trip seem that much sweeter.

Even without this doozy of a winter, however, the trip would stand on its own. How fantastically lucky we were to have taken it!

Pirate night, me hearties!

We Soared; aka Epcot in a Day

Posted on February 23, 2015 by missemtoo

So, hi there! Long time no see!

I could try to make excuses about not writing, but really we were simply out of town, so there was no writing during that time, and before that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off getting ready to go out of town.

Woe is me. I know. I’ll just stop there.

Like last year, we went to Florida and on a Disney Cruise… and, like last year, it was fantastic.

That time, it was the Magic – this time, we sailed on the Dream.

Before we got there, however, we made a detour to Epcot in Walt Disney World (Nick’s and my favorite Disney park – and, we figured, a relatively easy one to “do” in only one day without running ourselves ragged). YOU KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED FOR A PLAY BY PLAY OF OUR VACATION. Get ready, folks.

Because I’m a bit of a Disney ~~freak~~ fanatic, I knew that we’d need to arrive early if we wanted to do our very favorite ride, Soarin’, without waiting in a ridiculously long line (we already had FastPasses for TestTrack but couldn’t double-book two “top tier” attractions, so Soarin’ had to be a walk-on). Good sports that they are (and not wanting to wait in an interminably long line; their mama didn’t raise no dummies), the rest of the fam agreed – and so we greeted the Epcot gates prior to the park even opening.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!
That’s Spaceship Earth peeking out behind us…

My ~~evil plan~~ thoughtful preparations worked: we walked right on Soarin’, and Nick and Ella even got to ride it again with hardly any wait at all. Score!

Truly the most perfect way to start a day…
By 45 minutes after the park opened, the wait for this ride was over an hour. THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM, FOLKS. Or at least two no-wait rides.

When my three housemates had okayed my early morning plan, they’d done so in part because I’d promised that, once we’d finished with Soarin’, we’d be free to just wander the park and take things in at a leisurely pace – something we rarely, if ever, have the time to do when we actually visit WDW for any length of time. But this time, we did – ambling through The Land pavilion (where Soarin’ is housed), riding one of the other rides, spending a looong time at the aquarium tanks there (we’ve never taken that opportunity before; it was refreshing and lovely).

I love this photo of the girls and the sea turtle.

We rode rides when the mood struck. We had a relaxing breakfast. We shopped (picking up the Mickey ears that Nick thought were merely to surprise GranMary, who would be joining us for the cruise; they were – but the girls and I had a master plan to get him a special, surprise set of ears for his 40th birthday occurring two days later…).

At last, our TestTrack FastPass time arrived, so we headed over and were through with the line and the ride in less than twenty minutes.

Ready to ride!

This is really a terrible shot – I snapped it with my phone off of a computer screen after the ride’s end – but I love it for Ella’s absolutely giddy face.

With our Future World dreams fulfilled, we grabbed a bit to eat at a couple of the pavilions in the World Showcase. Eleanor was beyond thrilled to stand inside the phone booths at the United Kingdom pavilion… JUST LIKE IN HARRY POTTER OMG.

‘Ello, guv’na!
(Is that really a thing? Did I just offend all of Britain?)

She also insisted on shadowing me as I shopped in the UK pavilion specifically so she could listen to everyone’s accent (“They sound like they’re in the movies!”) and read the names of their hometowns (“That man is from Oxford! THAT’S WHERE EMMA WATSON IS FROM!!”). At last, hot and tired from walking, we walked back to our hotel, which – mercifully – was situated right outside of Epcot.

Truth be told, by late afternoon the pool was a bit chilly, but the girls loved splashing and running in the sand and Nick and I loved sitting idly beside the pool, beverages in hand.

Adding to our enjoyment was the moment when I checked my phone and discovered that it felt like 75* by the pool… and -21* back home. For those of you bad at The Math (like me), that’s nearly a 100 DEGREE DIFFERENCE, y’all. ONE. HUNDRED. DEGREES. We could not even wrap our brains around that absolute insanity, but we certainly appreciated our breezy, sunny afternoon by the pool, let me tell you.

That night, as planned, we headed back over to Epcot to take a tour around the world for dinner. This is one of Nick’s and my most cherished rituals – grabbing a bite to eat at the various “countries,” poking through the shops, trying the drinks. As people who have yet to truly travel the world but who would absolutely love to, there’s something wonderfully satisfying about Epcot’s World Showcase; we couldn’t wait to share it with the girls.

Alas, as we’d feared, they’re a bit young yet to really appreciate it (“Do we have to walk all the way to China? What’s so special about Norway? Can’t we just eat caramel corn at home?”), and by that time Ella had developed a killer headache (for which she refused to take any medication, so our sympathies largely went out the window; we are excellent parents), so it wasn’t really the blissful Around The World experience we’d hoped for.

Still, it was a beautiful night. We ate ourselves silly. The caramel corn really is that good. (And, best of all, Nick had a brilliant idea: to celebrate my 40th birthday this fall, he and I will come back to Epcot for a day to attend the annual Food and Wine festival – HOLLA!!) We went to bed exhausted, slightly cranky, but overall happy and extremely excited for the cruise to come.

(No, I won’t go into that part here; this post is long enough, don’t you think?
Besides, who doesn’t enjoy reading several blogs’ worth about someone else’s vacation?? Stay tuned…)

We Bought It

Posted on January 27, 2015 by missemtoo

To school, or not to school… That was the question.

For the past two days, both Annie and Ella have been home, sick… but it was that kind of sick where you wonder if they’re pulling early Ferris Buellers on you or if they’re really down and out enough to stay home.

Don’t get me wrong – I would not wish serious illness on either of my children – but when that temperature rises over 100*F or there’s vomiting going on, at least you can be sure of whether or not they really need to stay home. Other times – like these past couple of days – it’s a lot more nebulous.

On Friday, Annie began showing signs that she was coming down with something. As we went out that night with a few other friends and their moms, I told them that I suspected that Annie’s cough was more than just an annoyance. Sure enough, 36 hours later we found ourselves in our pediatrician’s office during their Sunday morning emergency visiting hours with a diagnosis of bronchitis (or possibly walking pneumonia).

Y’all, Annie was miserable. There were times when she coughed so hard and so uncontrollably that I was actually worried she might break something. Two inhalers, Delsym doses, Benadryl, pain relievers, honey, tea, and Vicks VapoRub did almost nothing to alleviate her symptoms. The poor girl was coughing too much to sleep; after crawling into my bed at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning following a horrible night, she caught only an hour of fitful sleep before awakening and rushing to the bathroom to be sick. She coughed so much and so violently during the day, she became totally exhausted; she physically hurt. We knew she wouldn’t be in school on Monday.

Little sleep on Saturday night leads to napping on Sunday.

{Side note: is coughing not the absolute worst? I mean, it’s not quite plague or pestilence or freakin’ measles (I can’t even begin to get into that whole fiasco; the selfishness of these people completely astounds me), but coughing is an enormous pain in the ass. I hate coughing, I hate coughs, and I hate listening to people cough. Mark my words: the person who develops a cure or an effective treatment for your plain old run-of-the-mill cough will become a gazillionaire. Or at least be Time‘s Person of the Year.}

Ella, by contrast, did not have anything so easily diagnosed. Her throat hurt and her nose was crazy stuffed but the pediatrician confirmed that it didn’t look like strep; lack of a fever or any other strep symptoms all point to a regular head cold. Colds are tricky, though; like prairie dogs or TV shows on Nick Jr, they’re deceptive – one moment, you think they’re harmless, and the next they’re destroying your lawn, causing your children to speak in nonsensical and exceedingly annoying catchphrases, and making your nose run so much you go through an entire box of tissues.

When I picked up Annie’s antibiotics on Sunday, I decided to stock up on any and all accoutrements we might need to get the girls through the next few days. The pharmacist asked if I was purchasing the entire OTC aisle; I said I was and he agreed it was wise.

Yesterday morning, Eleanor bemoaned her achy throat and can’t-breathe nose but, without a telltale fever or spreading rash or oozy eyes, Nick and I couldn’t really see any reason not to send her to school; just not feeling good is hard to quantify and even harder to use as a definitive get-out-of-school-free card. We told her that we believed in her – she would be okay! Ibuprofen and kids’ generic Cold And Sinus medication would help her out! – but if she really felt awful, she could go to the nurse and have her call me (I’d be home with Annie, after all) and I’d go and get her.

When the phone rang at 10:08 a.m., I knew immediately what was up.

Admittedly, she didn’t look so good; she was droopy and her eyes just looked off. For the rest of the day, while Annie hacked up a lung and essentially went on a hunger strike, we three lounged around the living room — watching TV (we expunged NBC’s live version of “Peter Pan” from our DVR where it had been lying in wait since early December), using iPads, reading books, listening to audio books, playing games. When I texted Nick to tell him that Ella was coming home, he asked if I needed him to leave work to help – I told him that I appreciated the offer, but the girls really weren’t that sick and I had plenty of things around the house to keep me busy, so I’d be fine.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS.

Oh, I mean I was fine. It was well and truly fine, really. But those things to keep me busy? BWAHAHAHA. I did manage to do everyone’s laundry and send out a couple of necessary emails, but otherwise… NADA. The least productive home day of all time . I don’t know what kind of vortex pulled me into the living room and onto the couch next to the girls – maybe some weird sort of mostly-sick kid voodoo? – but I accomplished basically nothing except emptying garbage cans when they overflowed with tissues.

By the time Nick arrived home at 5:00 so that I could go to the grocery store, I felt like I was seeing daylight for the first time after a prison sentence. Or maybe leaving the theater after viewing Titanic. Given that Ella and Annie remained fever-free yesterday, I held *very* high hopes that they would return to school today.

This was basically ALL DAY yesterday. Note that the laundry in the basket to the left is folded. BOO YAH.

Okay, wait. That’s true, but there’s a caveat.
I did hold high hopes that they would return to school this morning, but last night there was a not-so-small part of me that kind of hoped they would be home again today solely so that I wouldn’t have to pack either of them a lunch.

Yep. Packing lunches is so odious, I would (almost) rather that the girls stay home sick just to avoid it. IT HAS COME TO THIS.

Nick and I agreed that Annie should probably remain home for at least a couple of hours this morning; the last few days, she has sounded so awful after awakening, you’d think she’d escaped from the TB ward. I thought that Ella, on the other hand, was destined for school… until I saw her this morning and she looked even droopier than she had yesterday.

When I asked her how she felt compared to the day before, she said she felt the same – or worse – but definitely not better. Meaning that if we opted to send her to school anyway, she would likely just wind up in the nurse’s office again and ’round and ’round we’d go. SO THEY WERE BOTH HOME AGAIN TODAY but with fingers very crossed that they’d return this afternoon. Alas, by lunchtime – the witching hour in terms of taking Annie to class – both girls said they just felt so tired, they didn’t think they could go to school.

Cue the tiny violins.

I don’t think I’m a sucker. I run a pretty tight Don’t-Take-Any-Sh*t ship. But damned if I didn’t feel like I was being played by these little hooligans!

It also wasn’t quite as simple as, We’ll just stay home and cozy until you both feel hunky dory, the three of us looking lovingly at one another in the living room – thank goodness there’s nothing else going on! Because I teach piano on Tuesdays. And our awesome babysitter comes and watches the girls. And the students come to the house (where the bronchitis and super-cold germs have been marinating). And tonight we were supposed to have my grandmother over for dinner – which, in itself, was a raincheck from Sunday when Annie was first diagnosed.

This is the chapter of the parenting manual that is missing. (It’s entirely possible I ripped it out one night while tiny baby Ella was up screaming because we hadn’t yet figured out that she was lactose intolerant and I kept trying make her feel better by nursing her after I’d consumed heaps of the frozen lasagnas and creamy chicken casseroles I’d dutifully prepped before her birth.) How do you make these decisions? How do you know when your kid is really “sick enough” to stay home, when it isn’t cut and dried? How much do outside factors – job, babysitter, determining just how germ-infested your house really is and if it’s okay for piano students to be in it, desperately wanting to see your grandma but desperately not wanting to potentially give her bronchitis or a cold – come into play? What about missed school days? And how do we weigh in Ella’s chorus concert tomorrow (and missed practices yesterday and today)?

My view for much of today: coffee table (clean!), vaseline for chapped lips, thermometer, tea, TV remote, and a tissue box to which the girls have taped a dirty tissue bag. So industrious, they are.

On the other hand… when it comes down to it, if the kids are sick, they’re sick – period, the end. I mean, how the heck was I supposed to argue with, I don’t have the energy to go to school and I feel the same as I did yesterday… when you decided I should stay home ? Sure, I could have forced them to go in – even refused to pick them up should the nurse call – so that I could teach piano and see my grandma… but in the end, what would it get me? Daughters who don’t trust that their mom is in their corner, who think their mother doesn’t believe them when they say they feel like crap? Teachers who looked sideways at my potentially ill offspring? At few hours of sanity?

Okay. That last part was seriously tempting.

In the end, we felt that, since they haven’t played this card before (that we know of), we needed to listen to them; they stayed home. I cancelled the babysitter and the piano lessons. Nick and I decided, if we didn’t think it wise for anyone else to be around the girls, that it would be really dubious to ask my grandmother over for dinner — we will take (another) raincheck.

And so it was that the girls and I spent another day at home, cozied up against the winter chill and snow (although not the blizzard that much of the Northeast received) – a sort-of snow day that was not a snow day. (Annie did ask if she could go sledding; that request was quickly nixed seeing how sick she was and all.) There was still television watching and iPad using and book reading, but there was also working out (OH MY HECK I AM SORE), cleaning, photo sorting, and cooking – so it was certainly more productive than yesterday.

I will say, however, that shoveling the ice rink – the only occasion I left the house all day – was just about the most glorious experience of ever.

Well, that and having Annie try to explain that her knees hurt when she walked because the doctor said she had walking ammonia.

And Ella finally getting around to reading some of the books that she hadn’t had time for.

As of right now, we are definitely a go to send the girls to school tomorrow. They’ve steadily felt better all day and, given the general level of tomfoolery that they’ve engaged in, I think they’re both as stir crazy as I am to get the heck out of dodge and back to their routine.

Maybe best of all, because Wednesday is much-beloved pizza day, I DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE ANY LUNCHES TONIGHT EITHER — can I get an amen!

Once the girls are off and running, and after I’ve attended the yearbook meeting, taken photos of the school’s choruses, and climbed a monstrously tall ladder to take photos of every fifth grade homeroom (with the students formed into the numbers 2-0-1-5; it’s as brutal as it sounds – send good vibes, please) — but before Ella’s chorus concert tomorrow night — I plan to sit down with that parenting manual to see what we might have done differently, ’cause this stuff is hard. If you’ve got the missing chapter, I’m all ears.

Given our recent Clean Eating push, I’ve been almost entirely avoiding alcohol since New Year’s – but tonight? Tonight I had a glass and I AM NOT SAD about it. (The goblet was a Christmas present from one of my aunts. It is plastic and largely unbreakable and awesome.)

Throwback Thursday – Grandpa’s Hats

Posted on January 22, 2015 by missemtoo

For a good many years now, at the urging/request of my grandmother, my mom’s side of the family has created personalized calendars that are given out at Christmas. In addition to the usual calendar fare, Shutterfly allows us to place photos on any dates we’d like, meaning that each family member’s face triumphantly appears on his or her birthday.

While I’ve always enjoyed the calendar, Ella and Annie took a particular shine to it this year, delighting in each person’s photo and commenting on which months receive the heaviest birthday traffic. (I printed off photos for the members of Nick’s family, too, and stuck them on the corresponding squares; June, December, and January are particularly heavily-birthdayed months.)

They were particularly smitten with the weeks when several people have birthdays in a row (and the coincidental dates when people actually share birthdays, something you’d think wouldn’t happen all that often in a relatively small family because there are 365 days on which to have been born), with these last two weeks in January being the first of the clusters.

“Mom – Alex’s (their cousin) birthday was Tuesday, Grandma’s birthday was yesterday, and Lisa’s (my aunt) and Adam’s (my cousin) birthdays are next week! That’s crazy!”

It is! But it’s actually even crazier.

———————————-

My grandfather loved hats. He would have laughed mischievously at the thought of me calling him a connoisseur of hats – that’s a bit of a stretch – but he certainly enjoyed them. Baseball caps, cowboy hats, visors, woven ones with wide floppy brims, straw hats, light-up headpieces with glowing lettering across the front… you name it, he had one.

Ever true to his creative, do-it-yourself-but-kind-of-on-the-cheap nature, he had nailed flat pieces of wood to the dining room walls at the lake, on top of which he’d attached clothespins – each of which held a member of the hat collection. Although this newfangled storage system appeared in the later years of his life, the hats themselves were around for much longer. I remember playing with them as a little girl, fascinated with their feel on my head and the way they smelled like him. (Not an Old Spice kind of smell – more musty and fisherman-y and turpentine-y — but grandpa through and through.)

Summer 1977; one of my all-time favorite photos of anything, ever.
Would that every child could be looked at by their grandparent like this.

In the summers before the old lake house was razed and the new one was constructed – the last two summers of my grandfather’s life – Ella and Annie, too, became unofficial members of Great‘s Hat Club. It gave me such a kick to see them wearing his caps and seeing them all enjoy one another’s company so much. I only wish that they remembered it – remembered him – as clearly as I do.

Ella, at the same age I was in the above photo, wearing one of Great’s hats.
His avant-garde hat holder is clearly visible in the background…

Annie – seven months – with my aunt Lisa, joining in on the hat convention.

————————————–

While sorting through things in the basement (let us all share a moment of silence for this miraculous occasion, shall we….?), I came across the hat my grandfather had worn when he was in the Navy. He didn’t talk with me much about his days in the service – then again, I hadn’t really asked (something I regret deeply now) – so I don’t really have much of a frame of reference for this regal topper, but it makes me smile each time I see it, imagining bygone days when my grandfather piloted planes that scanned the ocean for German U-boats, when he and my grandmother exchanged letters and television hadn’t been invented. Plus, all these years and miles later, that hat still smells like my grandpa.

———————————–

See, it wasn’t just Grandma and her sister who have birthdays in January – Great did, too.

“He did? I can’t believe it!”

Yep. HIs birthday was today, actually. January 22nd, 1921.

“So how old would he be?”

I see that you don’t get along so well with The Math either.

“What?”

Never mind. He would have turned 94 today.

“We should put his picture on the calendar!”

Long before Photoshop became popular, my grandfather loved toying with photos on his computer, swapping family faces and chuckling at his exploits. As soon as I get the chance, I’m definitely going to print out his photo and put it on the calendar. It’s kind of creepy… but Great would totally have approved.

RACK on!

Posted on January 8, 2015 by missemtoo

At our house, Christmas is Christmas because of the traditions. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without, among (many) other things, visits by Hermey (our house elf), eating popcorn while putting up the tree, receiving new pjs on Christmas Eve, or leaving a shot of whiskey for Santa alongside the cookies and milk (it’s cold on that ride, folks). I’ve always been someone who thrives on memories and ceremony and I was fortunate enough to have Nick agree to adopt nearly all of the Christmas customs that I celebrated growing up.

My girls have cottoned to these traditions just as strongly. If I forget something, or if I dare attempt to change even the smallest detail, Annie and Ella call me out immediately (“What happened?? These musical reindeer have always been in the dining room!”). (You know that we totally have musical reindeer.) While I’m all for honoring these established practices, sometimes it’s fun to try something new.

This year, I decided to try out two ideas: unwrapping and reading a Christmas book on every day of advent and practicing Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, or RACKs. (I’d love to claim that I thought up these schemes on my own but I totally stole them from my BFF Pinterest.) Given that I didn’t want to purchase 24 new holiday books, and given that we already have oodles of said books in the house, I opted to simply wrap two dozen of them and stack them up, ready to be opened each night.

Yes, I forgot to take a photo until after two weeks had passed. And yes, the books were stored on the dog kennel. We fancy up in here.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve done regular read-alouds with both girls, so I wasn’t entirely sure how it would go if I asked them to gather cozily on my bed and… unwrap… used Christmas books… But, to my delight, they seemed to really enjoy it – even look forward to it. Annie, especially (our bookworm), would bound into the bedroom each night and practically shimmer as she waited to see what the title would be, although both she and Ella exclaimed happily over favorites (“I love this one!”) and new (to them) titles (“I’ve never seen this one before!”). It was a quiet and lovely way to end each day; we’ll do it again for sure next year.

Cuddling in bed with our latest tome, with our previous volumes visible in the basket in the background…
Also, be forewarned: while you think it will be a thought-provoking, solemn holiday tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl might actually cause your children to have nightmares and imagine how it would feel to freeze to death. Oops.

If I were forced to choose just one new tradition to continue, however, it would actually be the RACKs. In contrast to the peaceful, sleep-inducing book tradition, the RACKs were vibrant and invigorating. The premise was really simple: find some way, any way, to be kind to another person. As I wrote on my Facebook page when I invited other friends to join the cause, they could be anything, “from really simple, non-monetary kindnesses (taking out the garbage, allowing someone to wedge in front of you in heavy traffic) to slightly bigger but not terribly complicated gestures (bringing a treat to a co-worker or the bus driver, giving a gift card to your postal worker, paying for coffee for the person behind you in line) to activities that require a bit more forethought (printing RACK cards and attaching candy canes to them and “bombing” a parking lot, taping microwave popcorn to a RedBox box) to things that are of a bit more significance monetarily (“sponsoring” a family for the holidays, donating to a food bank, etc.)… Whatever floats your boat and makes you happy because you think that it will make other people happy.
Anonymously. Randomly. Kindly.”

(One of my Jewish friends pointed out that these did not have to be only for Christmas, as they could be Random Acts of Chanukah Kindness, too. So awesome.)

The first official RACK that the girls and I did was to candy cane “bomb” the parking lot at their school so that the teachers would see the canes on their way out that afternoon. We invited Annie’s Girl Scout troop and their siblings to join us (see, I told you I’d rock my monthly meeting) and the response was super.

Girl Scouts preparing their canes…

We could hardly keep up with the kids as they raced from car to car, gleefully slipping notes under windshields and ecstatically squealing with delight at the mere thought that this might brighten their teachers’ day.

After that, Annie and Ella and I were on a roll. We did chores around the house for one another just because. (Even though I’d normally grumble significantly at the thought of putting the girls’ clothes away to spare their lazy bums, or at the idea of doing the dishes for Nick so he could watch the hockey game in peace, somehow it felt different – good. Really good.) They made cards and brought them into school. We took RACK cards and candy canes with us and distributed them often – to the guys who helped load our Christmas tree onto the car, to people in line at Starbucks. We taped dollars around the dollar store and chuckled imagining people finding them and absconding away with their bounty.

By far, though, our favorite experience was when we RACKed out at the post office. We ventured over one afternoon when the girls got home from school and, as expected, the line was at least 20 people deep; suffice it to say that no one was smiling. Ella and Annie each walked up to the counter, chose an employee, and simply stood there, waiting until the most recent customer had finished. Once there was a slight break in the action, they politely slipped in and handed over the cards and candy.

I can’t claim credit for this cute card, either – I found it here.

The postal workers looked stunned at first – but they quickly caught on and thanked the girls quite earnestly. The reaction from the other customers was instantaneous. I could see the grins creep over their faces, despite the packages at their feet and the seemingly interminable wait in line. The new twinkle in their eyes was unmistakable, that hint of happiness in the most unexpected of places.

We weren’t through, though, having brought with us three small collections of stamps along with other RACK cards. One at a time, we randomly chose customers in line and gave them the goodies. Their appreciative smiles were fantastic, but it was what happened next that was really incredible. As we were finishing, one of the recipients left her place in line to come over to us. She leaned in low, took my arm, and said, “My dad used to tell me to do something kind for someone else every single day. I’ve never forgotten that; it’s one of the most important lessons I learned. That’s what you’re teaching your daughters here today. Thanks for helping me to remember my dad, and to remember what’s most important. Your girls will never forget this.”

It took me at least two minutes to Photoshop my thumb to remove the hangnails and icky cuticles and leftover nail polish. Good thing I’m not vain or it might have been three.

Stunned, I started to pull Ella and Annie in to me to tell them how much their simple gesture had meant to this stranger when the final woman to whom they’d given the stamps called over to us to stop.

“Wait, wait! Don’t leave! Come here for a moment!”

Puzzled, we did as she asked, only to find ourselves waiting for at least five minutes (no exaggeration) while she looked through her purse. (It’s one thing to do a random act of kindness and then flee anonymously into the night. [Or afternoon.] It’s another to do said act of kindness and then hang around while people stare at you. Awkward.) At last, after telling us umpteen times how thoughtful we were, what a lovely gesture this was, she emerged with a five dollar bill.

“Here, I want you to have this.”

We briefly tried to protest, but she would have none of it.

“No, no. You keep it. You were so kind to me today – you made me feel so special. At the very least, go out and buy yourselves a couple of ice creams at McDonalds. Five dollars should do that, right? Go to McDonalds and treat yourselves. I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me.”

I finally decided that it would be extremely rude of us to turn away her act of kindness – after all, how would we have felt if we’d been rebuffed while performing any of our RACKs? – so we thanked her profusely and took off for the car.

The girls were dumbfounded. “Mom – we weren’t doing this to get paid!” they argued. “We actually made money in the post office today!” Still, they couldn’t stop grinning like hyenas all the way home – not because of their newfound riches but because, in their words, “Doing nice things for other people is the best feeling ever!”

And so it was. Every time I thought of the way the postal workers’ faces lit up, or the way the customers’ demeanor changed when they saw what Ella and Annie were up to, or how that woman spoke about her dad, or about the lady who felt so moved, she actually paid us – literally – a kindness in return, I felt like I was walking on air.

This is what Christmas is supposed to be, is it not? Doing unto others. Spreading joy. Sharing magic. The truest spirit of Christmas there is.

During the drive home, it was agreed that I would keep the five dollar bill (since, they wisely cautioned, it would probably be a bad idea to rip it in half). When I asked how they’d like to spend it, since we don’t really go to McDonalds all that often, their response was swift: “We really should spend it doing something nice for someone else, right Mom?”

We did exactly that.

Yep. We’ll definitely be doing RACKs again next Christmas. Can’t wait!*

———–

* fear not, we’re now on a mission to do RAKs throughout the year, so we won’t have to hold off until Christmas… but I have a feeling it will feel extra-awesome to do RACKs again when the time comes.

Do you believe in magic?

Posted on December 16, 2014 by missemtoo

Every year, we visit the same Santa Claus. I don’t just mean the same place or the same general “Santa,” but actually the very same human being. We discovered him a good many years back when we went to get our Christmas tree at a local nursery and stumbled upon a Christmas Open House they were hosting.

2009. OH, FOR CUTE.

The great part of this is that “our” Santa actually remembers the girls, which makes them feel pretty fantastic. (It doesn’t hurt that Santa hands out little goodie bags filled with candy, a coloring book, and these awesome glasses that “react” to bright lights and make it seem as though snowflakes or gingerbread men are dancing around the bulbs of your Christmas tree. Side note: wearing these glasses while driving is not advised.) The best part of this – or so I thought – is that Ella and Annie believe, to their core, that this is THE Santa Claus, so they feel like they’re in on a secret and basically the coolest, luckiest girls on the planet.

(They will tell you, point-blank, that the other Santas – the ones at the mall or on TV at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – are merely helpers, perhaps associated with The Big Guy himself, or perhaps just actors dressing the part. This doesn’t bother them or make Santa less real; they understand that one man can only be in one place at a time, duh, so there simply have to be understudies and stunt doubles.)

This belief began because “our” Santa has a real beard, unlike the Santas they’d met previously. It was cemented because they’ve seen photo evidence of Santa delivering presents to our house on Christmas Eve and (coincidentally) The Real Mr. Claus looks remarkably like the Santa at our local nursery. I will fully accept responsibility, and declare myself guilty, for this deception because Annie and Ella’s belief in Santa – their desire for him to be real – is so strong and deep, I am willing to do almost anything to protect it; this is a ruse that I am absolutely willing to perpetuate. But as for the photo Santa resembling “our” Santa? MAMA GOT LUCKY THERE, FOLKS.
If you want to be ~~creepy~~ magical like me, check out this website.

When we arrived at the Christmas Open House on Saturday, our sole purpose was to see Santa; we’d already gotten our tree last week, so we only planned to stay for a few minutes, chat with St. Nick, grab the goodies, and leave. The moment we approached him at his bench, his face brightened and his smile beckoned them over.

“My gosh, how the two of you have grown!”

He invited them to sit beside him and they made a little small talk, during which Santa mentioned that “your elf has been filling me in – he says that you’ve been pretty good this year!” Ella snuck a glance my way, one that showed me she was thinking what I was: How the heck does Santa know for sure that we have an elf (on the shelf)? We do, but wouldn’t that kind of blow his cover if we didn’t?

Naturally, Jolly Old St. Nicholas asked the girls what they’d like for Christmas. Annie listed her three items (the agreed upon appropriate number) and then Ella had her turn, telling him she’d like “an electronic writing thing” (actually a Boogie Board; Santa said he’d talk to the elves about it), a bracelet maker, and an American Girl doll. He laughed at that one, asking her, “Didn’t you get one of those last year?” She laughed back and agreed that she had – to which he replied, “But you can never have too many of those, can you? You need another to keep the first one company!” – and then she shot me The Look again.

Because, yes, she had received an American Girl doll last year, but it seemed unlikely that “Santa” would have remembered such a thing 365 days, and countless visitors, later. It seemed especially unlikely because Ella had never mentioned it to Santa at all; Nick and I had given her that doll last Christmas.

Soon enough, their visit was over, hugs were had, goodie bags were doled out, and the girls were by my side again, with both of them immediately saying, “How did Santa know we got American Girl dolls last year??” To which I replied, very honestly, “I have no idea.”

They were silent for a moment, thinking, when they both looked up at the same time and said, “Then he really MUST be the real Santa!”

Still dazed from the mystical Santa visit, I noticed that the nursery was selling well-priced poinsettias and Christmas cactuses (cacti?), which we give to the girls’ teachers each year, so I sent them over to look at the plants and select the ones they wanted. Meanwhile, I approached the cashiers for a large box in which to put our purchases. As I waited, The Man With All The Toys left his post and came up to me.

“I just wanted to thank you for bringing your daughters here every year. It means a lot to me.”

Oh, my goodness. Thank YOU so much for remembering them!

“How could I not? They’re beautiful and polite, and I love seeing how they grow!”

Thank you very much. Visiting you is one of our Christmas traditions each year. I know they won’t believe forever, but for now, they do, and you make magic for them each time we’re here. Thank you for the magic.

“Well, I certainly try. We all need a little magic.”

I still have no idea how he knew that we have an elf on the shelf, or that Ella and Annie received American Girl dolls last year. It could have been dumb luck – it probably was dumb luck – but it was pretty uncanny. Whatever the reason, my girls came away from our visit floating on air, certain that Santa Claus himself had just given them a hug and told them that they’d been good this year.

And hey… you just never know.

Christmas magic, my friends, indeed. That is the very, very best part.

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Tag Archives: Annie