Perspective

Adult friend of family says to Q, "I think you're the apple of your grandma's eye."
Q replies: "Yeah, I think it's my super power."

Hide and Seek

As I sat down to carve out a little time to myself while the kids played happily together, I was quickly disillusioned.

"Mom? Can you play hide and seek with us? Could you hide with Noodle and seek with Noodle?" Two hopeful faces looked up at me.

Ah.

Noodle and I sit down to count. "1,2,3,4,5...11,15,13,18,19..." I see the first problem.

We go to seek out Q and find him hidden where he'd been hiding not 5 minutes before. Well, that should make things faster.

Now Q counts.

Noodle persuades me to carry her. We hide behind my bed.

Q enters the room. I put my finger over my lips. Noodle calls out, "Here we are!"

Both kids collapse into giggles.

Glorious Moment

Today as I drove the exhausted Noodle home from lunch with in-laws and friends, she has the nerve to start whining.

You have to understand that I don't believe any child who has a lollypop in their mouth has any right whining.

I explained to Noodle that I cannot understand her, and add the above statement.

There is a little pause.

Noodle very politely uses her best Not Whining voice, "Um, Excuse Me?... I want a blue one."

Although I went on to explain that, again, a) she's fine and b) even if she weren't fine, I do not have a blue lollypop, I relished the moment. The phrase, "Um, Excuse Me?" is pure Q, substantiating my theory that if I can drill manners into Kid 1, my chances of Kid 2 simply absorbing them is excellent.

A Child's Christmas in Chester

It's traditional in my family to gripe about Christmas: decorating, cleaning, shopping, baking, gift-giving.

Since Q became large enough to have an inkling of what was going on, I have grown decreasingly prone to gripe. He loves it so... So much that when people casually offer me their leftover Christmas decorations, I actually agree cheerfully to take them. Each layer of sentimental adornment on our home escalates Q's pure delight. And how can you resist that?

I realized the other night that in addition to a fairly ridiculous accumulation of decorations hanging heavy on the boughs of our home (Thank you by the way! They look great!), we have an unacknowledged tradition which is entirely my husband's brain child. Since J is being dragged with loud cries of protest into holiday cheer, it was a bit of a surprise when I realized what has developed.

A few years ago, J had a cool idea to recreate a feather Christmas trees (see: Feather Christmas Trees) out of, essentially, sticks with lights strung around them. We stuck it into a large can filled with rocks. My description cannot do it justice.

The next year, J was dissatisfied with simply restoring the little tree to its place in the living room. Much to my disapproval, he disassembled it, and the Frankenstein Tree was restored as a flat Christmas tree to hang on the wall. Cute. No, really. And less work than trying to keep the Feather Tree upright.

This year, J enlisted Q's assistance and they abandoned the sticks altogether.

I think you can see our living room from a block away. And I'm not griping at all.

I had lost the faith

but I did it. I would weep for joy, but I think I'll go to bed instead.

Apologies

Apologies to anyone who uses this blog to get their fix on Q and Noodle. I'm trying to finish Nanowrimo this month and blogging is definitely not a good excuse nor a good distraction when I'm ignoring my writing obligations.

That said, the children have some science facts to share.

Q on 11/22/09: "Coprolites are what Scientologists call poop."

Noodle on 11/20/09: "Baby ducklings are made of...duckling."

Photos and commentary will be back in December.

Fairyland

Last spring, the kids and I were inspired by Tracy Kane's book, "Fairy Houses Everywhere" to create our own little fairy house in the backyard. Although the activity was just one afternoon, the kids had a blast and the house remained, more or less, intact for the rest of the summer.

This fall, we had some terrific luck when the Florence Griswold Museum did an exhibit on Fairy Houses. I wasn't fast enough to get Q signed up for one of their classes on making fairy houses, but Grandma did score us a "Twinkling Twilight Firefly Tour" - an evening tour of the fairy houses.

When Noodle saw our tour guide, her eyes widened. He was a slim man, dressed entirely in black, with black wings. Henceforth she referred to him adoringly as 'The Butterfly Guy' or 'The Fairy Guy.'

Our tour started at 5:30, in the pouring rain. We were in the midst of a cold snap that had dropped the temperature to 35 degrees. The children happily tromped behind the guide, who explained which fairies lived in which houses, and pointed out special features of each. The grown ups whimpered and wished for snow rather than rain.

The next week the temperatures soared into the 50s and we returned with J and discovered that the twilight tour had, by necessity of time, skipped more than half of the houses. An hour and a half wasn't enough time.








The fairy house tour, complete with a 'Do It Yourself' area, whetted Q and J's appetite for architecture and last week they built a loftier fairy house on the foundation of the previous house in our backyard.



As we left home the next day, Noodle pointed to a pile of leaves in the street, "There's a fairy house!"