Caroling
She doesn’t sing on command or for the camera, and she didn’t sing when we caroled for our neighbors, but I was able to sneak (or not sneak) some peaks:
4
A week ago N said something like, “Remember a long time ago when Christmas seemed so far away? And now it’s only five days away!”
While Christmas caroling for the neighbors and visiting a local church’s live enactment of Bethlehem and the nativity induced a turning inward for N (I think she was absorbed in observing her feelings in those moments), her fourth birthday celebration was another matter: she was elated from start all the way until her fiery finish.
As our church had moved our Sunday service to Christmas Eve, we had the whole day to celebrate:
The paper doll book from her grandparents occupied her for hours:
She already has used quite a few of the thank-you card kit cards:
She continues to thrill in the gifted hand-me-down underwear from her cousin, but the hair band was an immediate rush:
We packed a picnic for a hike in the mountains, something she’s been wanting to do for a while (except she wants snow at the same time):
More paper doll play:
And the cake:
Snap
N has been waking up in the middle of the night and calling for me to take her to the bathroom. Often she walks in a sleepy fog to the toilet and sits there for a long time, with me nearby fretting that she’ll fall back to sleep and fall off.
She has over the last couple months learned to snap her fingers, and she’s eager to show off her new skill as well as to use it nonchalantly and at random moments–like while conversing at the dinner table or even when she’s returning to her bedroom in the middle of the night, in her stupor. Last night she just reached that little wrist out, snapped her fingers, turned through her bedroom door, and stumbled into bed.
Winter is coming, of course, making those bathroom trips shivery. But the still-warm days of our season entice flies out of hiding for last forays before winter immobilizes them; I find them when their reticence to return to their hideaways before the cool of night leaves them slowed to a measly grog and they sit dumbfounded until I pick them up only to flush them away forever, I hope.
As the nights trend toward even colder cold, the mice outside are seeking warmer quarters in our scrabbling walls. Eleven mice have bit the cheesy dust already this fall; the first eight were snapped away in the first 48 hours of my eradication campaign.
I even caught one at someone else’s house one afternoon over Thanksgiving. I kept glimpsing movement and then saw it for real, so I grabbed a toy net from the closet and with some help herded it into the blue plastic. I felt rather heroic, like a mighty hunter.
At home, though, my technique is less exciting. In general accordance with expert marketers’ directions, I securely lace old-fashioned wooden traps with small bits of cheese, then place them at key locations where I’ve seen traffic signs in our attic and basement.
I’m no expert, though, at setting the traps. I still get all shaky and clumsy when I place them, which sometimes trips them, which startles me to no end, which means I’m even more shaky when I try again.
But it’s becoming more of a snap all the time.
Anatomy of a Tantrum
Hmmm. Not bad ideas, I suppose. Worth…testing, anyway, since they’re scientific and all.
In the meantime, three screams for NPR!
Off Center
After church this morning, standing around talking with people, I realized I was at the focal point of a half-circle of people.
“How neat!” I thought. “People like me, and want to talk to me and hear what I have to say!”
Only later did I realize that at the time I’d been holding H.
A sampling of Her Cuteness, and the cuteness of her older sister, who maybe feels sometimes like I do:
M Sings Handel
I recorded a practice session of M singing and her sister H playing piano; they were preparing for the Sunday morning offertory at their parents’ church:
Two Little Cousins
Early Versions
An original joke by N:
Why did the pig cross the house? He wanted to climb the branch.Piano arrangement:
Music
“Over My Head”
“The Gospel in a Word”
