Thanks Giving

One of our local news channels did a story on the rising cost of Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently the Farm Bureau (don't disown me, Dad, for using their information!) has said that nationally the cost of the ingredients for a typical Thanksgiving dinner has gone up. If the extra cents and bucks went to those who labored to grow and raise said ingredients, then few people should/would have much problem with it. I think they quoted the increase to be around $5.17 total increase for an entire meal. This is where my thankfulness for the week begins.

17. That even in a recovering economy we are able to go directly to the grocery store and buy most everything we would like to cook a large family meal. No rationing, no bread lines involved. Why not be thankful for that which we take for granted?

The news story continued by interviewing two shoppers stocking up for their Thanksgiving feasts. The reporter mentioned the rising cost of food; both shoppers laughed, perhaps nervously since they were on camera, and responded flippantly. Maybe they just got nervous and silly for the tv cameras; maybe the station picked the most flippant responses, but the response of the first especially saddened me:

*"Everything is a little higher, but, honestly, I don't pay much attention. It's Thanksgiving, so we'd have it no matter how much it cost! I'm not scrimping on Thanksgiving! Are you kidding??"

I wanted to shout at her. Really? Seriously? You don't pay attention??! Now, I sure don't mind giving another $5.17 to a farmer who grew the bread for our stuffing or rancher who raised the turkey we'll carve. But my heart broke for the mothers who know they have to head to the food pantry to pick up Thanksgiving dinner ingredients....or those who hope their children don't notice they're using food stamps (whatever form they come in now) to pay for the groceries. My mind travelled to the fathers who are out working twelve-hour-days on the rigs out West, sleeping in man-camps or RVs or hotel rooms or cars, sending their paychecks back home to their families who will eat Thanksgiving dinner without them. Being able to celebrate this upcoming holiday with a massively-large meal, rolling ourselves away from the table in disgust at the amount of food we consumed, happily lazing on the couch enjoying the turkey-induced haze....This isn't a right of ours. It isn't something simply guaranteed us. It's a blessing for which we ought be thankful, and it would seem that thankfulness should automatically lead us to be mindful of those who have less or have to sacrifice more than typical to have it. So...

18. For knowing that we will partake of a traditional Thanksgiving feast; That I can, without hesitation, go to the store and buy ingredients for the dishes I'll be bringing.

19. For needing to be fiscally-conscious enough that budgets can still give me a headache....which also seems to keep me pretty grounded in thankfulness.

20. For celebrating this holiday season with my husband as I'm clearly aware there are military husbands/wives spending the holiday in hot, sandy, foreign lands and oil-boom-workers spending the holiday in a world that is cold, dark, and strange to them, too.

We've had a blissfully dry, open autumn. This brings me to more numbers:

21. Tap-dancing Mice in the golden, fading light of a late-autumn afternoon.

22. Being able to warm the hands of Miss Mouse myself

23. Warm afternoons where warm mittens end up discarded as the tap dancing warms little bodies.

25. Playing with my girls....in the park...in NOVEMBER....even if it meant getting covered in leaves!

26. Swinging on the "low swing" with two breathless little tap-dancers.

27. That my little Mice can be enticed to explore more of the park than the playground equipment....strange findings though we stumbled upon....

28. For those who envisioned this park as a place for families to run and play together......for all the years it bustled with activity....and for the ways in which it still does....

29. For finding the "new" barns to explore to replace the "old" barn whose remnant is shown above

30. For delicious, golden light

31. For time to edit some pictures....though not all....

November's lovely autumn continued as we had two days last week of huge, snow-globe-type flakes falling all morning (it was most lovely because it all melted by 5 p.m.!).

32. For Mice who desperately want to EAT the snow (one more than the other)

33. For a responsible Miss Mouse who would never think of some of the escapades her sister engages in.

34. For a fiery Sunny Mouse who taught me to sample the fresh snow (off the wooden swingest, thank you very much) and to taste it's freshness

35. Snow - Nature's Cotton Candy

(I love Miss Mouse's face in this picture - Pure confusion and disgust! Why is my sister eating snow from the dirt?)

36. Catching snowflakes so big I could feel them melting on my tongue

37. Time to play games, play musical instruments, to play in the snow, to play at the park as a family

Yes, Virginia

These words have been rattling around in my head for some time now; it just seems like finally the right season to force them out into a semblance of coherence.

Several weeks ago in Sunday School, the S-man came up...... the Guy in the Big Red Suit, Saint Nicholas, none other than Mr. Santa Claus himself was a brief topic of discussion amongst my 3 and 4 year olds (and 2-yr-olds, if indeed Sunny counts as more of a participant than a mascot). I'm not sure how, or why, or how he related to what we were discussing, but one of my sweet, little Sunday School girls innocently commented, complete with her adorable lisp, "Santa's just pwetend.". I smiled at her and went on with our lesson, hoping neither of my girls had picked up on her little statement.

After multiple time-outs, too many scream-fests to count, and behavior nearing the Mommy-may-tear-her-hair-out-piece-by-piece level, I finally figured out that not only was Miss Mouse upset that our Sunday School drama stage had changed, which it had that day, but she had also heard the Santa posit. Rats.

So, as we continued to deal with the "why did the set have to change to tell different stories" question repeatedly asked and answered for three days (our Miss Mouse is a definite creature of habit), I also decided I needed to address the Santa comment in question.

Far earlier than I had ever imagined, I took Miss Mouse on my lap and asked again if she had indeed heard what Little Cute Girl said at Sunday School. Oh, yes, indeed she had. "Okay, deep breath, Mommy," I thought and proceeded to utilize this strange age of technology to pull up the "Yes, Virginia" letter within seconds online.

I remember coming home from school having heard similar rumblings about Santa and asking my mom "the" question. I distinctly remember sitting at the kitchen table with her as she read that letter. I remember she had a hard time reading through it and had tears in her eyes, and I remember clearly that I couldn't figure out why. I'd be willing to be she still has that copy of the newspaper editorial; it was, I think, yellowed already at the time she read it to me, say 25 years ago. Maybe it even came from a neighbor or someone who had already used it for her own children before us. Whatever the case, I remember her reading it, and I remember a sort of disappointment as the idea took hold that perhaps Santa wasn't really the person who put all the glorious presents under the tree on Christmas morning....but there was also a sense of security, warmth, and love as I was given permission to believe, if not in the person of Santa Claus, definitely in the idea of him. At that point, it didn't matter to me that the Santa who stopped by Papa's house on Christmas Eve was Jim Grote (and maybe Ron, too, sometimes?) rather than Saint Nicholas himself; it mattered that we were celebrating love and giving and Jesus' birth together in that warm house and that Jim cared enough to spend his own Christmas Eve traipsing around the neighborhood in a big, red suit.

And so I read and snuffled and read and sniffed and read and swallowed really, really hard. I explained as clearly as I could to my four-year-old Miss Mouse that Saint Nicholas - the real Nicholas - was a giver because he knew of Christ's gift to him. We have a book about Nicholas, so Miss Mouse does know his real story. She knows we give Christmas money to our Compassion sponsored children because Jesus died for our sins; she knows we donate food to the food bank for the same reason; she knows that is why we rang the Salvation Army bell for an hour last week in below-freezing temperatures to raise money for those who have no food or homes; she knows that is why we have "adopted" a soldier spending Christmas in a dangerous and distant land and are sending him a care package. She knows we give because of the gift we have received in Christ.

And she knows that is why Saint Nicholas gave and why Santa Claus, today, gives to us. At our house, Santa doesn't bring humongously large, impressive presents. One year, "he" painted a moon on Miss Mouse's bedroom wall; the next year, he gave her a note that said she'd get to go to another session of skating lessons. This year, he's going to be a real hit if he comes up with clip-on earrings for Sunny and lip gloss for Miss Mouse. No doubt he'll come up with a few more impressive items to add, but he's definitely not the "cash cow" here that he has come to be in our society-at-large.

So, for now, Santa is still safe at our house. The Mice can't hardly wait to go see him when he comes to "live" here in town for the season; I'm holding my breath that our Santa is still "our Santa" given that that man is actually our neighbor a few doors down and lost his son early this summer. More than ever this year, I hope "our Santa" can feel the promise and hope of Christ that encouraged Saint Nicholas so many hundreds of years ago.

*This post is not intended to be a critique of those who choose not to let their children believe in Santa Claus. I first heard of that practice when we were pregnant with Hope seven years ago, and I was honestly horrified because of how beautiful my experience with Santa, and even my experience finding out that he wasn't "real", was. I realize, though, that not everyone's experience was like mine. I love the Little Cute Girl who made the comment at Sunday School, and I harbor no negative feelings towards her or her parents. I was just shocked at how young we had to address this issue, and my reason for writing about it is to remember how we addressed it and why we addressed it when and how we did, not to critique anyone's parenting choices.

Her Turn

It's been such an exciting summer for her big sister with new accomplishments that I've never seen a child of mine do before that I'm looking back on the blog here realizing that maybe I haven't painted quite as brilliantly sweet a picture of Sunny Mouse as I have of Miss Mouse.

This go around, this second time of seeing bandaid-ed knees, dandelions crumpled in tight fingers, first sentences, first rote countings to 16...In another lifetime I may have had the idea that it would seem more routine the second time around. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sunny has such a bright personality, such fire in her; it erupts in her contagious giggle, her dimpled smile, her flashing eyes as well as in her sudden tantrums! She is definitely a no-holds-barred type of gal; her knees show this well. I thought she'd slow down now that winter has set in, but it seems that she is determined to learn to run in snowboots. At this point, my main prayer is for all her teeth and bones to survive the winter intact.

Sunny has been such a trooper, learning to play independently while Miss Mouse does her preschool work. Here she's conned her big sis out of the large Braille-dots that Miss Mouse created (while we were learning about sight and Helen Keller....) and is happily lining them up on the floor. I think she spent a good 15-20 minutes lining them, messing them up, and reshaping them.

This picture is from mid-summer, so the girls now need to be pictured 1.5 inches taller (I'm serious - they measured themselves last weekend). Use your imagination to add another inch or so. In this picture, Sunny is proud that she made the foam letter magnets on the fridge into a shape. Miss Mouse is also proud. They are eachother's fiercest cheerleaders; Heaven help the bystander who doesn't cheer for the sister!

Apparently Miss Mouse wasn't sure I got her sister's picture quite appropriately. They're just making sure I caught the "magic" of the moment, I guess.

I'm unhappy with almost all the pictures in this post, technically. I'm pretty thrilled to have captured my Sunny's personality so well, though. We have pictures of Miss Mouse in these poses; she is hesitantly trying to be the best little model she can be. Sunny just enjoyed hamming it up, knowing I was trying to catch her.

Her short little legs we did not peg as runners, but she's doing her best to prove us wrong. And to grow her legs by adding an inch and a quarter in height (somewhere - her body maybe?) since July.

Sunny's brave; at home her bravado shines through, screams through sometimes, yet she's also nearly as hesitant as Miss Mouse in some situations. I don't trust her; Sunny's an incredibly "typical" two-year-old, ready to run head first into danger. But she's also sensitive; she burst into tears yesterday when she tripped and nearly fell on our way down the stairs. "Dat wad skeewy" she managed to sob out. She also, the same day, had to sit on her sister's lap when I used the sewing machine on a "wowd" (loud) stitch setting. She's unpredictable for sure!

The Mice have been using any stick deemed long enough for their walking sticks/hiking sticks. Maybe next summer our hiking plans won't be flooded out, and they'll get to try their hand at the real thing!

I think it's hilarious to look at that mouthful of teeth and remember how long and hard she/we worked to get them! What a little shark mouth!

"Are you comin' or not????? 'Cuz I'm going!!" I can just see it in her mind.

With all the dimpled smiles and mischievous eyes, this is my sweet baby. This is my Little One who now insists she be called "Big One", mainly because she's proud she can reach the light switch to turn it both on and off. Oh, the independence she is finding! She can hardly wait to be three, and now that we started attempting to learn some letters more officially, she's delighted to be in "pre-sku-dool". She loves her "Mama time" and definitely enjoys watching Miss Mouse swim because it means she has Mama all to herself to cuddle, draw, or just sit with. She's a real 'run-for-our-money', and may always be, but she also looked directly in my face this afternoon, after ringing the Salvation Army bell for an hour in 20-degree temps, and told me that the baked oatmeal I made as a snack to warm us was, "Dust a wonderful tweet, Mommy! A wonderful tweet!". And that's just what she is. A wonderful treat.

Go Fish

Miss Mouse has been doing super with her alphabet; she knows pretty all capital and "small-partner" letters and can write most of them, as well.

What she hasn't been completely sure of is number-recognition past 5. As of mid-September, she recognized the symbols up to 5, but past there, she was sort of fuzzy on the symbols. Counting isn't a big deal for her; she can count up to 30 herself and beyond with help. But the number recognition was something I knew we needed to work on.

In September, I started having "Momma time" with each girl in the afternoon. Each girl gets 30 minutes of me to herself. They both love it and ask for it everyday. I love it. I think we're going to love it even more on the long, cold winter days to come. Anyway, it occurred to me one day that playing cards forces number recognition, but that it does it in a fun way! Miss Mouse loves worksheets, but I can only dole out so many of those in good conscience. So, Miss Mouse was introduced to "Go Fish"!

We usually play in her room, as the afternoon sun streams in her window, each of us sitting on a warm spot of carpet, our bare feet soaking in the heat. On this particular day, I just couldn't resist grabbing my camera, something about her blonde curls and big eyes, I guess.

While we sit and play, at least on the days that Sunny obediently takes her "quiet time" in her own room, we focus only on each other, only on our game. That's all there is in the world, all that matters for those 30 minutes.

It's been four years since I laid on the living room floor, in a piece of sunshine, staring at my sweet baby staring at me. I wouldn't change where we're at in life right now at all; there's so much excitement, so much going on - swimming, Sunday School, playdates - but there is a simplicity and quietness and stillness to sitting on a piece of sunshine with this little blonde girl.

It's really just a bonus that she's improved tremendously in hand coordination (and she has always had pretty good dexterity - Cheerios were never an issue for her left pointer and thumb....) and now recognizes all the numbers in the deck.

As of this day we hadn't even introduced a scoring system yet, but look at that tongue! For a no-pressure game, she certainly concentrates!

And concentrates....

Until she gets them "just right" in her hand.

Just this past week, Miss Mouse finally understood the idea that she isn't supposed to tell me which cards she has. She now thinks it's hilariously funny to hide her cards from me, especially if she draws one she knows I want. Then I can tell from her cat-that-ate-the-canary face that there's a card there I want!

Yesterday I attempted to introduce a scoring system where each card laid down is worth two points...it's my attempt to integrate "skip counting" into "Go Fish". Really, today I integrated her memory verse (Psalm 90:12) into "The Doodlebops" television show story; I should be able to get skip counting into a card game!

One thing I love about these half-hour segments of card playing with my four-year-old is that I can see Papa sitting across from me at his kitchen table, smell the coffee and Emma's doughnuts, hear the door open when Dad comes into check on us as we play our own game of "Go Fish"; I can see Grandma playing hand after hand of "Rummy" with me, all afternoon card games that lasted until one of us was too hungry to play anymore, or until Grandpa came in to see what was for supper. How can it be that those memories are 20+ years old now? I love that we've carved out time for Miss Mouse to have her own memories of games....of time with people who love her....of quiet moments sitting on a piece of sunshine.