Snow Day

Bundled up. Lindsay commented, "I look like the Home Depot."

Merry Christmas

No disrespect

"What was your favorite part of your day," I asked.

"We made dream catchers. That was cool!" Lauren replied.

"Oh? You made dream catchers in Art?"

"No. We made them in Social Studies."

"In Social Studies?"

"Yeah, we're studying Native Americans."

"In Social Studies?" I repeated.

"Hey! Native Americans have beliefs too." She said fiercely.

"Wow. Yes, I know."

So cynical

I don't know if it started when she turned 8, or when she began 3rd grade, or even if it was earlier then that and started when her baby teeth started falling away to be replaced by too-big-for-her-mouth yet adult teeth. But Lauren somehow became a big kid. Unfortunately the characteristics of big kid seem to be endless irritation at the stupidity of one's own parents, expressed mostly in long sighs and eye rolls. And letting your little sister know that everything she likes is deeply uncool. Dora? Uncool. High School Musical? Very uncool.

She let me know that yesterday they had a "real lockdown". For my dad out there who remembers nuclear war drills (I think he called them "hide under your desk and kiss your ass goodbye drills"), lockdown drills are pretty similar. According to Lauren, the teacher turns off the lights and everyone has to hide silently out of sight from the door in case a gunman is running around the building. If you make noise, you could get shot. They do these drills somewhere between once a month and once every two weeks. (It's district wide. Lindsay's school also does lockdown drills, but mercifully, Lindsay doesn't see this as "someone is trying to kill me" in the way Lauren does). During yesterday's drill - I have to assume it was a drill because the Honeywell system didn't call/text/email anything about an incident - apparently a couple of the boys in Lauren's class thought that groping other people would be a good way to spend the time. Lauren was neither a groper or a gropee (it sounded like the boys were mostly grabbing each other), but she was pretty upset by the incident. She said that her teacher sent the boys to the principal, and that their parents were going to be notified, and that they were put as a class back on a daily status system. Basically, they get 5 points at the beginning of the school day, and can lose points for bad behavior. If, for example, a kid is out of points by lunch, he's not going out to recess. Lauren said, "We haven't been treated like that since first grade" and was clearly irritated. She's always chafed at group discipline.

I'm not really surprised by any of this. I know this stuff probably goes on at the private school nearby that's $25k/year. It's still really frustrating.

Conversations with Lindsay

"Mommy, did you go to Pre-K?"

"No. They didn't have Pre-K when Mommy went to school. Mommy started school in Kindergarten."

"Ohh."

"Did Daddy go to Pre-K?"

"I don't think so, honey. There wasn't Pre-K then."

"Who were Daddy's parents."

"Oh, you know the answer to that."

"Oh yes. Poppy and Tutu." She began to sing:

Poppy and Tutu

Up in a tree

K-r-s-n-i-n-g

First comes love

Then comes marriage

Then comes daddy in the baby carriage

Sucking his thumb, peein' in a diaper

Then he drinks the al-co-hol.

Seriously. I have no idea.

Christmas Pageant

By any other name

Lindsay has been insisting this week that we call her Samantha. We've obliged, mostly because we figure at some point, she will get tired of it.

Unfortunately, part of this obsession included disposing of all the Christmas ornaments that we've collected over the years that had "Lindsay" printed on them. This probably wouldn't have been a big deal had she not done it on a Thursday evening, before we'd bundled all our trash, curbed it, and had it carted away by the sanitation department.

Shortly after this picture was taken, our daughter formerly known as Lindsay began crying because she realized she would never have her ornaments again. She was instantly cheered by the ice cream that came after this.

I'm still bummed. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find ornaments that aren't "Lynn" or "Lindsey". Grr.

Now, with pictures!

This is the trivet I knitted. Isn't it pretty? I based this on a pattern for a dish towel.And this is something Lauren left in the downstairs bathroom. What does it say?

Dear Dad,

I love you. Put

the nobe on

the broar!!

What the heck?

ETA: I just realized that the note says "Put the knob on the drawer." 6/8/11

Happy Hanukkah!

Hey, I'm here, and I don't have to be. Nomoblopomo...

It's actually NOT even Hanukkah yet. I went out this morning and bought gelt for the girlies. Okay, I bought more than that. I did manage to put back the Star-of-David-and-Dreidel lights though. No lie. There is such a thing, and they were briefly in my cart. They just weren't really $15 of awesome.

Lindsay and I will be making latkes tonight. When Alec gets home, we will light our menorah, which we've had since we lived in Boston. It's a beautiful one, but it had very skinny candles that one can't buy anywhere, so we have to melt the bottoms of the store bought ones to make them fit. Also, and I write this because I didn't realize that you have to let all the candles die out on their own, so it will be something of a fire hazard Chez Stoll for the next eight nights.

You've been warned.