To Santa Or Not To Santa

We went on our annual Santa trip this past weekend. My strategy
(yes, I needed a strategy) was to not mention it to Evelyn and Willa
until we got to the mall. That way, they wouldn't have time to work
up a scary scenario in their heads. Evelyn has pretty intense
stranger anxiety that was only heightened and cemented during the
most recent Halloween season. Willa would be fine, but if Evelyn is
worried, Willa figures she probably ought to be worried as well.
Another part of my strategy was to feed them lots of mexican food
after Church so that they would nap in the car on the way there, thus
putting them in an awesome mood. This part of my strategy did not
take into account the broken windshield wiper on the van, and (of
course) the subsequent rain. So we drove around all day in Jason's
XTerra with all three girls squished together on the back seat. No
nap. Lots of touching, kicking, tickling, smacking, and
screaming...but no napping.

By the time we get to the mall, Mary Grace has figured out what's
going on, and very helpfully announces this to Evelyn and Willa. To
my surprise, Mary Grace gets them all excited about seeing Santa.
Fantastic! We get in the mall, find Santa and his very long line,
and everyone is still in great spirits. We watch Santa for a long
time, and, thankfully, no screaming children are forced to sit on his
lap while we're watching. This would be an instant deal breaker.
Santa goes on a break. Santa comes back. Mary Grace has several
very intense and nervous conversations with me about what she might
or might not ask for. Willa keeps telling me she's going to ask for
a "brown Daddy present," whatever the heck that is. Mary Grace is
now having some very intense conversations with the older boy in line
in front of us, and he's showing her a picture he cut out of a
magazine of some video game machine. Wait, what the heck? Why is
she having very intense conversations with the older boy in line in
front of us???

Anyway, everyone is still doing great, and we're next. Evelyn, at
this point has asked to be picked up a couple of times (the only sign
that she's a little nervous). My strategy (yes, still strategizing)
was to not pick her up because then I would have to extricate her
from my body in order to put her down with Santa. In situations with
strangers, this is often physically impossible, so I don't pick her
up at all right now. Jason is ready to take video and pictures of
the entire event.

Ok, we're next! Mary Grace walks right up. I have Willa's hand in
one hand and Evelyn's hand in the other. I pull Willa a little and
show her that Santa has candy canes. That does the trick, and she's
up in Santa's lap. I turn to pull Evelyn along, and she's gone
behind the little white fence that surrounds Santa Land. She just
looks at me very plainly with her thumb in her mouth, shakes her head
NO and grabs the fence, as if to say, "You can try and make me, but
it won't be pretty." The picture girl looks at me with raised
eyebrows. I know she's thinking, "Are you one of the Moms who puts
the screaming child on Santa's lap?" I'm not. I give her a nod and
we have a lovely Santa picture of Mary Grace and Willa smiling ear to
ear.

What does this say about us?

When we got in the Race Car Cart at the grocery store today, Evelyn
and Willa spent the first ten minutes of our shopping trip playing
"jump start the car" as they pretended to attach invisible jumper
cables to each other's car batteries and rev their engines. Nice.

Unimportant Things

The longer I wait to write another blog entry, the more I feel like I
have to write something big. But I figure if I go ahead and post
some nonsense, then I won't feel so much pressure and I can go ahead
and post silly, meaningless stuff and not feel bad. As if, with all
the things I leave undone each day, I need one more thing to feel bad
about not doing. How is it that I turn so many things I enjoy into
things I feel bad about not doing? Ugh.

Soccer Fever

We went to our first soccer game of the season today. Mary Grace,
as it turns out, is one heck of a defensive player! She blocked at
least three goals, one with her stomach. She's all about the big
stop. When I was little, I played soccer for a short period of
time. I quit, though, because number one they served oranges during
half time, and I hated oranges. (I was such a weird kid. Who hates
oranges?) The second reason I quit was because the coach wouldn't
ever let me play goalie. Unlike Mary Grace, who seems to have a
natural defensive instinct, I just wanted to play goalie so I
wouldn't have to run around quite so much. The fact that I weighed
about 40 pounds as a third grader didn't help my case. I'm glad to
see my inner goalie spirit lives on.

Is that rain, or is the sky crying, too?

The emotional roller coaster continues this week. Pretty much every
morning, Willa refuses to go to class, crying for her sister, her
Daddy, and everyone else under the sun...including at one point
screaming for the front desk administrative assistant at the school.
I responded by immediately going to get said assistant and Willa
happily walked to class with her. Whatever. By Friday, she had
Evelyn crying, and even Mary Grace was upset. Emotionally drained as
of Tuesday, I asked Mary Grace, "Why are YOU crying now???" to which
she responded with a pitiful "I don't know!!!" Good grief. My fear
of the teenage years increases by the minute.

It rained today, which was a nice distraction this afternoon. The
girls got their boots and umbrellas out and played around in the
driveway. I didn't even make them come in when it thundered. It
could be years before it rains again here, so I figured they should
enjoy it. Of course, since it rained more than one sixteenth of an
inch, dry creek beds all through central Texas were suddenly turned
into fast-flowing rivers and people were being carried away in their
pickup trucks by the raging flood waters. I'm not sure people were
meant to live in this part of the world.