Brief Holiday Snippets

There are two two-year-old girls. One is full of giggles and smiles and batted eyelashes and the other is a wise little owl, solemn and unblinking, unexpressive, and, frankly, a little scary.  The first is older by three months and outweighs her serious cousin by ten pounds. The second has double the vocabulary of her older cousin, although you have to lean in real close to hear her whispers for loves: cheese, her older brother, and for you to go away. Seriously. She told me to go away. I complied.

My six-year-old niece has only a couple of more weeks with her casts and was super excited to let all her aunts and uncles and cousins sign her casts. I was happy to comply.

She got a Frozen karaoke machine (oh my GOD I just looked up and saw this thing was over $100!!!) from Grandma and Grandpa and loved that thing. Yes, we probably heard Let It Go a hundred times on Christmas Day, but it was worth it to see each of her cousins wander in to the family room throughout the day to be with her and sing duets with her.  And there was no snow, so sledding wasn't an issue anyway.

We spent the entire drive to my in-laws' house brainstorming small talk ideas for when we got stuck in random conversations with random conversations. It went something like this:

Him: Well, it has been crazy warm. I am not above talking about the weather. Iowans love them some weather talk.
Me: It's a slippery slope from weather talk to climate change to the Paris summit. I would NOT go there.

Him: You can talk about sewing classes. You'll be wearing the skirt you made.
Me: Then they'll ask why and I'll have to talk about ethical fashion and people dying in Bangladesh and soon everyone will be slowly backing away from me.

Me: You can talk about Bob's Burgers!
Him: And be reminded of the fact that I can watch the seasons repeatedly because I have time because I don't have children?  I'll ask about the new Star Wars movie.
Me: And risk being spoiled?

And so it went.  It turns out that the only safe topics are Zelda (she's fine - she's a cat, so her life doesn't change much) and book club books.  Don't you dare talk about the weather!!

There was fudge, mini-cheesecakes, and pecan pie. I'm looking at this photo and realize I need to do better at tracking my calories and lose that extra fifteen pounds AGAIN. And lift weights. Eh. I'll get to it sometime when there aren't leftover Christmas cookies on the counter.