Friday

Today's weather reminds me a bit of December in central Europe. Cold. No Arctic blast, but just at freezing. Gray. Damp. Cold.

That's okay. I have a morning of appointments, groceries and chores. Out and about. Heater's working in the car. The outside world is just that what I see through the windshield.

Well, and when I go out to feed the animals. (Pepper, on one foot, to avoid the snow)






When I finally see my doc, we talk about strategies for shaking a cough that appears to be nothing more than a terrible hangover from a bug long gone. She suggests a medicine that she is sure will help.
There is a problem with it -- she tells me.
Oh? What? (I'm thinking I'm in no mood for a rerun of GI issues.)
It makes some people grumpy.
Seriously? A cough medicine that makes you grumpy?

Now there's a dilemma! To cough, or to snarl at my beloveds? Eh, I can control the grumps... Can't I?

Breakfast, before the grumpy medicine.






Indeed, it's not hard to stay in a stellar mood when you pick up your granddaughter at school and then, along with her mom, you go to the University Forestry Department to pick up the big Christmas tree for their house.






We ask Snowdrop which tree she likes. In the past, this was a silly game. You ask which one, the kid points to some tree, you say"great!" and take the one you really like. But this year, Snowdrop gets really stuck on her choice.






I suggest another one, just a tad bigger, fuller. Her mom looks at me -- why don't we just get the one she really likes?





Sometimes your kids can show you the forest, even as you're too caught up in the search for a perfect tree...


Our next stop is at Clasen's Bakery. For the chocolate covered gingerbread cookies. For the gingerbread house to admire.






These holiday traditions have been with us for decades. We stock up on the cookies!

At their home, Sparrow is just waking up from a nap. Since both kids are full of playfulness, we decide it's a good time to try to get a holiday photo out of them.  I mean, the big tree will go up tomorrow, but the little tree in the living room is plenty nice. And the kids are just so disarming...

I'll post several photos -- none of which are in in the final run (I'll save that one for the young family's use), but all of which I love anyway. Because with those two grands, you just can't lose!
























Evening. Still cold. Still cloudy. Still lovely. Am I grumpy? You could ask Ed, but I doubt he'd have noticed. We're snuggled on the farmhouse couch eating popcorn and watching a movie. And I'm coughing a lot less. And that's such a good thing!

Thursday

Things are getting nicely dicey around here (time wise). I know that for some people, December is just too long. For those who can't take yet another go around of Ella singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and for whom In the Bleak Winter (one of my favorites!) perfectly describes the mood of this month, the end of the holiday season cannot come soon enough.

But that's not me. In my view, the month that is interminably long is February. The calendar gods were clever to give it only 28.25 days. We'd go completely nuts if it were any longer than that.

December, on the other hand, is too short.

You might be itching to remind me that we are not yet in December. True. But the 3.5 weeks before Christmas are so short that I try to off load some tasks onto the end of November. And still, Deember is like an accelerated Mannheim Steamroller rendition of Deck the Halls.

I have Bon Appetit (the magazine, holiday edition) lying suggestively on the counter. I wont get to it. Or if I do, it will be with a wistful thought that I really should play around with some of the new recipes. Some year soon.

For now, I focus on what I need to do this week to meet the demands of next week. I'll be traveling then and since my trip is a short one, the more I do now, the less time I waste in the course of my days away.

But wait: I have to note the essentials! For example, overnight, we got a light coating of snow!






The cheepers thought it was too much. Note how they band together in two groups of three. They young girls...






... and the women of maturity!






And breakfast...






In the afternoon, a bouncy, happy Snowdrop comes over. She goes straight to my stack of holiday wrapping paper.






She has the idea that we should wrap things. From her, from me, to her babies, to her mommy, to her older doll. With love.






It's a sign that I will do anything for my kids. Even wrap (unnecessarily) a handful of (small) presents. Snowdrop is thrilled with her additions to the loot under the tree. Though she tells me -- gaga, I will need new mittens.
Why?
I gave my old ones to my Rosie (the rag doll).


Time for a book break.






To get reacquainted with the handful of ornaments...






To look outside...






To play with the characters.






And to greet Sparrow, who comes to pick her up.







Evening. Cook dinner, tidy up, sit back. Just for a few minutes. There's so much to do!

Wednesday

The Many Positions of Sparrow

As you may recall, my nearly six month old grandson spends Wednesday mornings here, at the farmhouse. Today I told myself that he deserves his moment by the farmhouse Christmas tree! But how to photograph this? I mean, he can sort of sit. Helped if propped up a bit. But it's no guarantee!

As I think about how to do this, it strikes me what a delightfully challenging time this is in an infant's first year! It's not all about lying down anymore, but nor has he moved into complete independence yet. And so you will see from this morning the many ways in which Sparrow is experimenting with positioning himself in this world.


The arrival of the winter bunny...






My first attempt at sitting Sparrow by the tree... flopped.






How about if you lean forward, Sparrow?






Or, sit you up in a chair? Well, you can't see the tree from here...






On your tummy then. Not bad!






Let's have a better look at Sparrow!






Alright. Breakfast time.
Ed, can you stand him on the table?
How do I do that?
Just stand him on the table!






It's not easy. He slides!






We eat. Well, some of us eat.






And now he is upright, stable, and happy about it. He looks like he's jogging. He will be. Soon enough.






The Dancing Christmas Snowdrop

Can you teach patience? Maybe not, but you can certainly introduce the idea of it at an early age.

When Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse after school, she immediately spots the one present under the tree. Wrapped and ready for Christmas. "To Snowdrop," it reads.

Can I open it?
Not until Christmas.
Look! There are penguins on the paper! Does Santa know about penguins?






There is no good way to answer that question, so I offer her a piece of pineapple instead.






But you can't hide things from Ms Beady Eyes. Soon after, she finds the roll of paper I used to wrap her gift.
Gaga! This was your paper!

One more bit of the Christmas puzzle that she has now to mull over.


We don't have a great amount of time to play. It's dance class day.

Do we have time to read a book?
Just one!






Ready?






I give myself time to get her there on schedule, but once again there is an issue on the highway and once again we are a few minutes late. No matter. Snowdrop jumps right in without pause or hesitation.






The story for the day is Lion King.






She makes a fine roaring cub.






... who can jump hoops to get, well, wherever she needs to go.






I stand back and exhale. My grandkids are all well and growing in leaps and bounds. The lights are twinkling. Our homes are warm.

How good is that!

Tuesday is tree day at the farmhouse

It was a full morning: parcels to return, stamps to buy, gas to refill, fruits and untainted lettuces to resupply, doc to consult yet again about the never ending cough, tree to buy.

Breakfast first. (Such a good guy to put up with the photos, the cough, and, well, my Christmas love.)






In mid morning, I am at my grocery store, excited to look for a fresh little Christmas tree for the farmhouse. (I'd been told there would be a new batch in right after the Thanksgiving weekend.) But there are no new little trees. The store person tells me they are delayed. Until the end of the week.

Three scrawny trees, possibly frozen, because it is beastly cold outside, remain out front. The unwanted ones. I pick one and go back in.
What do you think, will it even last until Christmas?
She comes alive: last year  I bought one of the little unwanted ones and my boyfriend and I took off an inch and I swear, it was great for three months!

The idea of keeping a Christmas tree up until mid February fills me with horror, but I get the point.

I'll take it.


It takes no more than five minutes to decorate a tree this size. That's part of the allure. Indeed, price wise, it's a rip off: the full size version is only $20 more. Per branch, a small tree is a raw deal. Still, we keep things simple at the farmhouse. Snowdrop will get her big tree at home. Here, we enjoy stuff on a far smaller scale.

Snowdrop gets great pleasure in placing a gift from her -- a "macaron ornament" -- on top.  I hang two or three favorite ornaments from days when her mom was her size, and some tiny chickens, and finally -- three glass ones in the shape of candles. I tell her they represent my three grandkids. She finds an ancient holiday stocking in my shoe box of Christmas stuff and insists on hanging it on the tree too. It makes for interesting visuals.)






We are done!






The tree is in a new position this year (because of the screen that Ed has rigged up in order to experiment with conferencing technologies -- see below... talk about horrible visuals!). Snowdrop realizes that she can reach the top of the (elevated) tree by climbing up some stairs. The usual discussion about "how many stairs is it safe to bounce around on" follows.






Ah, but it makes for a beautiful image: the girl, the macaron ornament, the tree.






And then she is off and away, luring me into a game of going ice-skating, where she is the mom, I am the dad (talk in your man voice, gaga!) and we are giving her babies skating lessons.






Later, much later, I sit back on the couch and gaze at the little tree. All that beauty in a wee little thing. Remarkable.

Monday

Chicago is reeling from a blizzard. Over a foot of snow! Primrose and her parents made it home from Minnesota yesterday just by the skin of their teeth. In Madison, just a little over 100 miles to the northwest of Chicago, the day was cold and dry. Quiet.

*

You know the phrase plus ça change? A short cut to saying -- the more things change, the more they stay the same? Said with a tone of exasperation, or at the very least -- resignation? I thought of it when I heard the story of Snowdrop's encounter with the Claus duo yesterday. Snowdrop was with two boys (friends) and the younger one had asked the Clauses for a baby doll. Mrs. Claus shook her head on that one, suggesting that he may prefer toy trucks.

*

If I lived in Washington D.C. I would surely make my way to the Smithsonian to see the exhibition of the winning nature photographs for the year 2018. 60 selected, from 59 countries (tens of thousands had been entered). It seems to me that the best ones were taken by photographers that had at least three things going for them: talent, patience and luck. But I also think that if you're riding with just two of those in your pack, you'll still do very very well. As a museum spokesperson said, with digital photography, most anyone can be a photographer, documenting a slice of life for all to see.


I thought about all this when Sparrow came to the farmhouse early today.

(Sitting down to breakfast, photo by Ed)






The little guy is nearly 6 months old: able to do so much, though not necessarily consistently! Here he is, sitting, yes, easily, no problem! Except that maybe this time he'll take that dive to the floor.






Sparrow is the typical second child in that he has had to work around his older sister's schedule. But recently, his parents have really zeroed in on his own need for predictability: they've enforced regular naps (if at all possible) and as a result, this typically happy little boy is even happier (especially when it comes time to pick up his sister at school!).






(Snowdrop herself is delighted to be coming in for a large snack and a good amount of time for play.)






(Ed chats to her about her day in school...)






(Sibling love)






Eventually Snowdrop works her way up to story number three. There's a moon and an ocean in it and some tragic fate befalls someone, but I am only half listening: I am intent on warning her for the hundredth time not to play on the stairs. She loves their elevation, I fret constantly about their slippery, steep incline. We finally compromise: play all you want to. On the first two steps. She gives a quick thought to bargaining for more, then decides against it. Tragic tale continues to unfold, I breathe a sigh of relief.






And now it's very very late. Everyone is long gone. Dinner dishes are washed and stacked. I'm about to finish my post, but in my tiredness I erase the whole thing.

Don't you just hate it when you do something that stupid, at a very very late hour? Ah well -- the day was charmed in so many ways. We can forgive the trivial mishaps, when so much good comes our way.