A visit from the Leprechauns

Two leprechauns came to  our house last night.  This is not our first leprechaun visit and now each year it becomes more and more expected.  I see this as a problem.
The leprechauns have made it a habit to visit only the girls' room, where they arrange stuffed animals in the middle of the floor, move things around the room, hang underpants from the ceiling fan, and sometimes hide chocolate coins around.
This is the 2nd year that letters were exchanged.  The girls ask the leprechauns, who seem to travel in pairs, questions about where they're from, what it's like to be small, and where they get their gold.  The leprechauns reply in tiny tiny font that can barely be read.
This year the girls hit the jackpot and found nearly 90 chocolate coins around their room (they counted, not me).  I suspect they may find 10 more if they'd clean up a little more, but I'm not sure.
All I know is the leprechaun visits are taxing on me, and every year it seems to get more and more of a production.  I asked if the girls had told anyone at school about their leprechaun visit.  Thing 2 said yes, she'd told a bunch of people.  Another girl in her class was also visited and received the chocolate coins.  Thing 1, in third grade, said she only told a couple people and wasn't as forthcoming about the whole thing.
I wonder how long the leprechauns will be welcome... how much longer this will go on.  I expect we're soon approaching the point where these kinds of visits will become less of an ordeal, and then will abruptly end.  Which will be both a relief and a very sad thing.

Hubby comes home tomorrow, which will be awfully nice as he's been gone almost two weeks.

More good things

Kelly Darling posted a wonderful list of some of her favorite things. A couple got me teary. She's fabulous at looking for the wonderful. Sometimes I don't do that so well. But she inspired me to give it a shot today. So here are some of the things that grease the wheels as my world goes 'round.


* My daughters' tousled hair, soft cheeks, and stillness when they're sleeping.

* The bell on the front doorknob janging late at night when Hubby lets himself in after a long trip.

* How the dog comes to the top of the cellar steps to wait for me whenever I go down to the cellar. He doesn't do stairs, but he does wait at the top.

* How Thing 1 gets so excited to write a note (and hopefully get a response) from any magical person such as Santa, a Leprechaun, and at this moment (as she prepares to put the tooth that came out this morning under her pillow) the Tooth Fairy.

* The notes that Hubby leaves on my pillow sometimes on his way out of town.

* Sitting on the front step in the evening and watching my neighborhood get ready for the night.

* The fact that when we're both sitting down on the front step I can look the dog right in the eye.

* Watching my daughters during their swim lesson - Thing 1's freestyle no longer resembles swimming underwater with the periodic heads-up-dog-paddle to breathe, her arms actually break the surface. Thing 2's is very splashy with her little arms slapping the water at each stroke.

* When Hubby cooks. Anything he cooks.

Suspension of Disbelief

So.
As I was putting the girls to bed Wednesday night I walked past the printer and saw two copies (one too small, one too light) of the letter that the very careless leprechaun had left there.  I quickly snatched them up, and as we walked up the stairs to bed I reached over their heads and put them on the kitchen counter where they'd go unnoticed until I could dispose of them later.  


We get upstairs, we started brushing teeth, and Thing 1 realized she didn't have her copy of the letter... She looked all over her room.  It was late, she was frantically desperate.  I was helping Thing 2 brush her teeth.  Thing 1 announced she'd go downstairs and look for it.  Fine, just do it quickly.  She was about halfway down the stairs when it dawned on me what I had left on the counter.  I sprinted to the stairs as she called up "I found it!"   I got to the bottom of the stairs and she was holding both copies, looking at me baffled.   "He must have practiced," I said, I snatched them away and wadded them up, with her protesting.
We searched the downstairs, with her increasingly upset, then went upstairs in defeat.  As she was climbing in bed, we found the letter on her bed, the top bunk, which she can't see from the ground.  Hubby had put it there because he could tell this was terribly important and she wouldn't want to lose it.

She hasn't said anything since, but I felt terrible.
Thing 2 took the letter to Show-and-Tell today.  Thing 1 was cautioning her repeatedly not to let anyone take it out of its protective plastic sleeve because it's one of her most prized possessions.  Apparently she's still fiercely clinging to her beliefs, thank heaven.

Happy New Year

The 12 days of Christmas seems ages ago.  But to wrap up the thought I started before I begin a new one, here they are. 

9 ladies dancing was a set of 4 paper dolls, pretty cool and retro-looking

Ten Lords a Leaping is a basket of 10 chocolate frogs

Eleven Pipers piping was a package of 8 musical crackers - apparently each one has a little whistle in it.

12 Drummers drumming was a set of 12 Christmas crackers - we haven't opened them yet,

and a copy of the Robert Sabuda pop-up book of the 12 days of christmas

- which if you don't already own you should stop reading right now, get in your car, and see if you can pick one up at an after Christmas sale.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.
I had started documenting what we were getting on this 12 days of Christmas with the intent of next year doing something similar.  But I've been daunted because I'm just not sure where I'd even begin to get some of this stuff. Not to mention, it's a ton of stuff!  and a pretty significant investment. This is not your typical neighbor gift...  I'm just more and more impressed with who did it for us.

I'm pretty sure I know who it was... but I'm unsure how to proceed.  Do I confront them or not?  I think they need to be thanked.

On the 19th we took the girls to the play of "The Christmas Story."  It was well done, we'd shown the girls the movie, so they were familiar enough with the story to not be baffled by it, and to enjoy it.  It was a good introduction to the theater for them.

We had walked to the theater, and as we were leaving Hubby and Thing 1 got a little ahead of us.  A man and his wife were walking out next to me and Thing 2.  He looks down at her, and says there's lots of snow out there on the field in front of the theater.  She doesn't say anything.
He asks if she likes snow.  She nods.
He asks if she knows that Christmas snow is magic.  She looks at him.
He assures her Christmas snow is different than regular snow.  Would she like him to show her?  

He reaches out to the snow in front if us and picks up a pinch.  He puts it on his flat palm in front of her, and asks her to blow on it.  He covers one open palm with the other, flat, and circles the one above the other.  He asks her to blow on it, between his hands.
He shows her a clear shiny marble on his palm.  She is open mouthed speechless.  He gives her the marble, and with a wave he and his wife walk away.

I'm not sure I even thanked him.  I was so stunned.   It was just so magical... she was so tickled.  She carried the marble around all day.
However, the rest of the day Thing 1 is upset that she doesn't have a magic marble.  So much so I break down and tell them it was a trick, a neat trick, but a trick, and I demonstrate it.  Thing 1 is mollified, but Thing 2 is unconvinced.  Because I keep using her same marble in the demonstrations of the trick she is convinced that the guy used real Christmas snow to magically produce her marble.  I'm just doing a trick.  He did REAL Christmas Magic.  Which is fine, it was Thing 1 I was trying to pacify anyway.

The girls got to open their one gift each on Christmas eve, which was of course matching Christmas pajamas.

Our Christmas was wonderful, the kids got everything they could want and more... our typical story of excess, mostly because we have so much fun getting them stuff we'd want.  We have to play with these toys too, you know.  And it's exciting to imagine their joy in opening it.  They usually deliver, being so delighted at everything.  Thing 1 wrote a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve, reminding him of our new puppy, and imploring him to bring the dog a stocking and something to put in it.  Santa complied, and wrote a return letter.  Thing 1 was thrilled.

Thing 2 got her looks-like-her American girl doll

Thing 2 didn't get any one big gift, but lots of other things.  This is the card she made for Hubby to go with the gift she picked out for him.

Hubby got his new coffee machine, a Nespresso that also foams the milk.  It was far from a surprise for him, in fact I had to return the coffee thing I had originally bought him because he found this one, gave me a printout of exactly what he wanted, and so off I went like a good little elf to Sur La Table where they had it in red.

Hubby has spent most of the past couple of days sipping his coffee or playing Mini Ninjas, a Wii game that Santa saw fit to give him.

Hubby is a fabulous gift buyer... my favorite gift this year was a sock monkey hat.  Looks like I'm wearing a big sock monkey on my head.

We had my folks, Hubby's sister and boyfriend, and Hubby's friend and girlfriend for dinner Christmas day.  It's the first time our front room was presentable in less than a week after the force of nature that is Christmas morning has struck.  Hubby excelled in the food department, it was a fabulous meal.

Hubby's friend has a long standing history of using the girls like twirling batons to entertain them and himself for a while. This is the sort of thing that you have to be careful about doing to them yourself or you'll spend several minutes every day refusing to do it.

We spent the next couple of days up with extended family, doing Christmas.  That's Thing 2, Niece 4, Thing 1, and Hubby.

 My big ace in the hole gift was a Sharper Image five day weather forecaster thing that I got on a coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  I bought three -  for hubby, for my dad, and for my brother-in-law whose name we had this year.  They were all a bust, my brother-in-law's and father's because it's not Mac compatible, and ours because it COMPLETELY DOESN'T WORK.  I spent most of a day trying to get it to work and it just refuses.  The kicker here is I can't find the receipts for them.

On the way home on Monday, Thing 2 came down with a fever.  She slept most of the day, which is not normal.  I can't remember what her fever was that night, but it was high.  We started the motrin/tylenol dosing routine.  The next day  her fever came down, she took a nap but was pretty normal, but at night her fever would skyrocket again, up to 105 range, but be down by the next day, except for some napping.  Looking back, I of course can see I should have taken her into the doctor, but for one reason or another I kept putting it off, expecting her to get better.   On the phone to my brother on Wednesday, he thought it sounded like swine flu, which he knows all about since it made the rounds at his house.  That scared me enough that I called the doctor and got through to the nurse.  She said if Thing 2 didn't make it through the night, bring her in the next day, New Year's Eve.

She didn't make it.  We have since found out our ear thermometer thing has to be wrong- but I nearly had a  heart attack when it registered 106.9.  It came down really quick, which I assumed meant the thermometer was probably screwy, and the doctor agreed. 

The doctor diagnosed Strep Throat, which was a relief... seeing as how Hubby's getting on a plane on Sunday, it would be bad to have him carrying the flu.  We started her on Amoxycillin, expecting everything to be hunky dory before we could say Bob's your Uncle, but still her fever popped up again last night.  Using the old fashioned mercury thermometer in her armpit and adding a degree, we got 105 at 5:00 am.  Sponging her and dosing her got it down a degree in just half an hour.   The doctor told us in 24 hours she wouldn't be contagious anymore.  Which has already passed, and she still has a fever.  I suppose a trip back to the doctor is probably in order, or the clinic, if they're not open tomorrow.