Of Elsa-s and Olivia-s

This year, Halloween was FULL of parenting triumphs. (Late, I know, but worth the telling.)

First, a little backstory:

A couple of months before Halloween, Genevieve, Mom, and I took a trip to the fabric store, and bought a pattern and fabric for an Elsa Dress. Maybe for Halloween, maybe for regular play, maybe both. No biggie.

Genevieve and I talked about Halloween, and I made a few costume suggestions.

"You could be Elsa," I suggested, "Or Olivia the pig-"
"I want to be Olivia," she answered.
"Are you sure?" I asked, "Because Mommy needs time to make your costume."
"I want to be Olivia."

Ah, to be so young and so sure. In any case, as it happened, we got a copy of Gramma Nancy's Animal Hats to review on the podcast. How timely! (CAVEAT, we gave it a very mixed review. Listen here.)

One of the great things about Olivia is that she has a fantastic wardrobe- so we had a lot of material to choose from. So, Genevieve and I looked through the books, and we came up with this for her Olivia the Pig costume:

What you are seeing are: striped pajamas (which I got on SALE! Also, double bonus of just taking off the outer clothes before putting her in bed that night), a red corduroy jumper from Nantucket Brand, and of course, the pig hat that I knitted for her. [Also, rain boots because it rained right up until it was time to go trick-or-treating.]

A month before Halloween, I checked in... Genevieve still wanted to be Olivia.
Two weeks before Halloween, I checked in... Genevieve still wanted to be Olivia.
A week before Halloween, I checked in... Genevieve still wanted to be Olivia.

And then, I made a tactical parenting mistake.

I went on Facebook (on my phone) while Genevieve was snuggling and slowly waking up from her nap. (This can take up to an hour sometimes.) There, Genevieve saw my friend Julie's daughter in the MOST AMAZING Elsa dress. Why so amazing? Because Julie sewed it herself, and it was bomb-diggety. Julie has skills and skillz.

The following exchange will likely not surprise you.

Genevieve: I don't want to be Olivia. I want to be Elsa.
Me: We are going trick-or-treating with the neighbors in ONE HOUR.
Genevieve: I don't want to go.
Me: Hmmm. Well, we don't have an Elsa costume, and we *do* have an Olivia costume.
Genevieve: I don't want to be Olivia. I want to be Elsa.

Now, I could have freaked out, and cried. I could have yelled. I could have canceled Halloween.

Instead, I summoned Andrew to the bedroom, and had him change Genevieve while I took some deep breaths and collected myself in the living room.

I had an epiphany. A straight-up, lightbulb-over-the-head moment. I went back in the bedroom.

"You know," I said to Genevieve, "Olivia is pretty great. *I* bet that Elsa would want to go as Olivia for Halloween. So, how about you go as Elsa, dressed as Olivia?"

Sold.

SuperAndrew looked at me with wide eyes, and we shared a moment of non-verbal communication done only with eyes and eyebrows that translates to something like this:

I can't believe that worked. (Andrew)
Be cool, or she'll catch on. (Me)

I couldn't believe it worked. THIS was my magic water moment. Less than twenty minutes later one previously-distraught child was now ecstatic. WIN.

*Literally* jumping with joy

The other huge win is that I pre-gamed her trick-or-treat bucket. I bought a big bag of lunchbox pretzels and put a few in her Elmo bucket. She trick-or-treated, I let her eat the pretzels, and MAGICALLY when she went to bed, all the forbidden candy turned into pretzels. You would have thought Genevieve won the lottery she was *so* happy. PRETZELS FOR ALL!

And now, the obligatory aging sequence. Brace yourselves.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2013

Halloween 2014

Fun fact: Our pumpkin looked like grumpy cat a week later, and Mom got a picture. (I'm just so proud that Mom knows about grumpy cat.)

Under the Mistletoe

This year, Genevieve was crazy excited about Christmas. I don't know how it started, but a week before thanksgiving, she started asking about Christmas- specifically, the tree.

"Our" tiny tree- borrowed from Mom's house

"First we go to Thanksgiving at Auntie Laura's house, THEN we set up the tree," I explained (over and over again, like one does with kids her age), "Christmas doesn't start until AFTER Thanksgiving."

SuperAndrew manfully set up the half-tree (phenomenal if you have dogs, small children, or both in our case) the weekend following Thanksgiving, and per German tradition, it was decorated on Christmas Eve. (Certainly not because we waited until the last minute. German tradition is the story and we are sticking to it.)

[In case you're looking to buy one, Mom says that she bought it at Michael's ONE MILLION years ago. This one is the closest one I've seen online.]

Genevieve directed the application of the decorations, which consisted of sheep, Star Trek ships, and of course, Frozen Ornaments (courtesy of Auntie Laura, who loves Genevieve all the way to the moon and back).

 

Anna, Genevieve's favorite

Elsa, normally played by Andrew

Olaf, who loves warm hugs

Of course, we have a few fake Mistletoe Balls (because real mistletoe is VERY TOXIC), which are normally placed strategically around the house for maximum surprise kiss-age, which SuperAndrew keeps with the ornaments.

Genevieve, being a toddler, insisted on hanging ALL THREE of them on the Christmas tree. In hopes of moving the mistletoe to a more... high traffic area (rather than under the tree), I explained that when someone is standing under the mistletoe, you have to give them a kiss.

[OBLIGATORY PARENTING BIT: Yes, we are teaching her about consent. Yes, we are teaching her that she doesn't have to hug or kiss anyone she doesn't want to.]

Every ten or fifteen minutes following that conversation, a little voice would call out, "I'm under the mistletoooooooe!", and it was a RACE to get to be the one who kissed Genevieve first.

(The best part of this is that- since the tree is still up, we will still periodically hear the call of "I'm under the mistletoooooooe!" It is So. Great.)

It was one of those evenings where having a toddler in the house made the holiday MUCH more fun.
And definitely more kissy.

... And then, it was Christmas morning. Genevieve got eight million small gifts (we don't do Santa here**, just presents from people who love her).

"Cover me in the snow!"

Gopher grin!

The cold never bothered her anyway

When all the holiday dust had settled, and we were all snuggly in our fuzzy pajamas, I asked Genevieve what her favorite part of Christmas was.

Instead of listing off a favorite new toy, or that we let her eat a sugar-loaded breakfast (normally, COMPLETELY verboten in our house), she floored me in that way that only a toddler can.

"Spending time with people I love," she said.

My heart grew three sizes. File this one under "things we are doing right".


** Speaking of consent and parenting things, we approached the Santa Situation by reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas! first, and getting across the message of Christmas that way. I'm not comfortable telling Genevieve that it's okay for a stranger to come into our house. KidBrotherSam and I weren't raised with Santa; we celebrated family and presents. Also, chocolate advent calendars. Your holiday mileage may vary.

Two Easters

I love Easter. It's a fun, low-pressure holiday, and as Genevieve gets older, it's especially fun.

KidBrother Sam mentioned how he loves seeing "last year vs. this year" photos of Genevieve. Brace yourselves.

Easter 2013

Plastic eggs are GREAT!

Chubby cheeks! Pigtails! Bunny overalls!

A lot of Easter was the same - no sugar, lots of family. But it was also very different.

This year, we hardboiled eggs from our local farmer's market, and SuperAndrew donned his seasonal AndrewBunny ears to stay up late dyeing them with food coloring (regular and Neon), like his mom used to. In the morning (after we had Crème brûlée French Toast), Laura the Fairy and I "hid" the eggs.

Genevieve, armed with a colander (in favor of a basket), was delighted by ALL THE EGGS.

Genevieve is a process-oriented kid, so when she was done finding the eggs, she asked Andrew to hide them "AGAIN! Peease."

 

Aaaaand, again. (Also, this time, UnkieSam hid the empty plastic eggs in the living room.) After three consecutive egg hunts, Genevieve was ready for a nap- which she *asked* for.

While Genevieve was napping, I whipped up the cream cheese frosting for Carrot Cake Cupcakes (from the Baking Illustrated cookbook) for the afternoon's family gathering. AndrewBunny did the artful piping, with juuuuust enough cream cheese frosting.

Shown in our cupcake carrier. Worth every penny.

Once Genevieve was awake, we headed to our afternoon family gathering.

Any time we go to a family gathering, it takes Genevieve a little while to warm up to the crowd. Meaning, she and I usually sit by ourselves somewhere quiet until Genevieve is ready to join the party. Or until one of the older kids comes out to play with her.

On Easter, it was the latter that helped Genevieve transition into her usual social butterfly self, and the egg hunt was ON.

At home, all the eggs are Genevieve's. At the family egg hunt, each kid is told that they can find six little plastic eggs and one large plastic egg each. [The older kids are told, "If you can see it plainly, it's *not for you*."]

Genevieve had a great time, hunting and counting. The pretty plastic eggs were filled with candy [READ: "the devil's sugar"], so I quickly corralled LittleJ, relieved her of her bag of goodies, and with subtlety and teamwork that would BOGGLE YOUR MIND,  Andrew and I deposited the contents of Genevieve's eggs into LittleJ's bag.

Genevieve got to play with the eggs, and she didn't miss the candy on the inside. Win-win. She was happy, showing everyone her eggs, talking about the colors. She thought her day couldn't get any better.

... And then Genevieve discovered the trampoline.

Mid-flight

"Mommy! Come play with me!"

... And if something is great, Genevieve makes *sure* I don't miss out on it. She's thoughtful and generous, and a great trampoline-bouncer.

It was our hoppiest Easter yet.

'ween

We have had a lot of change over the last few months around here. Andrew started a new job, and it is very different from his last, including the hours. What this boils down to is that he gets twice as many "awake hours" (as we call them) with Genevieve as he did with his last work schedule.

... and then he got LASIK surgery on his eyes. (You'll notice that he goes from Andrew to SuperAndrew in the pictures that come after this post.)

It's great, and I'm flexible, but it's taken me a while to find my comfortable rhythm. So here we are!

Genevieve helped us carve the pumpkins for Halloween this year, which mostly consisted of squishing pumpkin guts while SuperAndrew, Mom and I all kept the carving implements at a safe distance. (If you like our pumpkins, you can get the carving templates here. I found them via Pinterest.)

The whole family

She was delighted by the pumpkins, mostly because we had five that were all different sizes, which she would label with our titles. Toddlers LOVE order, especially my toddler.

Gopher grin!

For the two weeks we had the pumpkins, she couldn't pass them without adjusting their order. Since I know nothing about décor, I let her do her thing. Maybe I could learn something, you know?

Fung shui-ing the porch.

I spend a lot of time waxing poetic about how much (and how quickly) Genevieve changes, but seriously.

Last year:

Halloween 2012

You'll notice that the mouse costume is a bit roomy, and she has the footies on- because she's not walking yet. (She took her first steps on Thanksgiving, which was super memorable.) And LOOK AT THOSE BABY CHEEKS.

Brace yourselves. This year:

Halloween 2013

Walking. Talking. Carrying her Elmo bucket.

The whole night went remarkably well, with the exception of a few small ... hiccups. The first was both major *and* minor. I hadn't remembered to charge my cell phone, and I got the "20% battery life" warning RIGHT as I was about to take pictures of Genevieve in her full mouse-y glory. And then, the screen went black.

[Dear Apple, Inc.; 20% does not equal 0%. Love, Jasmin.]

Fortunately, we were in front of our house, and my camera was ready to go, so I got my pictures.

Family jack o'lanterns

What I may have been *most* pleased about was that she kept the mouse hood on nearly all night. The hood was more challenging than it should have been, but fortunately, I had Mom doing all the hard work helping me.

Mouse ears in progress

Fortunately, I brought fun to the party, which as we all know, makes up for any of my sewing shortcomings. Style eclipsing substance and all that.

Adjusting her ears. Like you do.

Mom stayed at the house with the dogs and handed out the candy (full-sized candy bars; that's how we roll), and SuperAndrew, KidBrotherSam and I took the Mouse from house to house.

It was really fun watching her learn how Halloween works. It took us a few houses, but she got it. She would knock, hold out her bucket and say "Beet!" ["treat" for the uninitiated], sign "thank you" after they put a treat in her bucket, and by the end of the night, would say "'ween!" ["Happy Halloween", again for the uninitiated.] With only the *tiniest* bit of prompting on our part.

The things that were supposed to be scary (rotating saw blades, dismembered body parts, giant spiders) didn't phase her in the slightest. I was feeling really great about how we had done nearly our *whole* street without a panic, and then, two doors down from our house, terror struck.

Our neighbor, dressed in the most *phenomenal* Chewbacca costume, opened the door. Genevieve let out a bloodcurdling scream and tried to -simultaneously- climb up and *through* SuperAndrew. Our incredibly nice neighbor (a father of two middle schoolers), pulled his mask off and tried to make Genevieve feel better.

"It's just me, Genevieve," he said, over and over, in his nicest voice.

Genevieve was having NONE of it. She pointed at the sidewalk, and we apologized profusely to our lovely neighbor (who may have been more traumatized than Genevieve) while we made our way to sidewalk safety.

It was all SuperAndrew and I could do not to laugh. And maybe we did. But there were also a lot of hugs, kisses, and "it's okay, you're okay"s.

[KidBrotherSam chided me about not teaching Genevieve about the classics. I maintain that she's too young for Star Wars. She is barely old enough for the Muppets.]

We took a quick break with some of our other neighbors, whose boys are extremely fond of Genevieve. Fortunately, Genevieve loves them right back, and after we let Genevieve have the packet of pretzels from her haul, we all hit the pavement for a little more trick-or-treating.

The older son, [whom I will call "Mario", since that was his costume] wanted to hold Genevieve's hand while they went door-to-door, and after a couple of houses after the Wookie Trauma of 2013, Genevieve was willing to go with him.

It was one of the sweetest things I've seen in ages; the kindness, the patience. (Halloween is my Christmas, and this was my Halloween miracle.)

I know next year will be 100% different than this year, and that's ok. I know she'll definitely need a new costume, and she'll have opinions about what that costume is.

I'm really looking forward to next 'ween.

With a little help from my friends

A few years ago, Andrew and I figured out how to juggle the holidays so that neither of our families felt jilted. We would follow German tradition and do the bulk of our celebrating on Christmas eve, have breakfast (*coughbrunchcough*), and open our gifts in a leisurely manner.

In the afternoon, Andrew and I would mosey over to his family celebration and have Christmas dinner with them. It was such a simple and elegant solution; I felt like a genius for working it out.

Christmas eve dinner is always crab, and we invite our closest friends to join us. It's the BEST. Sure, it requires some planning, but it's totally worth it.

This year, I couldn't do most of the things I normally do to plan. Andrew has been running around like Buddy the Elf, trying to get everything done, and I'm directing via lists from the couch. The tree isn't up this year because there just wasn't time. But Christmas isn't about the tree.

We made our list this morning, and we went through the timeline for the day to make sure that (a) dinner went on as scheduled and (b) I didn't "overdo it" (Andrew's words). As the guests arrived, I was told to sit and direct; so I did.

Laura (the Joy of Cooking Fairy) took care of the crab, Andrew roasted a chicken (for my father, who is not a fan of shellfish), Bromantic Brandon picked up ice for the drinks, Mom did dishes, Snackary lined the table in paper, and MacGuyver Colleen cracked the eggs for the homemade egg nog. Our one-butt kitchen was a-bustling with activity.

(Side note: The egg nog recipe from The Joy of Cooking is AMAZING.)

It was a team effort, and that's really the message of the holidays, right? Nobody was stuck cooking all by themselves, or cleaning up solo. The Holiday Cheer^TM was abundant, the food was delicious, and we had enough egg nog to share with our neighbors.

The evening wouldn't have been the same without the company of our family and closest friends; it wouldn't have be do-able without them either. That's the sign of real friendship; everyone seems to come together when times are tough, and when times are good, we all just bask in the goodness.

I'm a little sappy about it, but this is my first year needing help, and for this type-A, control-freak, it is incredibly reassuring to know that - believe it or not - I don't have to do everything.

A holiday plea

Dear Readers;

This holiday season, please, stop killing yourselves. If you need an excuse, please please PLEASE, make it your gift to me. Stephanie is knitting mittens for an army, Alison always expresses her love in stitches, and I know that more than a few of you reading are scrambling to find a way to get all of those gifts knit, crocheted, woven, or sewn.

I know you want your loved ones to feel loved. Believe it or not, your loved ones want you to be happy, too. (And if they don't, they should.) Knitting yourself into a repetitive stress injury- or madness - is not in the Holiday Spirit^TM. Trust me. We have 19 days until Christmas, 16 days until Yule, and 14 days until the first day of Hanukkah. Time is a'tickin'.

Some suggestions from me, the Grinchiest Elf on the block:

- Amazon.com. Everyone buys stuff there, and a $25 gift certificate is usually more well-received than a gift made with love. Also, it's near impossible for me to make something for *less* than $25.

- Bake, and use butter. A few extra pounds will also keep your loved ones warm! BONUS: You can finally justify buying a bucket of butter, like this one:

Why yes, that IS 5 lbs of butter. And this year it WILL BE MINE!

Enlist the young people in the family- they'll enjoy it and not realize that they're participating in a whitewashing-the-fence-type scam. Chase it with a brisk walk after dinner, and admire the decor on the homes in your neighborhood. We have a set of neighbors who never cease to amaze me with how much Holiday Spirit^TM they have. Especially after a few mugs of Glühwein. (Our family gets into Holiday Spirits a whole different way, if you get my meaning.)

- Put together s'mores kits (scroll down, totally worth it), but make the marshmallows from scratch, and use the Smitten Kitchen recipe. Andrew and I were asked to recall a favorite memory in birth class last week, and it's remarkable how much we enjoy something as simple as making s'mores in the backyard with friends.

Remember what the intention of the holiday season is really about. I was in the car with LittleJ last week, and, as usual, I asked her how she would feel about our gift to them (the kids) being baking and decorating gingerbread men. Also, doing it earlier than Christmas, since my mobility is getting more and more limited as the Countdown to SharkBean looms nearer and nearer.

[Side note: The "kids"? Only three are under 18 at this point. When did they get so OLD?]

LittleJ, at 16, pointed out that it's not about *when* we do the baking. It's about the doing the baking. We could all take a page out of her book.