Madeleine inspecting her mittenless fingers.
Emily exhibiting her mittenless fingers.
I'm afraid I removed the camera from its standard location in our backpack and don't have pictures of our activities over the past two weeks....so, a couple of more pictures from our Valentines Day trip to Colonial Williamsburg. (In truth, I did manage to grab the camera when the girls got away from me while getting dressed after a nap. There are few pictures of both young ladies performing "the naked dance" (they made this up completely on their own), however, I think it best not to put such pictures online, no matter how innocuous.)
Somehow the girls began focusing on their upcoming birthday (next week) on about January 6th. I'm not sure how they knew it was up-and-coming, but chatting about it has become the major past-time in our household. Friday each girl had "alone time" with me and got to pick out her birthday tablecloth (I think we will have to fold both tablecloths in half and run tape down the middle to get them both on the table at the same time), napkins, plates, etc. Till and I had talked about having a "kids' party", but as the girls have two groups of children with whom they go to school, AND they don't seem to know about kids' parties....we shelved that one for next year. In other words, we made a significant investment in birthday paper products for ourselves and the neighbors. However, the girls were so proud and excited picking out their things, that it is worth it. The only specific gift request we have received at this point is from Madeleine who wants "a teeny tiny airplane I can hold in my hand", Emily thought this sounded good too. The girls have very specific ideas as to the appearance of their cakes and are under the impression the cups, plates, napkins and tablecloths are their gifts. We contemplated taking advantage of this innocence, but realized we'd be found out eventually and it would simply give the girls more ammunition when they are teens. Gifts have been purchased.
I spent the past weekend in Washington D.C. with a friend from college. The girls seemed to do a good job supervising their father (and the cats). I took the train instead of attempting to drive the Capital Beltway and handle rush hour traffic on a Friday night in an area I don't know.We have also discovered the book Babushka's Doll in which a young girl is slightly "demanding" about what her grandmother is supposed to do for her. The grandmother leaves the girl with a doll who comes to life and is shockingly less than reasonable in her expectations of the girl...we read the book 3 times within the first 24 hours. The girls seem to understand that it is nice if you can give someone approximately three seconds before hitting them with another demand...I'm just hoping we don't' experience nightmares about our dolls coming to life!
