Maeve and Lilly

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving at home. The girls enthusiastically pitched in with the shopping and the preparation. Pies, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and cranberries all were group efforts. Though both Maeve and Lilly promised they would  try the Tofurky this year, only Lilly actually did. She liked OK, but was a bit off put by the sweetness of the orange-juice/brown-sugar marinade I had used. We spent the rest of the day lounging in a stupor in front of our first fire of the season.

Friday we headed north to pick up our Christmas tree at Smoky Hollow Farms. Part of the attraction there is always the wagon rides pulled by intimidatingly gigantic and beautiful Belgian Draft Horses. The other part is the complimentary hot cider and hot chocolate in the restored barn. Back home we dragged out all the Christmas paraphernalia from the basement and got the tree up, the stockings hung, the Christmas music playing, and the electric candles in the porch windows. We decorated the tree, Rockwellian style, in front of the fire while listening to the Nutcracker and Low.

We left costume prep until the last minute again this year. There was not quite as much wailing and gnashing of teeth as I expected. We were writing in the studio, so to speak — trying to figure what the costumes were going to be based on what we could find in the picked over racks at the Halloween Express Superstore (TM, I’m sure). We grabbed some fake blood and some fangs and swung over to JoAnne’s Fabrics for a piece of sparkly spiderweb material and called it good.

Lilly (and her friend Sonja, naturally) were vampires. Maeve described herself as “a dead ballerina trick-or-treating.” (I remember it being “a dead zombie cheerleader” but there appears to be some revisionism going on by others in the household.) Wednesday morning I applied blood to Lilly’s fangs and created an oozing scar on Maeve’s forehead for the big Halloween parade at school. Maeve’s scar was apparently so realistic that when she looked in the mirror she claimed she was feeling a little dizzy because it was “so freaky.”

We spun around the neighborhood Friday night, but the chill in the air (hovering just above freezing) exerted more influence over the length of our outing than the allure of more candy. As usual, the girls sorted through their haul and donated a shocking amount of candy to the Great Pumpkin (the legendary spirit that leaves a few dollars in exchange for extra candy to be distributed to less-fortunate children). Maeve was particularly magnanimous, ruthlessly discarding 75% of her take.

We pulled into a parking lot this morning and Maeve observed: “That car is damaged.” Not long after that she asked, “Do purple cars get damaged more?” I dismissed this theory until we all started to notice an uncanny number of purple vehicles that had sustained damage. hmmm…

We had the first Irish Dance Performance of the new season today at the Monroe Street Festival. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to see the girls dance in wigs and dresses. I hadn’t seen them perform in quite some time and was quite impressed with their fluidity and confidence.

Lilly: When I grow up and have enough money from working for National Geographic, I’m going to visit every continent.
Maeve: Like Europe?
Lilly: Europe, Antarctica…
Maeve: Antarctica?!? What would you wear?
Lilly: I don’t know. A coat…
Maeve: Come ON! Antarctica is colder than winter.

All right… Finally. Here are some brand-spankin’-new photos. You got yer Summer pictures and you got yer back-to-school pictures. Have at ‘em.

Lilly’s friend Savannah invited her to go the DeForest Norskies high school football game. After she  got picked up, Maeve and I went to the store to buy snacks (pizza, snack mix, popcorn, ice cream) and grabbed a video (Flushed Away). We watched the movie and ate our snacks on the couch. As I was putting her to bed, she said in a rather wistful voice, “that was a good night.” When Lilly got home an hour later, she regaled us with tales of crazy high-schoolers and a whole lot of junk food. Now she wants to go to a Badgers game. *sigh* Maybe with Grampy?

In an uncharacteristically spontaneous move, we booked a hotel in Appleton Saturday and hit the road within an hour. The original plan was to go to the Menasha Jazz Festival and Turtle Festival, but once we got up there, we realized there was a lot more going on. After checking into our hotel, we walked two blocks to a really great children’s museum. The visit ended in a long multimedia art session. Afterwards we walked about a mile to a recommended pizza restaurant and pigged out.

The next morning, we strolled around the Lawrence University campus. We couldn’t help but think that this might be a good place for the girls. Though Lilly keeps insisting that she wants to go to Journalism school in New York. Next up was a pretty awesome planetarium show in Menasha at the UW Fox River Center. It was geared towards kids and featured an animation of a roller coaster that made all of us dizzy. From there, we went to Oshkosh and spent some time at Menominee Park at the huge playground, tiny zoo, and miniature railroad. Then we hit the road and made it home from the whirlwind trip by 8pm.

First day of school: Lilly in grade four and Maeve in grade one! Lilly has been worried about her teacher because apparently the scuttlebutt is that she is very mean. We had a number of talks about giving her a chance and that maybe she’s just strict and her class last year was ill-behaved. Lilly tried to be optimistic but she had a lot of trepidation as she got on the bus. After the first day, Mrs. B was deemed nice, though she was still worried about day #2. After the second day, she was still deemed nice. After two weeks, Lilly decided that she was “strict but fair.”

Maeve’s teacher appears to be well-liked by everyone and Maeve is flourishing. She wrote “school is fun” on a piece of paper the other day and seems to quite enjoy doing her homework. In fact, after one week, Maeve got moved to the advanced-readers table. At the school open house, Mrs. S told us that Maeve has had none of the fooling-around behaviors that were sometimes a problem last year in kindergarten.

 Well this is embarrassing. I haven’t posted all summer long. The longer I put it off, the more daunting it became. Now there’s no possible way to catch up, so here goes…

• The girls went to Out And About Day Camp again this year. They had field trips every day: bowling, the library, karate in town, and trips further afield like the EAA in Oshkosh and Miller Park in Milwaukee.
• Lilly had a chance to reconnect with Sonja so that now they’re BFFs again. Some fences were also apparently mended between Lilly and former BFF Riley. They had a couple of invitations and play dates back and forth and there appears to be an uneasy truce.
• “Grandma” Betty (our next-door neighbor) took the girls to Rhythm and Booms in Madison and to quite a few Wednesday-night concerts at Firemans Park in DeForest. She also took them swimming at Penny’s pool on a weekly basis.
• Maeve lost several teeth amid lots of blood and drama.
• The first-sleepover milestone came and went for Maeve at her friend Nora’s house.
• The girls completed another round of swim lessons. Maeve is doing well but the instructors told Lilly she should think about joining a swim team.
• We continued to read Harry Potter for bedtime stories; we are now on year five (The Order of the Phoenix).
• Maeve is a trip. She just interjects statements like: “That’s how I roll.” “What were ya thinkin’?” “Come on people.” “Excuse me I’m going to toot — got some gas comin’ through.”
• Maeve’s reading skills border on amazing. She seems to be well beyond where Lilly was on the cusp of first grade. I’m constantly asking her if she’s read something before or whether someone told her what a sign was.
• Lilly kept up on her multiplication flash cards all summer and is now flawless up to the twelves. She also continues to read voraciously.