It Takes So Little...

Our house on the lake doesn't have a mailbox, so we've purchased a post office box in the village. I originally thought this would be a teensy pain in the butt, because on Cedar Creek we loved running out to the mailbox together to discover the treasures inside. Sometimes, when it was especially cold or snowy, that trip to the end of the driveway was the extent of our outdoor excursions for the day.

I have absolutely fallen in love with the post office box. The post office itself is a small room, really, that is largely unstaffed but is surrounded by P.O. boxes. My secret dream job is to be a mail carrier, walking to each unique house and meticulously emptying my bag as I chat with neighbors and enjoy the outdoors. I would now settle for a small-town mail clerk, I believe, with the room full of different-sized doors and a satisfying angle of letters in each one.

The most exciting part of having a P.O. box in Walloon Lake is that sometimes, after turning the key to your own special room of mail, you might discover another key is waiting for you. This new key has a number on it, and you get to search the room for a bigger P.O. box with the same number and open that, which will have a package in it for you. A package! Behind a locked door! For which you have the key! Which you found in your own little locked box!

Each time this happens to me, I think about the ridiculous amount of joy I feel and wonder how incredibly happy I could make the world if I were able to bottle that excited energy I have while I'm racing around, looking for my treasure chest.

Once, I happened to run in while the post master was working. I had a little card in my box that told me I needed to sign for a piece of mail, so I ran up to the desk and rang the bell. I heard her in the back working on something and so, after waiting three whole seconds, I rang it again. She came out and I'm not kidding, I nearly jumped over the desk and hugged her.

"HI, I'm Lisa Doublestein and I have a P.O. Box rightoverthere and I found this yellow card in it and -"

"Oh yes, box 618?"

"YES, GOOD JOB! That's me! Well, that's me and my husband, Trevor, we just moved here, just for the winter, really, though we're not new in town - well, we're new in the village here but we lived in Petoskey, well my husband actually summered here in the village most of his life - that little pink cottage? On West? I think it's West. You know, that little pink one? Anyway, he also builds on the lake so he's out here all the time, so it's not like we're exactly new. We're staying in a house he built, actually, out on North Shore."

"Hi. My name is Terri, and I'm the post master here."

"Oh GOSH, so good to MEET you Terri. I'm sure we'll be seeing lots and LOTS of each other."

"Mm-hm. I see you with your little ones every now and then."

"YES, we see you, too! That's why I wanted to introduce myself. They're Berit and Marta and sometimes we even see you walking back from lunch, you must love being able to walk home for lunch, we always wave but you didn't know us so I wanted to introduce myself." (Realizing what a complete fool I'm being...) "Um, bye. See you next time."

So A Priest, A Rabbi and A Railroad Supervisor Walk Into A Bar...

My Grandpa Temerowski died tonight. I am completely certain that the first words out of his mouth when he saw God were some sort of ridiculously inappropriate joke, and that he is probably still laughing at it to himself.

All I Want For Christmas...

Every now and then, Berit is asked what she wants for Christmas. All along she's said, without fail, a purple sparkly dress with purple sparkly tights and purple sparkly shoes and a purple sparkly crown. We don't know where this comes from, but whatever. Unfortunately, Santa will not be delivering this to her, because when we first started Christmas shopping, we thought this was a passing fancy. Then, to tell the truth, we forgot about it. Now we're feeling like we don't want to buy anything else. The good news is that her Mimi and Grandpa are getting this for her for her birthday in February, so she'll eventually end up with this purple ensemble she's dreaming of.

Marta, on the other hand, just doesn't understand yet that Santa will be bringing gifts on Christmas. But I asked her tonight anyway, since it was a very Christmasy evening and we talked a lot about who's coming to stay with us on Christmas. Here's how it went:

Me: Marta, what would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas?

Marta: Nom-nom-nom eats dinner with a silly look on her face

Me: Would you like Santa to bring you toys or books?

Marta: I want Santa to bring breakfast.

And frankly, if Marta opened a big box full of pancakes on Christmas morning, I think she'd be thrilled.

Too Cute To Correct

Lately Marta has been skipping her naps, and by about 5 p.m. she's slow and glassy-eyed. Every now and then I say, "How're you doing, little one?" And in a quiet, sleepy voice she says, "Mama, I'm lost."

The Christmas Spirit

It's rest time at the Doublestein House, and the kids are too wired to sleep. We've had a really exciting two days, what with the mountains of snow, terrifying trips up and down the driveway, school and pick-up (wherein Marta has the Most Fun Of Her Entire Day, because in the tradition of little sisters wanting to be as cool as their big sisters, she thinks school is the epitome of WONDROUS ADVENTURE).

Yesterday after school Trevor took the girls sledding outside (result: Berit crying, SURPRISE!), and then we put on layers and layers and more layers to head downtown for Petoskey's annual Christmas Open House.

The open house is such a fun night. The streets are all closed off and Santa lights the giant Christmas tree, all the shops open up for wandering and goodies and wine or champagne punch, people bring their great burly dogs and the kids are all stiff from their layers, over-sugared and jumping face-first into the snowbanks. The Steel Drum Band plays and there are big pots of bean soup and chili and everyone's skating in the slush and ice down the street, and the fire trucks are lit up like Santa's sleigh.

We began our evening with pizza with our good friends at the Noggin Room, and the four girls all had one of those crazy fun times, where they ran and screamed (whoops) and giggled and felt as if the entire night was All About Them (cue running onto the restaurant's little stage and performing as loudly as possible for all diners made-up Christmas carols) (cue my leaping over chairs and tables to remove them) (cue the dads ordering another round of beer because why should we get them outside?). It was chilly but we were bundled and layered and the kids even took off their mittens to consume candy canes and cookies shaped like candy canes and drinks flavored like candy canes. They sang legitimate Christmas carols and Berit gave a performance of much bottom-shaking and bouncy-squatting during a stretch of upbeat Steel Drum Band songs, much to everyone's candy-fueled delight.

Marta continuously asked, "Where's my car?" in a sad, sleepy voice, and let me know about a thousand times that it was well past her bedtime by bonking her forehead against mine and pressing it there, breathing slowly as if she might just fall asleep that way.

Whenever she's overtired it leads to a restless night's sleep, and she was up from about 1:21 a.m. (you know, roughly) until around 6 a.m. Therefore she's not napping now, and has instead discovered that she can reach the light switch to the little hallway in her room from her crib. On, off, on, off, "THERE! I DID IT! I'M WAKING UP!"

I need nights like last night, I think, because so often I get caught up in the ridiculous snow and cold (which I could say sianara to forever and ever amen) and swear to move downstate or down-continent all winter long. But gathering as a community is so warming and festive, with friends around every corner with their children and dogs and hats and mittens and runny noses, that I feel I couldn't leave Petoskey if I tried.

Little People, Big Questions

Berit has been sleeping sans Pull-Ups for about two weeks now. She begged to do it every night, and I kept putting it off saying, "If you wake up for five mornings in a row with a dry Pull-Up you may wear Big Girls to bed." (Big Girls = underwear.) And do you know what convinced her to not pee at night? A competition. Trevor told her that her cousin, age 5, was still wearing Pull-Ups to bed (we don't even know if this is true, he made it up on the spot) and that Berit could, quote, "BEAT HER" and "WIN."

Berit's not an aggressive gal but boy did she want to win, which makes me secretly a little happy because my side of the family is fraught with rifts over my sister cheating once at Cranium and my mom cheating... all the time at any game she's losing, and so on, so I relish the competition gene's emergence. So anyway, she did it.

Last night was her first accident, and after I changed her sheets and got her new stuffed animals and fluffed her pillows, I left her with Trevor to get her jammies on and I went back to bed. I could still hear them on the monitor, and as I was falling asleep she said, "Daddy, when I'm a grown-up, I'll have a mama belly." Trevor mumbled something in the affirmative and she said, "Daddy, how does a baby get in a mama's belly?" And I was wide awake, willing him to say my right thing that I'd planned to say when she asked me that question.

He changed the subject.

Growing Pains, Smart Assery and Potty Humor

Whenever the girls are unnecessarily cranky, Trevor always says, "They must be growing." Then I groan and stomp and roll my eyes because by then I've been analyzing every word, every morsel of food, every hour slept, every step taken (did they step on a dog whisker? do they have a mystery wound?) trying to decide if I should take them to the doctor.

So when we were at the doctor's office yesterday because Marta had been unnecessarily cranky for a couple of days (and sleepless, and a tiny bit runny-nosed), and when the doctor said, "No ear infection. She looks fine." I thought, "Could this be growing?"

And I have been noticing lots of growing lately. All of a sudden -- literally, in a matter of days or maybe even hours -- Marta has become a Great Big Chunk of a baby (ahem, almost 2-year-old). Her 2T jeans won't button (but need to be rolled up twice at the ankles), her shirts bulge under her belly, her cheeks are gigantic.

Berit, our bird, is suddenly taller. Her 4T jeans that I bought this fall and had to roll and belt are now about a half-inch too short (note that she's not even 4 yet). She's not whisper thin like her cousins but she is a skinny little thing, obviously because she never eats a thing in my presence (grandparents all insist she's a GREAT EATER, but then again, what do grandparents feed children? Candy, candy-flavored cereal, and ice cream, right?).

I've also been realizing every day that the girls have outgrown the learning we've been doing, and I recently called my sister in a half-panic wondering if they're going to fail college because I haven't been on top of learning for the past few months. Yesterday Berit cut up a bunch of paper animals and I cried because I didn't know she could do that. She laughed at me.

(Also yesterday Marta took her own paper animals and colored poop and pee all over their butts, then cracked up. See what I mean about not being on top of learning? Do you see what's happening to their brains?)

It occurred to me that when it comes to teaching kids... I've got nothin'. I don't know what to do with them right now, and I've started researching appropriate learning games online and now I know there's so much that I haven't done with them that I feel a bit like a fake-good mom. Like I've just been going about my stay-at-home business, playing Barbies and blocks and they're happy but their minds are all Poop. Pee. Heh.

I pulled out a couple of old standby projects and Berit had no interest. She literally mopped the floor (counter) with that coffee filter craft I posted last year. And when I asked her what she wanted to make for her grandparents for Christmas, she gave me a look like, "Lady, we buy those kinds of things."

So it looks like we're headed into changes for the new year. Bigger and better learning, along with their bigger and cuter bellies and longer and more kid-like limbs. And I have a feeling that I'll need my video camera on-hand for when they want to teach ME a thing or two.