How to believe

 

Day 16 of 31 at TWT!

The room is spinning.

"Hold my hand and fly..."

Well, I'm spinning, in the room, which means that the room will soon start spinning too. A "lights-off party" where we play the girls' favorite songs on our bluetooth speaker in the dark, sometimes with light-up wands or our mini-dance cube, has become an almost-nightly request in our house in recent weeks.

"I will be alright if you stay by my side..."

Rainbow Girl's comfortable weight hangs in my arms as dusky shadows stretch across the gray carpet. Gently, I sweep her up and down a little, shuffling and spinning slowwwwwly since her belly is full of Shamrock Shake. Her big blue eyes gaze up into mine, and her face brightens with an adoring just-for-me smile. If I could freeze time, this might be a moment I'd pick. Instead, I breathe it in, soaking up every sweet detail of the love curled in my arms. 

"...because you showed me / how to believe..." I'm struck by the magic of dancing with her to this song from a Tinkerbell movie on the night before St. Patrick's Day, when both girls firmly believe not only that Tinkerbell and her fairy friends are real, but that leprechauns are going to frolic around our house tonight while we all sleep. 

Plastic gold coins are strewn through the house to attract the leprechauns. Sweetie spent the last several minutes explaining her elaborate system for "distracting" them as long as possible with hard-to-find coins, in order to get them to stay at our house until daylight strikes, trapping them in one of her ornate, never-quite-finished leprechaun traps. 

If I were a leprechaun, I'd come to stay, wouldn't you? She even put activities inside!

I smile down at Rainbow Girl in my arms and Sweetie across the room as we twirl and glide in the almost-darkness, and I can almost see the magic they see: a world filled with flitting fairies and sneaky leprechauns, where a glittering unicorn just might be hiding in the nearby woods. Where Santa and the Easter Bunny know just what they've been wishing for, and snowmen come to life to play at night.

They see a world full of magic. I know it's a world filled with love, and I'm so grateful they've taught me how to believe again.  

"Spring and summer / love and laughter / we'll live happily ever after..."

What sisters make

Day 7 of 31 at TWT!

As soon as the narrow back hallway from my school to Sweetie's school opens up into the wide brightness of her cafeteria, I spot her blonde hair and pink mask bouncing towards me. I'm excited to talk to her about the author visit they had today, but then I notice something multicolored in her hand. 

"It's my puffmobile!" she declares. "We built them today, but I haven't tested it out yet! My friend's went really far though!" 

I'm about to ask what a puffmobile even is when I notice her little sister's name on it. And a rainbow. And, as I look more closely, a bunny (her sister's favorite animal). "You decorated it for Rainbow Girl?!"

"It's a sisters' puffmobile!" she announces proudly. "One side is for her and one side is for me! Her side has a rainbow and a bunny, and my side has a sunshine and a unicorn! And I wrote 'sisters are the best of friends' on it!"

So much love, at school, when her sister wasn't even with her! Such careful detail to show what's special about each of them! My heart is soaring. I imagine her hunched over her desk, surrounded by her classmates and the hubbub of school, working so hard to think about her little sister's favorite things and to make this special representation of their love for each other, completely unprompted. "I love it, Sweetie! She'll love it so much! I can't wait for her to see it when you get home!"

Sisters really do make the best of friends, just like the words on a shirt I bought her when she became a big sister. I love that's she's internalized that phrase, and that they both live it every day. 

Idea waterfall

Day 6 of 31 at TWT!

"... because it's March and I have to..."

"Write a story every day?!" Sweetie interrupts me, jumping up and down.

"That's right!" Did she remember from last year? I don't think I've mentioned it much yet this year!

"But, how do you think of something to write about EVERY DAY???? I can nehhhhhver think of anything to write about!" she moans. 

"I look for writing ideas all day! Like, at first, I was going to write about baking 'nana bread, but then the ice cream truck came! So now I get to save the 'nana bread story for another day, and I'm already ahead on ideas!" I grin. We're only 5 days into March, and I already had so many days with multiple possible slices that I probably have enough writing ideas to get me through the next week! 

My writing brain feels like that waterfall we visited on Saturday; story ideas are just spilling over, churning and tumbling over each other as they flood over the normal riverbanks. How have I gone a whole year without writing? I have so many stories to capture! Unbidden, a list starts flowing through my brain: when I took my students outside, and when that kid from Ukraine surprised me, and when I introduced the Girl Scouts to the bearded dragon, and...

"How could you write a WHOLE STORY about 'nana bread?" she wrinkles her nose. "It took like two seconds!"

"I slow it down with lots of small details, like Rainbow Girl looking for the ingredients."

"Mrs. C is always wanting us to add details," she grumbles. 

"Details make your story come alive!" I nod. "I also add dialogue. Do you know what dialogue is?"

She shakes her head. 

"Dialogue is when you make the people in the story talk to each other. A small story idea is actually the best, because it gives me room to add so many little details and moments of dialogue that give my readers a movie in their minds!"

"Oh, I like to add that in my pictures!" She brightens for a second, then complains, "but Mrs. C. says we shouldn't draw so many pictures anymore."

"Well, you're learning so much about writing that now you can start to give your readers pictures with your words! So instead of putting your dialogue into the pictures, you can add it in with your words, and you can add other details to, to help your readers see the pictures in their minds! When I write my story about making 'nana bread, I'll show you how I slow that moment down and turn it into a mind movie for my readers! I can show you some of my other stories too!" 

It makes me sad that she doesn't yet love writing like I do, but I hope I can help her love it more by showing her what a part of my life it is. She's already gotten more interested than she was last year, sometimes writing in the various journals she's gotten, so I want to capture this momentum. If I let my idea waterfall flow over her, maybe she'll soon have one of her own!

When we're together

Day 30 of 31 at TWT!

 "Maybe this is a new family tradition!" I lean forward at my two sweet girls as they share a shamrock seat and nibble chicken nuggets from a flower table. The not-quite-setting sun casts a golden glow on their faces as an astonishingly warm breeze tosses their soft hair (one blonde, one brown). 

"A tradition?!" Rainbow Girl's eyes light up. "Like Olaf and Anna and Elsa at Christmas?" 

"That's right!" I giggle. "A tradition is just something that we like to do again and again!" I scoop refreshing Frosty into my mouth. And I think we really like eating Wendy's at this playground!" 

<3 <3

Sweetie plants a kiss on her little sister's head and they both laugh. When they finish eating, they scamper off to play some more on the unique structures; Rainbow heads for the gigantic outdoor xylophones while her big sis uses brute arm strength to hang-climb up some inclined parallel bars, then turns around to sit on top of them and slide back down again. Sweetie climbs the large dirt mound with an embedded slide while Rainbow floppily runs to the mini city, clambering onto the red fire truck climbing structure and running in and out of the little buildings, pretending to buy items at the market and take them home to the little house.

I just breathe the spring air in and out. It smells like hope. While we had flurries of snow just a few days ago, this Spring Break day is a hint that summer isn't far away at all. 

One of our new favorite songs from that Frozen Christmas special that Rainbow was thinking of pops into my head. "When we're together, it's a holiday every night... when we're together, it's my favorite time of year!"

Going to Afghanistan

Day 29 of 31 at TWT! 

"I wanna go to Afghanistan again sometime!" Rainbow Girl bounces in her booster seat. 

It takes me a second. Has she heard us talking about Afghanistan and figured out that it's a place? Then it hits me. "Ohhh! You want to go visit the /family/ from Afghanistan again sometime?!"

"YEAH! And RUN AROUND!" She leans toward me, lifts her chin and scrunches her face into her biggest smile.

I grin, remembering watching her and Sweetie frolic with the Afghan kids in their apartment when we first visited over a month ago. In their typical fashion, Sweetie put her hand over her heart and said "Salam" as I'd taught her, then immediately started trying to engage her 6 year old counterpart in a mutually unintelligible conversation about the pictures they'd drawn for each other, while Rainbow Girl initially wanted to stay in my lap. (It didn't help that her 3 year old counterpart kept toddling into the other room and shyly peering around the corner, even more uncertain of new things and people than Rainbow sometimes is!) Knowing how much Rainbow loves helping Husband cook, I'd tried to get her interested in watching the mom craft handmade bolani in the kitchen. We peeked as she formed soft dough balls and tossed them like pizza dough, then folded a potato filling into them.

One of the teens grabbed a couple of toys from the closet for the little ones and Rainbow scrambled off my lap. Soon, there was so much running and giggling it seemed like there were 10 young kids instead of 5, delighting in the universal language of play, dancing, and laughter even though they couldn't say any words each other might understand. Uncharacteristically, Rainbow even let the oldest teen girl pick her up and hug her! Between a smattering of English words, gestures, photos on our phones, and Google Translate, the teens and adults all talked about how cute they were, which kids gravitate towards mom or dad, and what we like to do.

By the time we were saying "tascha kor" ('thank you') and miming that the girls needed to get to sleep, both Rainbow and Sweetie were already asking when we could play with them again. 

I'll never forget the way their 6 year old squealed when she caught sight of the playground equipment the first time we took them to a park. "YAY!!!!" she screeched from my backseat, and they all ran around again, climbing and sliding together, both 6 year olds ending up with arms around each other on the walk back to the cars. (The family does not have a car yet, so as registered refugee volunteers, a colleague and I drove everyone from their family who wanted to go to the park, while Husband drove our girls to meet us there.)

Sweetie playing with the Afghan girl who's her age

When I told Sweetie that the kids were finally able to enroll in school after finishing all their medical checks, she noted, "But won't that be so hard for them? They don't know English!" She's met some of my students before when I've taken her to school events, but she'd never really spent quality time interacting with newcomer kids until we met this Afghan family.

"That's why I teach English to students who speak other languages!" I smiled proudly. "They'll have a teacher like me to help them! In fact, some of my friends are their teachers!"

Just a few months ago, I was reading about refugees and wondering what I could do to help (especially now that I teach in a part of our district that doesn't really receive them). Now, thanks the opportunity to be part of the district's welcome team in conjunction with our local refugee resettlement agency, my family has gained a whole family of new friends. It's an experience I highly recommend! 

Shouting out 'Hooray!'

Day 28 of 31 at TWT!

 "What're you turning on the TV for?" Rainbow Girl cranes her neck from her spot crouched on the floor, playing with the VTech Smart Animals set affectionately known in our house as "Kitty and Baba's house". 

"Oh, there's something special I'm hoping we can see today..." I grin.

"What is it? What is it? What is it?" Sweetie starts leaping around the family room, and Rainbow soon imitates her. 

I just smile and find the right place to click on the tv's YouTube app until the event pops up... with a preview picture of someone very special! 

"LAURIE!!!!" Both girls squeal and jump as if they're seeing a best friend or favorite family member. 

The countdown timer appears, and after yelling, "church!" because it's the same one our church uses before online services, they excitedly count down as they prance around the room. ("Is it church?" Rainbow Girl keeps interjecting, and I keep reassuring her, "It's just the same countdown as church. It's gonna be Laurie!")

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0..." Bouncing curls, bright eyes, a smile that seems to tell even me that everything is going to be ok, and a guitar appear, and it's spring of 2020 and 2 years of rocking chair snuggles all at once as Laurie Berkner launches into the song that's become our special lullaby, "When I Woke Up Today". Rainbow runs around the room for a verse and then scrambles onto my lap as if she can't decide if it's better to dance or cuddle to this song. "I shouted out 'hooray'! / 'cause I knew I'd see you..." I pull her close as I coo into her ear, "and we could sing together..."

Just like we've seen her do for 2 years now, Laurie looks straight into the camera after the song, telling us to grab our instruments and stuffed animals, seeming to talk right to us in that Mr. Rodgers-esque measured, caring way. Even I forget that she can't actually see us; her conversational tone is so authentic. It truly feels as if an old friend is visiting us as we notice the new decorations in her house and watch her tune her guitar, take sips of water, and dance around her family room as we frolic around ours.

blanket-monsters for the "Monster Boogie" today!

I can't believe it's been 2 years. Rainbow has grown from a sitting baby flailing her "Laurie shake-shake" to a preschooler who can actually jump along with "Chipmunk at the Gas Pump". We've curated our own playlists to enjoy when the daily Lives stopped and eagerly celebrated the release of new music videos. Sweetie has gone from finishing preschool remotely to thriving in person in 1st grade.

so little in spring 2020!

a quick dance break with their daddy in summer 2020!

When I see Laurie's smile, I remember how Rainbow gradually stopped crying as Laurie put on her mask at the end of every Facebook Live in spring 2020; how that simple act helped her understand that Laurie was still Laurie in a mask and by the time we actually started needing to wear masks, it was no big deal. I remember the guaranteed half hour of joy each day when the stress and weight of the pandemic lifted away as we danced and wiggled around this room and listened to Laurie tell us we were superheroes and she loved us. I remember the delight of learning fun new songs and the familiar comfort of classics we already knew. I remember stuffed animals on our heads, becoming goldfish and dinosaurs and monsters, and grabbing Husband out of the den to blast off Rocketship-Sweetie into the air while I lifted Rainbow-Rocketship beside her. I remember scooping up 1yo Rainbow to fly her around like a bumblebee. I remember the magical excitement of Laurie saying the girls' names or playing requested songs we put in the chat. I remember dragging all our our pool toys into house for the virtual beach concert and wearing our costumes for the Halloween one. I remember the way both girls' faces absolutely lit up every single time Laurie appeared on our TV, and the way Rainbow would grab favorite toys and run up to the TV to show Laurie, convinced that she could really see us. I remember both sisters running wildly around the house with their toy guitars, "Laurie shake-shake" (tambourine), toy Harry the Chipmunk, and superhero blanket-capes.

Most of all, I remember having something certain to look forward to when the days dragged into weeks and months, and hope turned into uncertainty, monotony, and frustration. And I remember, as we noticed small changes in Laurie's room, saw her dial in other bandmates from their houses across the miles, and watched her overcome technical challenges and learn new digital tricks, feeling like we were really in this together.

So on a much-too-frigid-to-be-outside, still-not-safe-from-Covid-indoors first day of Spring Break, there was truly "no better thing to do / than sing a song and hear you sing it too" with Laurie. Thank you, Laurie, for your concerts in our house these past 2 years. Someday, we hope to see you in person.

Rainbow, now 3, holding her own animal for "Pig on Head"!

The best sisters

Day 27 of 31 at TWT!

 "I wanna eat at the craft table!" Rainbow Girl scampers over to the white plastic table and pulls out a pink chair. "With YOU, Sis!"

Grabbing her Minnie Mouse plate and unicorn cup from the big table, Sweetie heads over to sit with her little sister. I remember how she loved that table when she was a toddler, and now she has to scrunch and squeeze to fit. 

After rummaging in the pantry for my own lunch, I'm met with a sweet surprise: instead of each sitting on one side of the craft table like usual, both girls are huddled beside each other on the same side of the tiny table. "Aww, are you sitting right beside each other?" I scurry over to take a picture before one of them decides the other is too far in her space. 

"You're the best sister in the world..." Sweetie puts an arm around her little sister and starts crooning the song she made up when Rainbow Girl was a baby. Rainbow leans against her shoulder and grabs her hand. 

<3

When Sis finishes, Rainbow adopts her declarative reading / announcing / performing voice and starts singing the same song loudly back. "...you're the best sister in the world / come here, Sissy, / and give me a hug and kiss... / I love you, Sissy!"

Sis leans her face almost-too-close, gazing and grinning with wide blue eyes that glitter. 

"Aw, look, she loves the song you made up for her!" I remember how my heart swelled when Sweetie first made it up, how I thought it was a one-time thing that she'd forget, and how she kept singing it to her baby sister for months. And now here's Rainbow, not a baby anymore, singing it back. 

The best sisters in the world.

Marrying

Day 26 of 31 at TWT!

(a slice from earlier this week; it's freezing cold today!)

"Mommy, marry me!" Rainbow Girl giggles in my ear as I carry her away from the playground after an afternoon of too much fun in unseasonably warm weather. It's already past bedtime on a school night, but it was so hard to leave the park with 70-degree-weather in March!

Behind us on the sidewalk, her exhausted big sister has convinced Husband to carry her to the car too, gangly legs and wiry arms wrapped around him as she croon-whines, "Daddy, I LOVE you! MARRY me!" Always a Daddy's Girl, Sis must have already said this once as she begged him to pick her up, and that must be what prompted Rainbow, my mama's girl, to say it now.

"Ok!" I squeeze Rainbow closer. "I promise to love you forever and ever!" I rub her nose with mine. 

"Is that MARRYING?!" she squeals, giggling more. 

A few steps back, I can hear Husband protesting, "I'm already your daddy! We're already a family!"

"Yes, Honey Bun!" I reply to Rainbow. "Well, and we have to kiss!" I gaze into her blue eyes and plant an exaggerated smooch on her face just as she opens her mouth in a loud cackle. 

"I love you oh so much, Sweetie Pie!" I whisper in her ear. She flops into my shoulder, super snuggly now. 

"Mama Pie," she mumbles, wiggling against me. 

One daddy's girl and one mama's girl. One family so full of love. Yep, that's marrying! <3

Daddy's Girl

Day 23 of 31 at TWT!

"Why are there tears in your eyes? / Because I just love spending time with you, Daddy!" I grin at the green message as I get ready to eat lunch. For a second, I think Rainbow said that after preschool, but then I look at the time sent and realize it must have been Sweetie at lunch.

"M said that?" I type back.

"Uh huh! During lunch! I looked over and there were tears in her eyes!"

I can just imagine her sitting in his car outside her school, purple unicorn lunchbox in her lap, gazing adoringly at him. She has always been such a Daddy's Girl! I giggle. And she's soooo sensitive!

When Omicron was raging after winter break and I panicked that she'd catch Covid from the lunchroom, I realized that we could actually make it work to pull her out of school for lunch like I'd heard of some other families doing. Our nanny agreed to let Sweetie eat in her car with the windows cracked (and piles of blankets on her and Rainbow) on days Husband works on campus, and Husband would take his lunch during Sweetie's lunch on his work-from-home days. I was afraid she'd be sad about missing lunch with her friends, but she has perfectly been happy all these months to listen to Ramona audiobooks in the nanny's car with her little sister some days, and obviously ecstatic to eat with Daddy on the other days. 

When I get home after school, he can't wait to expand on the story. "Yeah, we were just sitting there, talking about nothing, like cars or something, and I looked over and saw big tears welling up in her eyes!" His face glows with love. "And when I asked why, she just said, 'I just LOVE you, Daddy! I just LOVE spending time with you!'"

A few minutes later, when she gets off the bus, I say, "I heard you had happy tears at lunch with Daddy today?"

"Yes! I just LOVE him!" she repeats, and runs to wrap her arms around his neck in the den. 

These 2 years have been so hard in so many ways, but when she looks back at first grade, I hope she remembers those special parking lot lunches with Daddy. 

Sweet readers

Day 19 of 31 at TWT!

 Book in hand, Sweetie slides onto the couch, declaratively reading the title aloud. Rainbow Girl scrambles to clamber up beside her, slip-pull-flail-climbing her way to her big sister's side as Sis opens the book and starts to read. 

How amazing. She reads confidently, in mostly fluent phrases, occasionally problem-solving a particularly tricky word or phrase. Incredible. First, we read to her. Then she "read" memorized books to us, and to Rainbow when she was born. Now here she sits, truly reading real books to her little sister. 

As Sweetie reads, Rainbow sidles closer, leaning her small shoulder against Sis. At times, she leans forward, pointing and wiggling a little finger, exclaiming "Who's that?!", patting something on a picture, or reaching out a dainty hand to help turn the page. 

Pages and pages go by, and Rainbow nestles even farther into Sis, starting to twirl a section of hair near her forehead (her ultimate signal of sleepiness and relaxation). 

See the hair twirling? 

She reaches her other arm around Sis, who grins and hugs her back as she keeps reading.

<3 <3 <3!

There's just nothing better than these sweet sisters curled up together with a book... especially now that one can truly read to the other!

Irish I love you

Day 17 of 31 at TWT!

"Look, here comes Sis!" My mom, my dad, Husband, and I all point towards the middle of the park patio as Rainbow Girl bounces on Husband's lap. A reel comes on over the loudspeaker, and Sweetie bounce-skips gracefully out onto the patio with her classmates. They pause, one foot outstretched, in the Irish dance waiting pose. Suddenly, Sweetie glances over at us and flashes her hand up with her thumb, index, and pinky fingers raised in the "I love you" sign, before starting to dance.

Sweetie is on the left. It's hard to see, but her hand (which should be down at her side) is raised in the "I love you" sign! <3

"Awwww!" The family we don't know beside us coos. 

"Look, Sis is saying 'I love you'!" I nudge Rainbow. "We love you, Sweetie!"

Rainbow Girl stretches both arms into the air, hands raised, little fingers clumsily fashioned into the same signal she just finally learned a few weeks ago. As we all watch Sis bounce lightly, graceful toes tapping in fancy footwork, Rainbow alternately claps, waves her arms wildly, and stretches out double "I love you" signs several more times. 

Rainbow Girl working on the "I love you" sign while Sis performs on the park patio at our city's St. Patrick's Day celebration! <3

It's a gorgeous evening, but nothing is more gorgeous than the love these two share. 

Full of stories

Day 16 of 31 at TWT!

 "What don't you like writing?" It breaks my heart that Sweetie has made it quite clear this year that writing is her least favorite part of 1st grade. 

"It's so long, and I don't have any ideas! I can't think of anything to write about!" She sighs in the backseat as I drive her home from Irish Dance practice.

"You're always talking, sharing your ideas and stories! Writing is just talking but on paper!" I pause. The line between mom and teacher is getting blurry. "Think about your favorite people or places. You could have so many stories to tell about Emilia or Daddy! You should make a list of writing ideas! That's what I do!" The mom-teacher line is going from blurry to erased. "Sometimes I have my students make something called a heart map..."

"Oh yeah, my teacher had us make those!" she interjects, but then admits that she doesn't really use it to help her write. 

"Maybe you can add some new things to it to give you fresh ideas! Like what about favorite places? I bet you'd have so many stories to tell about Myrtle Beach or the zoo, or Wildlife Camp..."

Her eyes start to brighten in the rearview mirror. "Oh! Yeah! And I'm thinking of Girl Scouts..."

"That's right! See, you have so many stories! All writers get stuck for ideas sometimes or have days that we feel like we don't know what to write about! That's why I keep a list!" I giggle. "In fact, that's what I wrote about last night! Remember how I'm doing that writing challenge to write a new story about my life every day in March? Last night, I couldn't decide what to write, so I looked at my list, and it had so many good ideas that I ended up writing a story about my idea list and how I use it!"

"Really?" she giggles too, then pauses. "How long is March?"

"We're halfway through! So I've already written 15 stories!"

"Even on the weekends?"

"Yep! I'm trying to write every single day in March! It's hard, and sometimes I feel like I'm running out of ideas, but that's when my list really helps me!" 

We turn the corner into our neighborhood, and a familiar song comes on. "I'm thinking of a story about (our favorite local Irish band)!" she declares, then adds slyly, "but I'm not going to tell you yet."

"Oooh, see?!" I grin. "Look how many stories you can find in your life!"

Catching our breath

Day 13 of 31 at TWT!

"Yes! I'm still catching my breath!" Sweetie's eyes sparkle and her wiggly body is even bouncier than usual as she answers my question about if she feels proud. I know that under her mask, her gap-toothed grin is as wide as it can get. 

"How did you feel about dancing in front of your whole school?" I don't want to plant the idea that she should've been nervous, but I certainly would've been nervous to be on stage in front of 800 people, especially knowing some of them were my friends and classmates. 

"I was excited! I was a little nervous beforehand, but after we practiced, I felt good!" 

She's practically skipping as we weave through the hallways, passing kids headed to buses and kids headed to cars. Her curly Irish bun-wig (which cost me quite a bit of effort and 50 bobby pins this morning!) piled on top of her regular hair makes her seem even taller than her usual already-tall-for-her-age skinny self.

"Your friend from Girl Scouts saw me walking to get you..." I'm interrupted by a cluster of girls waving and saying "Great job! Good dancing!" "...and came up to tell me that you did a great job, just like that!" We both giggle. 

Around the corner, it happens again. And again. "Good job!" "I liked your dancing!" "Good Irish dance show!"

"I don't even know those kids!" she beams. 

"They can see your wig and uniform! You must feel so proud!"

"Yeah! I'm still catching my breath!" she repeats, hopping a little. 

And seeing her so proud, seeing her celebrated by her peers and teachers, knowing how hard she's worked for years to make this dream come true, I'm breathless too. 

Ready to dance for her school! <3

Snowflake, snowflake, change of plans

Day 12 of 31 at TWT!

"It's SNOWING! It's SNOWING!" Rainbow Girl's blue eyes sparkle, wide, as she points out the window. "We can SLED! And make a SNOW ANGEL!"

The wind whips flurries around the yard, turning our view of the woods into a snow globe. Big Sis was supposed to dance in our city's St. Patrick's Day parade today, but it was canceled due to the frigid temperatures (on this one day, in the midst of weeks of overly warm days!). It's been a strange winter; we've had just a couple snows, and none in probably a month or more. 

Little hands outstretched, the girls start to sing their favorite song from one of their favorite winter specials, Minnie's Winter Bow Show. "Snowflake, snowflake, sparkle and glowwwwww, my winter wish is for snow!!!"

When we step outside after the somewhat arduous process of layering up, we're glad the parade was canceled. A biting wind slashes at our faces immediately, and like every snow that's fallen this year, it's so bitterly cold that the flakes are light and fluffy. We haven't had a single packing snow for snowmen or snow forts! Yet despite the wind, I'm struck by the absolute silence. It's incredible how snow must absorb sound; it's like we've entered a magical world of pure tranquility.

"What's that?!" Rainbow Girl points at the roll of foil in my hand.

"Foil! Let's make our snowballs for the 4th of July!"

Just last night, Sweetie had forlornly realized that we'd never saved any snowballs for our family tradition. I'd really thought we'd have another snow, and we almost didn't! We're all disappointed today's parade was canceled, but at least now we get to throw snow in the summer after all!

Both girls gather snow in their little mittens and help me put it on pieces of foil. Last year our snowballs froze too hard, so maybe looser snow will actually be better. It's an experiment!

Once we have several foil-wrapped snowballs, we grab the sleds. The girls hop-run excitedly up the backyard hill and we race down in various combinations: them sledding alone, sitting, lying down, in our laps, riding on our backs. "Wheeeeeee!" Rainbow Girl giggles and squeals every time. 

"1-2-ready-go!"

It's not what we'd planned for this particular day, but it's still magical. 

Weaving friendship

Day 10 of 31 at TWT!

 "Mommy, will you show me how to do my friendship bracelet kit now?" My proud Daisy Girl Scout has waited months since she earned this kit in the fall product sale; it was backordered and just arrived a week or two ago. 

She's read her book-in-a-bag aloud to me and finished her math homework for the week, and her little sister is still napping. The kit says 8+, so I hope she doesn't get frustrated, but she is really good at crafts for a 6 year old. "Sure!"

I never learned how to make friendship bracelets when I was a kid. I remember seeing girls with their huge, clear, multi-compartment boxes of colorful thread, half-finished bracelets dangling from the latches, but that craze never hit my friends, so it never hit me. I suppose we were too wrapped up in our elaborate imaginary worlds at recess, pretending we were in the worlds of our favorite books or back in one of our favorite historical time periods. Friendship bracelets were one of those vague things other kids did, along with beaded lizards, plastic-woven keychains, and soccer. (This may be why I came home from 3rd grade and announced to my mom that my interests were different from everyone else in my class!)

In college, working summers as a daycamp counselor, I finally mastered several of those typical childhood activities, including friendship bracelets. There was something so incredibly soothing about rhythmically tying knots across bright strands of string that I found myself taking home bracelets I'd started at camp and continuing them on my free time. Make a 4, pull tight. Make a 4, pull tight. Next color, make a 4... Suddenly, at 20 years old, I was that girl with a half-finished friendship bracelet taped to my pool chair or dangling from my backpack! 

Sweetie chooses her colors: 2 shades of pink (of course), purple, and yellow. I gather and cut the strings, tie a loop on one end, then hitch it to the handle of the purple water bottle her kit came inside. "Ok, scoot close, you'll get confused if you watch upside down." I pat the couch beside me and she squeezes next to me. "Ok, um, it's been a little while since I did this..." I know I have to make the 4's, but I feel like I'm missing something. I glance at the directions from the kit, but I've always had a hard time with picture directions that don't have words. I make a 4 with each color, but something seems wrong. 

Her little sister wakes up just as I consider resorting to YouTube. "Ugh, we're going to have to try again another day, sorry!" I know I'm so close... what am I missing?!

After dinner, there's just enough time. I only have to watch 2 seconds of a YouTube video before I realize what I did wrong. "Do you want to try the friendship bracelets again?" I grin.

She squeals and scampers off to grab the kit, skidding back to me before I've made it to the couch. 

"You have to make the 4s with the same color across all the other strings, then switch!" I can't wait to see if it works this time. Make a 4, pull tight. Make a 4, pull tight. Make a 4, pull tight... "Yeah, look, I made a row!" Triumphantly into the rhythm, I start a new row. 4, pull. 4, pull. 4, pull. I almost don't want to hand it over, but her eyes are sparkling with anticipation. 

"When you finish that color, can I try?" 

"Of course! Here!" I make sure she gets the strings spread out so they won't tangle. 

"Make a 4," she mutters, little hands tugging and twisting a little awkwardly. I show her how to adjust her grip on both strings, and she keeps trying. "Make a 4..." 

She picks up new skills so quickly. "I did it! I made a row!" she squeals. "Sofia's going to love this!" I love that she wants to give her first bracelet away.

an impressive start!

It's time to get ready for bed, but we're both chattering happily all the way up the stairs. 

"See how fun it is? I always thought it was really relaxing!"

"Yeah! I love it! And I feel proud!"

More friendship bracelet string might be in our future... so I can finally make friendship bracelets with a friend (albeit, one who's half my size)!

Dancing dream

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

Nearly 4 years ago, when she was just 2, Sweetie fell in love with the Irish dancers at our town's Irish Festival. I've always loved the music and dancers too, but she was absolutely mesmerized, even as far from the stage as we sometimes were. She stood on my lap, clapping, bouncing, and pointing. 

Sweetie at 2 years old, clapping to the dancers

When I set her down, she started dancing immediately, and over the next few days (weeks, and months), we were astonished to see how much detail she'd picked up as she watched. She pointed her toes, she kicked up her legs, she brought her foot to her knee. On the car ride home, she started asking for "Irish songs" and then wanted the one I already had on my phone "again!" and "again!", causing me to download more songs in a weekend than I usually do in months. I figured it would be a phrase that she'd outgrow in a few weeks, but by the time the next festival rolled around the following year, she was dancing in an unmistakably Irish style anytime she heard music (and plenty of music-less times)!

That summer, at 3, she self-taught-Irish-stepped her way around every dance floor at the festival, to the delight of all the musicians on stage and all our fellow festival-goers. One local band even invited her up to the stage to dance with them, but she couldn't quite figure out if that was really ok. We scoured the festival program and tried to hit every dance show we could!

3 years old, dancing in front of the dancers

Most thrilling for her, she got to participate in an Irish dancing lesson from a local Irish dance school at the dance floor in the children's area. That did it. She started telling everyone she was an Irish dancer! 

her first "lesson" / first time dancing "on stage" <3 

This was definitely not a phase. Whenever she met someone new, she'd declare that she was a dancer and break into something that definitely resembled a jig enough that the new person would grin and say, "Oh yeah, Irish! I see!" Thankfully, the spring she turned 4, the local Irish dance school decided to add pre-beginner class sessions for kids as young as 4, so she finally got to start learning real steps instead of making them up! All summer, she practiced her jig steps: "cross over, up, back-two-three-four", until it was finally time for another Irish Festival. Now, she knew the teachers and some of the "big dancers" from her school, so we targeted their shows on the program and she spent her weekend waving wildly and pointing to the dancers she knew. Now, she was starting to talk about someday dancing on the stage.

4 years old, waving to her teachers as they danced on stage!

We spent every waking minute of the festival weekend watching dancers, and we signed her up for the 3-day mini-camp at her dance school the week after the festival.

1st mini-camp, she's the one in the air on the right!

Now that she was an official student of the dance school, we got to attend their ceili (Irish dance event) in February 2020, where we all learned to do reels just before the world shut down.

ceili reel!

In August 2020, we danced at home to a livestream "festival" with footage from previous years and Sweetie moved up to real beginner level, earning a practice uniform and real ghillies (soft shoes)! All this school year, her little sister frolicked around her in our family room as she did her lessons on Zoom, finally looking like a real Irish dancer, but with nobody to see her. 

Zoom lesson, in her practice uniform!

This past weekend, nearly 4 years after that festival when she fell in love with the dancers, her dance school had an outdoor recital, right on one of the stages used during the festival! 4 years of dreaming, pretending, and practicing, and now here she was, in a beginner performance uniform, doing the cutest two-hand jig (with masks and no hand-holding) that has ever been performed. 

3rd from the left (with her leg way up)!

in her uniform, watching the older dancers, still dreaming

After the beginners danced, the school even surprised them by calling them back up on stage to receive "first recital" medals, which she insisted on wearing the rest of the day. "I want everyone to know I'm a dancer and I got a medal!" she declared. 

What a pleasure it is to watch as a dream dances in your child's heart!

Eagle wonder

Tuesdays at TWT!

Bright blue smocks hunch over bright clipboards on raised knees, patterned pants perch on seat cushions to stay out of the muddier-than-I'd-hoped grass. Little hands carefully craft numbers, words, and drawings. Big eyes peer out of raised binoculars. 

"When scientists study a special animal, they write down what it's doing at different times. Let's write the time, a few words, and a sketch to show our big idea! A sketch is not a careful art picture with lots of details, it's a quick drawing to help us remember an idea." I take a deep breath through my mask. Writing in D'Neilian letters (which I just learned this year from Sweetie's remote kindergarten classes) while holding a portable whiteboard with one hand is hard, and I try to strike a balance between being neat and not taking excruciatingly long. "It's about 11:25, and I want to remember that we can see one eagle sitting in a nest. We don't know if it's the mommy or daddy because they look the same. You can copy my words or write your own."

A little voice pipes up. "It's the mommy, because mommies take care of the nest!" 

Perfect. Watching eagles, busting stereotypes. I crinkle my eyes. "Actually, the mommy and daddy eagles take turns! One is always near the nest, but it could be either the mommy or the daddy. The other one is probably out looking for food, and then they'll switch! Just like how maybe different people in your family take turns helping you, cooking the food, and taking care of the house!" 

This one eagle has been sitting in the nest for the 20 minutes our troop has been here, and while I'm glad it gave us a chance to start our meeting and get settled, I hope it will do something different soon, or our observation log won't be very interesting! We might have to draw a more detailed picture of what we see, but I'm hoping we'll get some activity, like our family has seen before, so we can make a real log.

our Daisy Girl Scout troop observing the bald eagle nest (up in the center tree),
photo credit: one of the troop moms

My mask clings to my face for a minute as I take another deep breath, trying to project my voice as much as possible without yelling to hold the attention of the 7 wiggly kindergarteners spread in a socially distanced, together-but-too-far-apart circle on the bank of the pond. "Now I'm going to tell you a story about how people helped make the world a better place for bald eagles!" 

"I love stories!" The closest girl on my left crinkles her eyes above her bright magenta mask. 

"When I was your age, bald eagles were endangered. I never dreamed I'd be able to see one in the wild!" I talk about overhunting, DDT, and too-thin eggs. Their eyes are wide. 

Suddenly, a little arm reaches out, pointing at the treeline behind me. "LOOK!" 

I turn around in time to see majestic wings spread out, flap a few times, and glide to the parents' favorite nearby perching tree. A chorus of "WOWWWWWW!"s echoes around me. I pop up my binoculars, and 7 Daisies scramble to do the same. "This is a great time to really see the whole eagle! Isn't it beautiful?" Just as I get my binoculars perfectly in focus, a white stream shoots out from the eagle's bottom. "Did you see that?! It pooped!!!" I giggle, and 7 Daisies do too. They keep giggling. 

"Let's write that in our log!" More giggles. 

At first, I write and sketch about the eagle flying to the tree, then I glance at the giggly girls. "We should probably add that it pooped, right?!"

Once the giggly scientists have mostly settled and recorded our delightful observation, I get out the graph I made to illustrate the story of the eagle population's incredible recovery. I've never taught a lesson that was interrupted in quite this way before! "Ok, so I'm going to tell you the story of how people worked hard to make the world a better place for the eagles when they figured out how much they were in trouble!" I walk around the inside of the circle to show each girl the graph up close, then talk them through the highlights of the amazing success story. Just as I finish, the second eagle comes back, cruising into the nest. Perfect timing! I'm used to adjusting my teaching on the fly, but leading a lesson outside to socially distanced kindergarteners about an active animal doing unexpected things behind my back is a whole new level of multitasking and responsiveness.

"Look! See, the two parents are taking turns!" We all scramble for binoculars again. "This one's probably going to feed the baby now!" Sweetie and I have been able to see the baby pop up to be fed before, but unfortunately, the baby stays buried in the bottom of the nest this time, and whichever parent this is goes far down to meet it. We make another notation in our logs, and I point out that we won't write anything about the baby since we can't actually see it, even though we know it's there. 

eagle observation scientists!
photo credit: the same mom

We've barely finished that entry when the parent that was perched on the tree takes off, circling around us several times, regal black against the bright blue sky. "It's putting on a show for us!" The other moms and I are scampering, pointing, and gasping as much as the girls. We're all mesmerized. 

I could stay here all afternoon, and they seem like they could too, but our time is up, so we scurry to record one last log entry, sing "Make New Friends", and do our imaginary, socially-distanced friendship-squeeze-from-far-apart. I tuck the whiteboard under my arm, pick up my bag of extra materials, and remind them to try to look where they step since the ground is so wet. They follow me through the meadow like a family of little ducklings, mostly missing the biggest puddles and patches of mud. 

"WE SAW THE EAGLES!" Little voices screech with excitement as they run to the parents who came to pick them up. "We saw the mommy and daddy! In the nest! And they flew!"

"Thank you so much! I learned A LOT about eagles!" proclaims one of the moms who'd stayed the whole time to help. 

"Yes! I learned SO MUCH!" another chimes in.

"I'm so glad they put on such a show for us!" I reply, and I feel like I'm soaring right up there with the one that circled over us. God is so good.

I need to work on remembering the tails on my D'Neilian l's, but it's not too bad for a HS teacher, right? And I guess I didn't need to be worried about how active the eagles would be!

Ride in the car!

Day 29 of 31 at TWT!

Sun streams through the windshield, making Rainbow Girl's hair in the mirror seem lighter than it really is. It's chilly today, but it looks deceivingly beautiful as we zip along the country roads, taking the long way home, as always. For most of last year, she hated the car (probably because the only place we went all spring and summer was to the doctor to get shots!), but in the fall, she suddenly decided riding in the car was so fun that she didn't want to get out, loudly yelling "I don't WANT head home!" when we approached our neighborhood. Suddenly, she would screech "YEAH! RIDE IN THE CAR!" when I said it was time to pick up one of Sweetie's free school lunches for remote learners, and one of our sanity-saving winter activities became driving around for an extra 20-30 minutes on any day the lunch is something Sweetie likes. 

Just a few minutes from our house, we can zoom along safe, fun backroads with rolling hills, gorgeous views, and few other cars. One minute we're gliding past wide-open, placid farm fields, and around the next bend, we're winding through wooded areas where long, gated driveways lead to mansions we can barely catch glimpses of. On one of our favorite routes, we even sail past the historic, well-preserved farm where the namesake of Sweetie's school, a freed slave, became the first Black farm-owner in the county and hid escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad. Just down the road, we peer at the reservoir that now covers the riverbank caves where the escaping slaves would hide until the farm owners rang a bell that signaled safety, and we think about the courage of all involved.

When we're not contemplating history, the girls balance singing loudly along to their playlist, looking at books, and looking out the window. With her musical car mirror, Rainbow Girl can see out the front windshield too, even though she's rear-facing, and I love seeing her little finger in my rearview mirror, pointing into her mirror at something we're approaching. "LOOK!" she'll screech, "DIGGERS!" (Both girls are in love with construction vehicles of all kinds.) Or I'll see her holding up a book, tiny finger on a picture, declaring, "A rabbit! Look, a rabbit!" or "I see Brown Bear, Brown Bear!"

She also loves to introduce each song by shrieking her special nickname for it when she hears the first few notes. For example,"How Far I'll Go" from Moana is "Pig!" because she likes watching for Moana's pig friend to appear in the music video during our YouTube playlist dance parties. "For the First Time in Forever" from Frozen is "Quack Quacks!" or "Duckies!" because she loves the little family of ducks that waddles by Anna at one point in the video.

In the car, it's astonishing to see how much she's memorized each video as she narrates her favorite songs by describing what happens in the video, exactly at the right moment in the song, announcing when Moana "dives in the pool!" in "I am Moana", or when Elsa shoots off ice fireworks in "Some Things Never Change".

Even better, she narrates the Spanish ones too, and while I know she just has the songs and their videos memorized like the English ones, she's also connecting the Spanish lyrics she's learning to the pictures in her head from the videos, and starting to learn what some words mean. I'm so proud when she declares, "Nariz means nose!", "I like melon!" or shakes her body at the correct times when "Hormiguita" comes on in the car. (Sweetie loves to help by tickling her in the correct body part as the ant crawls around!) Or when she tells what each letter does in "La Ronda de Vocales": "He bring a present for her mommy! He eats! He rides her bike!" (At just over two, she's still working on English too, and one of her more adorable explorations right now is pronouns that don't always agree with themselves.) 

Sweetie, who loves to be Elsa, mostly asks questions about the sights and helps make sure her little sister has the right book or her water cup... until the Frozen songs come on. Then she's fully focused on singing every word at the top of her lungs, making Elsa-ice-power motions with her hands (sometimes copied by Rainbow). 

I'm glad we'll be able to start enjoying more time outdoors and using the car to really go to parks (and eventually more normal places), but these winter car rides have been a fun way to get out of the house and yard while still being safe at home together!

"Hormiguita (Ant)" is one of our favorite songs, and I'm so grateful that there are amazing YouTube channels like La Gallina Pintadita with high-quality visuals (and sing-along lyrics for my budding reader) so I can give them access to a whole wider range of Spanish input! Before I discovered this and curated a playlist, Rainbow Girl (with her aversion to new things) was not a fan of me trying to use Spanish. Now, not only does she love Spanish songs, she's gleefully starting to use Spanish to communicate, just like her big Sis and Mommy!