The 12 days of Christmas...at least

Here's an overview of our Christmas week in three parts:

Part I, Christmas Town and Colonial Williamsburg
We spent the first part of the week with Andy's mom and Colin in Williamsburg, Va.

Busch Gardens in Williamsburg creates "Christmas Town" around the holidays. I was worried that it would be lame or cheesy. And maybe it was, but not to Lily. For her, it was completely magical.

Amalia refused to join Lily inside the tree.

They had a Sesame Street Christmas show. This is as close as Amalia got to Elmo -- even though she kept repeating his name. Over, and over, and over.

Imagine Amalia wiggling her hips side to side and clapping. This would be her happy dance. They had real penguins, too, but they didn't merit quite this level of joy.

This swing ride was really lame. Lily's wondering why it isn't going any faster.

The North Pole!

Lily telling Santa that she wanted an Ariel costume for Christmas. I think she wondered why he kept forgetting what she wanted, since she'd already told him about 3 or 4 times in the past week.

This is the only thing in Williamsburg that held any attraction for my 16-month-old. Good thing they kept going around the square. "Look, Amalia," as she's about to have another tantrum, "Horses!"

This is Andy's spooky Ophelia shot of Lily warming up in the bath after Christmas Town.

Part II, Christmas Eve
We drove back up to DC on Christmas Eve.

Here's Lily opening her Christmas Eve dress from Santa, that clever man. Amalia's trying on Kathy's winter cap.
The above photo is Lily on the long walk back from the children's message at Christmas Eve service.

As in many churches, the service alternated between telling the story of the nativity and singing traditional Christmas hymns. The highlight (or lowlight, if you're the mother) was the well-timed screech by Amalia (who was delighting in the echo-y acoustics of the church). Right as they were saying, "And they heard the newborn baby cry," I was standing up to escort my noisy child out. Everyone turned and laughed. As we were leaving the service, the usher asked, "So this is the Christ child?" Yes, indeed.

Part III, Christmas Day
The requisite underwear-in-the-stocking trick.

This pony plays a catchy tune if you press on its ear. It's not at all annoying.

Now Lily can quit wearing her rain boots when she wants to dress up like a cowgirl.

Take a good look. This the last time all of these pieces were all together.

A pounding toy for Amalia? What's Santa thinking???

A fiber optic tutu from Andy's sister. As if Lily needed any encouragement.

My parents flew in Christmas evening. Amalia hammed it up.


Amalia studying Lily as she decorates her magic mirror. Nothing escapes her eagle eye. Note that Lily has her Santa dress back on -- it was about her 15th outfit change of the day.

Blizzapalooza 2009

OK, I'll just start out by saying that yes, I knew it was really snowy when Lily and I headed out to see our friend Lindsey perform at The Kennedy Center yesterday. But DC always complains about the snow. I just figured it was another one of those "mountain out of a molehill" things.

When we woke up, the news was saying there were 5" of snow on the ground and it was expected to continue throughout the day. Buses were only running on emergency snow routes, so Lily and I suited up and trudged about 1/2 mile to a major artery. No problem.

But, as the driver was letting us off at the Metro stop, he said, "I don't know where you folks are going, but they're pulling the buses off the streets." I knew right then, of course, that Lily and I were going to have some serious challenges getting home. But we had a concert to get to. I'd worry about that later.

Here's Lily wearing her new Christmas dress inside The Kennedy Center. Ah, how lovely.

And in front of a bust of JFK.

Here she is with Miss Lindsey, the reason for our adventure.

So after the concert, things looked more like this. With no buses or taxis to get us home--and with Metro only running at underground stations--the four of us (me, Lily, Lindsey, and her husband, Rich) went to Dupont, where there would be (we hoped) numerous options for lodging and dining. The trains were running very slowly, and it took us about 45 minutes to catch a train. Lily lay down and fell asleep on the train platform. Parent of the year award, anyone?

Once we got to Dupont, it took us forever to find a restaurant that was open. None of us had eaten since breakfast and we were definitely feeling it. And the snow and wind didn't help. The most upbeat of the bunch, Lily stopped along the way to make a snow angel.

We ended up at a swanky hotel that gave us a rather affordable "snow rate" -- either that, or they took mercy on three adults stranded (2 miles from home, mind you) with a 4-year-old. Lily and I spent the evening watching "Wizard of Oz." The above shot is Lily doing a karate punch in the hotel's leopard-print robe.

Thankfully, the snow stopped overnight. This is the view from our hotel window this morning.

When we heard that bus service resumed along emergency routes Sunday morning, we trudged our way back to a Metro station to meet up with a running bus line.

Bus service was still spotty, as you can imagine. So again, Lily took advantage by making a "snow volcano." Lindsey ran across the street to Starbucks.

Lily getting caught in a drift of snow behind the bus stop.

Home at last! That's our car under all that snow. And Andy had already shoveled the driveway once, otherwise it would have looked even more impressive.

Reunited with Amalia and Andy, we spent much of the day catching up on Christmas preparations, like decorating the tree and hanging stockings.

What an adventure. Certainly a weekend to remember. And Lily was a trooper the entire time. Never a word of complaint. In fact, I think between the snow and staying in a hotel, the whole thing was quite a thrill for her.

Me, too, come to think of it.

Lap children

Amalia's daycare center had their holiday songfest last week. The toddler class sang the traditional holiday classics: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and Wheels on the Bus.

Amalia did enjoying shaking the bells along to Jingle Bells. I can't remember what song the egg shakers were for.

Heard around the house

The other day I got exasperated with Amalia's trouble-making toddler antics and blurted out, "Amalia, I just don't know what I'm going to do with you." To which Lily thoughtfully replied, "Well, we definitely have to keep her..." So I guess that option's off the table.

Last weekend we got a couple of used winter coats for Lily off of our neighborhood list serv. I mentioned to her that I could use a new coat, as well. Lily helpfully responded, "Well, tonight what you need to do is ask Santa for a puffy, purple coat like mine. 'Cause he sews things, too. Well, actually his elves sew things because Santa's too old."

She did not specify the issue with sewing and being old. Perhaps lost dexterity.

Guess who's coming to town

Our hallway bathroom must have really good acoustics.

Start small

The day after

Lily pretty much calls for a visit to a park every day that's not a school day. Even when it's 40 degrees outside. I felt proud as a SoCal parent to even own appropriate winter clothing for my children.

I don't know if this happens everywhere, but parks in DC are chock full of donated play items that parents just drop off when their kids tire of them. It removes the middle man, I suppose. Plus it's nice that the girls get to play with toys that Mr. Frugal Penny-Pincher wouldn't buy (or that we don't have space for).

Snow!

First snow of the season today, which made Lily ask if it was Christmas.

Unfortunately we didn't get the camera out in time to catch the big, fat flakes fluttering about. All we have is Lily eating snow in the dark. (Yes, we told her about watching out for the yellow variety.)