Elsa and Clio partied hard this weekend. It was non-stop cookies, apple juice and dresses with tights, plus a little dancing and sugar-high stair-climbing thrown in for good measure. The revelry kicked off on Friday, for Santa's annual visit to my place of work, as mentioned in my last post. The girls loved the cookies, the candy canes, the juice boxes, the carpeted stairs to climb on and long halls to run down. But they were definitely suspicious of the man in red. Not that I blame them. I always found the whole picture-with-Santa experience rather harrowing, even when I was much older than Elsa and Clio are now. If they never want to sit on the dude's lap or tell him what they want for Christmas, it's fine by me.
The partying continued on Saturday morning. Any fans of Steve Almond or former readers of his Baby Daddy blog may be interested to know that Steve and his wife just welcomed a new baby boy, Judah Elijah, to the family. I brought the girls over to the Almond residence for a celebratory brunch and virtual bris (Steve recounted the circumcision, which took place at the hospital, in charming detail). I thought the girls would be excited about seeing a new baby -- they like to say "baby," after all. And they enjoy dragging their baby dolls around the house by their feet, feeding them things, whacking their heads against the refrigerator, etc. But they could have cared less about real-live baby Judah. The paper cups, stirrers and creamers from Dunkin Donuts, on the other hand -- woo hoo! And the bagels. My god, did they eat a lot of bagels.
We went to yet another party in the afternoon, at my friend Tricia's house. The girls got antsy in the car on the way there, and I began to wonder if it was a mistake to try to hit two parties in one day, but, in fact, the girls had an awesome time. When we got there, music was blasting in the den, and a whole bunch of kids, mostly boys, aged 3 - 8, were almost literally bouncing off the walls: dancing around, rolling on the ground, slamming into furniture, a'whoopin' and a'hollerin'. I thought the girls -- or at least Clio -- would be terrified. But in fact, after observing the madness for a few minutes, they started dancing, too. Elsa even gave a few of her trademark squeals of joy as she busted her moves. I left the room for a few minutes to get some food, and when I came back, Clio was sitting on the couch watching, clapping her hands, grooving to the beat. It was the most comfortable and independent I've ever seen either of them at a party. In fact, I even managed to get in some actual, uninterrupted exchanges of 3-5 sentences with other adults!
The only issue -- as it had been at the other two events -- was trying to keep them from eating, er, everything. They're both tall enough now that they can reach up and grab things off your standard-sized table, which makes controlling their food intake at parties next to impossible. Elsa scarfed down the equivalent of an entire pineapple (chunked) and at one point
managed to grab a handful of guacumole. Clio alternated between cookies
and crackers. To watch how those two eat at parties, you'd think we starved them. Then again, they're always happy to eat if it's 1.) A carbohydrate, cheese or piece of fruit 2.) not served on a plate as part of an actual "meal." (Maybe, like me, they feel like if you don't actually sit down to eat it, the calories don't count?)
You would think they would be partied out after all of this, but the next day, they rocked yet another social event -- a tree trimming party at my friend Megan's house. I wasn't there -- I went to Springfield for my co-worker's funeral -- but judging by the pictures they had a fab time:
(Doing their Mary-Kate and Ashley impression)
(Captions, please?)
