Santa?

Last Christmas my parents gave Mia a pink Barbie computer. It’s a wonderful little thing, a find from “the store” and it has a bunch of different games to play on it.

Unfortunately, Mia is still pretty young to be playing the games. So, she’s had a good time carrying it around, making it sing songs, and alternately dropping it and using it as a step stool.

Earlier this fall I got frustrated with her for not taking care of it and so I told her it was going away until she was older and hid it on the top shelf of our closet. She’s asked about it consistently over the past few months, but I have just not given it to her.

I have decided that Christmas this year might be a good time to reintroduce the pink computer. So, this morning I was talking to Mia about Santa Clause and I asked her if she thought that Santa would be interested in bringing her pink computer back.

“Yes! That would be good!” was Mia’s enthusiastic reply.

“Well, we’ll talk to Santa about it and see if we get that for Christmas,” I told her. I watched her look around, then dart under the cabinet in the bathroom, the place where she and Maggie are allowed to go in and close the doors.

Mia crawled in, closed the doors, and sat in darkness.

From outside of the cabinet, I heard her little voice:

“Hello, Santa? Santa, I want my pink computer, please….I want my pink computer now. OK? Ok.”

We actually got our Christmas Tree set up last night. We’re grateful to have it, but it’s felt like a bit of a chore rather than an outpouring of Christmas spirit to get the house decorated. Anyway, we were in Wal-Mart last night and Mia and Maggie became enchanted with an Angel tree topper. It was on sale, so Izzy and I looked at each other, shrugged, and bought it. We promised the girls that they would have a tree this morning and they could place the angel.

Somehow or another it took us forever to get the tree up. (Perhaps watching a movie at the same time was the culprit?) We made it to bed at 1 a.m. and Mia sailed in coughing around 3. Everyone was up at 7 and Maggie saw the tree and made a straight beeline for the Christmas lights.

Out came the baby gate to protect the tree and ornaments and then, viola! We were able to get the angel situated. Mia and Maggie can’t get enough of it – their enjoyment really makes it worth the effort.

Here’s the photo:

Yes, Mia is wearing a shirt and underwear. It’s a significant improvement over yesterday, when she would only wear her winter coat, underwear and purple crocs. We staying inside for most of the day before I pinned her down and dressed her to go to the cafeteria for dinner and then on to Wal-Mart.

So, I guess that’s our update. We’re almost finished with the fall semester and that it a relief. I’m glad we’ll have a little break before we get started again. Izzy and I will both be teaching more classes in the spring, as well as our normal jobs, so I anticipate we will be as busy as always. I sometimes wonder if we would just disintegrate if we stop moving!

We’ll be sending out Christmas cards in the next week, so if you’ve moved or just want to confirm that we have your address, please send it to me! I’m trying to come up with something suitably entertaining and informative for the Christmas letters. Whew. I think I need more sleep first – or a massive sugar high!