That's just the way it is sometimes.

We had our first dusting of snow today! Last weekend Izzy and I drove through snow on the way back to Bartlesville from Branson, but it melted away into insignificance sometime well before we reached our own city limits. But today, I opened the windows and – viola! – snow!

It’s a meager amount, but I’m not going to complain. It’s actually done a good bit toward putting me in the Christmas spirit.

There have been several things in the last weeks I have considered writing about, but I was going a little crazy with all the writing in the early part of November, so I decided to spare you! However, I’ll share a memory from Thanksgiving:

We were in a timeshare in Branson with my mom and dad. Now, I won’t lie, I LOVE TIMESHARE VACATIONS – but I did discover that the space can shrink magically when you fill it with Mia and Maggie. They used the coffee table as their own personal jungle gym and I spent a substantial amount of time telling them to stay out of the cabinets. Ah – I forget what a wonder baby locks are until I go somewhere without them!

Well, about halfway through our vacation Mia discovered a folded up catalog and decided it was her “wallet.” She pranced around the apartment, asking us if we would like her to “pay” for things and asking if she could “buy” classy items like a coaster and a playing card.

My dad was pretty tickled by this and pulled out his own wallet. He asked her if she would like to sell her wallet to him for $1. She agreed to the deal and accepted his dollar. This was a good exchange for, um… maybe 10 seconds. After that, she demanded her wallet back so that she could put her money in it.

Then we had a lengthy discussion about the free trade system, economics, and fair barter. At one point we dipped into interest and security when my mom suggested that Mia let her hold on to the dollar as the “bank.” But when it boiled down to it, Mia simply was not open to any option but keeping the wallet and the dollar. She felt that they both rightfully belonged to her.

Finally, my dad conceded that, right or wrong, he was not going to win the battle of wills without creating a great deal of hard feelings on the part of a stubborn two-year-old. He gave it one last try:

“Mia, I feel like you’ve cheated me out of my dollar. I wanted to have either my dollar or your wallet – now I don’t have either. That makes me feel sad.”

And Mia, in classic fashion, looked at him seriously, shrugged and said, “That’s just the way it is sometimes.”

Our Mia story from yesterday:

Our colleague, Peggy, asked Mia what she wanted from Santa. Mia thought hard and said, “A teddy bear.” We all nodded and said we thought that was a good thing. (We were out to lunch with our co-workers) Then Peggy asked Mia what Maggie wanted from Santa.

“Um, maybe a baby brother,” was the reply. Oh Lordy.

After the laughter died down I told Peggy to remind Santa that Mommy has just gotten back into her skinny jeans and isn’t interested in expanding again at this point. Whew. That child is quite a character!

I can’t imagine what stuff will come up when Maggie can talk too!

If you go to the blog, I’ve posted some interesting videos…