Und ein Chibli für Joey

Rae, who is moving back home soon, reading Christmas
stories to the kids

When I'm feeling this tired, I'm always so surprised at the energy of the little people around me.  It's hard to understand how they have so much pep and optimism each morning.

But I'm glad for it. It makes it ridiculously easy to get them out the door. I wouldn't be half as eager to bundle up and shoulder my bag and run into the cold, particularly if my day included swimming dozens of laps in gym class, as Ella's did today, but she skipped out with a wave. "See ya, mom!"

But Joey and I had to head out into the cold for school this morning, too: his toddler group was doing their little Christmas present exchange this morning, and we didn't want to miss that.  It was also the last day at the school for one of the other moms, who is moving to Australia after about ten years here in Zürich. It's been kind of nice, going through this whole moving process with someone else.

The moms decided to make the kids play musical chairs to get their presents, with the losers being escorted, one by one, to the present table as the game continued. Luckily, three-year-olds aren't cunning enough realize that it's a good deal to be the first out. Apparently, they're also not quite cunning enough to play musical chairs at all, but somehow the moms puppeteered them through the process, finally, and Joey went home the proud and very possessive owner of four new canisters of play-doh. Such riches!

Joey fell asleep on the way home, so lunch was quiet and Alex settled in to play with his toys after, while Ella happily dashed back out the door.  She said her class was spending the afternoon doing woodworking, making Christmas gifts for moms and dads.  I know that in her regular weekly Handarbeit class, they're making functioning marionettes, so I'm really eager to see what else they have the children do. It's going to be a most excellent Christmas.

When Ella got home, she was still my blithe little spirit, and she scooped her brothers up and entertained them, inside and out.  I took a little video of them, playing Bullfight, and I'm shocked that I'm able to report that this did not end in tears. Rather, it ended with Ella deciding that maybe the house was too small for them: she helped me hustle the boys into their coats, and the three of them went outside for chalk drawing and snail hunting, staying out there until well past dark. Granted, it's dark by five, but still, I was glad to see them get so much fresh air.

And since that was the case, I could, without misgivings, plop them in front of the television with big bowls of popcorn and gummy bears.  I showed them Christmas Vacation for the first time ever: I thought Ella would like it, but I wasn't expecting Alex to laugh so hard.  He dismisses out of hand anything that isn't animated as a "grown-up movie," but he was lured in by the opening credits and won over by the physical comedy.  Falling off a ladder, getting hit in the head by a two by four, breaking through the ceiling: Chevy Chase's sense of humor corresponds with my five year old's very precisely.

(I did realize, a little too late, that the version of this movie that we watched as kids each Christmas was definitely edited for television.  Oops!)