Ho Ho Ho

I picked up The Niece from school on Friday and while I was prepared to show ID the women behind the Office counter said you must be here for The Niece. My sister used to work at the school and we look enough alike that I didn’t have to show ID*. Then we talked about what a mess The Niece is. Sure enough after a little bit of time, The Niece came down the hallway shouting my name and the better-half’s name. I stepped out into the hallway and away we went. Of course we couldn’t get out of the parking lot without The Niece saying goodbye to one of the cafeteria workers–by bellowing from the back seat of my car.

I think this was one of the best weekends we’ve spent together. Friday afternoon she requested a piece of paper and a pen. She drew a graph so she could count all the maple leaves and shells she and the better-half found on their walk in the woods. The better-half let her use a small clipboard so the geekery was complete. I could only think that my scientist sister would be pleased.

Last night we went to see the lights at the garden. It had been years since the better-half and I were there. The lights were very pretty. The Niece and I wrote wishes down on sticky notes and posted them on the Wishing Wall. I wished for Peace and The Niece wrote: “I love my family” and then she drew little figures at the bottom. She insisted we stop in the gift store to buy something for her family. We ended up buying icicles for their tree. The Niece was concerned about buying one for Lil Elvis but I insisted. If she pokes someone’s eye out with it, oops.

As we were getting out of the car at home, we heard the sirens and music of Santa on the fire truck and so we waited at the end of the driveway for Santa to show up. He took quite awhile to come up our street presumably because there are some kids down the street and then so many volunteers live further down our road that I’m sure there was quite a bit of chatting going on. Santa stopped at our house and spoke to The Niece and his helpers passed out candy canes. It totally rocked and we nearly lost our minds with how cool it was that Santa! stopped right at our house.

This morning just as I was about to dominate in Monopoly, The Niece offered me some of her money for us to quit playing and move on to another game. I took the bribe. She and the better-half played chess and then her dad picked her up.

I’m a little surprised the better-half and I are still awake–we usually head right for nap time after she leaves.

*Don’t worry, they had a note that I was coming and I filled out the paperwork and really there’s no mistaking that The Niece and I belong together with all the shouting of greetings and hugging. There are other mitigating circumstances that also make this lapse in ID showing OK.