Preparing for Christmas

Elisa continues to grow in independence and spunk.  It turns out that a 3 year old serves as an external conscience.  When Christmas shopping earlier this week, we went from store to store a number of times.  Once, Mommy was buckling her seatbelt as Daddy backed out and Elisa asked “Daddy, why did you drive when Mommy didn’t have her seatbelt buckled?”  After explaining that perhaps Daddy needed to be more patient before driving off, we were admonished “Why don’t you try that next time?”  Yikes!

When asked at preschool what she would give baby Jesus as a gift, she said “Kleenex, shoes, and toilet paper.”  I guess she gets some practicality from her parents: winter is a good time for Kleenex and TP is often the backup for Kleenex.  I don’t know why the shoes…

One of Elisa’s common statements on the way to church is that we are going through “Choo-choo.”  Apparently this is a place in Elisa’s imagination that moves at her whim.  This week we were told that Choo-choo is on the way to Bolivar – and in Bolivar – in consecutive breaths.  In the past, it has popped up in the middle of different towns or even in the middle of nowhere.

With the excitement of Christmas building, some extra trips for shopping and Mommy and Daddy home for a few days, she has also been avoiding naps like the plague.  When she got up this morning, Mommy asked if she had slept well, to which she replied “Yes, so I don’t need a nap this afternoon.”  And yes, she did avoid taking a nap even though she spent 90 minutes in her room for a “rest time.”  Her rest time included singing, putting Baby Vicks all over her belly (she actually likes it!) and turning on her dustbuster while others were trying to sleep. 

Elisa has also started being a big help this Christmas.  She helped me make cookies – rolling peanut butter blossoms in sugar, adding red hots to cornflake wreaths, cutting out and adding candies to gingerbread.  Most times, she ran out of steam before the job was done, but she actually did speed up the process when she was engaged!  She also helped clean bathrooms by being the paper towel dispenser and wiping down mirrors.  Elisa also inspired the putting up of the Christmas tree this year – which we had avoided doing since we moved to Belmont.  Maybe that added to the workload, but it has been a delight to have Elisa fully engaged in the process of Christmas this year!

Thankful memories

The Camenga family thanksgiving – for those that were able to make it – was celebrated in Florida again this year.  Elisa got to hang out with her triplet cousins -it was delightful to see how 3 and 4 year olds interact and were able to actually play together!

The cousins had fun with a number of craft projects that Uncle Johnmark and Aunt Cathy superintended.  They “painted” sugar cookies, made hand and feet turkeys, and colored squirrel namecards for Thanksgiving dinner.  (After this, Elisa got a pair of scissors and it has been the delight of her life – she wants to cut paper at least once a day and cuts open her fruit snacks and anything else she can come up with an excuse to cut!)

We also made good use of Grandpa John and Grandma Lin’s South Daytona backyard, blowing bubbles, bouncing on bouncy balls and digging in a pile of sand.  A pile of sand + scoops + 4 preschoolers = an hour and a lot of grit. 

The cousins also had a great time with puzzles, coloring, reading books (the same 2-3 over and over), running their new Hex bugs in a duplo habitat, and playing with their other new toys.  We did go to a playground once and the kids enjoyed the exercise (and you’ve got to love Elisa’s sense of color).  Andrew also led a mini-preschool class one night – he was supposedly trying to calm them down after they had climbed all over him and been riled up, but I don’t know how calming the Birdie song is when all the birdies wake up…

Even after all the eating, we did get out of the house a couple times.  We all trekked to Blue Spring and had a great time walking, talking, and scouting manatees.  Mommy, Daddy and Elisa took in the beach on Sabbath afternoon – 70s and sunny in late November – so Elisa could play in the waves and the sand.

Elisa’s magic

Elisa has really become much more of a planner and preparer in having fun, and while much of this is copied, she is also adding her own ideas!

Earlier this week, Andrew was doing one of the standard “magic tricks” for children: guess which hand the ball is in!  Of course, Daddy was mixing it up by trying to switch hands with the ball between choices or put it in a pocket and have nothing in his hands.  Elisa was ecstatic about this, giggling and enjoying it wholeheartedly.  She wanted to return the joy and started holding the ball and asking us to guess which hand the ball was in.  Of course, the ball was a 1.5 in superball and there was no way she could hold it in her hand without us seeing it!  But she asked with such delight!

Also this week, when Daddy went to change the vaccuum cleaner bag, Elisa stood nearby and said “There’s something in there” just as Daddy found a cat ball that she put in there, perhaps days previous.  Then with dead pan she added “ha ha” at which point Mommy and Daddy lost it.

On Monday, Elisa’s preschool teacher was ill and all the kids were asked for advice for how she should get better and a big card was made up with all their advice.  Elisa’s advice was “Go to the doctor and wait for the doctor. Stand on your head. It hurts a lot.  That’s how I do it.”  Even if the advice isn’t sound medically, I’m sure it made her teacher laugh!

Fish Tank

Elisa’s big gift for her 3rd birthday was setting up Mommy’s old fish tank – new gravel, new plants, and of course, new fish.  She helped pick out the gravel (perhaps more colorful than Mommy and Daddy would have selected), chose some colored gems to add, and picked a treasure chest and plants.  She helped add the gravel to the tank, sprinkled the gems in and waited patiently for 1-2 days while the water settled.  

Then she went with us to pick up the fish.  We got four goldfish of different shades and colors and after they acclimated to the tank, helped Daddy dump them in.  Then we named the fish: Moonlight is the mostly white one, Splotch the red-orange one with the red belly, Goldilocks the slightly darkerorange one (hidden in the picture), and the lighter orange is Canteloupe (Elisa’s favorite fruit.)  The naming was done with Mommy and Daddy suggesting names and Elisa approving or choosing among a few – now, a few months later, Elisa may have had a more active role!

Every day (almost), Elisa helps feed the fish.  In fact – she is the one who usually remembers to feed the fish because as she sits at the breakfast table she sees the fish tank straight ahead.  She gets to choose between pellets and flakes on most days, puts the right amount (as judged by Mommy) in the lid, and then dumps it in.  On Sabbaths, the goldfish get shrimp.  And of course, sometimes Elisa reads to the fish.