Getting Ready for Xmas

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we took Wynn to (what we stubbornly continue to refer to as) the Dayton's Holiday display in downtown Minneapolis. This year's theme is "A Day in the Life of an Elf", and Wynn was totally into it. Her favorite character was an elf who'd gotten his head stuck in a box and was blindly twirling in circles. (Her sense of humor is a bit twisted sometimes.) She still mentions him every now and then - and then bursts into fits of laughter.

Having your picture taken with Santa was an option, but we chose to whisk her past that line and go to the table where you could write him a letter instead.

She sat herself down, grabbed a crayon and a postcard, and proceeded to write W-Y-N-N. (Scott and I both got all teary-eyed and blubbery with parental pride at that point.) She didn't know how to write what she wanted to ask for, so she drew a picture instead: a Santa hat (?!) Apparently, she likes his hat and wants one just like it. Go figure!

Thanksgiving was a fun, low-stress event. Wynn loaded up on turkey and stuffing; then she helped her uncle Paul assemble the gingerbread house kit he'd brought. She had a blast, but it's a frosting-lacquered mess ...
She insists that we have to keep it until Christmas, but even Wynn admits that it's not fit for consumption. "We'd get sick," she says, "Too much frosting." When I asked her if we should put it out in the yard for the squirrels, she got all serious and warned, "Oh, no. It make squirrels sick too." So, for now, our kitchen has the overwhelming smell of canned frosting and commercial grade gingerbread lingering in the air, but Wynn beams with pride at the little house and says making it was her favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Battle Ready

You know your daughter has watched Mulan a few too many times when she turns her kiddie rake into a weapon and turns an afternoon of leaf raking into battle practice. With a couple disco moves thrown in for good measure.

And I simply can't get over what a big girl face she has now...

Halloween, and Getting Over the Flu

What did Wynn want to be this year? "A GECKO!!" So Ann made her a tail to go with her green pants and shirt. She found a green hoodie at Old Navy and was planning to sew big eyes on the hood.

"No, Mom. I don't need extra eyes. I use my own eyes."

Wynn was so excited to go trick-or-treating this year.

It took soooo long to finally get dark.

Carrying her rubber gecko around to make sure everyone

knew what the costume was supposed to be.

She and Ann were out about 20 minutes and came home with her pail full of goodies. Happy, and ready to call it a night.

I manned the home front and gave out generous portions of Skittles to the neighborhood kids while trying not to cough on them.

The flu bug held strong in my body through Thursday morning, when I woke up with a 101.7 temperature. I doubled down on Advil and Tylenol and took a long, cool shower, kept the car windows cracked open taking Wynn to daycare, and drank lots of hot coffee. (That old Chinese saying about fighting fever with heat started making sense...) By 10:00 my temp was back down to normal, although it started creeping back up into the 99s by evening.

Friday I woke up for the first time without any fever, though plenty tired and with a very upset digestive tract and very sore throat. Felt much better on Saturday although had to stop and sit or lie down every couple hours; less coughing than previous days. Actually managed to do some yard work Sunday (albeit more hands-and-knees work than full-blown leaf raking.)

Went to work today, and even though I mostly just went through the 400 emails waiting from last week, ran a few reports, and had catch-up conversations with my boss and coworkers, I came home utterly exhausted. But glad to be back in the land of the living.