This morning, Chris, Sabrina, and I went up to Sammy’s school for the Thanksgiving powwow and feast. A miscommunication had s there a half hour early, so it was a challenge to occupy our little Tasmanian devil. (Splashing in rain puddles in the freshly rained upon courtyard did the trick. Yeah, that was a good idea.) Once things got underway, Sabrina had no intention of sitting still and watching the proceedings. (Kudos to Sammy and the other students for paying such close attention, because after 15 minutes of Northwest versus Southwest tribal customs, I was ready to smoke that peace pipe.) There were several other younger siblings in attendance, but only my darling angel was cruising around like she was on Wheelies, squawking at the top of her lungs. We quickly came to the unfortunate conclusion that we’d remove our princess from the situation so she didn’t have the opportunity to incite a full scale riot. Man, that pumpkin pie looked good.
This afternoon, we girls picked up our preschool Pilgrim and headed out to the mall to make a first attempt at visiting Santa. My experience with Sammy taught me to start as early as possible taking the kids to see the big man, if only for them to get comfortable with the idea of getting close to a strange old man in a fuzzy suit. I think I had to take Sammy 3 times one year before he’d even get within 2 feet of the Kringle. But now, Sammy’s an old hat and after making a three-quarter mile trek around (how dare they move Santa’s village after all these years, and why didn’t I go counterclockwise?), he walked straight up and shook Santa’s hand. We were the only ones there, and the elves were in high spirits (let’s see that happen in a week). So, optimal opportunity. As he clambered right up on Santa’s lap, I got Sabrina ready. I placed her on Santa’s other knee, grabbed my camera, and the flashes started firing. (Mall Photo Trick: bring your own camera, and just start clicking along with the paid photographer. You’ll double your chance of an awesome shot.) Snap after snap, I was busy watching to see if Sabrina turned her face to the camera and took her hands out of her mouth. She didn’t light up in a smile, but I didn’t care about that. Only after the fact did I realize she started out with a deer in the headlights glaze before slowly melting into a blubbery mess. No trademark Sabrina scream (poor Santa would’ve called it quits if she broke off one of those), no running in terror, just the slow conclusion that someone very out of the ordinary was holding her while lights exploded in her face. She folded herself into my neck and just sat there until she was sure she wouldn’t be going back to the weird man. She never spoke a word.
I did get a decent shot pre-meltdown (although I kind of wish I could’ve bought the entire series just to preserve the start to finish), so big score for getting that done on round 1.
And, yes, Sammy did get his requests in, which have been duly noted. I believe he will be quite satisfied this year.
But boy, can my daughter run the extremes. From squealing tornado to shy china doll in just a few hours. I have no idea who she’ll be tomorrow.
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