Embellishing

I feel good that our holiday shopping is complete. A few packages are en route but we have most gifts here so we had a wrapping party at the kitchen table. While L napped, E and I laid out our mise en place: I got the Mommy scissors and the wrapping paper, and she got the tape, crayons and kiddie scissors. I cut and wrapped; she taped and drew little scribbles.

Sometimes E likes to play "cutting," which in spite of the self-mutilating implications just means in her lexicon that she likes to practice her scissors skills. I usually try to wrap the largest presents first so that I can use the scraps from their wrapping on smaller gifts but E began collecting my cutting. So she cut, and cut, and cut.

And because cutting quickly became "too easy," it was time to practice taping. Uncle Matt and Grandma, you are two lucky people. E taped her cuttings on your presents. Aren't they lovely:

(Uncle Matt, your niece tells me pink is your favorite color. Happy Chanukah!)

And Gus, my daughter is really looking forward to your birthday party in two weeks. You'll know her gift when it's in the pile. It's one-of-a-kind, and made with love.

19° windchill, 30 mph wind gusts

It's COLD. And squinty-bright like only pallid noonday winter sun can be.

We went to the grocery store in the middle of a Sunday and it was crazy and it was packed and the cart, which is stored outside, was too cold to push without wearing my gloves indoors. Some kid with his mommy in another cart had a balloon and E pounced on that.

Mama! BallOON!!

I was feeling agreeable so we swam upstream across the crowds all the way back to the floral department in the produce section and I procured one purple balloon, plus a blue one for her latex-envious sister. So they wouldn't float away we tied them to the cart, got our last few groceries, paid and exited into the blustery misery.

When people say they love winter, I think they're ridiculous. Or perhaps like childbirth, they've forgotten how horrible it is?

It's so windy I'm having trouble catching my breath, E is begging to be put in the car first, and I can't find the appropriate key fob to beep because my hair is whipping in my eyes. I try to lift E out of the car and she screams.

She wants me to put the balloons in the car first so they don't blow away.

Love: blinded by my own hair and the searing light, gloveless for maximum dexterity, fingers numb from the conditions and so nearly unmaneuverable anyway, untying not one but two double-knotted balloon ribbons in order to save the day and my firstborn from hypothermia.

Hate: WINTER.