Loran left on December 2nd. I was determined not to let the twelve days he was to be gone to be a bust. I wanted to enjoy our last month in Minnesota with the girls and even if I was a single parent, I was going to have to soldier through and give them some holiday/winter/MN memories. I tried to not let the fact that we had a giant move looming over us, along with Christmas and Ella’s birthday overwhelm me.
Our first day solo was an easy choice. It happened to be 55+ degrees so we were headed to the zoo after I picked the girls up at school. Of course, when I picked them up, the rain had picked up, but we were determined. I’d packed a “car picnic” which, of course, Lily spilled all over before I’d even put the car in reverse. Once that was cleaned up (as it rained on my head) we were off. By the grace of God, the rain cleared and the sun even tried to peek out upon our arrival! We had the zoo to ourselves. It was amazing. At most, we encountered two other families in the same building as us.
Within minutes of entering, the girls made a run for the tortoise sculpture. I’ve tried for years to get a photo of the girls with the popular sculpture. They’ve never cooperated. This time, they were both giggling, “Take our picture! Take our picture!” Then Ella had a minor meltdown outside of the first building we were going to visit because, according to her, “seals are scary and I want to go home.” I grabbed her by the hand and dragged her crying self into the building. Within seconds, she was again enamored with Sparky and other sea lion friends, penguins, puffins and fish. Terribly frightening bunch.
Next up, polar bears. We had to check-in on Neil and Buzz before our departure. Typically, when you’d enter the Polar Bear building, you’d have to fight your way to the glass to see the bears and then trip over abandoned strollers to get back to the doors. Place to ourselves. We learned all about bears from the volunteer on duty, saw the polar bears and the brown bear refugees from the Duluth Zoo.
Large Cat building, nothing but close encounters with lions and tigers. Then more cheesiness with other photo-ops around the zoo.
I was especially excited for the Conservatory. They had just installed their Christmas display of poinsettias and I’m apparently old to be excited for such things. We got an entire volunteer to ourselves who seemed super excited to see us wander in and then walked us through part of the exhibit teaching us all about edible rainforest plants. The girls were most excited by bananas and coffee (because Daddy drinks coffee!). They kept begging me to take more posed photos of them, basically in every place I’ve ever tried to get them to take a photo. It’s as if they sensed that it was finally time to give in.
Lily’s castle, completely built by her.
St. Nick came to Garden of Hope and left chocolates in the children’s boots/shoes. Much excitement. The chocolate Santa was devoured within minutes of arriving home. Minutes.
We perfected video chatting with Loran while he was in Austin. The girls really enjoyed this part of our day. We watched him make dinner one night, which was a big hit. Daddy was able to watch Lily rock backwards in a rocking chair, and see a bare (in the process of getting pajamas on) Ella back into the Christmas tree…ouch! Pokey!
A week after the original Santa photo, Lily had spent the better part of the week staring at the photo in the kitchen and lamenting that she hadn’t smiled. It was really bothering her. Well, we had no plans so back to the Santa line we went. Another pocket full of treats and soon enough, the girls were back on Santa’s lap. Ella still wanted a cat, Lily asked again for crayons and paper. Smiles, candy bags, success. We ran a few other errands, like bringing toys to the Toys for Tots drop-off and then to the store where I had to buy the girls cute Santa cookies. I’m a sucker.
Sunday morning there were reports of snow. Not just snow, but SNOW. As the reports solidified, the bulls-eye for the heaviest snow kept creeping towards our house. Ella joined me in bed and was so excited it was snowing. We watched it fall and cuddled as it was just beginning.
A few hours later, around 10:30 we bundled up and ventured out for the first round of snow removal. I was pretty proud of myself as I had made sure the snow blower was fueled and ready to go before the snow. So, being the proud person I am, I shooed away the neighbor who offered to snowblow my driveway. I had this! Little did I know, I’d also have to be out clearing the drive at 5pm, 9pm and then again at 6am…and then topped it off with roof raking the following afternoon. I really should have taken that first offer. My indoor loving Ella, really enjoyed her time outside. She shoved both sets of stairs and ran around playing in the snow, just loving it. It made me kind of sad to be moving away from the snow, given her reaction. Lily, who typically loves to frolic outside, stood in the snow crying and begging to go inside and play. She was highly frustrated that the snow would cover her mittens and wanted it off. She didn’t understand that was the job of the mittens and snow on your mittens was better than snow in your mittens or on your bare hands. Reasoning with Lily is not for the faint of heart, so I let her in to play while Ella and I finished the first round.
And it just kept coming…I was sure missing Loran!
Loran’s departure didn’t mean that we slacked in our general sense of fashion.
We attended the story time at the Fillebrown House. As the quiet member of the board of the historical society, I’m not well known by the newest members because of my poor meeting attendance. I was very surreal to be attending an event in which I used to be the storyteller, as a regular attendee. Only one other person there knew me as a board member and not a spectator. Imagine the surprise of others when I came in, started rooting around for ice melt for the sidewalk and had a general sense of comfort in the historical house. I used to have my own key to the house, I was no stranger to my surroundings. But there’s a certain fun to being somewhat anonymous, yet knowledgeable. It was nice to be able to say goodbye to the house.
The girls made adorable gingerbread houses at Garden of Hope. Of course, it was too much for Lily to take. She stared at hers for days up on the built-in, just wanting to eat it. Since it was built around a milk carton, it wasn’t the most edible creation. It was killing her though. I knew I had to intervene before I came upon her ravishing the house and digesting week-old frosting and stale graham crackers. Lo-and-behold, I found some frosting and graham crackers and threw some M’s on the table and Lily was off, creating, savoring and the little candy house was safe from the wrath of Lil.
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