New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve enjoying the various activities of "New Years Needham," a First-Night like event in our town, in which local buildings open their doors to host musical performances, puppet shows, storytelling, dancing, magic shows, and so forth. Our first stop was a puppet show version of "Peter Rabbit." Madeleine spent most of her time playing with my travel coffee mug, getting coffee all over her fingers and occasionally tipping the cup upside down to dribble coffee all over the nice library rug. When she wasn't occupied with my coffee, she was either playing with the laces on other peoples shoes or grabbing and caressing the hair of kids sitting around us. She was occasionally interested in the puppet show, watching the stage with rapt attention, and shouting out, "Whatzat?" at random moments. Julia enjoyed the show, although had to hide her face in my shoulder every time it appeared Farmer MacGregor might catch Peter. All in all, it was a much better experience for Julia than the last puppet show we saw at the library, during which she had a loudly hysterical melt-down about wanting to go home because she was afraid the Very Hungry Caterpillar was going to eat her.

Following the show, we headed over to the Creative Movement Center, for open gym, arts and crafts, balloon animals, and temporary tattoos. The girls loved open gym time, and Madeleine decided she was bound and determined to go on the big slide as many times as she could. After each slide down, she would toddle back around to the stairs and start her ascent back to the top. All was well and good when she seemed to be the only one in line at the slide, but as soon as bigger kids started joining in, the world was made to wait every few minutes as Madeleine made her toddly, 1-year-old way to the steps, up, and down again. In between her slidings numerous older kids would rocket their way up and down, only to be held up all over again as soon as Madeleine took her next turn.

The highlight of the day was a ride - make that three - on the kiddie train at Memorial Park. Madeleine spent the first two rides looking stoically around as if she had no idea that anything different or unusual was going on. It seemed to dawn on her by ride #3, though, because she spent our last turn around the park exclaiming, "Whee!" with a look of glee on her face. When I started putting the girls back into the double stroller after the ride closed for the day, Madeleine started writhing out of her buckle, reaching desperately for the train and crying at the unfairness of being taken from one slowly moving vehicle and placed into another.

Our last stop was Town Hall, where Julia made an instant friend. A little girl came up to her and said something which was inaudible to me, due to the loud, pumping music coming from the speakers. I saw Julia nod, and next thing I knew, both girls were tromping through the snow, Julia in her sneakers, chasing after each other. The friendship was put on hold minutes later, however, when both girls got stuck nearly knee-deep in snow and the fun of the game ceased to exist. We decided it was best to head to dinner and get Julia's wet little feet warmed up.

A few pictures from the afternoon to share with you all, and to all a Happy New Year!