Creations and Creatures

I think everyone in this household is feeling a bit sleep-deprived lately, in part due to Madeleine's late night and early morning coughing fits and crying jags.  Since we had snow the past few days, we have enjoyed spending lazy down time at home, giving the kids a chance to rest up a bit while they sit on the couch with popcorn, watching movies.  The overtired parents have had less time to rest, although not for lack of trying.

In fact, I attempted a nap in the late morning today, after I realized that the girls were happily playing Polly Pockets in Julia's room.  But because kids seem to have Idle-Mommy-Radar, no sooner had I curled up in my bed than Julia was at my bedside, chattering away about anything and everything.

She scooted out of the room eventually, and I once again settled under the blankets to try and get some rest.  Next thing I knew, Julia was on my bedroom floor, noisily cutting wrapping paper and ripping piece after piece of Scotch tape, flapping paper around as she attempted to wrap a present.

As if the noisy crinkling and rustling of wrapping paper weren't enough of a distraction, I also got to listen to Madeleine and Julia shouting back and forth to each other; Madeleine, who was still in Julia's bedroom, was desperate to regain her play-mate.

JULIA: (crinkle, crinkle)
MADELEINE: (hollering) Juuuuuliaaaaaaaa!
JULIA: (shouting) WHAT?
MADELEINE: I neeeeeeeeeed you to help me FIIIIIIIND something!
JULIA: Haaaang ON!  I'm DOOOOING something! (crinkle, crinkle, rustle, rustle)
MADELEINE: (on the verge of tears) Juuuuliaaaaaaaaa!
JULIA: (shouting) WHAT?
MADELEINE: Pleeeease, pleeeeeease, pleeeeease, can you come and HELP ME?
JULIA: HANG ON!  I'm DOOOOOING something!  (flap, flap, rustle, rustle)
MADELEINE: (wailing) JUUUULIAAAAAA!  I NEEEEEEEEED YOOOOOU!
JULIA: Madeleine!  HANG ON!  I CAN'T HELP YOU RIGHT NOW!  I'm DOING SOMETHING!

While I waited for Julia to hurry up and finish doing something, I contemplated going to help Madeleine myself, but at long last Julia finished wrapping her gift and presented it to me with great delight.

JULIA: Okaaaay, Mommy, this is a PRESENT for yoooooou!

So I ripped off the wrapping paper to find my fabulous, handmade gift.  Once I saw what was inside, I could completely understand why Julia had gone to such laborious effort to wrap and present this to me:

Yes, that's right.  A blank piece of printer paper with the words "My love is?" written on top.  Does it get much better than this, folks?
JULIA: Mama!  It's a PICTURE FRAME!  So, you can, like, put a picture of a thing that you LOVE!

Needless to say, the nap didn't happen, so I joined Julia downstairs, where she decided to play with Madeleine's Arctic animal figurines.  Since Julia is learning about animals of the North and South Poles in school, she had all kinds of scientific knowledge about these various figurines, even able to identify the specific kind of whale and penguin in the set.

But perhaps her deep Arctic understanding is best exemplified by the following comment:
"Mom?  Do you think that these polar bears are two different KINDS of polar bear, since they don't LOOK the same?  Like, this one has different EARS and LEGS?"

I think she's got it EXACTLY right.  If by two different kinds of polar bears she means one polar bear and one wolf.

Julia got so into the polar animals that she decided to write a book inspired by one of the figurines.

This book is about all of Julia's favorite kinds of walls, including the beluga wall, the orca, and the humpback wall. 

And by walls, she means whales.
And by whales, she apparently means shadow-demon gingerbread men:

Now that would be an interesting wall-watch sighting...