Last night we saw the grandchildren on Skype. I do not know who invented this communication device, but they have made life more tolerable for us. There is a steep staircase in their 100+yr old house that really gets a workout.
When the children were babies (Oliver and Lyla were born during the time Sara and Jacob have owned this house) there was a gate put over the downstairs entry to the staircase, but as soon as the little ones learned how to scale this 'fence' it was all over bar the shouting. They learned to go up and at the beginning did not know how to come back down and that caused problems for them as well as for their parents. After a few tries, they mastered it and the world was then their oyster, so to speak.
The Winters are long, cold and harsh in Nebraska and so the staircase has become a place to play, a place to do time out for unacceptable behavior, a way to go up and down at will and last but not least, a toy. I say toy because the children have discovered that if they get into a sleeping bag, they can start at the top of the stairs and bump all the way down to the bottom. It matters little to them that this is pretty dangerous - especially if two of them get into the same sleeping bag, but the gales of laughter that emit from the hurtling sleeping bag more than make up for the possibility of injury. I watched them do this activity on Skype last night.
There are a number of terrestrial beings that visit the house. Currently the Elf on the Shelf is residing in the house He observes whether the children have been exceptionally good or not and he consults with Mom and Dad after the children go to bed and then he does mischief in the house or hides himself so that the children have to find him. The first day he visited, they found him hiding in the refrigerator. Cannot be good for the store of goodies in the Fridge - what if he gets in there and eats everything in sight? I really doubt if he would attack the broccoli! His latest caper has been to draw a beard on Daddy, a halo on Mommy, Harry potter glasses on Oliver, a halo on Lyla and horns on Ethan in the family photo. Naughty elf.! I cannot wait to hear what he did while we were sleeping last night.
The sleep fairy also visits. She leaves candy or some trinket by the child who is sleeping in bed. If the child is out of bed and not obedient to bed time, then no reward comes. She is a furtive little fairy, but she seems to be fair minded and understands how hard it is for little ones to go to bed - especially this time of year with the Christmas Tree up and all.
The tooth fairy also visits this house when teeth become loose and fall out. As Ethan was overheard telling Oliver, "The tooth fairy is not very rich because of all the children who are losing teeth at the same time. However, she will leave you $1 for your first tooth, and then she leaves you 25cents for all the other teeth that fall out." Oliver was only around 2yrs old at the time.
The giant Leprechaun also invades the house in March. He gets in through the tiniest crack in the window, leaves footprints up the wall and across the ceiling (that is some feat because they are 10 feet high), and he also eats up the cookies left out in the Leprechaun trap. He usually springs the trap or breaks it and he escapes through the front door keyhole or something like that. This year he left some gold coins. Guess the pot of gold is too heavy for him to tote around so he just leaves chocolate coins covered in gold foil.
Well , at the price of gold these days, did you really expect him to go all out and leave the real thing?
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