Better with Butter, and the train to nowhere

Arabella, as previously reported, ate a half a stick of butter on Sunday.

On Tuesday Arabella snuck the baggie of double stuffed Oreos out of the diaper bag (my dad bought them while he was here, and I took the last few to ballet class, thinking I could finish them off while she was in class, but I don't like Oreos as much as I thought), took them up to her room and ate them in secret. She would have gotten away with it if not for the black crumbs that kept appearing every time she went upstairs.

On Wednesday, during Quiet Time, when she should have been in her room, I caught her in the kitchen, standing on a chair, removing a bag of marshmallows (used for yams and cocoa) from the cabinet and stowing it in her dora backpack.

On Thursday I found a completely empty cake frosting container in Arabella's room, which had previously been in the refrigerator, holding the remnants of the orange-colored vanilla frosting from her birthday cake.

My plan is to purge all sugary snacks from the house this weekend, including what is left of her Hallowe'en candy. Any other ideas?


The Polar Bear Express


They can't call it the Polar Express, that would be copyright infringement. Yesterday A's preschool class visited the Fishers Train Museum for a story and train ride. This is a real train, not a park train (like we rode in San Antonio's Brackenridge Park), nor a toy train (like they have at the Indiana State Museum). This is a Real, Big Train. So a bunch of parents, with hildren, gathered and corralled the kids. We're a pretty low-key bunch, so while the kindergarten claas that arrived with only 4 teachers and 20 students was nicely lined up for the train, our 15 kids and at least 10 adults were like a herd of feral cats, going every direction fast.


After a dramatic reading with projected images, Santa and Mrs. C arrived, we took pictures, and then we filed out onto frigid, 30 degree, but sunny train platform. I hoped that we would be nice and cozy on the train, but NO!


The train was so cold I thought I might freeze into position sitting on the vinyl seats. We shivered. Mrs. Claus and I discussed the cold -- no steam to run the heaters, couldn't regulate the temperature if they did have the heat running, and how she discovered why women in the old days weren't cold because they had on so many layers off woolen underwear and corsets. No one told the kids to sit still, I figured they might as well jump around to generate some heat. Parents begged children to sit in their laps. It was colder inside than out! The train headed north, through backyards and industrial areas. Arabella asked where we were going. I told her the North Pole, or Noblesville, whichever came first. After 15 minutes we stopped in a snow covered field with big metal industrial buildings, like truck loading or construction company offices. We were told this was where Santa's elves make the toys and store them for Christmas. And after the "train-driving elf" engineer walked from the north end of the train to the south end, we retraced our path in reverse, stopping a few times to point out to the totally frozen children the unrealistic cement deer and goofy elves hiding in the underbrush along the tracks.


We returned, I was the last person off the icy train, but the biggest relief was that Sabine slept through the entire adventure, only waking two blocks from home. She was well-bundled in her fleece bunting, velour sleeper, green knitted hat, and an extra blanket draped over the canopy to close up her little car seat cave.