Cinda Wella II

[naomikritzer]

We went yesterday to the Dayton's Marshall Field's Christmas display. The downtown store in Minneapolis does a big annual display on the 8th floor, with a series of scenes full of animated costumed mannequins, telling a story. Last year's was Snow White, and this year's was Cinderella. When we went in 2004, there was a long, slow-moving line to get in; Kiera was one, and wanted to take off through the crowd with the sort of determined agility that only a one-year-old has. We were there with two other moms, which helped; I left Molly with Nicole while I focused all my attention on keeping Kiera from getting lost in the crowd. It was still a pain.

We delayed our trip this year until after Christmas, in the hopes of dodging the crowd and also because this allowed Ed to come along. springbok1 and our mother also came. We got there at a little before noon, and there was a huge line. Fortunately, Kiera was much more cooperative this year. If anything, she waited better than Molly, who kept wanting to swing from the velvet rope they had marking off the line. The exhibit itself was a mixture of cheesy (the animated figures don't really look particularly human) and cool (like the scene where the Godmother appeared out of the darkness). The girls liked it a lot, especially Kiera, who was riveted by it.

We had lunch afterwards, then took the elevators back down, and noticed that the line had pretty much dried up. So memo for next year: lunch first, then display. We decided to go through again, since the line was so short, which made the girls very happy.

Kiera has gotten markedly more reasonable in the last few months. I was able to take her Christmas shopping to choose presents for Ed and for Molly, and she actually grasped that she was choosing presents for other people instead of choosing her favorite things off the shelf and then insisting on keeping them. (We take the girls to Dollar Tree to let them choose gifts, because that way we can tell them they can choose anything in the whole store without then having to veto something based on price. Kiera chose a car-shaped bank full of candy for Molly, and a bag of superballs for Ed. For me, she picked a snowman tree-topper.) Also, a couple of days ago, I got out the infamous Dora cups, and it was Molly's turn for the "cup with more characters on it," the newer cup that both of them always want. Kiera started to wail, and I told her, "Kiera, you had this cup last time. This time it's Molly's turn. Next time it will be your turn." And she instantly quit crying and was fine. It's such a shock when your toddler starts responding to reasonable arguments. (Not that anyone should expect that she'll do this consistently. She'll turn three in nine months. Molly got significantly less reasonable at three.)

Comments

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

In all my years of going to the Dayton's Christmas display (and, having been away from Mpls for several years now, I can't type "Marshall Fields" any more than *anyone* can type "Macy's" for that store), I *never* had the line work in my favor. We *always* arrived with it long and left when it was short - every single year.

I miss going - it sounds like you all had a good time! (And I still remember annual post-visit luncheons in the store's grown-up restaurant - The Oak Room, was it?)

Happy 2006!

Mindy