The Good Earth

Nutcracker
This is an email I received from my niece describing her evening with her niece, my three-year old great niece.

Oh, we just had the most wonderful night last night!

First, Morgan came over, and I chased her through the house with the Nutcracker, so she wouldn't touch him for a few minutes, but eventually warmed up to all 4 nutcrackers as long as I handled them. I put them in a conversation position so she could make their "mouths" move and have a brilliant discussion about all the candy they would like to eat, and whether they wanted to go climb the christmas tree. Then one of the nutcrackers called another a "poopie" and I forced them to break it up. So then she played with my nativity set, and seemed to have most of the story down, except for one part where Mary told Joseph, "You're not the baby's father" (perhaps the beginning of a "Cops" episode?). When we left, the arrangement showed that baby Jesus had been left with Jeremiah, the shepherd/babysitter, while Mary went and whooped it up with the wisemen.

Then, we put on our prettiest party dresses and went to the ballet, Nutcracker in tow. At first, she didn't want to carry him (that freak bites, you know) but I had to get the tickets out, so she deigned to carry him at arm's length. However, Nutcracker's social value was vastly increased in Morgan's eyes when she saw the one on stage....after that, she just couldn't cuddle him enough, and held him most of the performance.

Morgan was wearing a beautiful white dress, and carrying around the Nutcracker, and people would just catch their breath and gave her all kinds of compliments on how adorable and sweet she was. She did a wonderful job of watching the ballet, and seemed to understand a lot of what was going on. (I don't know if she necessarily made the abstract connection that most of the people dancing in the second act were supposed to be candy and coffee and tea, but oh well). She even helped me find the car after the show....that child is freakishly sharp. We then went back to my house and worked on decorating the tree a bit, and then her mommy and daddy took her home to bed, just like Clara after the big party.