Tag Archives: Hanukkah

Barnyard Animals


Sophie loves her new wooden fold & go barn. It was a Hanukkah gift from her grandmother, and she drags it all over the house. The toy comes with seven realistic-looking farm animals: pig, turkey, dog, horse, cow, sheep, lamb and goat.

She seems to favor the dog and the horse, and I’m not sure why. She takes them everywhere with her. To Chloe’s bus stop in the morning, for rides in the car, to the couch for her nap. She also likes the turkey, but I think it’s more because she likes saying “turkey” out loud than because she has any real affinity for the poor bird.

Sophie is all business when she plays with the barn. She is careful to lay the animals on their sides for bed. And Sophie has instituted rules when the animals are sleeping: (1) the doors to the barn must remain closed, (2) we must not touch the animals, and (3) we must be quiet. Earlier today, we serenaded the inanimate objects with two of her favorite songs, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Now I Know My ABCs.” I think they all had a nice nap.

She is proud to show everyone who enters the house her new toy. And she is, not surprisingly, loathe to share it. With anyone, including her immediate family members. She is very concerned about their well-being and their happiness. Most amazingly of all, it’s been three days and she hasn’t yet lost one of the figurines. It’s true love, I think.

Happy Hanukkah!


One candle down, only seven more to go. As you can see from the photo, the girls were very excited about Hanukkah. We started out the evening listening to an entertaining song about the holiday written and performed by my cousins. We then lit the candles.

It was finally time to open the presents. I decided that there would be a theme this year: reading and writing. Tonight’s gifts were personalized pencil cases and pencils, a little electric pencil sharpener, and little notebooks.

Chloe is definitely her father’s daughter. She loves gadgets. So she loved the pencil sharpener. But Sophie is also her father’s daughter. And there was only one pencil sharpener. There were some screams, and some tugging. But Chloe let Sophie have a turn, and as quickly as you can say Maccabees, first crisis averted. I promptly put the gizmo away in a safe place out of Sophie’s sight, for Chloe to use as needed.

Shortly afterwards, we all sat down at the dining room table while Chloe completed her homework. It was then that Sophie realized that her notebook was different from Chloe’s. Mommy was wearing her stupid hat when she bought those little books. What was I thinking? Sophie preferred Chloe’s because it had colored paper inside, and hers only had lined white paper. When I tried to explain why her notebook was so terrific – that it had lined paper and stars on the cover (Sophie loves stars, and she especially loves singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”), she made her toddler psycho face and threw her notebook onto the floor.

I sometimes think Chloe is smarter than me when it comes to handling her little sister. Here I was trying to reason with my little girl for the umpteenth time. But you don’t reason with 2-year olds! And here was my big girl, Chloe, who came to the rescue again. She allowed Sophie to borrow her notebook for a few minutes, and what do you know, second (and last) crisis averted. Needless to say, Chloe’s success in appeasing Sophie was Chloe’s perfect Hanukkah gift to me.