nieces

Fairy Connection

July 27, 2018 By Allison

“Are you a real fairy?”

I pause before answering Nora’s question. Wouldn’t it be spectacular to have a shimmery-winged fairy aunt? Nora and I feed her expanding imagination through our games and stories, yet I stop short of claiming fairyhood. Our fairy connection is nonetheless very real.

When Nora is ready to talk fairies, she snuggles away in her closet and calls me on FaceTime. We ask one another questions and she “reads” facts from the fat volume she has dubbed her fairy book: they hide under mushrooms and in trees; they eat dirt and drink strawberry tea; they don’t like big people. She tells me that fairies appear in our dreams and leap from flowers into our noses.

Nora is learning to weave stories about the wonder she perceives in the world. And when I visit Iowa, we build upon her fairy passion. In June, when we discovered a fairy garden in Grandma’s yard, she proclaimed, “Where there’s trees, there’s fairies!” She and her cousin Sylvie swiped cans of sparkling water and built a fairy river in the yard, and we had an epic fairy tea party on the porch one afternoon.

Being a faraway family member, I don’t get enough face-to-face time with my niece. Thankfully, fairies give us a way to relate to one another in Nora’s language and on her terms. They are part of our evolving, shared story.

Tea Party with Littles

May 24, 2018 By Allison

It was their first tea party and my first time to host a tea party for toddlers. A year later, Nora and Sylvie still talk about the “lovely tea” and the “treats” we shared on Grandma’s patio. Here are my pointers for teatime with toddlers.

Philosophy
Keep it simple. Most toddlers will not appreciate elaborate, time-consuming pastries or sprawling tablescapes. Prepare everything in advance: tea, food, and activities. If possible, have the tea party outside, as the littles are sure to make a mess!

Teaware
Keep your grandmother’s fine china away from toddlers! I purchased sturdy, inexpensive, and mismatched cups and saucers from TJMaxx because I wanted the girls to experience afternoon tea. I served sweets and savories on small enamelware plates. The feeling was “grown up” for them and no stress for me.

Tea
I served Strawberry-Kiwi fruit tea, which is caffeine-free and naturally sweet. It is delicious warm, at room temperature, or iced, so it’s easy to make and set aside so you can keep an eye on the kids. I added about 2 teaspoons of honey to the 6-cup teapot.

Sweets and Savories
I served a few items I knew they’d be familiar with: apple slices and peanut butter and cheese and crackers. I also purchased a few pastries that would be new to them, in the hopes of expanding their gastronomic horizons. Mini petit fours and bite-sized lemon tartelettes from the local bakery were the perfect size for their little fingers.

Activities
I had some small coloring books, crayons, and stickers on hand. I also played a Disney playlist from Spotify. They sang, they danced, and their grandmother was surprised that they knew all the words to almost every song.

Takeaway
We had a ball! Sylive and Nora nibbled and gulped cup after cup of Strawberry-Kiwi tea. I didn’t worry too much about etiquette—I’m the fun aunt, after all! They occasionally left the table to collect acorns or crawl around on the patio. They were cute as buttons, and our next summer tea party is in the works.

Madeline on Our Mind

April 7, 2018 By Allison

In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines

My four year-old niece Sylvie Rose is intrigued by the story of a little girl in Paris named Madeline. Her father bought the storybook for Sylvie before she was even born, and I imagine they have spent many hours reading and rereading about Miss Clavel’s sense that something was not right... about Madeline’s subsequent surgery…the crank on the hospital bed… the dollhouse from Papa…her friends’ hospital visit.

I suspect that some of Sylvie’s devotion to Madeline is due to the fact that she lives in Paris. Sylvie Rose knows that Aunt Allison is a French teacher who makes occasional visits to Paris. Her questions give me glimpses of her four-year old mind: Madeline is a real kid, right? Where is her house? And during my most recent trip to France she called to ask, Did you find her?

I love her intensity and admire her persistence in her search for Madeline. These FaceTime conversations strengthen my bond with my niece, but they have also served as a surprising throwback to my own childhood. When I was seven or eight, I was infatuated with Madeline. My little sister had a pop-up version of the book, and I loved it so! I think I found beauty in the order of the twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread, and brushed their teeth, and went to bed. These words are etched in my mind.

Madeline was probably my first exposure to Paris, or at least to the idea of Paris. Each monument pictured in the story is now familiar to me—Notre Dame, les Invalides, les Jardins de Luxembourg. Paris is home to me. As a little girl in Iowa, these places would have seemed otherworldly. I believe that I chose to study French, in part, thanks to my affinity for Madeline and my curiosity about the vision of France I discovered in her story.

Many years later, Sylvie Rose is weaving her own literary landscape, and Madeline is part of it. Watching her, the story of the little girl in Paris reemerges, expands, and intersects with my niece’s quest.

Inspirations

Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline, published in 1939

Reading with kids

The joy of summer reading