The Incredible Lightness of Children

this picture is from the mid-December trip in to D.C. to visit with sisters and children.  these are the children in question.  holding a seance?  telling fortunes?  in their own movie?  the last, for sure.  under the tutelage of the oldest of the trio, my darling niece N, the two littler girls dressed up that afternoon and evening in an endless series of costumes, then descended from the second floor to present...sometimes a short ballet, sometimes a playlet, sometimes simply a little mise-en-scène.  N used to do the very same when she was a younger, and only, child.  now she has a little sister and a cousin, she gets to be producer, director, costume designer, scriptwriter.  it was one of the more entertaining evenings i've spent in the theatre recently.  we see the actors and director relaxing here for a spot of drawing and coloring in M's room.  M lives in DC, N and L came up from Texas,  for a holiday visit and because their parents were going to the Simon/Garfunkel concert.  we, alas, had to return to the delmarva to finish up the semester on monday, so no concert for us.  my sisters and their husbands enjoyed it enormously, for the Texas contingent it seemed to have been worth the trip.  for me, the performances by The Nieces were, as the Master Card ads say, priceless.