So this was Christmas

I'm a little behind in my blogging apparently since it's not Christmas at all but New Year's Eve. A week's hiatus is a little unusual for me but rest assured that the dearth of writing is only because we've had an influx of revelry. We have more things planned for today but for now I'll take a few minutes to tell you about Christmas.

A couple of weeks before Christmas Rachel's school had a book fair. She came home with the flyers, which conveniently got lost and forgotten about on my desk. I thought I'd won the battle of the book flyer but then Rachel came home from school with a "wish list" that they made in school. I was so mad—I think sending a flyer home is decent but sitting down with my child and writing out a wish list for them was a little ridiculous.

Her list was noble enough. She wanted a Star Wars book for herself and a ballet book for Miriam. Those were the only two things on her list.

Unfortunately the books cost more than we were willing to spend (even though I know a portion of the proceeds goes to the school) and I told Rachel we weren't going to participate in the book fair. She was crushed...but we went to the library and got out a bunch of Angelina Ballerina books and Star Wars books and read those together.

Reading the Star Wars books was torture. They are so poorly written—super, super lame.

I told Rachel that she'd have to learn to read on her own before we could get another Star Wars book out of the library. I don't care if she wants to read super lame, poorly written stories. I just can't do it.

"It's alright if you don't want to get a Star Wars book for me," she said when she came home from school one day. "I made a list for Santa at school and I put a Star Wars book on my list. That's the only thing I put on my list so he has to get it for me because there's nothing else I want."

Thanks a lot, school! First you help my child make a wish list for the book fair and then you teach her that she can make a wish list for Santa Claus. Sheesh! What's next—a birthday wish list?

Deep down inside I was hoping our children would never learn to wish for stuff...

Anyway, Rachel came home from school on Friday, December 21 with all of her school work for that week and within her papers were not one but two wish lists. Both of them listed one thing: a Star Wars book.

Fruitball fight!

Christmas is a difficult day for little ones to be stuck at home all day long. Getting so many presents all at once is difficult (#firstworldproblems, I know) and the aftermath is terrible. Our solution this year was to go to the park. After all, it was 62 degrees and sunny!

Grandma opted to stay at home and nap but the rest of us made our way to the park and had a blast.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve morning we were all lazing around—most of us were in pyjamas and the girls were watching The Santa Clause—when our home teacher stopped by with his wife, bearing Christmas gifts for the girls. We knew he was coming and we knew he had a gift for the girls; we just didn't know the gift would be so perfect. We opened the door and the girls' jaws dropped, for there stood our home teacher, laden down with two hot pink trunks full of dress ups!

Each trunk had three different dresses, two pairs of shoes, a wand, a crown, and some costume jewelry. Miriam immediately stripped down to her underthings, threw on one of the dresses and pranced around the house like the happiest child on earth.

Christmas Letter 2012

This year's Christmas letter is here at last! It took me a while to get in a poetic groove and I was stuck for the longest time with only a couple of stanzas but as you can see I overcame my writer's block and found plenty to say. I'm not even sure why I struggled so much—this year wasn't exactly uneventful.

I'm putting it up on the blog a little late and the last couple verses have become outdated—Andrew's parents arrived last week; we've lost our 70 degree weather and have donned sweaters. We're still just enjoying the holidays and hope you're enjoying yours, too!

Merry Christmas!

A trip to Raleigh

Today we went on a little adventure to Raleigh—our state capitol. I sat in the way-backseat between the girls. The girls wanted to play all sorts of things that I couldn't imagine myself playing for an hour—like I Spy with My Little Eye? That game is fine in general but we've banned it from being a car game because it's almost impossible to play in a moving vehicle and people end up getting frustrated.

The girls were upset that I reminded them that I Spy is a "waiting in the doctor's office" game and not a "going on a road trip" game so we decided that we'd count cars like they do in Up! only some of us aren't very good at counting yet so we all counted red cars together. By the time we got to Raleigh we'd counted 100 red cars. Then Rachel decided that 100 red cars was plenty and that we'd move onto counting green cars.

Where are all the green cars these days? We were hard-pressed to count fifteen before we got to the museum, though we passed several more red cars on our way. I suppose red has always been a more popular colour for a car.

Our first stop in Raleigh was the capitol building. We wandered around outside for a while because we weren't sure that the building would be open. But then Grandpa (and Benjamin!) went missing so we had to go find them. They were inside...we had a lovely self-guided tour.

Here's Miriam standing in front of a statue of past-presidents from North Carolina: James Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson. Andrew Jackson is my Andrew's namesake and, as Andrew pointed out, "He's on a horse."

A Christmas Surprise

Once upon a time Andrew's parents decided to visit us for Christmas. I suppose that having grandchildren under their roof for two full years (+2 months) and then having those grandchildren relocate to the other side of the country was a little hard on them. I was a little hard on us, too.

We decided it would be fun to surprise the girls, which was harder to do than we thought.

Have you ever tried to make plans for visitors to come without ever mentioning aloud that visitors are coming? It's difficult. But we pulled it off.

After school on Tuesday I had the girls busy doing chores all night. They cleaned their bedroom, their bathroom, helped tidy the kitchen and the living room, helped fold and put away the laundry, and did a million other things. I worked them hard, all under the guise that Daddy, who had been "at school," was going to pick up pizza on his way home if we could have the house clean for him.

In reality Andrew wasn't "at school" but was at the airport picking up his parents. He really did stop for pizza, though, and came to the door with pizza in hand, leaving his parents sitting in the van.

"Pizza!" the girls screamed giddily when he walked in.

"Let's set the table," I instructed.

They ran to the cupboard to choose their favourite plates and were just getting into the silverware drawer when the doorbell rang. Naturally, they raced to the door to see who could get there first and flung it open and there stood...

"GRANDMA!"

Open Before Christmas

We started opening Christmas presents at the beginning of December, thanks to some book-loving grandparents who know Andrew all too well.

On the day we came home from Washington DC there was a package sitting on the front steps from my  parents—the kids' tag said to go ahead and open it right away. They were more than happy to fulfill that request:

Benjamin at 6 months

Benjamin had his six month check up last week. He's doing great!

He's 24 inches, which is a little on the short side (still in the 0th percentile) but is finally "on the chart" for weight. He tipped the scale at 14 lbs 13 oz, which is exactly 10 lbs heavier than he was at birth (and is in the 6th percentile for his age). I'm not sure how accurate his weight is, though, since they weighed him with his diaper on...and it was cloth diaper (a BumGenius—which weighs about 5 oz itself) and it was wet (so it was probably more than 5 oz).

I tried to tell the nurse that a) he's always been weighed naked and b) that he was wearing a slightly soggy cloth diaper (and that cloth diapers could get a little heavy when wet) but she waved my concerns off as non-issues. Apparently all she wanted was a ballpark estimate, which was weird for me because we've been so concerned about every little gram for the past six months or so...

Even if he'd been weighed with his diaper off he'd still have made the chart (since he'd have to be less than 13 lbs to not make it and I'm sure his wet diaper did not weigh two lbs; I feel like I should also note (for my mother, who I'm sure is wondering) that at 6 months I was only 13 lbs. so Benjamin is larger at 6 months than I was). We're just happy he's gaining!

Overall he's happy and healthy.

As far as milestones go:

• He can sit with minimal support.
• His feet have yet to make it into his mouth.
• He's been able to roll over for months now.
• He can smash his face into the floor and lift his bum into the air (which isn't exactly "creeping" but it's close enough).
• He enjoys standing (with help, of course).
• He holds things, grabs things, and occasionally passes things (but definitely has butter fingers).
• He has no teeth.
• He recognizes that someone is a stranger (which is a fancy way of saying he knows his mommy).
• He smiles and laughs.
• He doesn't really make consonant sounds yet but he squeals and blows bubbles often.

So he's more or less on target for his actual age and is a joy to have around. We moved the mattress in his pack'n'play from the bassinet part into the actual pack'n'play frame and he seems to be sleeping better because of it. The bassinet frame doesn't support the mattress as well so it bows in the middle and I guess Benjamin didn't like that because he slept in the co-sleeper bassinet fine, our bed fine, in his crib fine, and now that his pack'n'play mattress is flat he's sleeping just fine there, too. I love when he sleeps just fine!

Happy Hanukah

One of Andrew's family traditions is to have potato pancakes sometime during the Christmas holidays—Christmas latkes, if you will. It's kind of a Jewish thing (because Andrew's family is kind of Jewish). I asked Grandma Pat about this recently and this is what she told me:

My father was Ted Weiner, born 21 Jan 1906 in Pottsville, PA. His hebrew name was Israel Teyve Roosevelt Weiner (he was named for Ted Roosevelt who was president at the time). He was the only son of an Orthorox Jewish family, so was greatly revered. He died 25 Dec 1996 in San Francisco.

His father was Joseph Weiner born 15 Feb 1875 (we think in Lithuania). We don't know his real name as it was changed when he came through Ellis Island. We think his real name was Joseph Prepitovksi, but have no way to prove this. Because he came through Vienna he became a Weiner which means someone from Vienna. He served in the Spanish-American War where he contracted malaria. I remember that his skin was sort of yellow. He died in a Veteran's home in Yountville, near Napa, California.

His mother was Miriam Bershconsky. She was known as Minnie Bernstein (again the name change at Ellis Island). She was born 3 Jun 1880 in Vilna, Lithuania. Supposedly she had to be smuggled out of the country because a Cosack Soldier tried to rape her and she either killed him, or injured him. She came to America when she was 18. She divorced my grandfather Joseph, who was quite a bounder, and married Lousi Brodovsky in 1938.

They were orthodox Jews and I spent many weekends visiting them. They lived in Oakland. Once I went to the Friday night services in the Jewish Temple. The men sat on the first floor and the women and children were on the 2nd floor. It was a very impressive ceremony for a young child.

We hadn't even realized that Miriam was a family name! How shameful! Miriam was thrilled when I told her the (slightly edited version of the) story of Minnie Bernstein.

So, anyway, Andrew has some Jewish blood coursing through his veins, which means the girls do, too, and that's why latkes are a family tradition. We didn't make latkes tonight (though ironically Andrew's family did—they had their Christmas celebration today with all of Andrew's siblings (except for Emily) and they skyped to say hi to us (and to show off their potato pancakes)) but we did have a bit of a party.

And by we I mean "the kids and I" because Andrew had a final scheduled for today—a Sunday (lame) and our anniversary (lame again).

"Don't worry, Mom," Rachel told me when Andrew dropped us off at home after church before rushing off to school. "You don't have to be alone on your special day. Miriam and I will celebrate your anniversary with you!"

Lucky me!

We didn't make pancakes for dinner but we did have a Hanukah party (a little late but whatevs). According to Andrew's friend Yulya, Hanukah's not as big of a deal as it's made out to be. It isn't the Jewish counterpart to Christmas. But that isn't what the Hanukah aisle in Wal-Mart would have us believe...

Christmas and things

I can't believe I haven't emptied my camera in a week! We've been busy with the general hubbub that surrounds Christmas: parties, finals, things like that. The girls have been getting really excited about Christmas and—remarkably enough—don't think we have enough Christmas ornaments and keep demanding to make more, so we've been spending a lot of time making crafts (which I'm sure I'll post about in the near future). They certainly are getting excited about Christmas though.

Miriam spends all her spare time admiring the Christmas tree.