Peace, love, happiness

The last couple of weeks have been a blur. Oliver celebrated his last day of school with a Peace Festival.  I was brought to tears watching Oliver's class singing "This little light of mine," and then brought to hysterics watching Oliver sing and dance to a song the whole school did with their Spanish teacher.  

Following the Peace Festival out family entered into a surreal little world - Davis and I both home, no obligations, yet too many things to do...a number of miscommunications including somehow getting to the science museum and realizing neither of us had brought shoes for Henni.  A trip to the gift shop and some tape (they only had adult sized slippers) and Henni was off, enamoured with her new shoes.

I've yet to upload the pictures from Christmas that are on my camera, but here are a few from the day...

Christmas is also Charlie's birthday!

We were planning to stick around our house after Christmas, but it poured, and poured, and poured...we looked out at the lake that was our back yard and then looked at the messages being sent by those further north and packed up the car.  We made it up to Maine last night in time for some late night sledding.

Then we started the day today with skiing.  Oliver had a great time on the snow, but Henni...that child loved skiing.  She skied longer than Oliver - although ever time she saw a snowboarder she got really mad and tried to ditch her skis - she really wants to snowboard.

 

After skiing we spent the rest of the afternoon cross-country skiing and sledding.  The kids loved being able to be out in the snow.

The Lists

Ah, the Christmas lists.

Oliver has requested the following from Santa this year:

• Swiss Army Knife
• Can opener (just because)
• Colossal squid
• Sperm whale
• Colossal tank for the whale and squid
• Parakeet
• Camelback
• Playmobil castle
• Real excavator to knock down houses and the trees that are bothering us (what?!  I am not aware of any rouge trees)
• Mitten that turn into gloves
• Snorkel, mask and fins
• Three headed dragon that breaths rainbow fire
• Backhoe with stabilizers
• New bike helmet with a shark fin

Henni is adamant that she would like a duck.  While I too would love a duck, it is just not practical right now.  I tried telling her the duck would be too cold if we got it now, in the winter.  She altered her list to include two ducks - so they could snuggle and keep each other warm.

Santa has had to be a bit creative this year as we are not getting anything to join our menagerie - especially not a colossal squid and sperm whale. 

And an update on that damn elf - FYI, duct tape will not hold an elf to the ceiling all night.  It is difficult to explain an elf on the ground and duct tape on the ceiling to inquisitive and already skeptical little ones.  

Another awesome outfit.  Snow pants with jammie shorts and t-shirt.  Worn all day with summer sandals and a vest.

Base jumping has evolved.  Rather than use a parachute, Oliver has made wings.  

Just plain crazy

Sadness and perspective

Things have been a but glum around our house.  Due to a lack of funding at my company I was laid off and some changes Davis had been anticipating have not materialized.  My time has been spent looking for jobs and being totally stressed out rather than preparing for the holidays.  The little bubble that is our household has seemed pretty bleak.  However, the tragedies of the last few days have put our hardships in perspective.

Over the past several days a number of people have been senselessly killed.  I have been struggling with the murders in Newtown.  The killing of 6 and 7 year old children and the staff at the school is just horrifying.  When I picked up Oliver from school on Friday and saw the joy in the faces of the children sitting in circle, singing their good-bye song - it brought me to tears.  What the parents, siblings, friends and family of those who lost their in Newtown must be going through - I can not comprehend.

And then this morning we learned that a friend was killed last night in a car accident.  She and her fiancé and another friend were in a car that was struck by a drunk driver.  Mary always had a smile on her face and always went out of her way to help others.  Mary was the one who was the person on the boat for Davis during is Boston Light Swim - she got up at an ungodly hour and spent hours in the rain and fog feeding him and giving him water.  She smiled the whole time.  Mary had a new grandson, and was so happy with Jim.

As a parent I do everything I can to keep my children and my family safe and loved.  The randomness and just plain heinous nature of these deaths makes me realize I can't protect those I love and care about - or those that look at adults to be protected.

I take a step back from our "problems" and I give Oliver and Henni extra snuggles and hot chocolate, I think of those I love and care about and I wish I could think of a way to wrap everyone in a protective blanket.

My thoughts go out to those who have lost friends, family, and loved ones.

Christmas is coming...

Bubbling over with the Christmas spirit and interested in the claims that a little elf can transform devils to angels - I ordered the Elf on the Shelf.  While waiting the two days for said elf to arrive I stalked Pinterest and other sites looking for crazy things for the elf to do.  In my search for elf magic I came across a wonderful blog post about "Over achieving elf on the self mommies."  In the post the mom questions why those over achieving moms do crazy things with the elf like having the elf tear open a feather pillow and cover the house with feathers, or why a mom would have an elf un-decorate the Christmas tree (when it would be the mom who would later have to redecorate).  She also talked about how she referred to the elf as a little bastard...I laughed at post, made note to make all crazy elf adventures clean ones, and then waited for diapers.com to deliver the little guy.

Well the bastard is here.  He has not produced any angels.  Oliver and Henni like to find him in the morning (after they open their Playmobil advent calendars) and then they forget about him.  I will remind them of the elf when they are being insane.  Oliver consistently responds by asking how something that is not interactive can communicate with Santa.  Henni just yells elf and then spits (her new trick).  I try to come up with magical stories about the elf, but they just look at me like I am insane (and then spit).  So now I do curse the bastard- every night.  I finish the million things I try to do after the kids go to bed, wade through the chaos that is the house (unfortunately decluttering has not been one of the things I have gotten to), and then make my way into the bed, pushing aside kids, books, dolls, dragons...put my head down, start to fall asleep...jolt straight up!  That damn elf! I forgot to move him.  Yes, I am supposed to be up at 5:30 to go to the gym, but what if I sleep in?  Or forget?  (I did have to leave the gym to move the stupid elf one morning).  So I get out of bed, move the elf - and then try to find a spot in the bed again.

Since the elf has not produced angels, I have two BASE jumpers in the house.  I have managed to finagled the really dangerous rope Oliver was using to belay himself up and down the walls, windows, and bookshelves, but have not managed to dissuade the little ones from putting on fake parachutes, helmets, and jumping off anything and everything.  Davis has told them they need to yell "See ya!"  before they jump.  So the Christmas music I have on is drowned out by crashing furniture, toys and plants, the sound of children jumping to the ground from too tall heights, and little voices screaming "See ya!"

Our poor, unsuspecting neighbor came by to decorate cookies with us.  Thankfully she does not yet have children and is essentially Martha Stewart.  I whipped up dough to make cookies, and brought it out - not realizing that the dough needed to be refrigerated for 4 hours.  Vanessa saved the day by coming with dough that had already been refrigerated.  The kids sat for about 2.5 seconds and decorated cookies with her.  The headed off to perform their stunts - once again.  The elf, that little guy just lurked in the background.

Little Mr/Miss Personality

Every day Oliver and Henni continue to amaze me with the evolution of their relationship and their ever emerging personalities.  They now adore each other to pieces - except when they don't.  Case in point - yesterday the three of us were taking Charlie for a walk.  Oliver was moving at a much different pace than Henni, Charlie and I so he stopped and sat down on someones front lawn to wait for us.  Henni ran up to him and gave him a huge hug.  Then the two of them sat there on the lawn snuggling for a good five minutes.  After the snuggle fest we made our way home.  Once home I hear Oliver yell: "No Henni!  You can't do that, you'll break me!  You are breaking Oliver!"  Upon investigation I found that the snuggling was a thing of the past.

Henni's choice of clothing continues to be inappropriate.  She has worn pink lace pants several days despite the freezing temperatures (an interesting look with a diaper).  The child refuses to wear socks so I thought I would introduce tights - the result - she has taken to wearing tights and t-shirts.  Again, an interesting look.  She also has started to refer to herself as "Princess" and has started requesting we call her Princess as well.  No idea where Princess came from as neither Davis nor I refer to her as that.

On the other side of the coin is Oliver.  In an effort to improve listening and generally improve behavior, we have been using a sticker chart for Oliver.  He has recently requested that rather than have one sticker chart he should have one for each room.  That way he can learn which room(s) he is good in and which room(s) need improvement.  He has also requested vertical charts which go from floor to ceiling as he thinks it would be motivational to watch the stickers climb up the wall rather than just be lumped in one area on a page.

I finally ordered the budding scientists school pictures (from October):