Nana got the kids an Aqua Doodle, which I HIGHLY recommend. It's such a cool thing and great to have in the kitchen while you're getting a meal ready. Big enough for two kids to use at the same time too. Here's a cute one Jackson did this morning.
It's New Year's Eve. Whatever you have planned, be safe and I hope you have a really wonderful start to 2007. We haven't got any plans, just going to stay home and be cozy.
Christmas was just right. We had a great visit with my mom here in Victoria and then with her at her house for a few days. I got to do some shopping in Portland which is always EXCELLENT, and our business holiday rush is over which means we all get to enjoy spending some more time with each other now.
I didn't take the camera to Portland because I didn't feel like keeping track of it, but here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I love these Swedish candle chimes.
We went to see the Festival of Trees at the Empress on Christmas Eve. Frances was running all over the place and generally reaking havoc so we didn't stay very long and there weren't many photo ops.
Christmas morning bounty!
One of Frannie's presents was a doll's bed.
Nana and Frannie reading together.
This is a little stuffed fabric tree I made today, around 8" high. The plan is to make a tiny forest of them in varying sizes (the rest of them plain, I think) to give the button reindeer ornaments a place to hang out when they're not hanging on the big Christmas tree.
Whew. Glad that's over. Christmas at the school has been so packed with activities! Last night there was a holiday service at the senior campus chapel with the grade 4's and 5's singing songs and talking about Jeebus and whatnot.
It's probably the third or fourth time I've been in a church, not counting tourist trips, and though I'm not at all a follower of organized religion I find that I really enjoy most of the experience of being in church. I guess I'd feel pretty uncomfortable if it were evangelical or very heavily catholic, but I really like the singing and taking reflective moments - and I like to think about what the words mean to me when prayers are said aloud.
My week was full of making ornaments for the other kids in Jackson's class, his teacher, and the director of the school. I made some homemade marshmallows, which didn't really turn out but taste fantastic and is more like a taffy. I don't think I let it get hot enough, or my crappy little mixer didn't have enough power to whip it up. It's great on ice cream anyway.
Yesterday at school was Polar Express Day. The kids got to wear their PJ's to school and Mrs. Lincoln had some chairs set up in rows like the seats on a train. The parents got to hang out for a couple hours while she read them the Polar Express story, served them hot chocolate, and gave them each a special jingle bell just like in the story. Then we all did crafts together!
Jackson is off from school for three weeks now, which means lots of moping around the house complaining of boredom. To help with that I signed him up for a week long drama class next week. A few of his classmates are signed up too, as well as some kids from higher grades. It's taught by one of his favorite ladies at the school so I know he's going to have a blast. They learn about set design, and make their own costumes, and at the end they put on a little play! Best of all it goes from 9-4 :)
Ok, so here are some pictures:
From Polar Express Day
Ready for the chapel service
The ornaments
I made 18 of the snowmen
And a couple more from the Christmas Recital:
My memories of getting the Christmas tree when I was a kid include bundling up and driving to the tree farm where we all picked out the one we wanted and then my dad cut it down with the saw he brought.
Darren's tradition involved driving to the grocery store and choosing one of the hundreds of trees wrapped up with twine and shoving it in the trunk of the family car. I felt my memories were superior and more Christmasy so I told him that our kids should have the benefit of being out in the cold, surrounded by the piney scents of fresh trees with other bundled up Merry souls all searching for the perfect tree for us. We did that for a few years, and while it felt very festive, I am not thrilled with the $75 that ends up all brown and messy on the side of the house until we move and finally have somebody haul it off.
So maybe what I did today isn't as much of a surprise as I would have thought. I was looking at one of my favorite blogs this morning and saw a great picture of an antique silver artificial tree ... and I thought, "Hmmm."
I looked around online and saw that while there are plenty of hideously ugly prelit green trees available, anything stylish or cool isn't as easy to find. But this is how the crack in my brain formed and the acceptance of the possibility of an artificial tree seeped in.
I still had some gifts on my list to purchase so Frances and I headed downtown to one of my favorite stores, Capital Iron. And there I saw it. A 7' tall artificial Noble Fir in ..... BLACK.
Black! It's SO GORGEOUS! I didn't know I could feel this way about a piece of plastic. Well, that's not totally true - I am also in love with melamine, but this is different because an artificial tree is just not traditional! Not for me. But it's the new way.
It came in a box. A little stand and three parts to the tree that all fit right together. The branches fold down and then each sprig bends out to make the tree look full. The ornaments stand out so nicely against the dark needles. It's light, it doesn't shed, and we'll be able to use it until we're sick of it. Enough talking about it - loooooooook!
They also had these really pretty little feather trees, about 18" high for $13. I got two.
Oh.
Our first School Christmas Recital was last night. Darren and I could hardly believe we were sitting there in the front row, anticipating our son's performance, digital camera in hand. Are we really doing this? Married, with these two beautiful kids? We have this amazing little family, and we work so darned hard at it, all day every day, but at the same time it's so hard to believe that we have this life.
There are a lot of things that happen to people all over the world that make their lives so much more challenging than ours. Sad things, and scary things. My little family is so precious to me, and sometimes the way I pay attention to everything that is happening to us is with an awareness of a fragility, that maybe I am just imagining, but that sometimes seems so real. Like we are this delicate tissue paper creation that could dissolve, or blow away, or simply be forgotten by the One in Charge.
Last night was magical. Most of the magic resides in my own experience of it though. With Frances on my lap, wiggling and trying to play with the camera, not as much magic leaked into the footage. The program lasted an hour with each grade giving a very special performance. Every grade wore a shirt with an identical design. Jackson's class wore yellow. If you look carefully at the shirts you can see a pretty special drawing on them that Jackson made! It is a string of Christmas lanterns with a little stick man under them.
The Kindergarteners sang two songs. I thought I was being clever by bringing the digital camera so that I could take stills and video, but next year I will only bring the video camera. The quality on the digital camera is fine for very small format but looks too grainy at full-screen. The audio is pretty good though! Jackson is front and center.
I also made a larger movie of some more of the performance. It's 50 mgs so you might be better off waiting for me to send you a CD but if you simply must have it now, here it is.
I'm getting better, a little bit every day. I finished my antibiotics on Monday and all the little spots from the fever blisters on my chest are fading. I still have a horrible hacking cough which I read can take up to 6 weeks to go away, and Darren says I make these weird grunting noises in my sleep now. I know it's true because it's woken me up a couple of times - I don't know what to make of that.
Frances got thrush from nursing while I was taking the Biaxin. I gave her some prescription stuff to knock out the worst of it but didn't finish it because it seems so nasty so now we are eating a lot of yogurt and I've been taking acidophilus. I'm sure we'll be back in balance soon.
Let's see. What else has been going on. Oh! Well, we got a lot of snow, which is totally weird for this time of year. We don't usually get it until late January. It's still on the ground but starting to melt now. We had all kinds of adventures around here with that going on. Jackson had a great time playing in it. He had one snow day on Monday - all the schools were closed.
Here's a picture of our back yard:
And some of Jackson:
This is the nephew of Our Neighbors of the Holy Shit What a Pile of Crap. The jacket Jackson is wearing in the picture is now in the garbage after this boy spilled kerosene on it from the tiki torch still in our neighbor's yard left over from the summer. Totally sucks, it was his school coat. I ordered a new one for him from Land's End - love that company.
Here's Frannie inside where it's warm:
School is going well. The front lobby is decorated for Christmas with artwork from Jackson's class and the 1st and 2nd graders. There's a tree too covered with hand-painted ornaments, and the hallway is cluttered with charity baskets full of donations for needy families.
The kids got to wear their regular home clothes to school today and the little girl who Jackson especially likes said that he looked handsome! He told me this while he was changing for his swim class today. Only 3 more lessons with his current instructor, then she goes off to study for her massage therapist license. We'll miss her!
Jackson will graduate his lessons with her at a level 5, but he'll have to stick with private lessons because the group level 5 classes are full of 10 year olds. He can't even join the group classes at level 1 because you have to be six and he's only just turned five in October. I need to bring the video camera next week to get some more recent footage of how well he's doing. He got a lane all to himself today and got some good practice in on his frog kick. He can front crawl the entire length of the big pool and turn right around and do the back crawl all the way back.
Anyway, I guess that's all for now. When I first got pneumonia I said to my cousin, "Boy this sure sucks ass but I'd rather have pneumonia than food poisoning!" She has had both and agreed with me, but now I have to take that back. When I had food poisoning I really just wished I would die, but then it only lasts 3 or 4 days and it's done. The effects of pneumonia just go on and on and on and on and on ......
Hey, I got pneumonia. It really sucks, I spend almost all day in bed and am in quite a bit of pain. Just in case you were wondering where I've been.
There's a correlation between the position of a mother's eyebrows and the amount of truth that comes out of her child's mouth. It's an automatic function, like your heart beat, or breathing, so it's something you might not normally notice, yet you count on it to work.
A conversation from today:
Me: Did you like the chocolate milk I made for you?
Jackson: Yes, mommy! I drank it all up.
Me: Oh! Good, well then I'll make it for you again next Wednesday.
Jackson: Oh. Uh, well .... I... no, that's ok, mommy. It was good. But I ....
Me: (slightly raised eyebrow) You what.
Jackson: Well ... I ... it was pretty good? But it sort of tasted a little like coffee.
Me: (raised a little bit more) Like coffee? Huh. That's funny. It didn't have any coffee in it, that's for sure.
Jackson: Well ... I ... actually. Actually? I didn't really like it at all.
Me: (both eyebrows all the way up) You didn't like it at all.
Jackson: Actually, mommy? ... actually I poured it all down the sink.
That's funny stuff. So, the reason I made him chocolate milk in the first place is that every Wednesday at his wonderful school is pizza day. The kids get a slice of pizza and choice of orange juice or chocolate milk, and either an ice cream sandwich or an orange popsicle for dessert. He only takes a couple of licks and then throws them away because they're too messy for him, but he has the fun of having something to unwrap with his friends.
We don't buy food that contains artificial flavours or colours and we try to keep the sugar intake to a minimum. We don't chew gum or eat candy except on Halloween or chocolates at Christmas time, Valentine's Day - stuff like that. But not cheap crappy stuff and it's never a part of daily consumption.
So anyway, Jackson doesn't like orange juice so I filled out chocolate milk on the form for Wednesdays and he chose popsicles as the dessert treat. I noticed that he was having really bad mood swings in the middle of the week but it wasn't until Halloween that I put it all together. He's sensitive to sugar but has a really bad reaction to artificial flavours and colours. He doesn't get hyperactive, he gets really depressive and it's awful for him, and awful for us.
I checked the ingredients on the chocolate milk since he does finish the whole thing and low, both artificial colours and flavours. Why is this necessary? So I spoke with the school and we agreed that I would bring in a different dessert for him and I figured I would make his chocolate milk with organic sugar and pure cocoa powder. I thought it tasted great! I'll try those chocolate soy milk drink boxes, see how he likes those.
For his dessert I drove across town to the most expensive and inconveniently located healthfood store looking for Tofutti Cuties (soy ice cream sandwiches) because he loved those when we lived in Tucson, but I reread the ingredient list and wasn't impressed with high fructose corn syrup listed as the second ingredient. I got some organic Soy Delicious Big Buddy ice cream sandwiches that have organic brown rice syrup as the second ingredient. Maybe not so bad? I don't know. He really liked it though, and got through dinner without a tantrum. So far, so good.
He and Darren are at the Math Mania math fair at school this evening. I hope they get home soon, it is scary windy outside!
He's drawing more monsters and animals now, and just started adding words coming out of their mouths. Mostly he draws a collection of letters and then asks me what it says, but here is a drawing of a monster calling his name:
One of those little moments I'll probably never forget:
As I walked into the kitchen to get his vitamins I hear Jackson running down the hall shouting something in one of his comedy voices.
I turn the corner and see him, naked, hunched way over like a tiny old man, holding his hand out in front of him carrying a small plastic spatula with a rubber truck tire on it, running as fast as he can without dropping it hollering, "COOKED TIRE FOR DINNER! COOKED TIRE FOR DINNER! COOKED TIRE FOR DINNER!"
Two minature candy bars and that boy is on another planet :)
I heart Halloween.
We went all around our neighborhood last night and it was so fun because Jackson's old enough now to go up to the house alone while I stand on the sidewalk watching. Seeing him tromp up and down staircases, ring doorbells, yell TRICK OR TREAT!, and thank you and Happy Halloween! was soooo cool. Five is such an awesome age!!
I gave him a pillowcase like every kid should carry on Halloween, and he bagged a lot of loot. There were some great pumpkins this year and a few houses that really went all out on decoration. Our neighbors, the ones with the Big Crap Pile in the backyard, did a great job. There was a torch, police caution tape, lots of webs, and one pumpkin with a propane-soaked rag in it on fire on the front lawn. The flames shot up about three feet out of this thing. It was great.
My favorite, and also the scariest, house was just up on the corner. By day it's just a shitty looking rental, but who knew it could be transformed into such a spooky place for Halloween! They didn't even have to decorate. I never noticed that there is a subterranean apartment behind the carport and we would have missed it last night if they hadn't had a jack-o-lantern out. Theirs was decorated with a big knife and a throwing star embedded in its face.
The entrance is a pit about 3 1/2 feet below grade with a large wooden block serving as a make-shift step. There were overflowing ashtrays and two filthy recliners, minus their legs, propped up against the wall near the door. Jackson looked at me with a dubious frown. Laughing, I helped him down to the wooden block and encouraged him to knock. We couldn't turn back, we were in the full glare of the motion-operated flood lights! Jackson looked at the pit and said, "Ew. Smokers."
Two young college-age kids answered the door holding beer bottles and balancing empty sauce-encrusted spaghetti plates in one hand and each holding a bowl of candy and a bowl of chip bags in the other. They were so happy to have a trick-or-treater! They loved Jackson's costume. They said nobody ever comes, and gave Jackson most of what they had. How adorable is it that they carved a jack-o-lantern, and bought candy? SO adorable! I was really tickled by the whole thing and glad we had knocked on their door.
This neighborhood can be kind of rowdy at times, and the rentals do mean a lot of young adults and not as many families, but there is a spirit here that I love. There were bonfires and fireworks, and many of the adults who answered the doors were in costume.
Next year will be even better when I can take both kids out. I can't wait!
Oh, and all that candy - we selected a few of the better pieces and Darren hauled the rest off to the nursing home this morning. We do NOT need all that food coloring and glucose floating around in this already high-strung family's blood stream. More fun to watch the old folks all hopped up duking it out.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The pumpkins:
mama's
papa's
the boy's
baby girl's
I am particularly proud of Jackson's costume this year. We were planning on doing pirate costumes but suddenly Jackson started telling everyone he was going to be a bat so I had to come up with something quickly. Black turtleneck, fuzzy fabric sewn on the front, wings made out of an old umbrella, and hat made out of the rest of the fuzzy stuff with left over umbella fabric inside the ears, and black fleece pants.
The kids had to wear their uniforms to school today but got to bring their costumes to put on at lunch time. There is a haunted house in the gym and lots of activities planned but the parents weren't invited to peek so I'll have to hear about it after school.
Tonight Darren and Frances will stay home to give out candy while I take Jackson trick-or-treating for the first shift, and then Darren will go out with him to do the other side of the neighborhood. It's supposed to be freezing again tonight (it was -1 celcius last night) and I don't have a cozy costume for Frannie this year so she'll be better off staying in.
Have a safe one!
