making no cents

this sunday, liam received a twenty dollar bill from my parents in a card as a present for his first communion.  his eyes grew wide; i honestly don't know that he's ever received that much cash at one time before.  knowing how his brain works, i bet he was calculating how long it would take him to earn that much with his allowance, and arriving at the conclusion that this, for sure, was a windfall.  i told him that since it was a gift, he was free to spend it however he saw fit -- but that he needed to really think about his priorities and what would be a smart purchase.

so on monday, right before he and i went to play tennis, he announced that he wanted to buy a tennis hat in our pro shop.  not a toy, not a book, not a wii game.  he wanted to spend his money on a hat. which might not be a terrible choice IF HE DIDN'T ALREADY HAVE ABOUT 20 BASEBALL CAPS IN HIS CLOSET.   "andy roddick wears baseball caps when he plays, and he's a pro!"  i told him.  "don't you think you could just wear one of those, instead of a special tennis hat?"  but his mind was made up.

which makes this parenting thing so hard ... how do you watch your child make a stupid decision and sit back, silent?  but i bit my tongue and resolved to let him make this mistake on his own. so we stopped by the pro shop and looked through the selection.  he tried a few on, chose the one he liked -- and then looked at the price tag.  he looked up at me in shock.  "eighteen dollars for a hat?" he asked, incredulously.

"well, it's actually more than nineteen, once you add on tax," i told him.  "so you'd have less than a dollar left."

he paused.  he stared at the hat, and then his twenty dollar bill, and then the price tag.  his eyes darted back and forth between them as he made a very difficult decision.  and then ... then he placed the hat back on the shelf.  "i think that's too much money," he said.  "forget it.  let's go play."

it's moments like this that i think -- wow!  we're doing something right.  somewhere along the way, my son has learned the value of a dollar. he's learned what's important to spend his money on, and when it's important to save.  maybe we sort of know what we're doing after all.

but no good parenting moment lasts forever.  sadly, this one lasted only a few hours.  that evening,  the nightly discussion ensued about showering; neither kid wanted to bathe because they were not dirty.  (you know, even though they both had field day all day at school and were outside in the hot sun and in the dunking booth and then both played tennis and then both played baseball outside for an hour after that, they were NOT dirty.)

selfishly, i left this battle to be decided upstairs under the watchful eye of chris while i cleaned the kitchen after dinner.  soon enough, i heard the water start, and shortly thereafter, susanna waltzed downstairs in her pajamas, with clean skin and wet hair.  "guess what, mommy!"  she exclaimed, holding out something in her hand.  "i just earned fifty cents!"

fifty cents, to susanna, is a windfall.  "that's awesome, sweetheart.  what did you do to earn that?"

"liam wanted me to take my shower first, so he paid me."

yep.  our son gave our daughter the equivalent of two days' worth of his allowance so he could delay his shower by ten minutes.  maybe we sort of know what we're doing after all?  oh how i make myself laugh.  or cry. one of those.

wordless wednesday

i received an ipad for my birthday back in december, and while i really like it, i can't say i'm as coocoo-for-cocoa-puffs about it as many of my friends.  "it will change your life!" several gushed to me.  "you won't know how you ever survived without it!" others said.  it is awesome -- don't get me wrong -- but i've been known to go a few days without picking up the thing. 

well, until i installed the "draw something" app.  now that i have that game, there's no way the kids would ever let the ipad go untouched for more than 24 hours.  it's a drawing game (sort of like pictionary) that they play exclusively with their aunt leslie out in california.  they alternate guessing and drawing, and always know whose turn it is.  we've settled into a routine where we play a round (which normally takes about a minute) right before we leave for school in the morning, and then again after we get home from the bus in the afternoon.

so i hereby present to you two examples of drawings that our children have created for leslie's guessing.  one of them i happened to save because i was so impressed.  the other leslie happened to save because she was so bewildered.  one of them was drawn by susanna, and the other by liam.  i'll leave it to you to figure out which one belongs to which artist.

 what's that?  you're wondering what the answer is for the second one that liam artist unknown drew?

HOT SAUCE.  of course.

two hands

susanna turned two hands on friday.  up until now, my baby girl could proudly display her age using only one; today, she becomes the big Six and needs that extra finger.

so, in light of her newly acquired number, here are the six things i love most about our sweet daughter:

1.  she's determined.  she'll plod through a difficult book from start to finish, sometimes faltering on unfamiliar words but insistent on working through it until the last page.  when she got her first pair of lace-up shoes, she asked me to show her how to tie them, and then retreated to her room to practice.  a half-hour later, she proudly called me in to show me a dozen bows made with her grosgrain ribbons -- tied around the doorknobs, the pulls on her dresser, and even her bedpost.  she'll bite her lip in concentration but plow through any task at hand.

she's a master puzzle solver -- she'll sit down with a new one and won't get up until she's finished.  which is usually pretty quickly

 2.  she's still a little shy slow to warm up (a phrase a pediatrician friend of mine suggested), but is gaining confidence every day.  in an unfamiliar situation, she's understandably hesitant.  but i've watched her enough to know that she's just scoping it out and observing.  within a few minutes, she's joining in the fun, making new friends and always hitting it off with anyone she meets.  is she an outspoken leader?  no. and she might never be.  but she's our accommodating, easy-going, agreeable child that everyone loves to be around. and we'll take that any day of the week.

3.  she knows her talents.  she's an excellent artist and has a musical ear, and she flocks to activities that draw on these talents, whether it's laboring over a special drawing for her aunt on her wedding day, or practicing the next song her choir will perform in Big Church.  we're planning on starting piano lessons in the fall, and i have no doubt she will love them.  and, by the same token, she knows where she doesn't excel -- namely sports.  but rather than agreeing to register for teams and then winding up miserable and complaining, she acknowledges that athletics just ain't her bag.  and she's okay with that too.

titled "Aunt Leslie and Uncle Richard's Wedding Day" by susanna atkins mann ~ may 14, 2012

 4.  she's the best sister.  how many times can i mention the amazing relationship our two children have?  she adores her big brother.  liam adores her.  the end.

5.  she's funny.  she has a keen understanding of plays-on-words and often will surprise us with a creative joke that she's made up herself.  today's was, "what is a chick's favorite food?  PEEP-za!"  (all right, that's not going to be on any comedian's set list ... but for age six, i think it's pretty impressive.)

that snaggle tooth hung on for weeks ... and she thought it was hilarious to stick it outside of her top lip and speak reeeeeaaaaal southern-like

6. she's just a big ball of love.  she asks to cuddle; she'll stand on her tippy toes for a kiss; she'll often come up and just hug us for no reason whatsoever.  and every morning, without fail, i wake up to her warm little body climbing into bed to snuggle with me.  with a beginning like that, how could i possibly have a bad day?

six reasons why she's our best girl, and two hands to show off her age.  and, as we say in this house, "infinity squared" to quantify our love.  happy birthday, sweet susanna!

a mother's day portrait, take 2

no mid-cheek eyebrows; no inflamed ears.  and everything's pretty much drawn to scale.  whew.

of course, i don't seem to have a neck ...

neighbors

i lost susanna for a brief period of time last week.  it was one of our hot afternoons, and she and liam had requested frozen yogurt for their afternoon snack as we walked home from the bus stop.  (unfortunately for them, "frozen yogurt" means just that -- yoplait yogurt in a tube, frozen.  they don't realize that in other worlds it's a treat that tastes like ice cream.)  so i had given them their frozen yogurts and out of the blue, susanna said to me, "i think i'll take a walk around the neighborhood while i eat my snack."

"sounds good," i replied, intent on adjusting the new window treatments in the breakfast room that had finally arrived.  "just don't go past the stop sign."  i was reminded yet again of how blessed we are to live where we do -- at the end of a very long, private cul-de-sac with no traffic whatsoever.

ten minutes or so later, i finished up with the valances and headed outside to join the kids.  i found liam playing tennis with the fourth-grader from two doors down, but, surprisingly, susanna wasn't with him.  "where's your sister?" i asked.

he shrugged his shoulders.  "i haven't seen her," he said, before returning to his game.

i scanned the cul-de-sac up to the crest of the hill, but there was no susanna.  i walked to our back yard, convinced i'd see her on the swing set.  but she wasn't there either.

right around the time that a small glimmer of panic began to creep in, she appeared from our next-door neighbor's front yard.  she sauntered towards me, still holding her frozen yogurt wrapper in hand, with a sticky face and a big smile.

"well there you are!" i said brightly, trying as hard as i could to not convey my worry.  "where have you been?"

"oh, i just went over to mrs. barbara's," susanna answered. barbara and john are our next-door neighbors who are older than my parents.  they often will call the kids over to show them a bird nest, or a project they're working on in their garage, or to see pictures of their grandchildren.

"oh!  great!" i said, stifling a huge sigh of relief.  "did she have something cool to show you today?"

"no ma'am," susanna replied.  "i just wanted to talk to them while i ate my snack.  so i went over and rang their doorbell."

i looked at this child standing in front of me, and wondered if it was indeed my daughter.  you know, the introverted daughter who will give shy smiles to friends' parents when we see them at the grocery without opening her mouth to say hello. she looked the same and sounded the same, so i continued.

"i see.  and what did you talk about?"

"oh, lots of stuff.  i showed her my lost teeth.  and we talked about my  birthday party coming up.  and did you know they're going to the mountains this weekend?"  she prattled on about this conversation as if it were one she'd had with her best friend in kindergarten.  and i couldn't help but smile.

i'll admit that i've often wished we had more children around us.  out of the twelve houses on our street, there's only one other kid in elementary school.  but seeing liam and susanna forge relationships with all of our neighbors, some of whom are up to twelve times as old as they are -- chatting with them on our way home from the bus stop about what they learned that day at school, or playing an impromptu game of baseball with them with the mailboxes as the bases, or fetching their mail and newspapers while they're out of town as a favor with nothing expected in return -- these things all matter.

mrs. barbara, susanna, and mrs. shirley enjoying an american girl tea party last spring

i think it gives them a sense of family beyond just relatives.  i think it teaches them that a home extends past the exterior walls of a house.  and, in a world where it's very easy to become self-absorbed, i think that becoming friends with people with seven decades' worth of life experience helps give our children a healthy dose of perspective.

i think i'll send susanna on her merry way more often.  with a frozen yogurt in hand, of course.  or maybe two.

all in a day's work

if i wasn't already in dire need of botox, i thought to myself, surely i need it now.   i was crouched under the coffee table in our family room, flashlight in one hand, my brow furrowed in concentration.  i could almost feel the crevices in the center of my forehead deepening as i peered at the rug.  susanna knelt next to me, still teary, searching the soft wool with her small hands, while liam stood a few feet away with a set of binoculars (yes, binoculars) focused on the floor below.

we were looking for a tooth.  and if there's any job on the planet more unpredictable than parenting, i'd like to know what it is.

this is susanna a mere five minutes prior:

she had bounded off the bus that afternoon, grinning widely, proudly displaying her new front-and-center gap.  that loose tooth of hers that had hounded us for weeks -- we'd packed her tooth fairy pillow as far back as our trip to DC at the end of march -- had finally bid a fond farewell.  she reported that she was walking back from lunch, wiggling it with her tongue, when it just "popped out".  she brought it home in a plastic baggie, eager to get started on writing the tooth fairy another question, as has become her tradition.

so without even pausing for an after-school snack, she sat in the family room while liam and i went through his homework on the couch, composing her letter on an index card.  i suddenly heard a small whimper, and looked up to see her silently crying.  "what in the world is wrong, honey?" i asked.

she inhaled shakily.  "i -- i lost my tooth," she said, her little-girl voice faltering.

"yes, honey, i know that," i replied.  "that's why you're writing the tooth fairy."

"no!  i mean i JUST lost it."  she held up an empty baggie in her right hand.  "it was just here but now ... now it's gone ..." and dissolved in a fresh round of tears.

"oh!  well, it can't have gotten very far," i said, trying to lighten the mood.  "we'll find it in no time.  let's look!"

which brings us back to botox, the flashlight, and the binoculars.  we must have spent a half-hour scouring that thick shag rug, and came up with all sorts of treasures -- a few sequins from an old princess dress and a penny -- but that little white tooth never did show up.  (i'm telling you, this rug is thick.  i promise that it does get vacuumed.)

and this is the part of the post that i will surely have to delete before i print out our 2012 book, knowing that little eyes will read these words ... but that tooth DID show up a few hours later.  or, at least, a replica did.  it occurred to me that for some strange reason, i had kept each child's first lost tooth in the bottom of my jewelry box.  (i know!  me, with the weird hang-up with teeth, actually kept two of them among my jewelry!  i have no explanation.)

anyway,  i held up one of them for a brief second, deemed it an acceptable replacement, and excitedly entered susanna's room.  i found her arranging her tooth fairy pillow next to her amended letter, in which she had described what had happened so the tooth fairy would understand why her pillow was empty. 

but it was not to be empty much longer, thanks to my impressive problem-solving skills.  i really had to pat myself on the back for this one.   "i found it!" i exclaimed.  "here it is!  it was underneath the coffee table!"

i expected elation.  excitement.  joy.  instead, i got skepticism.  "really?  you found it?"  and then, she had the audacity to scrutinize the  dadgum thing.  "um, well, it doesn't really look like my tooth," susanna ventured, after giving it a quite serious study.

seriously?!  "well, i found it underneath the coffee table, right where you had dropped it.  if it's not your tooth, whose is it?"

she shrugged.  "okay, i guess it's mine."  she gave me a big, holey smile.  "thanks, mommy."

all in a day's work.  not an honest day's work, mind you.  but a day's work. 

wordless wednesday: DC style, part 3

i probably should title this "wordless wednesday: UR style" but i'm trying to keep with the theme of our spring break adventure.  alas, this is the final installment.  after this post, i'm going to actually have to come up with something interesting to say.  (or, in the words of the two old guys of the muppet show, "why start now?")

chris has heard me say that the university of richmond has been named the most beautiful college campus in the country enough times that i've come to expect an exaggerated eye roll whenever i remind him.  but there really is no place like it on earth.  shortly after feeding the ducks by the lake that's in the middle of campus, liam turned to me and said, unsolicited, "this place is BEAUTIFUL, mommy."  sweet vindication!  i think chris probably rolled his eyes at that too

we popped into the chapel and were treated to an organ rehearsal.  the kids were more interested in the stained glass shadows on the floor

no trip to one's alma mater would be complete without a visit to the bookstore.  liam came away with a spider-themed tennis bag, and susanna is now the proud owner of a pink UR water bottle.  (and, seriously.  look at that background.  it's truly unbelievable)

just the four of us: liam, me, susanna, and one of the gazillion inch worms hanging from the trees that landed on liam's finger.  i thought raleigh was inundated but it has nothing on richmond

on our way out, we stopped by the brand new stadium.  the kids ran a lap around the track and our non-athletic daughter's legs were just a blur ... perhaps we've found her calling?

mid-cheer underneath the sign celebrating the big football win -- this one's for my uncle (who was the star cornerback of the team)

our final stop of our journey was by my college best friend's house, where susanna bonded with alison's three daughters and about 52 dolls.  it's a little funny when you think about it -- out of all the super fun things we did, we started and ended with american girl

wordless wednesday: DC style, part 2

riding the metro -- the same line, coincidentally, that chris used to ride every single day to and from work during the years we lived there

seriously -- why is liam hunched over?  does he think he's going to block the washington monument?

i, on the other hand, am hunched over for a reason.  the back brace wasn't cutting it by this point.  but i survived the zoo somehow

the kids' favorite animal at the zoo: the 11-day old monkey, who clung to his mama's chest while the fiercely protective papa (pictured) shot nasty looks at the audience gathered around

after the zoo, we walked a few miles to our friend bill and cheryl's place for an amazing dinner, and another one of chris's fraternity brothers, brett joined us.  brett and bill also happened to be with us the night chris and i met, at a bar not far from their current home ... it all sort of comes full circle, doesn't it?

par for the course: liam manages to get his dessert all over himself, while susanna looks on, amused

the kids have been asked by several people what the best part of our trip was.  the soccer game?  american girl place?  zoo?  museums?  metro rides?  playing with their cousins?  seeing the most beautiful college campus in the country (pictures to come in a future post)?  nope.  without a second's thought, their response: the hotel pool

wordless wednesday: DC style, part 1

a few pictures from our first two days of our family trip to DC ...

true story: i was in chicago in 2006, hugely pregnant,  and happened to walk into the american girl place.  it was then and there, standing in what just might be the most over-the-top feminine place in the country, that i decided that i just had to have a girl.  luckily it all worked out, because one of my most favorite memories so far as a mom was experiencing the american girl place with susanna (and kit, of course). 

what are the odds that one of susanna's best friends, lily, and her mom were going up on the same day?  i took this picture while susanna mulled over her many options of what to purchase, before she ultimately decided on a cheerleading outfit for kit.  pom-poms included.

tracy was not only a dear college friend, but also my roommate when we moved to DC after graduation AND was with me the night i met chris.  if you look closely you can see the puffy edges of the back brace i had on underneath my top.  not exactly the most flattering piece of equipment, but ohmygoodness i was still in so much pain.  which was probably exacerbated by the fact that they're currently remodeling their house (hence the crazy ceiling behind us) ... i think i was having flashbacks to the dust and grime of our renovation last summer

tracy's kids john robert (8) and cassady (6) became fast friends with our two.  it's funny how we always just assume our kids will hit it off with other kids they've never met based simply on their ages ... we would never expect that of adults ... but for whatever reason, it always works.  i have a feeling they'd all be BFFs if we lived closer

on friday night chris took liam to a DC united game (professional soccer).  DC scored 4 goals and won the game, so liam was in heaven.  chris wasn't so much; after a few weeks of 80-degree temperatures in raleigh, it didn't occur to us that we might need to pack for cooler weather.  they warmed up with hot chocolate at the stadium

on saturday, while i went up to maryland for my sister-in-law's baby shower, chris took the kids to the air & space museum with their second-cousin reilly

in the observation tower at air & space.  their poses are reminding me of all the award shows where celebrity presenters stoop down to get their mouths near the microphones, even though it's not necessary, and wind up looking ridiculous.  in every picture chris took, they're all hunched over and i have no idea why

the moral of the story? don't mess with susanna mann

wednesdays might just be my favorite afternoon of the week.  for one, we're not racing out the door to get to an activity like tennis or baseball or soccer.  (we do have choir, but that's not until 6 pm.  which makes dinner a little tricky, but that's another issue entirely.)  and it's a day that i don't volunteer at the kids' school, so it always has been at least seven hours since i've last seen them.

but the biggest reason i love wednesdays is that susanna comes home with her backpack stuffed with all the goodies she's worked on from the previous week.  we'll sit side-by-side on the family room couch and go through each and every item.  she even helps me sort them into two piles: the wow-isn't-that-great-now-let's-chuck-it pile, and the this-really-is-awesome-so-let's-keep-it pile.  (the former almost always doubles the latter in volume.)

in that latter pile are her "stories".  several times a week, her teacher gives the students a writing prompt of some sort, and susanna gets to wax poetic on the subject at hand.  there's space at the top of the paper for a drawing, and the kids are expected to do the best they can at stretching out the words to spell them themselves.  i've loved to see the progression of her "stories" from the beginning of the year until now.  i honestly have difficulty wrapping my mind around how much she has learned and grown in this relatively short amount of time. in august, she could barely write her full name.  and now she's stapling pages together because she has so  much she wants to share.

she takes great pride in reading these to me and liam (and then again to chris when he gets home), and we ooh and  aah at the appropriate times to let her know how impressive her literary talents are.  i'm thinking of making a book of some sort in june when we close the door on her kindergarten year.  the stories are often excellent documentation of what has been going on in our lives, from holidays to sleepovers to random events that she deems worth describing.

but today's was a first.  asked to write a story about the cat and the hat in honor of dr.seuss's birthday, she sort of went off on a tangent.  a surprisingly violent tangent.  is it bad to say that i laughed outloud?

click on the picture to launch the video

timing is everything

"i bit into something crunchy at breakfast and it really hurt my wiggly tooth," susanna wailed as she entered our bedroom friday morning.  "i think we need to pull it out."

of course, she was talking to chris, because she knows very well by now that the word "we" and anything to do with loose teeth certainly does not involve me.

so i steered clear of the conversation ... until it occurred to me that chris was heading out of town that evening for a guys' trip to watch davidson play in their conference tournament, and wouldn't be back until tuesday.  and suddenly, panic set in.  and now it was i who wailed. 

"you have GOT to get that dadgum tooth out!"  i told him.  "i cannot deal with that while you're gone.  you know i'll wind up at the mental hospital and i don't think you want to be coming back down I-40 before the championship game to pick me up."

he muttered something about perhaps just leaving me there, but i'd exited the room by that time in order to distance myself from what was about to take place.  sure enough, the daughter-and-daddy dynamic dental duo shuffled off to the kids' bathroom, armed with a bit of dental floss.  and a few minutes later, the sounds of success could be heard.

whew.  

a hint of things to come

even though it was never in our plan to have children one grade apart, that's what God decided to give us and we've grown to love their age spread.   i know i've said it many times before, but liam and susanna actually consider themselves best friends.  they fight from time to time, but for the most part, they're close enough in age that they share so many similar interests and get along amazingly well.  i can't imagine it any other way.

BUT i know this age spread will pose its own sort of problems down the road.  i got a glimpse of it this weekend, as susanna hosted her first-ever sleepover.  liam was at a hockey game with a friend and got home hours after the girls had gone to bed -- thank goodness.  because that left only this morning that we had to deal with the three of them together.

but oh what a morning.

we first heard them at 6:04 a.m.  susanna and her friend had decided they couldn't enjoy the early dawn hours without liam, so they ventured across the hall to wake him up.  (note: liam is usually up by 6:04 a.m. and has already at that point let the dog out, fed her, gotten the newspaper from the end of the driveway, and is halfway through the sports section.  but after going to bed at 10:30 last night, he was a little off schedule.)

so chris and i awoke to little girl giggles and squeals as the older brother was apparently strutting around like a proud peacock, showing off.  susanna's friend was smitten, at the ripe old age of six, with this older boy.  (ironically, she has a younger brother who is as close in age to her as liam and susanna are.  but the dynamic of older sister-younger brother is a totally different ball game.)  "leeeeeee-ummmmm," she'd croon, beckoning him into their room to play.  everything he did was high-larious to her.  liam, apparently, was a rock star.  as she put on her shoes to leave, she told susanna that she as soon as she got home, she was going to write liam a letter and mail it to him.

so i know what path we're headed down.  a path where their social circles will inevitably mix, where liam and his friends will likely be very interested in susanna and her friends -- and vice-versa, to be sure.  a path that will take us to sleepovers where we might have to string up that yellow police tape with "do not cross" printed on it.

but it better be a path where we can count on liam to continue to be his protective self, looking out for his little sister and keeping a very close eye on anyone who might dare date her.  it's the only way we might survive the teenage years.

saved by the belle

have i mentioned before that our daughter just happens to be a tad interested in princesses?  i have?  have i talked about how she beelines it to the disney section every time we're at the library, and has checked out every title the system owns multiple times?  have i told you that stuffed in boxes in her closet are dress-up gowns for belle, cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, tiana, and accessories for ariel and rapunzel?  (the glaring omission from this list of disney beauties is jasmine.  she' a tramp.  the girl needs to find an outfit with a higher neckline and a lower hem.) 

the obsession began when she was, oh, two years old, and really hasn't waned since.  even with newfound interests like gymnastics and art classes and choir, susanna gravitates toward all things sparkly and fancy and with an happily-ever-after at the end. so it was with elation that she found out that they were re-releasing "beauty and the beast" in theaters in 3D. 

i'm not a huge fan of shelling out close to $25.00 (yes, you read that right) on two tickets to see a movie that we actually own, but the prospect of seeing it on the big screen AND in 3D AND with one of her best friends was just too good to pass up.  we made it a girls' night, going to chick-fil-a with a coupon she had been given as part of an award from school, and then dashed over in the pouring rain to be captivated by belle and the beast for a few hours.

decked out in her royal finest, susanna sat next to me, mesmerized.  and what's not to love about a heroine whose favorite pastime is reading books?  she might be my favorite princess of all (and yes, susanna and i have had multiple conversations on this very important matter).  she's a girl who's educated, is devoted to her father, and who falls in love by looking past appearances and into someone's soul.  no wonder the movie was actually nominated for the 1991best picture oscar.

i just wish jasmine would take notes.  and pull that hoochie mama top down past her rib cage.

come on, disney.  a princess movie in 3D ... and no bedazzled glasses?  it's kind of ruining the whole look

the reader

there's big news in the mann family these days:

susanna is reading.

i hate to compare our children, so i'm not going to go into how young liam was when he began to read, but it is interesting to compare their two different learning styles.  with liam, his reading seemed to be an all-of-a-sudden thing.  i even remember exactly where we were when we realized he could actually read -- we were in our rental apartment when we first moved back to raleigh and were waiting on our house in asheville to sell.  he was sitting on the floor in his temporary room, opened up one of those "i can read!" short little books that we'd just gotten at the library, and pretty much went to town.  i remember screaming to chris, and him running from the other side of that tiny apartment, convinced that someone must have broken a limb.  but we stood there, in awe, marveling at how our son had somehow overnight mastered this skill.

susanna, on the other hand, has been much more gradual.  over a year ago she started recognizing smaller words, but stubbornly refused to go any further.  "i know you know this word!" i'd encourage her as we read one of her many princess stories.  but she'd refuse to play the game.  "i don't want to read.  i want YOU to read.  so read," she'd demand.  and not wanting to turn our reading time into something negative, chris and i would oblige, inwardly wondering how old she'd be before she finally decided that this was something she wanted to do.

so she began kindergarten as a master of her ABCs and not much else.  and this is where i have to admit something that i'm embarrassed to say: i sort of doubted that her kindergarten teacher could accomplish much with our bullheaded daughter.  i mean, if we, working closely one-on-one with her, couldn't get anywhere, how in the world was a teacher with 22 students of varying abilities going to achieve any more than we did?

(what's embarrassing about this is that, of course, i am a teacher.  and i'd be offended if any parent ever voiced that concern to me.  i can't imagine someone saying, "i just don't know how you're going to teach my kid how to solve a quadratic equation, since there are 29 other kids sitting around him."  um, well, that's what teachers do.  so why i questioned what she'd learn in kindergarten is beyond me.)

anyway, something must have clicked, or her teacher waved her magic wand, or ... well, her teacher used her talents and did what she's been trained to do.  because after four months of elementary school, susanna is a reader.  her face beams with pride as she works her way through her books -- haltingly, to be sure, but tenacious.  one night last week she'd begun reading a dr. seuss book to me before i had to leave her to attend an online webinar.  i suggested that she continue reading to her stuffed animals, a captive audience lined up on her bed.  i returned a half-hour later to find her on page 51, sometimes pausing on the longer words but trudging through just fine.  she looked up at me, beaming, so proud that she was almost at the end.  it seems her stubborn streak has resurfaced as a determined streak.  it's funny how what was once a frustrating personality trait has become something quite awesome.

susanna smiles a lot these days.  she smiles when she receives a birthday party invitation, and when she finds out we're going to see beauty and the beast in 3D, and when she's allowed to choose a dessert at the grocery.  but there's no question which smile i love the most: it's the one that lights up her face as she proudly reads.  it's a smile of joy.  a smile of accomplishment.

it's the smile of a reader.

wordless wednesday

one of the highlights of  our days when the temperatures don't reach much higher than freezing:  hat head!

2011: the year in review

it's 8:30 pm on new year's eve, and, like 100 of our closest friends at our club,  we have already partied and eaten and danced and celebrated and even counted down and rung in the new year.  the balloons all dropped at precisely 7:30 amidst a chorus of thousands dozens of horns being blown by our children, and if we were cautious not to wake up on january 1st with a hangover, we'll now all certainly have one based on the sheer volume that's still echoing in our heads.  think i'm exaggerrating?  check out the footage below, courtesy of a friend of ours:

but with the closure of one year brings some reflection.  on our way home tonight i thought about our highlights.  here are the top three for each of us, in random order. 

susanna

• teeth:  after months and months of rockin' in its socket, susanna finally lost her first tooth.  and a few weeks later, she lost her second.  she corresponded with the tooth fairy herself, and is now sporting an attractive gap on her bottom row .

• the pageant:  surprising all who know her well, she took on the role of mary in the christmas pageant like a broadway star.  no insecurity or uncertainty like we all expected; she just accepted the role with excitement and smiled her sweet little smile the entire time she was in front of an audience of 500.  and it occurred to me that the next time she'll be walking down the aisle of st. michael's in a veil will be on her wedding day.   (and when that happens, let's just hope that there will be no baby involved.)

• kindergarten: she was a teary mess the afternoon i picked her up from her evaluation day (when they meet the new kindergartners in smaller groups), but after she was assigned a teacher and learned that she already knew half of her classmates, she perked right up.  she loves her class, absolutely adores her teachers, and enjoys the bus ride home in the afternoons.  and with a big brother to walk her to her classroom each morning, how could her introduction to elementary school be anything but stellar?

liam

• school: we had a rocky start to the school year with a new principal who tried to dismantle the plan we had in place for liam this year, but after a transition period, i'm happy to say that he's getting what he needs.  he has exceptional teachers who understand him and challenge him and motivate him.  and as long as he's happy and continues to love school, that's all we'll ever ask.(below is his first-ever project, a study on sunrise and sunset times for december.)

• sports: i thank God every day that sports were invented.  for if not, i'm not sure what liam would do with 95% of his time.  this year he's played baseball, winter soccer, spring soccer, fall soccer, tennis, golf, swimming, and basketball.  and if that weren't enough, he received a football and a (street) hockey goal for christmas and has spent the past week out in the cul-de-sac playing those.  if you ask him his favorite, his answer is always whatever sport is in season; he loves them all.  and you want to know what he likes to do just about as much as playing sports?  watch them.  he's been to hockey games, college basketball games, PGA golf tournaments, soccer tournaments, high school basketball tournaments, college baseball games, and professional hockey games (and i'm sure others that i'm forgetting).  and you want to know what he likes to do just about as much as playing and watching sports?  read about them.  the very first thing he does every single morning is run to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper so he can devour the sports section over breakfast.  the boy is obsessed.  (because i will never let him play organized football, i decided to indulge him a bit and chose a football picture to include in this post.  the boy can throw a perfect spiral ... too bad it's the most dangerous sport in this country and his overprotective momma won't let him play it for real.)

•  Y guides: raleigh's Y guides program (the Y stands for YMCA) is the largest in the country, bringing together a dozen first grade boys and their fathers in a tribe that meets once a month and plans amazing outings.  different tasks and activities earn them patches that they put on their vests, and each of them have their own Y guides name.  (chris's is The Artful Dodger, in reference to his love for the los angeles baseball team.  liam's is Wee Sports Fan, in reference to his love of Wii Sports.)

sara

• the renovation:  i have a kitchen i can cook in!  and an office i can work in!  and a breakfast room we can eat in!  sure, the renovation process took twice as long as it was supposed to, required way more money than we'd anticipated, and necessitated us moving out for the majority of the summer, but all the pain was worth it.  i still walk into my house and smile at what i see (and marvel at how we survived the house in its previous state for all those years.)
  

• work: i took on an additional online teaching job in august, increasing my hours to an almost-full time schedule.  so i still synchronously teach local seventh graders who have been expelled, but now am  asynchronously teaching special education high schoolers from all over the state as well.  it's been a huge adjustment for me but now that i'm four months into it, i think i'm finally getting the hang of time management.  (i've never been a quick study.)
• an empty nest:  i'm not sure i'll ever get the hang of having the house to myself from 8:00 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon.  most of those hours are spent on work, but i also spend a lot of time volunteering at the kids' school, being involved in activities at church, and playing tennis.  i love the flexibility i have now that both kids are in "real" school, but my favorite part of day is at 3:25 every afternoon, when super and i walk to the end of the cul-de-sac to meet the bus.  does seeing your children's smiling faces as they bound down the steps, eager to regale you with stories of their day, ever get old?  i hope not.   

chris

• a new car: my poor husband had been driving around a car with 150,000 miles and a peeling sorority sticker on it for eight years. it was way past time to get a new set of wheels, and he finally did this fall.  
• vestry: chris was elected at st. michael's and will serve a three-year term.  a huge honor, a lot of work, and it couldn't be suited to anyone better.  (in my humble opinion.)
  
• the shed: so i get a new kitchen, and chris gets a new shed.  seems fair.  but this shed is nice!  it has plenty of space to store all the outside crap and tools and toys and miscellaneous items that would otherwise have no place to go since our previous storage room is now our breakfast room.  and to make it even more spectacular, he received a solar panel for christmas that he's attached to the shed's roof and can now generate power.  how cool is that?  (okay.  it's not as cool as the kitchen.  but still.) 

family

• a baby!:  my little brother, ben, and his wife, laura, are expecting!  they shared their happy news with us over the phone the night we came home from the state fair --  already on a sugar high from our funnel cakes, this just propelled us into another realm of joy.  each night as we say our bedtime prayers, we thank God for "the baby in aunt laura's belly".  and to make it even more special, the due date for my first nephew or niece (and the kids' first cousin) is actually may 18 -- susanna's birthday.

since we obviously don't have a picture of the baby, i thought i'd share one of us at the fair less than an hour before we learned the big news

• a ring!:  my little sister, leslie, is engaged!  and the story behind how she shared the news is a good one ... on christmas eve, there were ten of us seated around our dining room table for dinner: the four of us, my parents, chris's parents, and leslie and richard (her longtime boyfriend.)  the conversation was pleasant until liam decided to use his best seven-year old tactics to bring out the awkward.  "so, aunt leslie, why aren't you and richard married yet?"  but instead of an uncomfortable silence, leslie simply smiled and held up her left hand for us all to see.  richard had proposed the day before in minnesota, and she hadn't breathed a word of her big news!  (thank goodness for awkward seven-year olds, right?)  we're now looking forward to flying out to california for the wedding sometime in 2012.

• disneyworld:  and speaking of trips, the highlight for the four of us this year was our venture to disneyworld in february.  it took a lot of planning, a lot of driving, and a lot of $$$, but it will surely go down in the books as one of the best vacations we'll ever have.  (and that's why, kids, we likely won't be going back any time soon.  why mess with success?)

i say this every year as i sign off ... but our true highlights are the health and love and happiness and faith we continue to be blessed with.  we strive each day to show our gratitude for all that we've been given.

and as the kids have been saying to everyone they've seen today ... "see you next year!"

the pageant

thirty-one years ago the story goes that my mom hung up the phone one december afternoon and excitedly told me that i was going to be mary in the st. michael's christmas pageant on christmas eve.

and i promptly told her i had no interest in being mary.  nope, i insisted, after she suggested i think about it.  not gonna do it. so she called back the coordinator and let her know that i had declined the offer.

of course, as early evidence of my severe issue with indecisiveness, i woke up the next morning with a new attitude.  "okay," i said.  "i've decided that i will be mary after all."

and in an early lesson of tough love, my mom barely looked up from the paper.  "too bad," she replied.  "they've already found someone else."

i was devastated, but vowed to be the best pageant angel i could be. and then ... my luck changed.  my mom got another call from the pageant coordinator on the morning of december 23rd, informing us that mary had come down with the chicken pox, and wondering if i'd like to take over.

and a star was born.

ha!  hardly.  for all the hype and hoopla surrounding the casting of mary every year, she really doesn't do much.  gabriel, of course, steals the show, and even gets to hold a microphone to proclaim the good news.  joseph talks about how his wife is going to have a baby and asks about room in the inn.  shoot, even the innkeeper gets a few lines.  but mary?  nada.  she just walks down the aisle looking as serene as possible and later places a baby doll in a wooden trough.  still, i practiced all that day and the next, leading up to my big moment.  and i suppose i did a satisfactory job, because there aren't any family stories of failure or embarrassment; of course, there aren't any pictures either.  (maybe i have made this event into a bigger deal than it actually was at the time.)

but here's where i think the story actually does become a big deal, at least to me.  thirty-one years later to the day, i sat in the front pew of the exact same church, and watched our daughter walk down the same aisle in the same costume.  susanna was also mary -- a serene, sweet mary -- and surprised us all with her confidence.  i felt sure that she'd get to church that morning and balk, since she has a tendency to change her mind at the last minute.  (not quite sure where she gets that.) so i was mentally prepared to resort to bribery to get her to walk down that aisle.  and who could blame her?  it's one thing to agree to do it a few weeks ahead of time; it's quite another to stand at the back of the church and muster up the courage to trek down a 50-yard aisle with 500 pairs of eyes focused solely on you.  but apparently we didn't give our reserved second-born enough credit -- because she never wavered.

and when i looked at her, i could actually see in susanna's eyes the same kind of reaction to gabriel's tidings that mary has in the bible.  i could see her half-smile, her reluctance to bask in the limelight but her willingness to do what was asked of her.  i could imagine susanna quietly accepting gabriel's news, surprised to be chosen, but sure of her abilities.  decades ago, i had initially declined the offer.  i wasn't sure i wanted to take on that responsibility; i didn't know that i was the right choice.  but susanna?  she knew that she could do it.  she never doubted the outcome.  she said yes.

"i am the Lord's servant," mary says in the gospel of luke.  "may it be to me as you have said." with those two sentences, mary became one of the most important people in the bible, and certainly the most important in the story leading up to Jesus's birth.  despite the amount of lines that are uttered in the pageant, we all know that it's not joseph's, or the innkeeper's, or even gabriel's big moment.  it's mary's.  mary really was the star of the show -- thousands of years ago in nazareth and bethlehem, and on christmas eve of 2011, in the form of a quiet and trusting blond-haired, blue-eyed, five-year old little girl.

receiving gabriel's message

mary, the little gray donkey, and joseph

lovingly placing baby Jesus in the manger