stop hunger now

neither liam or susanna are eager beavers when it comes to trying new things.  there are some kids -- believe me, i've seen them -- who will bound out of the car for their first day at a new school or new camp or new whatever with an excited smile on their face, ready to meet new friends and do something different.  they're not intimidated by the unknown, or afraid of not fitting in or sticking too far out or being lonely.

these are not our children. 

no, neither of them exactly welcome change.  they're like their parents, in that they like to sort of know what they're getting into and want to assess the situation before diving in headfirst. but once they've done just that, liam will walk forward and join in.  he'll often glance back a time or two for reassurance, but within a minute or so he's acclimated and enjoying himself.  susanna, on the other hand, still clutches my hand.  if she finds a friend, she'll let go of me and go grab that friend's hand, and all is well in the world.  but if she doesn't know anyone, well, it can take a long time for me to detach myself from her vise-like grip.

every once in a while, however, they'll surprise us.  take last sunday, for example.  our church supports the Stop Hunger Now program at least once a year, and for a few hours, converts our huge parish hall into a mini food packing factory.  hundreds of parishioners, most of whom are still dressed in their church clothes, place quite fetching hairnets atop their heads and gloves on their hands and get to work.  we packaged 20,000 meals for children all over the world that sunday, and had a grand time doing it.

just when we were getting into the groove of it all, i realized that the kids' sunday school classes were ending and i needed to retrieve them down in their classrooms.  as we ascended the stairs back to the main floor, i thought, you know, they could totally help out.  there was plenty they could do.  and so into the parish hall we went.

and this is where the surprise comes.  guess who took one look at the hubbub -- with music blaring and adults running about and a huge gong clanging each time we hit another 1,000 meals -- and immediately decided to join in?  why, that would be susanna.

susanna was our table's "runner", transporting our packaged meal bags to the weighers who would then use scales to make sure they were they contained the right amount before sealing and boxing them

and liam, after initially declaring that he was not interested in participating, came around after a minute or two.  he actually joined a table half a room away from the rest of us, serving as a team member with several adults generations older than he.  and had a marvelous time.

liam assumed the role of rice mann, scooping out a cup at a time and pouring it into the bags.  and never fear -- my rule-following boy would never have handled the food without having on gloves.  this photo was taken after all was finished

but.  i will say this.  as much as we all enjoyed the experience and cannot wait to do it again ... we did not have rice that evening for dinner.

sweet treats

last week was full of valentines fun.  below are the inside of the cards susanna made at school for chris and me, which were great because we've always wondered just why she loves us.  now we know.

 

(just in case you're having trouble reading my scanned copy ...

"Daddy you are my Valentine because you have twinkly blue eyes, you laugh when I ticle your foot.  You are special to me because you take care of me and you spend time with me.  Thats why I love you!  Love, Susanna)

 (Mommy you are my Valentine because you have sparkling blue eyes, and blonde hair.  You are special to me because you cook delicious food with me.  And you give me very special gifts.  Thats why I love you!  Love, Susanna)

so that's what they do in the first grade -- write love notes to their parents.  what do they do in second grade, you ask?  apparently dream of ways to honor their girlfriends.  yep, as liam and i walked down the aisle at target to pick up valentine's candy for their classroom parties, liam paused in front of the ghiradelli section and decided he'd like to buy his girlfriend some.  this is lauren, the same "girlfriend" he's had since they were three year-old classmates in preschool, so i know her well.  she's such a sweetheart and quite worthy of some chocolate treatment so we added it to the cart ... and the whole walk up to the checkout lines, liam fretted.  "how do i get it to her?" he asked me.  "i can't give it to her at school because other girls might be jealous -- and it might embarrass her."  (quite an astute observation, i thought.)  "maybe we can bring it to her house?"  and so that's just what we did on valentine's day afternoon.

waiting sort of nervously after ringing the doorbell.  luckily he's not old enough yet to resent me snapping pictures from the car

lauren rode up on her scooter and seemed quite happy ... which made liam beam.  "i think that went as well as i could have hoped," he exclaimed when he returned to the car.  (i'm not quite sure what he was expecting, come to think of it)

and on a completely unrelated note, susanna and i saw the touring show of mary poppins in durham last week with one of her best friends and her mom.  it was quite a grown-up affair ... dinner out at a restaurant, with a showtime starting at 7:30 -- which is normally when she's getting into bed.  we didn't get home until close to midnight.  i'm thinking that when we go see "beauty and the beast" in october, we might just opt for a weekend matinee.

too bad it's blurry, because you're missing my "sparkling blue eyes"

best-laid plans

liam's math class has been studying perimeter and area as of late, and one activity they were assigned was to design their dream house.  he worked hard on his floor plan, his little blond head bent over his paper for almost an hour as he drew his lines, changed his mind, erased and redrew.  he proudly shared his final product with me and it gave me great insight into what he deems important at this stage in his life.

he's got all the real essentials in there somewhere: a bedroom, kitchen, office, and a few halls thrown in for good measure.  he managed to squeeze in a bathroom over there on the right after i reminded him that one was necessary (thank goodness.)  but liam's essentials take up far more space.

so if you were to build this house, just look to see what's inside!  you've got a souvineir (sic) and trophy room -- necessary for all those hundreds of plastic trophies you surely have just for showing up to practices.  you've got a playroom, TV room, a pool table, and even a movie theater.  the spa will allow for massages and facials (i guess?) and the pool will be a nice way to exercise, if the gargantuan exercise room doesn't have enough to offer.

but my favorite room can be found in the primo location in the front of the house.  feast your eyes on that gem: the Tablet Charger room.  because you can just never have enough space for making sure that your ipad is always ready to go. 

somehow i think he might have a few classes to teach on home design if he decides to pursue this as a career path ... but if and when he does, i'll frame this one as the first design he ever made.  he was a man ahead of his time, i'm sure they'll say, as every house in the future will surely have a Tablet Charger room of its very own.

these boots were made for walkin'

it's funny how a post can start off one way and in the matter of an hour, take off in a completely different direction.

i had been planning on writing a summary of susanna's shoe choices as of late.  the girl has more shoes than liam and chris combined -- black patent flats for church, two pairs of sneakers, brown mary janes, shiny silver flats for dressy outfits, pink crocs and rainboots and flipflops and about five different pairs of sandals ... you get the idea.  and yet, despite the wide variety of footwear at her fingertips, every day except wednesdays (which is her required sneaker day for P.E.) she makes a beeline for the same exact pair:  her cowgirl boots.

i tell you what, for the $30 or so we paid at target for these fake brown leather gems, we've certainly gotten our money's worth.

cowgirl boots with jeggings -- what more could a first-grade fashionista want?

about an hour after i snapped this photo, super and i took a ride to the vet.  the poor girl has some sort of hind leg problem that has been getting noticeably worse, and after swallowing a roughly $1000 vet bill right before christmas to have all those teeth extracted, i figured it was time to drop some more money on her.  

and let me just tell you -- it's a problem that's affecting all of us.  well, chris and me, anyway.  she's gotten to the point that she cannot navigate our stairs.  the hardwoods make them too slippery for her, and so, every time she needs to go up or down from one floor to the other, we have no choice but to carry her.  luckily she's only 45 pounds ... but do that a few times a day and you start to feel it.  who needs to work out when you're lugging 45 pounds up and down, over and over again?!  (note: this afternoon we're having a runner installed on our stairs to help the sweet thing out.  we're crossing our fingers that our carrying days are soon a thing of the past.)

what the vet told me was that it's surprisingly not a skeletal or muscular issue -- it's actually neurological.  she's got this disease that's common in boxers (what isn't? i've started to wonder) where the neurological pathway from her brain to her right hind leg isn't functioning properly.  the good news is that she's not in any pain.  the bad news is that her leg splays out to the side because she can't tell it to stay in place.  and in a house that has a main floor that's totally hardwoods, that's a serious problem.  she'll just be standing there, drinking water, and we'll watch her right leg go completely horizontal.  to eat dinner, she'll actually take a mouthful of food and walk into the family room to stand on the rug to eat it just so she can stay stationary on a non-slippery surface.  and taking her on a walk outside?  forget it.  she balks and refuses to go one step farther because she can't control that leg.

and so, you might wonder, what's the solution?  nothing, really.  she's now on some medication that's supposed to improve the neurological thingy, but it's just a matter of time (maybe months, maybe years) before it progresses up her body.  in the meantime -- and this is where this post ties in with susanna -- she's gotten some new footwear of her own: these little balloon-type things that help her feet have traction on our slippery floors so she can stand upright without sliding.

in other words ... boots!

still not used to these bright blue suckers.  perhaps susanna can show her how to strut around in style

not exactly a red letter day

one of the beautiful things about parenthood is you just never know what's coming up next.

for example, never in my wildest dreams would i have thought that i would be following up my last words with friends post with a story about words with friends hallucinations.  yep, hallucinations.  but that's just what happened last night.

liam had the craziest roller coaster ride on tuesday and i still don't know what to make of it.  we were off from school on a day when the high didn't climb much past freezing, so i took the kids to see a movie with some friends.  riding back from the theater he was in great spirits, recounting his favorite parts of the movie and talking about his basketball practice that night.

and then, a mere half-hour later, he came downstairs in tears to find me.  he said he felt awful, and when i took his temperature, it was an alarming 101.6.  before i could get any advil into him, he got sick into the toilet and declared that he was fairly certain he was going to die.  but he took a nap, and when he awoke, he was fever-free and starving.  he ate a huge dinner and worked on his book report and i started to wonder if maybe he had just had an adverse reaction to the popcorn.

the following morning, however, he awoke with a high fever again, so i had no choice but to keep him home.  and it was just as well; it was freezing again and i had no plans but to stay home and work.  remembering what it was like when i was sick growing up, when i was actually allowed to lie on the couch and watch television, i indulged him with much more screentime than he is normally ever allowed.  naturally, he didn't want to play his DS or watch espn or even a movie ... he wanted to play words with friends.  and thanks to the blog, he has acquired a new opponent in a college friend of chris's, who has assured me she will be quite kind and perhaps let him win a game or two. (thanks, meg!)  he traded turns back and forth and enjoyed texting her in the chat window, along with keeping current with his games with chris (who's in kansas city all week for work) and his aunt leslie.

and then, right when i assumed he was back to normal, the roller coaster dipped again.  he sat right next to a space heater at dinner, cranked up to 90 degrees, and was shivering so badly he was rocking in his chair.  he dissolved into hysterics before bedtime with sky-high fever yet again.

and this is where it gets frighteningly strange.  about an hour or so after falling asleep, i heard him screaming, and when i raced up to his room, i found him looking completely disoriented as he stood in the middle of the floor.  "they're everywhere," he muttered over and over again.  "make them go away, mommy!  why are they here?"  he grabbed me tightly and stared out into the air with a terrified look on his sweet soft face.

it took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about.  but what i finally surmised was that he was hallucinating.  he was actually experiencing febrile hallucinations (thanks, wikipedia) that our pediatrician assured me were actually not that alarming.  as soon as his fever subsided, the hallucinations would dissipate, i was told.  (and thankfully, they did.)

what was he seeing? you ask.  what were floating in the air around his room every time he opened his eyes?  life-size yellow squares with letters on them.  you know -- those tiles from words with friends.

 i said a few days ago that i had created a words with friends monster.  turns out i was quite right.

highly inappropriate

i've created a monster.  a WWF monster, that is.  as in, Words With Friends. 

liam is obsessed.  after i upgraded my iphone, i decided to let him have full control of the WWF app on my ipad.  i even let him create his own account, rather than playing under mine.  after a few failed name attempts -- seems there's already a liam mann somewhere -- "Liam the Hammer" was born.  (liam's soccer team is the hammers.)  he currently plays against his aunt leslie and against chris, both of whom are a little easy on him, thank goodness.  (have i mentioned to you his competitiveness?)

but had i known the fixation he was going to have, i'm not sure i would've been so eager to get him started.  he'll race inside from playing basketball in the driveway, flushed and breathless, but instead of asking for water, he asks if it's his turn with words with friends.  or he'll just so happen to walk past the ipad a few times in a matter of minutes, staring at the thing, trying to will it to chime with a new WWF notification.  he even bombarded his poor aunt with a string of urgent messages when she took a little while to play, complete with a plea along the lines of "please play a word!  pretty pretty please with a cherry on top!"

so since both of his opponents actually work for a living and cannot spend the entire afternoon trading words back and forth with him, he started looking elsewhere for a game.  he saw the feature where he could begin a game against a random opponent and at least had the mind to ask me if that was okay.

"oh, no, sweetheart.  that's not a good idea," i replied.

"why not?"

"well, you just don't know what kind of person you'll wind up playing," i explained.  "it could be an adult somewhere who might play some inappropriate words."

susanna's ears perked up.  "like daddy!"

i turned to her. "excuse me?"

she nodded emphatically.  "daddy played an inappropriate word just a few turns ago," she stated, all of a sudden assuming the role of the all-knowing WWF judge.  "just look!"  she turned on the screen and pointed. and there it was. 

heinie!  my word! 

(pun intended, of course) 

kicking it up a notch

liam's basketball season is in full swing, with chris coaching again and games on saturdays.  he's proving himself to be quite a good shooter, although i had suggest to that he practice a little on his own and actually use that basketball goal that santa brought him last year.  (i'm guessing, of course, but i'd assume that the poor man probably spent hours and hours putting that thing together and it's a shame that it sits in our driveway, unused, while liam opts to jump on his pogo stick instead.)

so on sunday, on a beautiful 75-degree january afternoon, liam decided to listen to me (wonders never cease) and shoot some hoops.  with me, no less, since i was appropriately dressed after playing a tennis match.  we played "horse" and he's invented all sorts of rules that didn't apply back in the day when i used to play in my own driveway growing up.  i found myself shooting backwards ... shooting from the yard behind the goal, trying to arch the ball completely over the thing ... even trying to replicate liam's moves as he scored a reverse lay-up.

proper form (i think.  it looks good to me, at least)

after i took a few pictures of him shooting, he wanted to return the favor.  "you have GOT to see what you look like when you shoot, mommy!"  he said.  why, whatever could he mean?

yep, that's my signature move -- i have never been able to shoot the ball without my right leg kicking up at an awkward angle.  is it any wonder that when i was young, my coaches, who were initially so excited to meet me because of my height, quickly surmised that i'd take my rightful position as  benchwarmer?

and now that you've had your smile of the day, here are a few highlights from liam's last game.  i thank God yet again that he inherited exactly none of the atkins athletic genes.

2012: a recap

for the first time ever, i actually involved my family in our wrap-up of the year (imagine that.)  at one of our last family dinners of december, instead of discussing our daily peaks and valleys, i asked each one of my core four what yearly peak was.  in years past i would also have solicited their yearly valley, but i thought that we'd be a bit more uplifting if we just focused on the positive.  (and, let's be honest.  it's halfway into january as i'm writing this.  i can crank this out in half the time if i skip the downers.)

so, without further ado, this is what we self-assessed as our 2012 highlights.

liam:  making his soccer team.  tryouts were held in the summer and he found out he had a spot several weeks later.  it's been an enormous commitment (at times, when his indoor and outdoor seasons overlapped, we were doing soccer stuff five times a week) but it is something he truly, dearly loves.  there are 11 other boys from all over the triangle on his team, and it's been really nice to get out of our bubble and meet people who go to different schools, live in different counties, and have different backgrounds.  they'll be together for the next three years and it's a joy to see them grow, going from a dozen individual kids to a true team.  "oh, and i have a professional soccer player as my coach!" liam reminds me.  yes, an actual professional athlete who manages to find time to nurture and mentor twelve elementary school boys ... coach floyd rocks.

liam and most of his team, following an exciting win at the southeastern indoor soccer championships in virginia beach in december

susanna:  having her artwork displayed at the state fair.  let's face it -- it's easy to be in the limelight as an athlete.  but as a young aspiring artist?  those opportunities are fewer.  still, i often see susanna's paintings and sketches adoring the walls of the school hallways, and stop to take them in.  and she's constantly hard at work on a new project at home, whether it's making a homemade card for a friend or a portrait of her lalaloopsy doll or just a drawing of whatever strikes her fancy at the time.  but to be recognized as one of the four top artists of her school of over 800 students?  AND, to be the only one of those four to receive a gold star on a state-wide stage?  i promise you this, it will be something she remembers for a very long time to come.  (actually, probably forever, the way my kids pore over these blog books.)

chris: hands-down, the highlight of 2012 was his new job.  he had been pretty unhappy miserable at his former place of work and really couldn't wait to get out of there.  ironically, after months of looking and interviewing, he received two offers on the same day and spent the better part of a week negotiating and discerning what was the best option.  he's now at topaz shared services, a start-up that has something to do with health insurance.  (i tried to find a link and wasn't successful.  which begs the question ... exactly where does he go each day?)  all kidding aside, he's much, much happier with this new position, and aside from the longer commute, likes everything about it so far.

 this has nothing to do with his new job.  it's just one of the few pictures we have together without the kids, taken at my cousin's wedding in dallas in may

me: maybe it's telling that for my children and my husband, their highlights were new things, and for me, the highlight is something that's ending.  so instead, let me phrase it this way: as of december 21, i'm regaining about twenty hours a week of time that had been previously devoted to curriculum development.  i won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that i've been wrapped up in writing three separate courses for special education students throughout the state since last january, starting with algebra 1A, then moving on to algebra 1B over the summer, and finally to financial management this past fall.  (the last one is the most ironic -- i don't even balance my checkbook or know the password to our bank account online, and yet, i'm teaching thousands of students how to budget.)  with my newfound free time, i've already finished a book and stayed on top of the laundry and made a few authentic lasagnas from scratch  ... what more fun can i find?

come to think of it, perhaps my highlight of 2012 is becoming an aunt for the first time.  how i wish teddy lived closer than a five hour drive :(

super: let's not forget out sweet pooch.  2012 proved to be a difficult one for our aging canine, who had to have EIGHT teeth extracted in november (merry christmas!  here's a $1000 vet bill!) and who now suffers from arthritis in her back left leg.  so what's her highlight?  being carried up and down the stairs like the queen that she is, multiple times a day. 

that's all for us.  and 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.

happy 2013!

the gofster chronicles

gofster had his moments of sheer brilliance this year.  he wasn't terribly naughty -- i think he learned his lesson from years past, when he realized that any mayhem he caused resulted in ME cleaning up the mess the following day -- but that didn't cramp his style. 

here are just a few of the highlights ...

the kids found him facedown in the scanner, and then saw the following image on my laptop:

seems he has a sweet tooth

okay, so this isn't exactly a picture of gofster ... but it's the only shot we have from liam's big soccer tournament in virginia beach.  he surprised us by showing up in our suite at the holiday inn.  does that count?

his piece de resistance -- he used his cinematic talents to create this one-of-a-kind video just for us!

and the craziest thing of all happened just yesterday.  we heard squeals of surprise from the kids upstairs, who actually found that sneaky elf in the top drawer of chris's dresser, buried under his shirts.  seems they were playing hide-and-seek with their stuffed animals and discovered gofster still hanging out.  (what are the odds?!)  we quickly explained that even though the legend is that the elves return to the north pole on christmas eve for good, apparently some of them stick around until their family's christmas decorations have been stored away.  i mean, who can blame him?  if i were facing a ton of work back at home, helping to construct all the toys for the following year, i'd stick around here as long as i could too.  luckily, liam and susanna agreed.

there he is, partially concealed by the sweet note susanna made for him  

(that's gofster, santa, and susanna in her drawing)

farewell, dear gofster ... til next year!  

xoxo, liam, susanna, chris, and sara

dream big

christmas 2012 has come and gone.  there's much to share when i have an extra moment, but suffice it to say that the big gift this year is a cruise for spring break with our dear friends the basses.  to reveal the surprise, the kids went on a 10-minute long treasure hunt all over the house, with clues they pieced together and recorded on a clipboard.  eventually the hunt led them to the globe in our dining room with a big pink arrow pointing to our destination.

 the final product

i've trimmed this 10-minute video down to the final 50 seconds, as they figure out exactly what this all means.  you can see them start to process this news in very different ways.

table tennis?  really?

click on the picture for the video

special deliveries

i haven't written much about gofster (our elf on the shelf) these days, but suffice it to say he's up to his old antics.  the kids still love to hunt for him every morning and their squeals of delight when they discover him is always a fun way to start our day.

today he was a delivery elf, appearing this morning with letters from santa.  it's remarkable how well santa knows both of our children -- not only must he see them when they're sleeping, and know when they're awake, but he's also aware of sore losers and picky eaters (for goodness sake!)

tears

i woke up on saturday morning in a sweat.  drenched, my pajamas glued to me, my heart racing.  mere moments before i had been in the classroom where i taught at dillard drive middle, surrounded by my second period class of algebra I students.  there is gunfire down the hall and it's getting closer and i have twenty-five pairs of eyes looking to me for direction.  what do we do, mrs. mann?  they ask me.  i frantically whirl around, from the windows to the door and back again to face them.  should we make a run for it?  should we hide? if we hide, where do we go?  i don't know how to answer.  think.  THINK.  my classroom is at the end of the building and there are woods about ten yards away.  but i'm not sure we have enough time to get there.  in a split-second decision, i herd them all into the bathroom just like the brave heroic teacher at sandy hook had, whose interview was the last thing i had seen before falling asleep on friday night.  and it is only at this point that i realize that you can't squeeze twenty-five teenagers into a bathroom.  you can't stick them on top of paper towel dispensers and sinks.  they're too big.  panic sets in as the door won't shut and the gunfire draws closer.  my students' eyes grow wider as they look to me for reassurance.  and all i can do, as we know we are about to draw our final breaths, is to tell them that i love them.  just like that heroic teacher at sandy hook had.

because no child is ever too big for that.

this tragedy has rocked me to my core.  even in the midst of a weekend four hours away from home for liam's indoor soccer championships, it was all i could think about.  chris would gently, from time to time, suggest that i stop reading about it.  but i couldn't.  i still can't.

i won't pretend for a moment that i have anything of any importance to share, especially since it seems every person on this planet has already weighed in with their own thoughts that are usually far more eloquent than my own.  but this has had such a profound impact on me that i feel a need to document it for myself. 

i think that i have been so affected by this tragedy for several reasons.  one, i am a teacher.  in most aspects of my life, i would define myself as a mother before i'd define myself professionally -- but when i first heard about newtown, my first reaction was one as a teacher.  what would i have done?  i asked myself.  how would i have protected my students?  how could i have kept them calm?  that nightmare that i had on friday night has repeated itself every night since.  and it's always with the same class of students -- my second period algebra I class of 2001.  the class of students who watched with me, in horror, as the events of september 11 unfolded on the television screen in the corner of my classroom.  i can name each one of those students to this day and tell you where they were sitting.  i'm sure it's no coincidence that they are the ones i'm trying to protect in my nightmare.

it was only after introspection that i realized that i've also been so shaken because of the mental illness piece of the story.  i have seen, up close, what mental illness can do.  i have witnessed how it can change someone, how it can make them violent and frightening, and how as much as you are inclined to blame them for their actions and hold them accountable, you have to remind yourself that they are ill.  i have seen close family members struggle with caring for someone with mental illness, and have seen just a glimpse of the heartache and agony and frustration and time and energy and medications and counseling and special programs and money that go into helping make this person better.  i thank God over and over again that this person is getting the help he needs.  because we know what can happen when people don't.

but the obvious part speaks the loudest:  i am a parent.  and not just any parent, but a parent of a first grader.  a parent of a child who is the exact same age as the children who died at sandy hook.  at 9:30 on friday morning, susanna was likely doing the same kind of activity that those twenty fellow first graders in connecticut were doing -- maybe a math puzzle in a small group, or circle time on the carpet with the whole class.  she opened up her lunchbox in the cafeteria to eat the same kind of lunch as their moms had packed for them that day.  she was probably wearing the same size shoes as many of the girls and wants the same american girl doll as likely many of them requested for christmas. she will open that american girl doll on tuesday.  they will not.

as soon as chris returned home on friday afternoon with liam and susanna from school, i had to hold them.  i hadn't felt that deep, physical need to hold them in years -- i felt like i was almost going to be sick if i couldn't wrap my arms around them.  i sat there on the floor of susanna's bedroom, rocking her in my lap, her soft cheek buried into my chest, her heart beating next to mine.  she seemed to know what i needed without saying a word; we just sat there, silently, our arms wrapped around each other. 

and i wept. 

santa: worth the weight

liam and susanna have had the pleasure of seeing santa twice this year.  the first time was at the museum of history party last weekend:

and then, on sunday, we enjoyed our annual tradition of the santa brunch at our club. 

 while my fashionista daughter must have a dozen holiday-themed outfits, liam has, oh, one festive dress shirt.  you'd think the least i could do was iron the thing ...

i was standing far enough away to not quite hear what the kids were telling him -- but close enough to hear his big, booming, HO HO HO in response to something susanna said.  as we walked out to the car, i had to ask what was so funny as to make him laugh like a bowl full of jelly.

"i told him that i thought he had lost some weight," she replied.  "i told him that when i sat on his lap last week, he felt, um, plumper."

well, she's learned not to use the word "fat", i thought.  and i guess it's a good thing that the santas weren't reversed -- that could have been a problem ...

"anyway, i think he liked it," she continued.

"is that right?" i asked.  "how do you know?"

she beamed.  "well, he immediately said that i was on his Nice List FOR SURE!"

like white on rice

we have two nativity sets: a beautiful fontanini one that i received piece by piece from my mother over about a decade's worth of christmases, and a fisher price one that i bought at target when liam was two.  my beautiful one has a special spot in our newly renovated house, but the fisher price one is just as accessible in the family room, as it is still a favorite toy of the kids.  (this thing has been such a hit that i actually wrote about it twice in 2008:  here and here.  it's the gift that keeps on giving.)  so you can imagine that susanna was chomping at the bit to get her hands on it as soon as we started hauling all of our christmas decorations into the house from storage last weekend.   but as soon as she opened the box, she quickly informed me that many of the figurines were dirty.

i started to handwash each one at the kitchen sink, but then my eyes fell on the almost-full, soon-to-be-started dishwasher.  (really, is there any other state of a dishwasher, than almost-full and soon-to-be-started?)  jackpot!  "i'll just stick all of these little people in the top shelf and they'll be clean and pristine in no time," i shared with susanna, really patting myself on the back for this stroke of brilliance.

at least, it seemed brilliant at the time.  it wasn't until i removed them from the dishwasher a few hours later that i realized all these little people have small holes on their undersides (please, no comment about that) and had all filled with water.  moving them around the manger scene made them all sound like they were bellying up to the bar for another round -- and worse than the sloshing sound was the concern that they'd begin to leak onto the piece of furniture they're adorning for the next month or so.  drying these suckers out was a priority.

but how?  you can't squeeze them.  you can't open them.  pounding them into a towel in your hand results only in a small warm trickle.  [i promise -- i had no idea how this would sound when i began to write this post.]  at a loss, i suggested to susanna that she consult chris for a suggestion, before i headed out to the grocery.

i returned to find this.

"that's what you're supposed to do with your cell phone if it ever gets wet -- soak it in a bowl of rice," chris explained.  made perfect sense to me

so there you have it: a two inch-high plastic mary staring out from a clear organic basmati rice container.  not exactly what God had in mind, i'm sure.  but when i started to reflect on the whole scenario, i was struck by how true-to-life this actually is.  because isn't this just like mary?  in the midst of unspeakable conditions -- uncomfortable, pregnant, and in unfamiliar surroundings -- she still manages to have a serene smile on her face. 

wordless wednesday: thanksgiving style

liam's thanksgiving plans all came to fruition: we gathered at my parents' house.  the boys played football.  chris's parents joined us.  we ate a lot.  and then we went to bed.

oh, and a few other fun things happened along the way as well.

  the whole clan, including my sister-in-law laura and my brother ben, but minus the star of the show

here's the star of the show: my six-month old nephew teddy, of course! 

i am smitten

 the good news: the kids re-discovered monopoly and entertained themselves quite well with it for hours and hours.  
the bad news:  the kids re-discovered monopoly

 

of course, it didn't occur to us to take a picture of the three cousins until we were literally halfway out to the car the day after thanksgiving.  back inside we came -- ratty monkey on one lap, monkey hat on the other head.  no wonder poor teddy is confused