The Quiet Game

We were going to dinner the other night with a full car.   In the front seats were my husband and Uncle Brian, the children were in the middle row and Uncle Bob and I were in the third row.   We were trying to talk about something across the three rows as adults.   I don't really remember what the topic was, but I do know we couldn't hear each other because the children were very, and I mean very, loud.

They may well have been yelling, I'm not sure, but I know it was louder than it should have been in the car.    Sometimes when we're alone, without a car behind us and we're not running late, we'll do things like stop the car and put them on the side of the road until they calm down.    This is only if they don't quiet down with a calm reminder that we use inside voices in the car.   In this case, they had energy and they were unable to express it physically while being restrained in car seats.    I understood, but we still needed to get them to quiet down.

My husband said, "let's play the quiet game."   We'd tried this once or twice before so it was new and rather novel to them.   Immediately everyone got quiet but after ten or fifteen seconds mumblings from the adults or giggling from the children happened and round one was over.

"Let's play again.  Okay, on the count of three, everyone be quiet," my husband said.   As he counted down to one, we all became quiet in anticipation of the game starting.   About a second into the silence, my daughter loudly yelled out, "quack!"   We all couldn't help but laugh and round two was over.

For the rest of the rounds, "quack" always followed, "three" and our game became rather moot.   I have no idea what prompted my three-year-old to yell quack, but if you ever need the quiet game to be over quickly, it's a sure fire way to end the game.

The Big Boy Update:  Uncle Bob was making soup for our family the other day.   My son asked him, "Uncle Bob, are you making feel better soup?"   Uncle Bob told him he was.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Our family left yesterday.   After Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian headed off to the airport, my daughter asked us, "where is Uncle Brian's bed?"  Aunt Kelly said she'd go downstairs with my daughter to look in the bedroom.    Uncles Bob and Brian had taken their things with them, so the room was back to its regularly unoccupied state that's sometimes slept in by Uncle Jonathan.  My daughter came back upstairs and said, "It's uncle Jon's bed again."  It was very sweet how she said it; you could tell she was said Uncle Brian had gone.

The Tree Helpers and Boring Normal

Our family all left either last night or this morning.   Our house, with only four people, seems almost empty.   My husband used the remainder of the day to de-holidayize our home.   Outdoor lights were taken down, Christmas decorations were put in boxes and year-round items came back out.  Overall, I think it takes a lot less time to get things put away than it does to get them out.

We're now back to our "boring normal" home and family.   I will miss the busy buzz of a full home, but it's also nice to be back to our regular routine.

As far as cleanup goes, my son and daughter each helped in their own way with the trees...

The Big Boy Update:  Not the star!   My son was watching my husband take the ornaments off the tree with interest.  He was playing with some of the items and being warned that some were more delicate and needed to be held carefully.    When my husband took the star off the top of the tree, my son got angry at him.   I don't know if he didn't want the holidays to be over or if he just liked the tree.   Soon enough he was back playing with other things and I'm hoping has forgiven dad for dismantling the tree.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter only wanted to help with one tree: the lollipop tree.   What she really wanted to do was eat the lollipops, but I told her instead, she could help take all the lollipops down and put them into a bag.    For the next half-hour my daughter slowly pulled of all the lollipops and sorted them into color piles.    She debated if some were more orange or red.  (There were multiple brands and some colors were a bit ambiguous.)  She took a break after getting three of the colors into the bag but came back in a bit to finish the job.   Then, she wanted to help dismantle the lollipop tree.  She knew it collapsed down, but wasn't sure how it worked so we did it together.   When everything was put away, she was very happy having helped, and had completely forgotten about eating any of the suckers.

Food and Final Thoughts

It's the last day of the year and I'm rushing downstairs to get a blog post done between dinner out and a party we're going to at our friend's house.  So what are my final thoughts for the year?

First of all, food.   I love food.   I need all the holiday food at the house to go away.   I hope my relatives will take it all with them when they leave tomorrow, because I can't stop eating all the sweets.   I'm looking forward to a leaner (pantry-wise) house in January.

Second of all, family.   It's been a good year and it's been so in part because of my great family.   We have a house full right now and they've all been here for several days.   Uncle Brian asked me tonight if I was ready for everyone to leave.   I told him truthfully that I would be sad to have everyone gone. We have a low drama, high fun family.

The only thing that's been bugging me. I told him, was that I hadn't had a chance to get the holiday decorations up with everyone visiting.    That will start tomorrow though.

The Big Boy Update:  We went today to a local high school to watch my nephew practice kicking; he's the kicker for his high school team.   As Kyle was getting his shoes on at the edge of the wet football field my son asked him, "are your socks waterproof?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told me today, "I have head cups."   I didn't know what she meant until a few seconds later and then I said, "oh, I think you mean you have the hiccups."

Smilers

Are there some things that just make you smile?  It could be the first rainbow in spring or an old television show you haven't seen in years you stumble on one Sunday afternoon.  It might be a voicemail from an old friend or  a birthday card from your child.  Or it might be that friend you don't go out to lunch with often because you do nothing but smile the whole time you're together.   Smilers.

My mother forwarded an email to me today from a friend.   My mother has sent me emails from this friend before.   This particular email was about the treasure box my daughter got for Christmas.  Her friend is the one who painted the box.     This friend is one of those "smilers" to me.

Every email I've ever read from her has made me smile.   She has such happiness in her words, such joy in her writing that it's infectious and you can't help but smile.   I read the email my mother forwarded today and I realized I had been smiling since the very first sentence.

My mom's friend may well be the biggest, "smiler" I know.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told my father this morning, "daddy, here's how you make jingle bell soup: roll out the jingle bell flat, fold it up, and then put it in a bowl of chocolate milk.  There!  Jingle bell soup."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I told my daughter we needed to get ready to leave this morning and she needed to finish getting ready.  The next thing I knew, she went upstairs and came back downstairs.  She hadn't gotten dressed, but she had a small dollop of something on her index finger.   Without asking, she had gotten the Mederma scar gel tube, put a small amount on her finger and came to me so that I could rub it into the scar on her chin.

The Corner Chair

We have a sofa chair in the corner of our bedroom.   My children are old enough now that they're more adventurous around the house and they've discovered this chair in the corner and more specifically, the triangular void behind the chair between it and the wall.  

My children have all sorts of adventures climbing over the chair, getting in and out of the corner hiding spot, putting things back there with them like the dog's leash, a string, toys and a large roller that they like to use as a "cast" on their arms and legs.    In short, they fit more back there than there is space to fit.   They hardly fit themselves, but somehow, they can fit a panoply of play items back there as well.

They have had more fun in a small triangular void that cost us nothing than they have with most of they toys we've ever bought them.

The Big Boy Update:  We hid the iPads for a while, but the children kept finding them and I got tired of finding new locations to sequester them away so I made a new rule:  If you get the iPad without permission, it goes away for at least that day and possibly longer.   (They don't get the iPads that often if we can help it.)  Today my son got his iPad.  I put it away and told him it was gone for the rest of the day.   He was unhappy with me.   He complained, telling me, "mommy, if I don't have the iPad I'm going to die...I need it...I'm starting to die."   Something tells me he needs to have the iPad taken away for longer than a day with that kind of reaction.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is a gingerbread sneak.    She sneaks around the corner where the gingerbread houses are that she and her brother made with Nana's help and steal candy off the sides of them.   She does this a lot, and since we can't watch her all day long, she's been getting away with it.    The houses are great, but they'll be gone soon.  My little sneak will be sad to see them go.

I Don't Mind Getting Up

I worked for a long time in the corporate world.   For some years I would have to get up every morning to go into an office.   I liked the office and I liked the people, but I had to get up early to get there.   There were flexible hours, but it still seemed early to me.

I changed jobs and for many years I was a corporate instructor.  I would either be at a site, out of town and I would have to get up early to teach a class.  On days I wasn't teaching I was usually at home.   I still had to get up to do work though.

Through all of the jobs I've had, I used an alarm clock.   I don't like alarm clocks—they make you wake up when you'd like to be sleeping.    For all the years I worked at home and could sleep in a little later, I still didn't like getting up for work.  

I thought I loved what I did, but I guess there was something about each of those jobs that I didn't love, because I never liked getting up in the morning.

My job now is to be a mother.  Yes, sometimes the children come downstairs and wake us up earlier than we'd like, but overall, I don't mind getting up in the morning anymore.

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't want to get dressed today.   At one point we told him he had to get dressed.   He took off one pair of pajamas only to go and put a second pair on.  After that he was firmly sent to his room until he got dressed.   A short while later he came down dressed, but he had a sly smile on his face because he had put his clothes over his pajamas with footies.   I don't know why he wanted to stay in his pajamas today, but fortunately he got new pajamas from Uncles Bob and Brian for Christmas this afternoon so he's got something new, fuzzy and footed to wear tonight.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  It was time to open presents this afternoon but some of us were straggling upstairs.   My husband sent my daughter up to collect us.    My daughter took her job very seriously, not giving up until she had gotten us all downstairs.

Fitness Update:  16.2 miles today.   We're pushing distance for the marathon we signed up for sometime early next year.   I don't even remember when the marathon is, but today we were only ten miles short of running a marathon.

They're Real to Them

Earlier today my daughter said to me, "I want to say hi to the rabbit."   I had no idea what she was talking about.  I thought perhaps there was some rabbit on the show that was playing on television.  I  wasn't paying attention because I was cleaning crumbs off the floor.   (My dog is our crumb cleaner but she's away is visiting Nana.)  I asked my daughter about the rabbit and then I realized what she meant...

My father gave us a hand puppet that's a white rabbit coming out of a top hat for Christmas.   We played around with it a bit on Christmas day and then stuck it on the end table in the living room.    My daughter was wanting the rabbit to come alive again.   I picked up the rabbit, put my hand inside and had him slowly appear out of the hat.   My daughter grinned and laughed.   Then in a high, squeaky rabbity voice I said hello and waved the little rabbit paws.   My daughter said hello back and then did more giggling.   I asked her for a hug and then a kiss but my daughter had gotten shy.

She was shy, but not scared.   She got her scooter and asked the rabbit if he could catch her.   After several rounds around the house she told the rabbit to follow her, she wanted to show him something. We went to the counter where the gingerbread houses my children made were sitting and she showed him her house and her brother's house.   She wanted to give him some candy and he happily "ate" a yellow M&M.

I had work to get done so I told her the rabbit had to go back and rest some for now.    Then, a few hours later, my daughter wanted to see the rabbit again.  My son was around this time and he was just as eager and just as excited to talk to the rabbit and show it things.   They were vying for the rabbit's attention as they did jumps and hops across the couch and ottoman.  They never looked at me, even when I talked for the rabbit—and they never stopped grinning.

I had watched the documentary about Kevin Clash, the creator of the character Elmo.  He has been a life-long puppeteer, fascinated with puppets since he was a small child.   He had said children saw him, knew he was there, but it didn't matter because all they did was look at the puppet.

I saw that in action today.   To my children, the rabbit was real.

The Big Boy Update:  My son believes he and his sister sleep in "bump beads."  I suggested he could call them, "bunk beads" but he was having none of it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I said out loud to my husband, "I can't connect to The Moon.   Something must be wrong."   The Moon is our file server, so named because it is very large in storage capacity.   My daughter heard our conversation, got up out of her chair, went over to the window to look up (in the middle of the afternoon) for the moon and said, "something's wrong with the moon.  Maybe there's a space ship?"

Fitness Update:  Three-and-a-half miles mid-morning.   We worked on speed but we were interrupted by friendly neighbors so it's questionable we improved on anything.  We were hoping for a longer run but my friend got stuck at the hospital working for longer than she anticipated and my husband had a tight window he had to go to work in, so we ran for as long as we could wedge in.