And so it ends. Another year. But you'll find no top ten lists here. No lazy way out of going back and re-reading the preceding 11 issues of our life and times. Nope, you'll just find the straight poop on what we have done this month of December. Please feel free to glance back over the never yellow'd pages of history in our own little slice o' the Blogosphere. (Though I started keeping my little family journal long before the advent of "blogs" as a term.)
Phoebe had a tough month. She was sick along with the rest of us for most of the month. We also had to find her a new day care due to the illness I talked about last month of Jada's mom. Thanks to my dad's stay, we were able to go check out a couple of places and settle on one we think will work out the best for us all. It's a lot closer to our house and Jada's current school than the old one. The other sad thing for Phoebe (and Jada and Ellen for that matter), Phoebe's last day of school was cancelled due to a big wind storm that knocked out power and toppled trees all over the tri-met area for the last scheduled day of classes before winter break. The Beaverton school district canceled the last day of school before the break which kept Phoebe from saying goodbye to her classmates. Of course, I had already scheduled the day off from work to take her for the craft day and stay with her, so we went to the school without checking for school closures not even suspecting something may have been amiss. When we got there, only one teacher who also hadn't checked in was there, so Phoebe at least got to say goodbye to her. We'll try to stop in some time next year to pick up any thing that may have been supposed to go home that day as well as saying goodbye to her friends. With school starting up Phoebe will be at her new school on Tue and Wed afternoons and all day Monday, Thursday and Friday. She had a complimentary day last week to meet her teacher and spend a couple of hours there. She was nervous at first, but I think she liked it. Her favorite part was getting to have a special snack where they put a marshmallow on a stick, poured Hershey’s syrup over it, dipped it into rice crispies, and then ate it!
Ellen finally lost her 2 front lower teeth. The first fell out while we were in the car parking lot at a store. She saved it in a tissue and placed it under her pillow along with a picture and directions to find the tooth for the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy came that night and left her a Sacagawea dollar. The very next day, she lost her second tooth while eating lunch. This one we're not sure where it went, but we have a hunch it went down her throat. So when Jada got home, she directed Ellen to write the Tooth Fairy a note to place under her pillow about how she lost her tooth. The Tooth Fairy understood and left another Sacagawea dollar. By the end of the month her new teeth are already growing in and seem to be quite far along. Due to the storms, Ellen was also kept from going to her final day of classes before the break. When she found out after we went by Phoebe's school, she was very upset and disappointed, but Ellen's school was one of the ones that had lost power. Jada was sad too because none of her students were able to get the presents they had made or report cards. They also lost the special movies and activities they were going to get to do, and Jada wasn't able to prepare for the first day back in January. Ellen did, however, get to go to her last Mad Science class. She brought home the rocket she had been working on. It's one of those real rockets that you can launch and it floats back down to the ground. I don't know if hers will still work though since she keeps playing with it. If we can borrow a launch pad from somewhere, we might give it a try. Finally, on a sad note, Ellen continues to develop her nuclear temper. She had several blow-ups over not being first, not wanting to share, and finally not wanting to wear a particular pair of pants around the house after she spilled on the pants she was wearing. The latter of which resulted in almost 4 straight hours of screaming in her room. She just doesn't seem to be able to learn from these experiences. I'm sure that I had screaming fits and a temper when I was little. This must be the proverbial payback that everyone talks about when you become a parent passed down from one generation to the next. I'm sorry, Mom and Dad, for all of my tantrums when I was little.
It seems like I'm always talking about misbehavior, but there are times when the girls do play very well together. They'll quietly sit and read books or color or play Legos or with their Groovy Girls. Ellen even reads books to Phoebe quite a bit. Then someone will take something from someone else, or choose to play somewhere else, and the other takes offense, and then the yelling starts. Typical sibling stuff.
This being the holiday season, we did a great many things together as a family. Some of them we were able to enlist Bapa in. The first of which was the annual Baking of the Cookies which we send home with Jada's parent volunteers, give to the kids' teachers, friends, and family. Each night was a different cookie: chocolate crinkles, chocolate brownie Hugs, peanut butter balls, macaroons, fudge, and sugar cookies. The girls get to help with the baking of the sugar cookies. Bapa helped me with the peanut butter balls, and I think he helped Jada with several others as well. They all turned out very well, and we're still trying to finish them off as the calendar flips over to 2007.
We also had to find a new place to get our Christmas tree. The lot that we have been going to for the last 6 years finally succumbed to the ever growing housing market. We actually lucked out this year. We were driving to a store, and saw a sign for a place not too far from our house. It wasn't a U-Cut like our old one where we get to stalk and cut down our own tree, but they had really nice, fully trees. The nobles were even full, but they were expensive. We went with our traditional, and less expensive, Douglas Fir. The person running the lot even cut off necessary limbs and gave a new cut on the bottom so it would drink better once in the stand. With our quarry strapped to the roof, we headed home. Bapa helped me jockey the tree into the stand, and we were in business. It was another day before the lights went on, and it wasn't until the next weekend we finally got to the ornaments.
It was really good to have Bapa here. He was a huge help. Especially when grandma fell in her apartment and had to go to the ER. Jada and I had to spend the day in the hospital, but at least we didn't have to scramble to find someone to stay with the girls all day. We were sad when he finally had to go back to Illinois...everyone except Savannah. She just really never warmed up to him. In fact, she stayed outside for the last 2 days he was here. Every time we went to let her in, she sniffed the air, found him still there, and walked right away from the door. We're not sure what it was. We're thinking that his clothes smelled too much of Daisy, my brother's dog, but who knows. And that same night after I dropped Bapa off at the airport, I got the flu that Jada had been fighting for the past week, and Phoebe before her. I had to miss a couple days of work with it. Earlier in that week, I had finally surpassed 1000 miles on my commuter bicycle for the year. This put me over 3000 miles total in the saddle for the year on all my bikes.
The next week was the first week of winter break, and Jada and girls had some fun activities scheduled. They went on a cruise on the Portland Spirit with the Cinnamon Bear (from the radio show of the same name from 1937). The girls had been listening to the radio show from the tapes Jada found at the library. We were a little worried since the boat was going to be filled with costumed characters, but we didn't need to be. They both did fine. Jada even got them to pose with the Cinnamon Bear. Ellen even sat on it's lap for the picture!! The next day, they all went to see a play at the Lady Bug Theater, "Mrs. Claus and Her Little Dear." They met up with one of our friends family from our childbirth class, and they went out to lunch afterwards to Mike's Drive-in . Jada said all four girls were sitting at their own booth while Jada and Laura sat across the aisle. They really enjoyed it. It was a back up plan for not being able to get into any "The Nutcracker" showings. We'll just have to get tickets earlier next year.
Christmas was a fun time for us all as it was split up into several different events. Christmas Eve day, Jada and I split up first thing in the morning to pick up the ham and Cinnabons. Papa came over to visit before he had to go into work to bring the girls their presents and have brunch with us. Then Christmas Eve itself, we had Phoebe's Godparents over for dinner along with Grandma who had just gotten out of the hospital a few days before. Laurie brought her flute, and we all sang Christmas carols while she played. A good time was had by all. Pete stayed after everyone else had gone to hang out, chat, and play games with us. We had him write the note from Santa so Ellen wouldn't recognize the hand writing. (Luckily the girls won't read this for a long time). Then we set out the last of the gifts and went to bed.
For Christmas morning we had a small initial breakfast so we could get right to the present opening. We wanted to be sure we got done early enough to call Elgin to catch Nana and Bapa and Uncles, Aunts, and cousins before they had to all go to their next Christmas morning celebrations. I think Phoebe's favorite present of the morning was a toolbox, though she was sad there weren't any tools in it (we later rectified that thanks to Aunt Jan's gift certificates). Ellen loved the headbands she got from Santa. After we called back east, we had our Cinnabons for breakfast. After nap, we had our annual Christmas dinner over at Mike and Carrie's house. There were several new kids for Ellen and Phoebe to play with this year including my Goddaughter. It was a pleasant and relaxing end to Christmas. I honestly don't remember what we did after we got home. Probably we all collapsed in a heap from exhaustion.
The week between Christmas and New Years was uneventful. Phoebe had her comp day at her new school, and a game that Santa had missed finally arrived. It's called Mancala 4. It's an ancient strategy game from Africa and Asia. We've been playing it as part of a special family time after dinner this week. The girls understand how to play the game and actually play it together on their own some times. Ellen is starting to get a little bit of the strategy aspects, but Phoebe just likes moving her pieces around the board. Ellen often wins the game when all four of us play.
We also got to go up to the mountain for some snow shoeing. It was Phoebe's first time on her own snow shoes, and my first time without the extra burden of carrying one of the girls in the Kelty kid pack on a hike. We chose Trillium Lake near Government Camp since it was supposed to be a fairly easy one with great views over the lake. However, we went off on the wrong trailhead out of the parking lot, and never actually made it to the lake itself. I think we were close, but we had to stop and turn back after about 30 minutes of hiking because Phoebe was complaining so much. She started out really excited, and she was having fun at the beginning. But after we made the first turn down toward the lake, she started complaining about being tired. She was still doing a great job and walking fine. We pushed her to move on a little bit farther. Ellen, on the other hand, was just trucking along in the lead. I think she was really enjoying herself. We had to have her stop occasionally. I think she's going to be a really interested hiker as she grows. We had a brief water and food stop, and then we headed back up the trail with Phoebe crying all the way. I finally got her to stop crying and enjoy herself again after I pointed out some icicles we hadn't noticed on the way down and yellow snow from deer and elk, and possibly dogs and people. (Who knows?) By the end, Phoebe was having fun again. All she remembers now is that she had fun. I took Ellen off the main packed trail for a little bit of soft snow walking through a small group of trees, but she was a little too nervous about it to have fun so I led her back to the main trail. Then it was off to the Huckleberry Inn for pancakes. Ellen ate a bit of all of our breakfasts. I'm telling you, that girl can eat. After that we stopped by to see Pete at his mountain house. It was when we got home and had Ellen change out of her huckleberry stained pants that the 4 hour tantrum started. It had been a good day up to that point though.
On New Year's Eve day, we tried something new. We went to the Children's Museum to see what the New Year's at Noon was all about. We got there when they opened at 11am, and the line to get in was already long. We went straight to one of the temporary exhibits on "Friends from Japan". It featured 5 grade-school aged kids from Japan, and showed what their classroom looked like as well as small recreations of parts of their homes, rooms, or family shops. It was interesting, and well done. The girls really enjoyed it. They kept saying it was their favorite thing to see today. Then we went to the clay studio and worked on some sculpting. Ellen made a neat flower and a cave for a bear that she put on their shared Winter display table. Phoebe made a bowl. While we were working in there, Jada checked to see about where the noon-time show was, and found that the line to get in was all the way back through the entire place. There was no way we were going to get in, and we didn't want to wait in line for over an hour just to get in for a 20 minute show. So we left. The girls were disappointed, but they got over it. (Thank goodness!) We thought that the whole place would be in on the party, not just a little room with a stage for multiple shows. Oh well. We still got home early enough for some rest time, and it got us out of the house for a little while.
For tonight, we'll probably just do our usual call back to Illinois at 10pm PST (midnight, central), and then go to bed. We are nothing if not exciting. Here's to a new year. Now if only I could find that Dan Fogelberg song, "Same Old Lang Syne".
Journal entry: December 31, 2006