Week 31: Merry X-Mas

Ways to tell you live with a five year old:

1. The noise level is a constant 10 decibels (really, I don’t know how to measure sound, but it’s loud, very very loud)


2. There is a layer of cracker crumbs on the carpet at all times


3. On top of the layer of cracker crumbs is small pieces of paper cut into tiny bits


4. You hear the phrase “I’m bored” ten times a day


5. You know exactly what the other five year olds in the neighborhood want for Christmas (since, of course that’s what your five-year-old happens to want)


6. X-rated Christmas cookies

What? That last one seems a little odd? I started the weekend on Friday, making gingerbread for Christmas cookie decorating with some neighbor kids, and since I was expecting them to take a lot home, I doubled the recipe. An entire bottle of molasses and overnight refrigeration later, I had a bowl full of goop that more closely resembled something found in Will’s diaper than cookie batter. Let alone cookie batter you can roll out and cut shapes from. So, I start adding flour, and more flour, and finally it gets to a consistency that you could feasibly cut shapes out of, so we begin rolling out the dough. Saturday morning was almost entirely spent rotating cookie sheets out of the oven, and the result was my turkey platter piled with several dozens of cookies.

No big deal right? Well, the company we were planning on having, couldn’t stay long and ended up only taking two cookies home. So, the rest of the weekend was spent decorating cookies on and off, with Emily getting, a little creative. She comes upstairs eating a gingerbread bear, with a few untraditional parts frosted on. She then narrates exactly what she’s eating.

I’ve said before that I want her to have a healthy view of the human body, but is this normal? I don’t know.

Anyway, needless to say you all are getting Christmas cookies as gifts, and if you get a “special” one, well, I guess you win. I promise, though, regardless of what’s on them, they are quite tasty.

And speaking of tasty, Will seems to have aquired a taste for people food. He will still devour a jar of baby food, but he really prefers things like baby toast, bananas, cheese, and homemade sweet potatoes. It could be because he’s seven moths old now! I can’t believe how huge he is. He’s really crawling up on his hands and knees, and he can sit on his knees, balancing for a few moments before toppling over.
Will is even making steps toward real communication. He will play a little game with you if you blow a raspberry, he will imitate it back at you, and on and on. He was even able to keep it up with Emily and me as we all took turns. He’s so curious and is so much fun, I can’t wait to see what he has to say about the world.

Week 30: Christmas Wishes

Emily sat in Santa’s lap for the first time since she was about Will’s age last weekend. Actually, Will did too, and I’ll be curious to see how the picture turns out with Emily’s deer-caught-in-headlights look and Will staring at Santa in disbelief. It’s better than the alternative, I’m sure, both kids crying.

There is something very un-special about Santa in the mall though. Seems so pedestrian, like Santa has nothing better to do this time of year than sit around the mall in Moscow. I guess I feel that way because I probably stopped believing in Santa when a Mall Santa asked me if I wanted a Vanilla Ice tape for Christmas.

Emily wants, “not an alive dog, a white dog with pink stripes that barks”. Hurray for commercials. Last year she wanted a CD player, which was great, she still uses it almost every day. But some cheap, cheesy toy dog? Elf sweatshop comes to mind…

But I’m sure I asked for, and received, many bad gifts in my day. I vaguely remember one year I got the She-Ra Castle, the pinnacle of eighties awesomeness. My poor parents.

But I don’t know what William wants from Santa. A big plastic spoon and a tangerine? Those seem to be his favorite toys at the moment. If he really could say, he’s probably want a magazine so he could rip it apart and shove small pieces of paper in his mouth as fast as possible, or some kind of electrical wiring. He’s totally compulsive about wanting things he absolutely cannot have. I’ve mentioned it before, but this kid, let him loose on the floor in our bedroom and he’s at Ian’s feet trying to get at the printer. And it’s not like he’s lacking in the toy department, he just finds them totally boring.

Yesterday I got out our “play yard” (which in my opinion is erring on the side of too politically correct, let’s call it what it is, a cage for babies), so Will could be contained for a few minutes while I got some things done. I tend to be of the belief that good baby proofing can replace the need for baby containment devices, but with our impending move and Christmas, it’s just good for my peace of mind. Will seemed to like the play yard for about five minutes, when he thought it was a pretty cool baby fort. However, he quickly realized that it severely inhibited his mobility (aha! It’s intended purpose!) and decided he wanted out. Life’s cruel joke for him at the moment is that he learned to pull up this weekend, but is still a bit too short to actually reach a lot of things he could safely pull up on.

Will has such big goals for such a little person, and I can see it frustrates him that he can’t do everything he wants. Foreshadowing to some epic toddler showdowns? Perhaps. I remember when Emily was small, thinking that as soon as she was mobile she would be happier, then as soon as she could talk. It’s true, in a way. But it’s true in the same way that you don’t magically wake up in the second trimester of pregnancy feeling great again.

Looking back, I’d say the theme of this journal has been that I can’t believe how fast these kids grow up, but for Will I’d say it’s probably not fast enough. When Will was two weeks old, Sara and Cameron visited us with their baby, Evan, who was about the same age Will is right now. Evan seemed like such a big chunk of baby then, and I can’t believe that Will is that size now. He’s so determined and opinionated, I think if he could really have his way, he’d ask for a map for Christmas, so he could start charting his future explorations and conquests.

Week 29: Grown Up Teeth

Emily is now officially a big kid. She lost her first tooth this week, after discovering it was loose over the Thanksgiving holiday. It is, however, also an illustration of the inner conflict going on in these little kindergartners. Emily proudly shows anyone, even strangers, her loose toooth, and the now empty space with a suprisingly large grown up tooth already sprouting up. It was such a huge milestone for her! But at the same time, she comes down the stairs yesterday with her eyes filled with tears, on the verge of a major breakdown, about how she misses her tooth. Turns out she's having a little seller's remorse after exchanging the tooth for a really cool fifty cent piece. She even put her fifty cent piece under her pillow last night in the hopes that the Tooth Fairy would return the tooth.

But she seems to have forgotten about the tooth for the moment, which is good. The last thing I want is her dragging around a rejected body part (of course, also, since it's Emily, losing said body part since it is about the size of, well something very very small).

Milestones galore around here, Will is a real crawler now, up on his hands and knees. For some reason he did do this milestone in reverse order from sitting, and he now goes from crawling into a sitting positoin, but never for too long. He is also not satisfied with these achievements, obviously, since he has now set his sights on climbing. It seems weird to see such a small person doing all these things, but he has a big heart, which probably makes up for his size.

While part of me wishes so much that he would just stay small, I know too well how quickly they go from fitting snugly and perfectly in your arms to a leggy monkey that is more than half your height. But the older Will gets, the more I can appreciate his wonderful, sweet personality. I especially enjoy his sense of humor, and how new and exciting everything is for these new people. Watching Emily sled outside with Will in the sling, he flapped his arms and chuckled at the snow, Emily flying down the hill on her sled, and all of it.

These kids, how they throw themselves at life, it's amazing. They give every day their all, without dwelling on the past or future. I only wish I can learn from them and remember these moments instead of the stress of this transitional time in our lives. Just yesterday at the bus stop, one of the kindergarteners getting off the bus said she couldn't wait to be a grown up. My first thought was, enjoy being a kid, being a grown up sucks, believe me. But I guess that isn't true. As a grown up, I get to see Emily, filled with wonder that an actual fairy came into her room while she was sleeping. I just have to remember to be more like a kid and appreciate the small pleasures of life. The weight of Will's tiny self in my arms, even as I type this, Emily's rosy cheeks when she comes in from outside, these memories from the harder years with small children are what I'll think of long after Will is tossing his own kids up in the air, and Emily becomes the genuine and caring woman I know she will be. Someday, I know I'll give anything to be here, right at this moment.

Week 28: Thanks Again

I know, I know, a week behind, so apologies all around to my fans. Do expect another post very shortly to catch up!

Will caught his first cold while we were on the "good" side of the state visiting family over the holiday. So all of last week was spent taking care of poor Will, who really didn't understand why he felt like hell all of a sudden. He woke up by the hour, screaming because he couldn't breathe, and ran a fever of 101.4, which is high enough to panic a parent, but is also called "low grade" by the doctor. It's just so hard to watch our little guy suffer, knowing he doesn't understand, with very little we can do to help.

He's feeling better now, thanks to a few good nights of sleep this weekend. Back to our cheerful, happy little explorer.

And since Will is really starting to get mobile, what would be a better time than now to bring out Christmas decorations! After a few years of Emily being somewhat trustworthy not to tear down the tree, many of our decorations are made out of glass. And hung up by little metal hooks, which magically find their way onto the floor, inches away from wher Will is cramming anytihing within reach into his mouth. But I can't help it, I love Christmas decorations, especially Christmas trees, which we have three of. Well, three two foot tall plastic trees, which I guss adds up to one six foot tree, which is what I really want. But Will loves looking at all the lights, and I love how cozy it makes the house feel.

And it's even looking quite a lot like Christmas outside. We got several inches of snow last week, more than we've seen in a few years. Emily's been out sledding as much as she can, or simply just lying in the snow, she loves it.

Though being trapped in the house does seem to compound the isolation we already feel in Pullman. On one hand it's so cozy and nice to all be here together, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate, on the other, I go days without face to face contact with someone other than my immediate family. It's a darn good think I like Ian so much, or I might go crazy.

But since it's that time of year, I'm thankful for so many things. Friends and family, we'll be soon seeing much more of. I'm thankful for the snow, reminding to enjoy it, since it will be our last winter over here. I'm thankful for these delightful, quirky, healthy children, that I am lucky enought to be related to. I'm thankful, also, for Ian, who I probably don't mention enough in this journal. He goes to work every day, enabling me to spend this precious short time with Will, he's my biggest supporter, offering encouragement when I've been having trouble keeping myself motivated to for law school applications, he is a wonderful father, friend, and the most genuine person I know, and for that I'm thankful, I couldn't ask for a better companion on our little island out here on the Palouse.