Another Year Ends

As I always do on New Years' Eve, I spent a lot of time thinking about the year that is ending tonight. All in all, it was a good year. It had its ups and downs, but on the balance it was good, I think. The truth is while I'm trying to think about the year that is almost over, I find myself distracted by the year ahead.

You see, ever since we adopted La Nina I knew she would start school in 2007. That sounded so far off for so long, but tonight it sounds so close. Several things strike me about the coming year. It will be a big change for my daughter. A new school, new friends, new experiences. There is no doubt in my mind she is ready for school and will do well when she starts in August. Yet, I'm worried.

She has never had to do anything five days a week. Heck, I haven't done anything 5 days a week in over 4 years. Then there's home work, after school activities and the increased pressure on kids to perform. It all seems to be coming our way much too fast. She's so young.

I also worry about what the big kids will say to her on the playground when they realize our family is different. Will she be taunted over our differing appearances? La Nina's the more sensitive and the more reserved of my two--I worry about the Magster too, but I worry more about the kid she'll punch for saying the wrong thing to her--with La Nina, I worry about her feelings.

Will she tell me if something bad happens to her at school? Does she have answers ready for the inevitable questions she will have to navigate without my intervention? To my knowledge, she's never answered an adoption question independent from me, is she ready? Is this the beginning of the end of her wanting to be seen with me in public? Will she stop holding my hand soon? When does all that start? I can't remember exactly, but I know its grade school...and grade school is almost here.

So, as I sit and contemplate this changing calendar, I realize what a funny thing this parenthood gig is. Here I am ringing in a new year and marking time by my daughter's next set of challenges, not my own. Suddenly her milestones are markers in my life too. She owns these big transitions, but they end up being mine as much as they are hers.

2007 is here so much sooner than I ever expected. We'll be counting the days until late August when the school year actually begins. Then once it hits, we'll be counting the days until it ends in June. Thankfully, milestones like 2020 are still a long way off, but they will be here before I know it.

Christmas By The Numbers

It's become a tradition at Maggiemakesfour that I summarize our Christmas by the numbers. I tried to keep some of the catagories from 2004 and 2005. Here's this year's rendition:

Christmas Cards Mailed on time: 140
Christmas Gifts Mailed on time: 6
Christmas Gifts still sitting on the dining room table: 2
Hostess gifts Purchased: 4
Hostess gifts given to non-hostesses in desperation: 3
Teacher gifts still on the dining room table: 2
Days the gingerbread house survived in the house with Pete the dog: 1
Cookies consumed by Pete the dog: 2
Cookies that survived Pete the dog: 58
Emergency trips to Walgreens on Christmas Eve: 0
Presents wrapped: 45
Presents wrapped after mid-night on 12/24: 0 for me, but the Dad wrapped several.
Surprises ruined by loose lipped kids: 5
Secrets kept by same loose lipped kids: 1
Times we checked Norad Santa's update on Christmas Eve: 24
Times La Nina wanted to see the update from Egypt, on the Norad site: 8
Times La Nina begged to open presents early on Christmas Eve: 12
Times La Nina opened a present early on Christmas Eve: 0
Times La Nina refused to share with Maggie: 43
Times Maggie refused to share with La Nine: 42
Times tears resulted from non-sharing: 85 since Christmas morning
Naps skipped on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: 1
La Nina meltdowns on Christmas Eve: 0
Maggie meltdowns on Christmas Eve: 5
Times La Nina and I sang Jingle Bell Rock on Christmas Eve: 5 (Guess what was causing Maggie's meltdowns.)
Candy canes consumed before noon on Christmas day: 7
Breakfasts consumed by the kids on Christmas day: 0 (Unless you count the candy canes)
La Nina's favorite gift: Bella Dancerella Ballet Studio
Magster's favorite gift: Little Pony Crystal Palace
Times I tried to discuss gratitude with the kids over the holidays: 7
Times La Nina countered that Santa would remember the less fortunate: 7
Times her Santa theory on Christmas left me speechless: 7
Times I felt grateful over the holidays: Too many to count

Happy Holidays to Everyone! May your world be filled with joy, happiness and love always!

Pete, 2, Gingerbread Houses, 0 and the Cow Wins

The girls loved making Gingerbread houses last year and were excited that I got them each their own kit this year. We set about building the houses on Wednesday. Maggie's worked great and she did a beautiful job decorating it. La Nina's was a disaster from the get go. The thing wouldn't stand up. She and I tried. It just didn't work. By the end of the day, we decided she would have a ginger hut this year, not a house, and she was happy decorating her three walled gingerbread hut.

That night the hut had become a lean-to. By morning, the thing was totally flat. I just tossed it. She was disappointed, because she'd worked so hard making that hut the best darn ginger hut she could. Maggie agreed to share our remaining gingerbread house and all was well.

Until Thursday night. We have a 70 pound Australian Shephard named Pete. Technically, his name is Wicked Pete, after the beer, and boy does that name fit. Sometime after we went to bed on Thursday, Pete ate Maggie's gingerbread house off the counter. Gum balls, jelly beans, gum drops, all of it, gone. Thankfully, there was no chocolate on the house. All that was left was a wall and a few crumbs. Needless to say, Pete was in the dog house. I banished him to the yard for the day. I figured he would have some 'issues' to work out.

Fast forward to this morning. Every Saturday, Pete and I hike with a group of friends. We're out hiking and Pete's trying to work out his 'issues', but there's nothing happening. I'm sure the gum was 'gumming' up the old boy's pipes. A cow sprinted past us and true to his herding dog soul he took off in hot pursuit. Now I don't know if Pete was sick or just off a little, but the cow got the better of him and he returned with a cow pie on his back. Yep, a pile of dung. Now, it's 2 days before Christmas, I'm 5 miles from home and my stupid dog is wearing a 'dung' sweater. Giving my 70 pound dog a bath is not on my list of things to do. I didn't want him in my car, let alone my house. I cleaned him up the best I could at the park staging area and brought him home. When I got home, I brushed him and washed him up again, but it was marginally succesful. He stinks.

Now think about it. I may have to give this damn dog a bath tomorrow. I'm going to have to put a 70 lb. beast in my bathtub, because it's too cold to wash him out back. I don't even think I can leave him out to dry. And on top of all of it, its Christmas Eve. So, less than 12 hours before the jolly old elf himself makes an appearance at my house, I'm going to have a soaking wet 70 lbs., lawless, hound running the house. Heaven help me.

Help, I'm on the phone!

Yesterday, I had the kids all day and for one measly hour, I had to take a conference call for work. I arranged my schedule so that we could be home and the kids could be eating...a quiet activity. I hoped interruptions would be minimal, the work would be productive and then we would just go about our day. I mean, what could go wrong? Right? Here's how my hour went.

Noon- Phone rings with call in number. I put my least favorite children's show on"Max and Ruby." Now, I may hate the show, but my children love it. Should be easy money.

12:03- Call begins.

12:05- Yard guys arrive and I need to bring the dogs into the house. I lock the beasts in the bedroom. A bullet is dodged: Dogs, kids and food together are not a good combination.

12:10- Pizzas are complete, I pull them from the oven to feed the kids. I pour some milk and peel a couple of clementines all the while offering my input on the discussion as appropriate.

12:15- Lunch is served. 'Max and Ruby' is on, all is well. I retire to the far corner of the kitchen and focus on the call.

12:20- The Magster is finding her sister very funny and is full-volume laughing. I leave the kitchen and hide in the living room. I pick a spot where I can see the kids, but they can't see me.

12:25- All eating has stopped and it's now just giggle fest. A yard guy fires up a leaf blower 5 feet from where I'm sitting. At least he drowns out the giggle sound.

12:30- Milk spills, but I can't see it. I do see La Nina running through the living room, arms flailing screaming something unintelligible. I later learn she was screaming for a napkin.

12:31- Dogs charge down the hall with La Nina tailing in their wake. Pete, the dog, enters the kitchen, leaps over the little table and steals a piece of pizza from Maggie's hand mid-bite. Maggie begins screaming.

12:32- I put the call on hold to deal with the situation. My colleagues find my children vastly amusing. I do not.

12:37- After securing the dogs, cleaning up the milk and getting napkins for the kids, I return to my call. The yard guys move to the back yard.

12:45- Mad laughter from the family room. I'm in the kitchen and can't see the cause. I'm in the thick of the call and I figure at least I can hear them...it can't be all bad.

12:50- A naked Maggie runs into the kitchen, shakes her booty my direction and runs out of the kitchen. The blinds are open to the backyard. I fear she is performing for the yard guys. Heaven help me. My dilemma: scream, "For the love of God, put on your clothes" while on the call or haul her into the back of the house where she is hidden from the yard guys. I take option two, covering the phone and whispering urgently she must put her clothes on. It doesn't go well. She wails in anger over her containment. More muffled laughter on the phone.

12:55- The call is wrapping up. I've got naked Maggie trapped in the back bathroom. La Nina is crying in the kitchen because she just figured out the dogs ate her pizza too.

1pm- I apologize profusely to my very patient colleagues and I swear it is easier to just go to the office. But they answer, "It's so much more fun for us to listen to you when you're at home."

Happy Family Day, Carly!

Yao sure is tall! The girls employ a zone defense to shut Yao down.

Mom and the girls courtside at the Warriors game to see Yao Ming!

Family Day for La NIna

Today we celebrated our 4th anniversary of La Nina joining our family. I just read my posts from the last two family days with her and decided tonight, I will just tell you about my four-year-old.

When we met La Nina, she was really sick. She had a terrible case of bronchitis and my first act of parenting was to call another Mom on our trip who happened to be a doctor and ask her what the heck I was supposed to do about a baby who couldn't breathe. Despite the fact her breaths were labored and she was running a fever, La Nina was happy. I think back on that first night and I marvel at how much of her personality was revealed to us. She was physically tough, strong-willed and joyous right from the get-go.

Over the last four years, her Dad and I have had the honor of watching her grow into a beautiful little girl. Because I know lots of waiting families read these blogs, I'll tell you she's doing wonderfully in all areas of development. She's fine on speech, motor skills, emotional and social development.

Physically, she's small. A full two inches shorter than the next shortest kid in her class. She's built like J-lo. I don't know if La Nina will need to insure her 'asset' in the future, but she certainly has one! I know I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: she's freakishly flexible. She's also really strong. She can already do things with her upper body strength that I've never been able to do.

She is a kid who knows what she wants. She loves all things princess and fairies. She is very fond of shoes. She is wonderful with animals. She doesn't like to sweat. In fact, she hates it. She really doesn't like anything scary or loud. We avoid many movies with her because we know she will want to leave.

In school, she's obsessed with learning to read. She's starting to sound out words and has begun to recognize simple words like 'dog'. We don't push her, so this learning is a result of her effort. I suspect one day the world of words will just open up for her, and she'll be off and exploring the magic of books long before I've realized it happened.

Extracirricular wise, she loves dance and gymnastics, and she does very well at both. For the first time today, she was in a gymnastics 'show', and loved performing. Of course, this thrilled her coaches, and my bank account ached at the thought of her pursuing either dance or gymnastics seriously.

So there you have: La Nina in a nut shell. Everyday we feel lucky to be her parents, and we are grateful for her presence in our lives.

O Tannenbaum

For the first time in years, we have a real tree in the house. At one point, I swore I would never have a fake, but then I won an artificial tree at a raffle, and it was oh-so-easy to put it together, plug it in and start hanging ornaments. No vaccuuming needles, no worrying about the water spilling from the stand, no 'now what do we do with this thing' on New Year's Day. And the smell, just plug in some potpourri and you're ready to go.

But this year, the kids are getting bigger, and we thought we'd give the artificial tree a year off. We actually considered cutting one down for about 30 seconds, but I have this memory of a hatching in a tree we cut down when I was a kid. It was too great a leap to go from fake to infested in a single year.

So, we went out last night to pick out our tree from the corner lot before the big storm hit. The first challenge: The trees were all laying down. "Sleeping" as Maggie called it. So before we could pick out, we had to pick one up! Then, we couldn't remember the type of tree we used to get: Noble or Douglas or Grand? Oh my. So, after trooping around the Christmas tree lot, picking up trees and watching the wind blow them back down, we decided it was a Noble fir we needed. Except there was a problem: The price.

Holy Moly! I don't remember spending more than $40 for a tree ever in my life. And last night, we weren't going to get off that cheap...let me tell you. So, after sticker shock wore off and it was clear that you really couldn't tell the difference between a Noble fir and a Douglas fir, we settled on a Douglas fir. We also decided 6 feet were better than 8 feet and by golly, flocking was out of the question. We didn't spend $40, but we didn't spend in the 3 figures either.

We tied the tree to the roof of the car and headed home. It was late, so we put it in the garage for the night. This morning we brought it into the house and it was my job to string the lights. As I was standing in the living room trying to remember how to untangle ropes of lights, La Nina came into 'help'.

She stood there for a minute, took a deep breath and asked, "What smells?"

"What does it smell like?" I asked.

"Camping, only its inside. It's not the tree, is it?

"Yep. I'm pretty sure it's the tree."

Her final words as she left the living room, "Gross, Mom."

So, the gross tree is in the house, lit up, and ornamentless. Hopefully tomorrow, we'll wrap up this three day long process and let me tell ya', next year, the fake could be back!

My Big Day by Maggie

I wore Mom out yesterday, so she asked if I would dictate her this post. Here's my side of the story.

My nose was running real bad all weekend, so Mom didn't let me do much. This was very unfair, and by Sunday, I was bored. BUT I found this really fun thing to do while Mom was in the shower. I put brink pink paper on the kitchen floor, then using water and my paint brush, I painted the paper. The best part was peeling back the paper and seeing the patterns it left on the white linoleum. When Mom saw my designs on the floor she screamed and told Daddy that new floors might have just gone to the top of the "house list". I don't know what that meant but she made me help her wash away my design. It made me sad, but at least I got to go to church.

While we were gone Daddy brought in all the boxes of Christmas decorations. That made Mommy very busy. So, I opened up two binders of old Christmas cards. There were so many cards, I couldn't believe it. To get a better look, I spread them all over the living room. When Mom saw it, she started yelling again. I don't really understand why. The cards looked so beautiful on the couch, floor, table, chairs, why would she want to put them away? Grown-ups!

After that, I decided to find my sister. She came up with this cool game using the Aquadoodle. My sister, who can reach the kitchen sink with the help of a chair, got a cup from the bathroom, filled it up with water in the kitchen, then threw the cup on the Aquadoodle making a big splat! It was so fun. I went to the bathroom, got my own cup and with my sister's help, I got to throw cups of water too. But Mom heard the water running and wondered what we were up to. She came into the kitchen just in time to see me throw my second cup. Boy, and I thought I'd heard her yell before church, but it was nothing like the water yell.

She made my sister and I clean up the mess, then told Daddy if he didn't take us outside she was going to leave for a long time. I was so glad to go outside. I really wasn't that sick, my nose was just runny. I felt so good I got on my sister's scooter, but it was too big for me and I fell in the gutter. I really wanted Mommy and she gave me a hug, got me clothes, changed me and sent me back out to play...with chalk. I came in tired and ready for my nap.

After I rested I was ready for action again. But my nose was really running bad, and Mommy said I had to stay with her. It was ok, because she got out the paints. She gave me paper, too, but it was so fun to paint the table, why use the paper? Too bad, I ran out of table, because when I asked Mom for more "wood". She got a really funny look on her face. Then she came to the table and made this funny sucking noise, like she was trying to breathe but couldn't. Her mouth was open for a long time too. I said to her, "See, I need more wood." And she looked at me real funny. Then she got the 409 and paper towels and we both started scrubbing. I thought the table looked better with the color, but I guess Mom didn't agree. She muttered the whole time about washable paint. It sort of sounded like she was praying or something. Once the table was clean, she said "Thank God for Crayola washable paint." Whatever that means.

After that, Mommy poured herself a big glass of wine and said I was going to school today no matter what. I don't know why that was a big deal. I kept telling her I wasn't sick. And that's my story. I don't know why Mommy gets so grumpy, do you?

Maggie

Christmas Cards: The Ultimate Family Activity

It's so funny that in our house Christmas Cards have become the ultimate family project. For the Dad and I, it's simply another Christmas task that must be complete. But for the girls, I pay them for their efforts, so they can buy Christmas gifts for each other and their dad. Here's how we divided up the tasks this year.

Dad: He selects the picture, uploads it to Costco, then orders the cards.
La Nina: She sticks on the return address labels and stamps.
Magster: She stuffs the envelops. (If your card from us is crumpled, you'll know why.)
Me: I'm the address guru. I keep a spreadsheet, print the labels, approve all the kids work and drop the cards in the mail.

In a little over an hour, the girls and I suffed, stickered and stamped 100 envelops. La Nina was the mistress of the process too. She would correct her sister's stuffing technique and kept demanding more supplies from me. But she was also efficient and detail oriented. It was endearing to see her work so hard to line up the stamp just right, then whoop when she got it right. Today, while we were working on our family project, I found myself for the first time truly working beside my daughters. Yet another first and one of many more to come, I hope.