I seem to be all about feast or famine with the blogging frequency. Or flood and drought. November was a deluge. December slowed to a trickle. And then things looked to be drying up entirely. Well¹, I’m here to briefly rehydrate the blog. I’ll just give a spritz or two for now, and hopefully I’ll be able to open the valves shortly. Things will be downright soggy. Or at least somewhat damp.
For now, though, my time is being eaten up (drunk up?) by work. I have committed to getting a lot of data coded by Monday, and I’m so focused on that, I can’t even think of another water-related joke to round out the post.
Both kids chose to wear their Santa-esque finery today, making this the third year wearing these outfits. (Did you ever see my Jingle Bells movie of the kiddos from 2 years ago? We know how to do festive at our house.)
Clearly, I have a thing for the Santa-style garments. I always loved wearing a Santa hat on Christmas morning, if one was available. (With all our moves, we didn’t always have the same things each Christmas.) I remember really wanting to get myself a red velvet dress with white furry trim, but that has yet to happen. Instead, I live vicariously through my children.
Christmas Day, 2011: Theo, age 3 years 4 months and Phoebe, age 5 years 10 months.
Christmas Day, 2010: Theo, age 2 years 4 months, and Phoebe, 4 years 10 months
Christmas Day, 2009: Phoebe, 3 years 10 months and Theo, 1 year 4 months.
Christmas Day, 2008: Phoebe, age 2 years, 10 months.
Christmas Day, 2008: Theo, age 4 months.
Christmas Eve, 2008: Phoebe, age 2 years, 10 months.
Christmas Eve Eve Eve or so, 2007: Phoebe, age 1 year, 10 months.
Christmas Day, 2006: Phoebe, age 10 months. No Santa hat, but a festive bow.
It seems highly unlikely that the current outfits will fit another year. Who knows what the kids will want to wear next Christmas. (A few weeks ago, Theo proclaimed that he wanted to be Einstein for Christmas this year, but we didn’t come through with the costume for him. He’d be pretty cute in a wild wig and bushy white mustache, though…)
Guitars reflected in a silver ball at the music store.
A few nights ago, John had a company party to go to, so the kids and I started in on the evening routine without him. Inspired by having sampled some delicious latkes at Phoebe’s class holiday party on Monday (which included both Christmas and Hanukkah treats and activities), and having just bought a big bag of potatoes, I decided I would try my hand at making latkes. (Wow, that was a really long sentence.) Anyhow, I made latkes, in honor of Hanukkah. I consulted the great oracle of Google, and got down to business peeling and grating. I have to say, I made some pretty tasty latkes.
The whole process also took probably longer than I’d intended, and it was after 6 by the time the kids and I sat down to eat our meal of latkes, fried eggs, latkes, steamed broccoli, and more latkes. (Phoebe declared the meal so delicious that she high-fived me.) I may have eaten far, far too many latkes. (From what I understand, that is also a Hanukkah tradition.)
After dinner, it was time for Phoebe and I to practice the violin. John usually takes Theo upstairs to start his shower while Phoebe and I practice downstairs. Since John wasn’t home yet, I thought Theo could keep us company in the parlor, which is where we always practice. (Really, some people my call it the living room. But when we moved into this house, we declared the “family room” to be our “living room,” and the official “living room” became the parlor. I like the word parlor. I mean, who would remember something like “‘step into my living room,’ said the spider to the fly.” Not that this is how the actual quote from the poem went. It’s just what people remember. I mean, with “parlor,” in place of “living room.” I suppose “den” might have also worked, for the spider, at least. But not for our house. We have a parlor.) The parlor is also where we have our Christmas tree. (I mention this, because this will be relevant shortly.) (Notice my subtle attempt at foreshadowing.)
When Phoebe and I practice her violin exercises together, we both sit on the floor. However, I had just bought myself a book of Christmas songs for the violin, and since Phoebe putters around a lot as she sets up her violin, I sat in a chair so I could set the book in my music stand, and played a bit. Theo was hanging an ornament he had made at daycare on the tree. Phoebe sat on the floor, opened up her violin case, and then suddenly wandered off to look at her gingerbread house. At that moment, Theo stepped back to look at his ornament on tree…and stepped directly onto Phoebe’s violin.
I’m not sure what noise escaped from me as I looked up and saw his foot land on the neck of Phoebe’s little quarter-sized violin (I think it was some sort of squeak), but I remember the exceedingly alarmed look on Theo’s face. I jumped up, and hurriedly set down my own violin. The trouble is, you can’t really hurriedly set down a violin. I basically dropped it. It made a loud crack and thwong noise as a couple of the pegs hit the coffee table and came unwound. I may have made additional noises.
Both children wailed.
In the end, I was able to assess that both violins were pretty much okay, if seriously out of tune. Happily, Theo managed to step on one of the less fragile parts of the instrument, and his weight was probably somewhat taken by the case, since the violin was still in it. He still felt awful. And so did Phoebe, for having left her violin open and on the floor. And so did I, for not having been paying enough attention to the actions of my small children around rather fragile instruments. And for having dropped my violin. Phoebe, though, was much comforted by the fact that we had, all three, made mistakes, which she enumerated repeatedly.
Did I mention I made latkes? They were delicious.
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In case you didn’t manage to check out of all Neil’s fantastic Christmahanukwanzaakah Concert, which had musical contributions from a variety of different holiday cultural traditions, I wanted to share with you this trio of lovely ukelele productions. These talented women inspired me so much that I looked longingly at the ukeleles at the music store when I went to my violin lesson. (Not that I expect that ukeleles are much sturdier than violins.)
Then there’s Elly of Buggin’ Word, Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree. (Please check out the adorable “shuke” (shirt uke) her son is wearing)
And lest the southern hemisphere feel left out, here’s Juli Ryan with her charming rendition of a New Zealand folk song: “Haere Mai Everything is Ka Pai”
It’s time for The Sixth Annual Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert, and I managed to get my act together this year. (As promised.) I wrote lyrics. I sang. A duet. I even made a short movie. If you want to hear me singing, and want to see more proof of my insanity, go check out the concert at Neil’s place. (I’m all the way at the bottom, probably because of the lateness of my submission. I said I got my act together, not that I did so in a timely way…) Make sure you check out some of the other fantastic submissions of songs and photos, too. It’s a whole load of multi-holiday festiveness.
This cold really blows
(Yeah baby it’s cold inside) I can’t feel my toes
(Yeah baby it’s cold inside) This whole house has been
(Been keeping the fuel use down) As cold as snow
(I know the temp’s been kept real low) My fingers will start to fall off
(Well why did take your gloves off?) My thumbs will surely drop on the floor
(I’ll try to stop the draft from the door) I’m going for the thermostat now
(No, baby just put on your hat now) But maybe just a half degree more
(Are those all the layers you wore?) My earlobes will freeze
(Look at this scarf I wear) My limbs will all seize
(Try some long underwear) I wish I knew how
(You look like a snowman now) To warm my feet
(Put on more socks, don’t touch the heat) I’m sure that I’ll freeze my ass off
(We’re lucky it’s not the gas off) This cold is going to break my will
(At least we’ll have a lower fuel bill) This cold really blows
(oh baby don’t give in) Baby it’s cold inside Baby it’s cold inside Baby it’s cold inside
¹ “All-new” is not entirely accurate. I wrote this last December, but not in time for Neil’s concert. Last winter, as you may or may not know, was a particularly long, cold and icy one in New England. Seeing as I’ve been working at reducing my personal fossil fuel dependency, I have lobbied for setting the thermostat lower in the winter in our house. While our house isn’t really old, it isn’t super new either. What it is is super drafty. The result is that it can get downright chilly at times. I have many memories of the cool indoors from growing up; wearing layers of sweaters and warm socks is a winter tradition. I bundled up quite a lot last winter. But there aren’t enough socks and sweaters in the world to make me tolerate the wintertime temperatures in our downstairs bathroom:
Has the holly jolly omnipresence of Christmas music been threatening your sanity? Before you let Rudolf drive your sleigh over the edge, just adjust your dials. I’ve put together a playlist of holiday song antidotes to help get the relentless ring of jingle bells out of your ears. ¹
All I want for Christmas Is You: What do I get? The Buzzcocks
The Happy Elf: Working for the Man, P. J. Harvey
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town: Man That You Fear, Marilyn Manson
Here Comes Santa Claus: Psycho Killer, Talking Heads
Frosty The Snowman: Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta, Geto Boys
The Little Drummer Boy: Don’t Bang the Drum, The Waterboys
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus: Lapdance, N*E*R*D (No one Ever Really Dies)
White Christmas: Black Celebration, Depeche Mode
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!Only Happy When It Rains, Garbage
A Child This Day Is Born: Birth, School, Work, Death, The Godfathers
Holly Jolly Christmas: Helter Skelter, The Beatles
Oh Holy Night : Head Like a Hole, Nine Inch Nails
Sleigh Ride: Garbage Truck, Sex Bob-omb
Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire: Burning Down the House, Talking Heads
Do You Hear What I Hear?Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth: Bloodletting, Concrete Blonde
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree: The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails
Christmas Shoes:These Boots Were Made For Walkin’, Nancy Sinatra
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas: Atrocity Exhibition, Joy Division
Home For The Holidays: Institutionalized, Suicidal Tendencies
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, The Smiths
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer: Don’t Push Me, 50 Cent
The Chipmunk Song: That’s When I Reach for My Revolver, Moby
How about you? Any songs in particular spurring you to spike your eggnog or jam candy canes into your ears? And what songs might you use to counteract?
¹ I did a bit of Christmas shopping yesterday, mostly looking for things like pajamas for the kids. I can’t even count how many times I heard Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You.” All I wanted for Christmas shopping was a break from the treacly music. It was such a relief to get back to my car and put on my iPod. When Joy Division came up on shuffle, I knew I’d found an antidote to the ravages of holiday cheer.²
² For the record, I don’t actually hate holiday music. Some of it I actually like. I just can hear too much of it, especially when the songs are so saccharine that they make me throw up a little.³
A few days ago, Phoebe lost her second tooth. That very night, the Tooth Fairy came and collected Phoebe’s tooth from under her pillow, leaving Phoebe a dollar, and a case of pneumonia.
It took us a while to catch on to the second gift, as it was more subtle, and not left in the little pouch under Phoebe’s pillow.
She’d had the weird spike of a fever on Tuesday, but by Wednesday she was fever free, and Thursday she was back at school. She’s had a nagging cough, though, which has beenn making it hard for her to sleep. And it’s been going on for a couple of weeks. By Friday night, John convinced me that we should consult the doctor’s office. I called and got us an appointment yesterday morning, but I admit that I was mostly expecting to be told that Phoebe had a cough. The doctor was able to confirm that Phoebe had a cough, but also heard a crackle in Phoebe’s right lung. So, Phoebe gets to be back on antibiotics.
You may be wondering why I blame the Tooth Fairy. All I can say is that around the time Phoebe lost her first tooth, she caught strep. Coincidence? I think not.
Oh, fine. I admit that I may possibly be scapegoating the Tooth Fairy. The real culprit may well be Phoebe herself:
Phoebe, wiggling her first loose tooth.
Phoebe just can’t seem to resist the urge to feel her wiggly teeth. And then the gap once a tooth falls out. And then the new tooth starting to poke up through the gums. The fingers keep ending up in the mouth.
What worries me is that we have a whole lot of baby teeth left to go. And there are a whole lot of diseases out there that Phoebe has yet to experience.
So what will it be next, Tooth Fairy? Small pox? Anthrax? Tuberculosis? If this keeps up, we may have to figure some sort of anti-fairy security system.
(By they way, Phoebe seems totally fine, other than the cough and that one day with fever, and a bit of tiredness.)
Not the most productive day, but Phoebe and I spent some time drawing together, which I enjoyed. She had picked out a set of oil pastels for my birthday present, and I had yet to try them out. They turned out to work out quite well for the sort of doodley shapes I like to draw. (My previousdoodles, which live here on my blog, were done in crayon.) This doodle is not yet done, but I don’t when I’m likely to finish it.
In somewhat related news, I’m amused (proud?) to see that my doodles are coming up in the world. When I google “doodle” (as opposed to “google doodle,” or opposed to doodling google), 2 of my posts come up on the first page. And one of my doodles is in the first 10 images on google images.
I must admit, though, that my use of the word doodle may not fully mesh with the standard doodle definition (and definitely not with the standard poodle definition). Cf. what can be seen on Wikipedia: “an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied.” (This, by the way, is the definition for doodle, not poodle. Just so we’re clear.) I supposed that in each of my alleged acts of doodling, my attention has somewhat been otherwise occupied by parenting, but I have very intentionally set out to draw. Does that make it a doodle in your book? No, no, I’m not saying I’m doodling in your book. I don’t even doodle in my books. But I did used to doodle in my notebooks. I was an avid doodler in many of my classes. My recent so-called doodles have their roots in the margins of many class notes, scribbled along with the occasional haiku. I suppose the reason that I tend to call them doodles, as opposed to drawings, is that I don’t generally have a plan. I start off with a blob of some sort, and keep going. I’m pretty much doing what I used to do when doodling in the margins of my notebooks, except that I have more space. And more colors to work with. (Because, let’s face it, it wouldn’t have been too subtle to sit in class with a big tray of crayons during a lecture on semantics.)
My tissue paper flames from my Halloween 2009 costume.
At 11:29 last night, I submitted an abstract to a conference (with a cut-off time of 11:59 p.m.). Last Wednesday, I submitted a paper to another conference. For the last few months, I have been working full-speed on a project relating to my own research, and have been making real progress. Last night I went to bed feeling triumphant and giddy, having succeeded in getting both of those submissions together.
This morning I woke up tired.
There is a long list of things that I’d been largely putting off the last few weeks, and things (laundry, grocery shopping, battling the chaos) that I had somewhat let slide. Today I hoped to make a dent in that list, and get organized for the next push with my group’s research, with another conference deadline a few weeks away in mind. Given the tiredness, it might not surprise you to learn that I got very little done in the morning.
One small errand I had to run was dropping off some art supplies for Phoebe’s classroom that I had signed up to donate. This afternoon, after putting air in a mostly flat tire that I tried not to notice yesterday, I headed out with my bag of glitter and multi-colored tissue paper with plans to continue on my way to take care of some other things.
At Phoebe’s school, I sort of expected that they would collect the things at the front office, and get them to the classroom. But the woman at the desk called Phoebe’s classroom, and the teacher said I could bring the things by. It’s fun to see what the kids are up to, and since I had a bit of time, I didn’t object. When I went in the classroom, the teacher and aide welcomed me and collected the things I’d brought. Phoebe’s teacher called Phoebe over to say hi to me. Phoebe smiled at first, and then looked stricken as she came over. “I think I have a fever,” she said to me when she got up close. Half thinking that she was just angling to go home early with me, I felt her head. It did feel kind of hot, but I’d just been outside, and my hands were a bit cool. The teachers said she hadn’t complained of anything all day. I decided to take Phoebe to the school nurse’s office just to make sure.
103.3 degrees.
We went back to the classroom to collect Phoebe’s things and let the teachers know I’d be taking her home. Not what I expected from my glitter drop-off!
I have to say, I’m just amazed at how considerate Phoebe is with her timing. If this had happened yesterday, I likely would have missed the abstract deadline. Likewise, if this had been any time in the last week. Really, I feel like she’s given me an unexpected gift. Quite honestly, I’m looking forward to having a quiet day with her tomorrow.
This is a gift that Phoebe intentionally made over Thanksgiving weekend.
The town next to ours, which is where Phoebe takes her karate classes, has a parade each year a few weeks before Christmas to mark the lighting of the trees on the town green. The parade includes marching bands and groups from local businesses and organizations. I wouldn’t describe most of what is in the parade as being “floats,” but there are a number of trucks pulling decorated trailers. In fact, Phoebe’s karate school participates each year, and invites all students to come in their uniforms and ride a trailer in the parade. This was the second year that Phoebe got to be in the parade. (This is her third year in karate, but that first winter, when she was not yet 4, our timing didn’t work out to meet up with the group. Plus it was a miserably cold, wet, sleety night.)
While John and Phoebe went early to meet up with the karate school to ride the trailer, Theo and I went a bit later to watch the parade. Last year, I tried so hard to get a picture of Phoebe in the parade, and failed miserably. This year, I decided I’d just try to wave to her. It was a much happier experience.
It was a chilly evening (they wait until it starts getting dark to start the parade, as it ends with the tree-lighting), but Theo and I enjoyed ourselves. We stopped in at a bank to hear a barbershop quartet (lots of the downtown business host events), and then wandered up and down the sidewalks to keep warm until the parade started. The highlight for Theo was almost certainly seeing the firetrucks. In fact, he may have had the impression that the event was primarily a firetruck parade. Firetrucks not just from the town, but from many neighboring towns, participated. All were decked out in some sort of holiday decorations (I think there may be a contest), and all had lights and sirens blaring. It was quite loud. Theo was enthralled.
I’m sure that at some point in my life, I might have mocked this sort of event, but I admit I find it a charming holiday tradition. It was all so very earnest. And while pretty much all of the participation by local businesses was no doubt done for PR and advertising reasons, the event didn’t feel very commercial. It wasn’t about stuff. It was about community, and festiveness. And really, really loud sirens.
Marching band.
A specimen of the decorated vehicles on parade.
A few firetrucks in the long, long line.
The last firetruck brought Santa. It’s his job to turn on the trees.
collecting tokens 