We say "Weeeeee!" for Wii

Being late adopters, it takes us a while to jump on the bandwagon. But for Christmas, I buckled and got a Wii for the family.

First, I barely knew what I was buying and if it wasn't for my tech savvy 11 year old I would have given up with annoyance.

But the contraption has arrived and has become a much bigger presence in our house than the little box implied.

Secondly, who likes the Wii? Oh, I tried it out, did some bowling, even through my back out a bit from being to vigorous (the first Wii injury in the house?) but the blush is off now and I couldn't care less.

Shea is the undisputed Wii king with Molly popping in every once in a when her Facebook chat is not as stimulating as usual. Although, it seems to devolve into argument which was definitely NOT the idea.

But Jake is the surprise. I was hoping he would like the tennis or baseball but WOW! does he like tennis and baseball! Nightly Jake and Shea battle it out on the courts. Shea has always been amazingly athletic with good reflexes and excellent hand/eye coordination but I didn't really think it would roll over to the Wii. I mean it is just a blasted computer game right?

I guess not.

Jake says it is really fun to play with Shea because he is so good. In fact too good to bowl against as he bowls a consistent 200. Is that even possible?

So, out of a box and magically plugged into the TV, my boys connect nightly with wicked overhead slams and amazing cross court volleys.

Psychologically, I think it helps Jake's winter blehs. And, I know it is some excellent bonding glue for Shea who admittedly is a bit of a mommy's boy.

While Shea and Jake tear up the courts from the comfort of our TV room, Molly sends me abbreviated comments on Facebook chat.

"Hi!" and "How r u?" she types from the other room. I always drop what I am doing and answer back although I can't get the hang of the jargon.

In a fit of worry, I asked her, "Will you always be honest with me if I ask who you are chatting with?" She hedges as graphic fears reach up my gullet, coupled with visions of the creepiest creepster somehow getting access to my beautiful daughter.

Annoyed, she changes the subject, thinking that I am being nosy about what boy she likes or what so and so said in the hall and then "OMG! She said what?". It prompts yet another talk about creeps and keeping yourself safe and not chatting with people you don't know. She nods, grave, a bit scared at my seriousness.

And, when she is at school sometimes, I check to see what she has been up to.

I am a spy...for love.

Wicked impatience: a holiday tradition?

Do you still get excited for Christmas morning? The tearing into the vast pile of gifts? After all these years, do you still get impatient for it to begin? Count down the days? Bristle with anticipation? Is the advent calendar just a tease?

Me? Not really. I am such an old crunchy grown up now that the season seems to just speed by. Today Thanksgiving, tomorrow Christmas. There is still, of course, that magical feeling in the air. Something kinder, more generous seems to hit humanity in the forehead.

I like that.

The tension in our house is palpable. Impatience at 11 is a very real thing. I can remember the flutter of anticipation that would sit in my stomach when I had to wait the allotted days. It is not hidden. It is not gentle or kind. It is out there for all to see on my middle schooler's cuff and she is working it for all its worth.

For about 2 weeks now, she has been nagging, cajoling, begging to open up her presents early.

I just shake my head with annoyance. She must think I rule the heavens, earth and the calendar but, I am sorry to say, my influence does not go that far.

"No! You have to wait until Christmas morning just like every one else!" I finally bellow after being needled for what seems like hours. Chagrined, she slinks away to regroup but just circles round to try again.

Sigh. No wonder I am exhausted.

I thought that Shea was somewhat impervious to this emotional roller coaster but when Molly proclaimed her impatience aloud just the other day, Shea piped up promptly and said, "Me too!"

Sitting back and watching their gyrations is touching although I remember it being tough when I was a kid. But, how long will it last? How long will they be enchanted by the stories, the tree, the gifts, the traditional shows we watch every year, our combined tradition?

When will it happen that they are more concerned with activities outside our tight little family unit? Answer: incrementally.

For that, I am not impatient.

I feel thankful, yet again, for all that I have. The health and happiness of those I hold dear. And, as the years pass, as the kids grow older; grow up and away, I will look back fondly to these unnerving assaults on the tradition. The wheedling, the begging, the aching ampatience; all tidings that my kids are still kids.

For, a while yet.

May your holiday be warm and wonderful and shared with friends and family.

Best wishes to you all!

On being thankful...

I get more and more thoughtful about Thanksgiving each year. It really is my favorite holiday. I guess as we age we begin to realize just how lucky we are.

Again, this year, I am thankful for family the most.

Jake who can build anything and who together we have built this beautiful life.

Molly who is the brightest, sweetest, bubbliest, funniest daughter a mom could ever hope for.

Shea who has taught me so much about patience and kindness and hope and acceptance.

Thanks goes to my generous parents who are an active part in their grandkids lives and are always up for an overnighter.

I am thankful for my brother and his beautiful, warm and gracious new family.

A give particular thanks for my dear friends on this sparkly rock in the middle of the sound. My live is rich with talk and ideas and laughter and love.

And, I am thankful for this sparkly rock itself! Somehow we managed to find the best place in the world for us.

I am thankful for my readers and the friends I have made through my blogs. I am thankful that I have found such a healthy, creative way to share some of life's quandaries. And, for all you great folks who actually read it. Bless your hearts!

Finally, this year I am thankful for our new pussy cat, Lulu, who has melted the crunchy exterior of our hearts and leaves only the ooy-gooy center with her crazy antics, purring snuggles and obliviousness about how hard to bite or whether that tea cup with tip or not.

I guess I am a pretty simple person. It doesn't seem like all that much now that I write it all out but I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Hope your holiday is warm and wonderful with friends and family.

I'm really happy!

Shea said today while playing on his favorite thing in the whole wide yard; the rope ladder. He has gotten quite adept at it and now tries to climb with only one hand.

I'm really (yilly) happy too, baby!

Take a look at those dirty summer time feet!

This is about all that is going on for for our Memorial Day weekend.

Bliss!

Cousins

Some of my fondest memories from childhood are of extended family gatherings with all the cousins in Billings Mt, no less. Several summers we would all car trip to my maternal grandparents house with the kids in tow. The time was spent in delicious unstructured, loose supervision and all us kids just had a blast. We were about the same age, with in a year or two of each other: 4 girls and 2 boys. The aliances shifted quickly, tears and laughter bubbled forth; it was the salad days. Touch football, public swimming pool, brand new cowboy boots. These were days before the VCR and no time was spent vegging on the tube. Cousin time was too precious to waste.

I think of this now as our next generations of cousins swing in to the visit with a vengence. My beloved cousin A and husband M arrived last night and our last few days on paradise with be spent in lock step with them. A lovely family, two kids a little younger than Molly and a bit older than Shea. Perfect.

We talk about making this Hawaii trip an every year thing and so far we are living through the 2nd annual. We hope for many more years to come but try to appreciate it while we got it. Who knows how long we can keep it up. Life has a way of getting in the way of the best laid plans.

But, for now, it is golden; with fun, surf, lots of pictures and many memories in the making.

UPDATED: to add pictures of this next generation of cuzzies!

2009?

Happy New Year! 2009? Really? It's hard to believe. It sounds like science fiction to me yet here we are.

Thanks and accolades go to David & Sally and their spontaneous New Year's Eve party. Desert pot-luck with Champagne; what a brilliant idea. Jake stayed home with Shea and had an early night. Molly and I went to the shin-dig. Blurry eyed, after the fireworks, we headed home in the freezing rain well after mid-night.

New Year's Day was spent with family at my mom's house. We were all snowed in during our usual meeting day, Christmas eve, so we made up for it in style. The food was fabulous, the gathering was festive and once again I am reminded how much I love my family.

My best memory of the day has to be the serious bonding that is naturally occurring between Shea and his three year old cousin Travis. He talks laps around Shea and has the high energy precociousness that is hard to ignore. A real friendship is emerging. Shea showed Travis the fine art of car racing and Travis shared his Batman obsession. Watching it all, I got misty about those two boys growing up in proximity. They will know each other their whole lives.

Happy Birthday David!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to my favorite baby brother in the world!

Happy birthday to you! And, many more!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

No...tickling...me!

I'm trying as hard as I can to stay out of it. The noise and stomping ebbs and flows, only coming to a peak when someone gets hurt or a line has been crossed. Molly and Shea wrestle, tickle, bug, hassle, badger, provoke, annoy each other unmercifully. All the time. I suppose this is a sibling's job and I try to stay out of it for as long as my frazzled nerves will allow me to. Periodically I holler, "Hey, what's going on?" Silence. And, the cycle repeats itself.

When I hear Shea speaking full sentences (granted short ones) while sticking up for himself, I know that this is as it should be. Molly is Shea's most ardent and beloved teacher and playmate. She can get him to try things that I can only chalk up to hero worship.

I wonder if they will always be friends? Or at least playmates? I remember vividly my brother and I fighting unrelentingly. I remember saying and doing awful, just awful things. I still feel guilty about some of it. But, now I can say that my brother David is one of my favorite people on the earth. I would literally do anything for him. He cracks me up like no one else can and I just adore his positive attitude and generous spirit. I sure hope Molly and Shea will be able to have that unique connection some day.

Molly is 5 1/2 years older than Shea. My brother David and I were 13 months apart. A very, very different dynamic admittedly.

Molly, now 10, is heading into big girl time. The evidence is everywhere. She spent the day searching and downloading pop songs to load onto her i-pod. I don't know any of these tunes but she does, somehow. We spent yesterday watching Mamma Mia, the fabulous musical featuring dozens of Abba tunes that I somehow remember the words to and the perennially sexy Merle Streep. Molly snickered and swooned a little at the romantic bits and has been singing the songs ever since.

I feel adolescence barreling down on me like a steam roller. I know we will somehow get through it but I wonder what it will be like for Shea. Will Molly have any time for Shea anymore? Will her "special" little brother have any room in her day, life, thoughts? It's not her job, I know. But, I sure do appreciate her involvement and it sure would be a different family without her.

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!

After days of threats and innuendo from the weather folks, the flakes started about 7:30. By 8:30 it was impossible to ignore. Even though Shea was brushed, jammied and ready for bed, I didn't have the heart to not let him play in his first snow with sissy and the big kids. So, we bundled him up, almost ridiculously and let him go.

Molly and the neighbor girls come over in full snow worship. After a busy afternoon hanging out next door, the 4 of them were thrilled to herald the rare weather and proceeded to roll many gargantuan snowballs presumably for the bottom part of a snow person choir in the orchard. Extensive plans were hatched for the morrow.

Shea ran hard with the big girls and came back with snow down his shirt. The little poops. But, fresh and rosy and annoyed (very annoyed) that he had to come in at 9:15. Then he literally crashed.

The weather gurus says it will be real cold for a day or several so our hopes is that the snow will stay for at least tomorrow.

I am almost completely a NW native (lived here since I was 1 1/2 years old) and I have spent my whole life wishing and hoping for snow days. There is absolutely NOTHING that turns back the clock for me as watching snow fall. Each snow fall is a red letter day and we make a big, darn deal out of it.

This is Shea's first. Tomorrow will be a big day. I can't wait!

Heavy negotiations or bargaining for every little thing

I don't know if it is Molly's age (10) or just her personality but life seems to be one big negotiation session...about everything.

For example, whether or not she can;

Stay up later, not take a bath until tomorrow, have her advent chocolate in the morning or right before dinner, pick up her room later, not wear a coat to school, find out what I got her for Christmas, etc. etc.

On one hand I wonder if this is the road signs of a spoiled rotten, entitled kid? On the other, is this her way of pushing boundaries and seeing which limits are set? Or is this just adolescence?

Which ever hand it is, it's just plain exhausting to be constantly in deep negotiations over the most mundane things in life. Ok, granted, mundane for me, maybe not for her.

I tell her she may grow up to be a diplomat at the UN, a lawyer or a professional negotiator. She suspects I'm kidding I'm not.

Advent Calendars

These are such fun each year. Thank goodness Shea can eat chocolate so our annual advent calendar tradition is not disrupted.

I usually buy those super cheap .99 - $1.99 advent calendars at the grocery store as soon as they appear. Buy 'em quick! I have made the procrastinators mistake and thought I could get it "next time" and BOOM they were all gone.

But, this year I started fretting about cheap chocolate and the whole Chinese Melamine in the milk product thing! Yuk. And, to think I was just spoiling my kids rotten and harming their teeth. Now they are getting poisoned by the candy too!

So, I splurged this year and bought pricey advent calendars from Hearthsong.com on sale for $6.99.

More importantly they are made right here in the good old USA by Madelaine Chocolate Novelties, Inc. who assures us that none of their ingredients are tainted.

The chocolate is processed on equipment which also processes peanuts and tree nuts. So, that would be a problem if you are dealing with super high nut sensitivity and reactions but it has not bothered Shea as of yet.

I know, it's just a little thing but holidays are about tradition and anticipation. And, I use it to bribe them to eat a little more of their dinners. Well, then we both win.

We're looking forward to opening door #5 tonight.

And...they're off!

Well, the season has official begun for our family.

Thanksgiving was a lush, fragrant, delicious, slightly tight waist-bandy sort of day. Many thanks to my excellent GGF for once again inviting my whole brood to her house for the day.

The day after Thanksgiving is the traditional Gingerbread making event at my mom's. Her place sports this iconic view of beautiful Seattle and is the quintessential "party house". Some considerable time was spent trying to remember just how many years we have been doing this. Definitely more than 15 was the conclusion; we couldn't pin it down closer than that.

My mom invites a literal horde of folks with their kids to her house for the day. Dazzled by the piles of every kind of candy imaginable and buckets of different colored frostings, most people just need a little time to just take it all in but eventually serious work begins. My mom made 15 separate Gingerbread house this year; simple cottages and sprawling Victorian Mansions. For the slightly overwhelmed there are all sorts of sugar cookies to decorate; elaborate or plain, they are eaten all the same.

Some people really get into it and a design competition could break out each year; usually with Grampa John or stepbrother David winning hands down. But all the results are truly incredible and each person is encouraged to take their house home. I myself don't tackle a whole house but usually spend my creative energy on frosting and decorating piles and piles of cookies.

My addition to the tradition is to get a big pot of soup cooking on the stove. It is fun to cook as a group, take turns stirring through out the day and then it warms us all at dinner time. Of course, the kids didn't eat much being sugar buzzed from frosting overload. But, all in all it is a lovely day; spent with friends new and old, beloved family members watching the kids creating fun memories.

My kids usually stay the night with plans of putting up the tree with my mom the next day. All went as planned without too much mishap this year. I am always impressed with my mom's energy and good graces to host a big event like that with absolutely no eye ball rolling or griping about the mess. She really is a saint. John too.

Thanks mom, for starting these fun traditions and keeping them up. I guess that is what its all about and because of you we are banking so many wonderful memories to savor through out the year and beyond.

Birthdays

What is it about birthdays as you get older? I just can't seem to rustle up the excitement like I used to. I actually had to do the math this year to even remember exactly how old I was going to be.

44. Today. I got just what I wanted. A busy but productive day; happy noisy kids at school all day, house projects going great guns, one of a kind art-class made birthday gift from Molly, a happy birthday wish from my mom.

A friend brought over some island foraged Chanterelle mushrooms and some smoked salmon. Jake made me the lightest, fluffiest sauteed Chanterelle Parmesan omelet. And, we topped it all off with ice cream sundaes with candles and a song.

Basically, I consider myself a very lucky gal. There is something more than a little bit free-ing about not really caring about it all that much. There are so many other things to think about rather than how old I am or will I be.

So, maybe next year I will muster up some more energy to celebrate 45. If not, definately by 50.

What is it about bunk beds?

I can't think of anything else that gets an almost universal positive reaction from a kid like bunk beds. Suddenly bed is not only cozy and snuggly but super-duper elevated fun!

My GGF (Good Girl Friend) recently upgraded her bunk bed system for her son and had a starter set up for grabs. My husband would say that I have an uncanny ability to acquire stuff but in this case we could really use it. And, the price was right.

They brought it over while I scoured the IKEA website for assembly instructions. By the way, who knew they had all the instructions on-line to download? I didn't! What a brilliant idea.

Anyway, despite the instructions, they both took pity on me and actually set it up for me too! Kudos goes to Mark, my GGF's very pleasant and helpful husband. Shea assisted as well, to the extent that he could which was mainly staying out of the way most of the time.

And, voila! Bunk beds; perfect for a little prince. It goes without saying what any kid would choose when asked, "Do you want to sleep on the top or the bottom?" "Top" Shea immediately answered. The top, of course! Why would there be a ladder if I was going to sleep on the top? Shea did not say that but was probably thinking it.

We set up the top bunk for eventual slumber and the bottom is a full time fort. We stuffed it with comfy pillows and hung some fabric for curtain/walls so it feels like a separate little room. He didn't want to be anywhere else in the house for a good solid week but now he is getting used to it.

He does sleep up top mostly but likes to toss it up a bit depending on his mood. All in all a pretty inexpensive and fun room face-lift. And, a real shot in the arm to a kid who tends to always be in big sister's shadow.

Now she is jealous of his bed which gives him a little bargaining power.

Saturday night at the movies: 1,2, 3 count with me

We have come up with something new. On Saturday nights we will showcase "Saturday night at the movies" featuring the infamous peanut gallery; Molly & Shea.

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

And, welcome back John & Ruth! They just got back in time to continue their annual Halloween "full size candy bar" Trick or Treat-a-thon.

Understandably, folks from all over the Seattle area descend on Queen Anne to trick or treat in the fancy neighborhood. Not sure if all houses are as generous and J & R's but the questions will be:

How many cases of candy bars this year?

Update: Lots of fun!

Why we do it

I know it's been a little heavy so far so I thought I would lighten it up a bit with a reminder of why we do what we do.

So, let's take some time to focus on what is really important; the kids.

Shea is so sunny; easy going and naturally generous. He possesses the innate wonder of a curious of mind. He loves his family, his cats and the comfort of home. School pals, especially best buddy Gordon, have a very special place in his days. Athough his verbal challenges can be very frustrating for him, tantrums don't last very long and his happy nature comes back almost immediately making him a favorite with all who know him.

We love him as he is, hope for a bright and beautiful future and will do ANYTHING we need to do to get him there.

Good golly miss Molly!

First let me say, despite the teasing, bugging, and incessant pestering, she really is the best big sister Shea could ever want. She is viciously loyal and protective. She is his most ardent teacher and devoted playmate.

She has a sense of justice with an honesty barometer that makes us marvel. She still possesses a guilelessness that makes me afraid sometimes. But with her strong wit and sense of self, she tends to throw the plodders off balance. She enjoys a sharp yet empathic intellect that makes me wonder just how far she will go. As far as she wants to, is our hope. She is our first born and there will never be anyone like her.

Parents, as you all know, are never objective about their own. My truly hilarious cousin-in-law Mike said once, "Why are our kids so much more interesting than any one elses?" How true.

I have heard it takes multiple generations to raise a well rounded child. My kids are lucky. My mom has been poised to be a rock solid grandmother since before the egg split. She takes adoring grand mothering very seriously and has set a new high water mark for our family. Beloved Grampa John sets a new standard for grampas in our family as well and treasures each hug and smooch. He is appreciated for his humor, sense of fun and good graces. Bless you both.

All the above pictures are from our wonderful trip to visit John & Ruth in their super terrific Hawaii beach house last Feb. 08. Lucky us!