Isaac Forages

Isaac found an unguarded pot of rice.

Want some?Isaac loooooves rice.

And markers. Yum!

Last but not least...Dessert!

He had a bath.

A letter to Uncle Brian

Dear Uncle Brain,

I love you. I want to play with you and I want to know which day is your birthday.

I like to play "throw me in the air" game. And tickle me. I want to draw me and Matthew and Uncle Brian. I like to play "where is me?" and "where is you?"

I learned about bugs. Some bugs have wings and some bugs don't. Caterpillars are a type of bug and butterflies and ladybugs and all kinds of bugs. There are all kinds. Worms are a type of bug. Right?

At the primary activity I ate food. We talked about Jesus and prophets and all kinds of good stuff.

Goodbye.

Love,
Melissa

Peanuts

• When Rachel blogs, it's something she does to get closer to her friends and her kids. When I blog, it's an achievement: "Pow! I kicked that post's butt!"
  
• The Snack Filing Cabinets at work have turned into a Snack Conference Room. How this is supposed to deal with the Snack Shrinkage that introduced the locks on the cabinets, I don't know.
  
• Matthew is convinced both Mom and Dad insisting that there's no such thing as "the largest numbers" means either (a) we're playing a joke we're on him or (b) we just don't know.
  
• Trading lunch ingredients is verboten at Matthew's school. <3 Nanny state.
  
• Me: "Gratuitous Space Battles! Sounds interesting." Rachel: "You're supposed to be working on your church talk."
  
• I met a guy at PyCon who likes to take his family to go live in Germany for 6 weeks at a time. Explore during the day, work at his normal job during US business hours (~4 PM to midnight). That's a pretty awesome idea.
  
• Speaking of PyCon, in four days I gave one tutorial, one official talk, one open space talk, and participated in one panel presentation
  
• Had to sign a liability release to use the company gym. Ahh, red tape.
• My sister: "how do you get a two year old to take a bath if he doesn't want to?" Me: "you take off his clothes and put him in the tub." I don't think that was the answer she was looking for.
  
• Isaac was falling-down tired and cranky, so I took him for a drive. Amazing how slowly the world goes by when you are consciously attempting to stay under the speed limit. (It worked: Isaac fell asleep, and I didn't get a ticket.)
  
• It's a little depressing how quickly Matthew has ossified into English-only. Watching one of Isaac's videos showing hippopotomuses playing and a voiceover intoning "los hipopotamos," he asked, "what does that mean?"
  
• I believe I am now the only member of my immediate or extended family to have a warrant issued for his arrest. (Citation for no front license plate that I went to court, took care of, and some data entry clerk typed in the wrong resolution. Four months later a warrant was automatically issued. I kid you not.)
  
• I was about to get a CD as a birthday present for the sixteen year old son of a friend. But then I thought, "Wait, he probably doesn't know what those are."
  
• Me, after watching the princess and the frog: "Melissa! Did you know Mommy is my princess?" Melissa: "No! I'm your princess!"
  

But ... cooties!

Matthew had a church activity this morning, and afterwards all the kids were in the primary room for snacks. Matthew wandered over to the blackboard, and, apparently spur-of-the-moment, wrote, "I like you," underlined it, then finished, "Haly" [Halie]. I couldn't read the last part -- it was more of an H scribble L Y -- and asked him who he liked. He told me, and I was about to take a picture of Matthew's first love note when he lost his nerve and erased it before the object of his affections returned.

But Melissa had been paying attention. When Halie appeared, she grabbed her excitedly. "Kiss Matthew! Kiss Matthew!" she told her, bouncing with excitement. Halie declined the invitation, puzzled, and apparently thought no more of it than Melissa was being her usual energetic and occasionally eccentric self.

When we got home, I told Rachel the story. "Already?" she asked. "Well, it's nothing serious," I said. "No," she replied, "but he wouldn't write that about Conner or Christian."

No. No, I might have to take away his man card if he did something like that.

A hungry Isaac is a grumpy Isaac

Photo053
Originally uploaded by jbellis

I took Isaac to wal-mart with me about 6 tonight, and we'd barely gotten started when he began crying and trying to climb out of the cart onto me. He is too big to carry for a whole shopping expedition so I sat him in the cargo area where he continued to cry.

Besides the food Rachel had on my list, I was also getting Good Cereal, because Rachel never buys that. So I was pulling down cereal boxes and when I got to Oatmeal Squares, one of the cereals Isaac likes to eat for breakfast, he started reaching out his hand and going "mmm! mmm!" And when I put a box in the cart he started trying to tear it open with his teeth.

At first I did what I usually do when Isaac gets into something he shouldn't, and took it away. Of course he started crying again, so I did a quick cost/benefit calculation and opened it up for him and gave it back. He sat down with his box of Oatmeal Squares and ate them happily for the next half hour.

Potty- kinda gross

Even though we haven't started potty training Isaac yet, Melissa still provides plenty of fodder for the blog...

I was putting Isaac down for his nap when Telitha tapped on the door. "Melissa needs some help, I think she dropped something in the toilet."

No problem, I've dealt with this sort of thing before.

I get to the bathroom, "Mom! I dropped it! The letters just fell into the potty!" Great. I look in and find not only the scrabble tiles, but she's already done her number, and it wasn't #1.

Sigh.

I search the garage for the gloves, no luck. So I get a trash bag to wrap around my hand and I go fishing. After I retrieve and disinfect EVERYTHING I ask how the tiles ended up in the toilet.

"I was spelling my name and they fell in! It just happened."

Naturally.

I found the 'M', 'E', 'L', 'I', 'S', and 'A' so we are missing a letter 'S' from our scrabble set. *FYI, if we ever invite you to play scrabble, I did use copious amounts of bleach. Kids!

..................................

Last night at the dinner table, Melissa trumpeted quite loudly for such a small person. "Melissa! Was that you?" "No! It wasn't me! It was just my bottom."

Take me out to the ball game

Photo051
Originally uploaded by jbellis

My sister Telitha and her husband Nolan took me to a Spurs game tonight. We congratulated ourselves on getting a ride from one of the parking lot attendants on an electric cart -- since Telitha and Nolan were each carrying one of their boys -- but then found we'd left the tickets back in the car and Nolan had to run back to get them. I told Telitha, "His birthday present just got twice as expensive."

This is the first time I've been to a professional sporting event. There were a lot of people there. Even from the very last row of seats (I kid you not), it struck me how TALL the players were. You miss that on a 2D television, somehow. And it was loud, with lots of flashing lights.

As with college sports, seeing that many people take a game so seriously seemed like a form of collective insanity to me at first. 20,000 people boo-ing at once is kind of a shock. CONFORM, it commands! I don't do conform.

But after a bit I got a little more acclimated to the noise and relaxed. Saw some good plays and hot cheerleaders. We left before they got to the "foul on every possession to stretch out the clock" stage.

Insanity doesn't seem too strong a word for the prices, though. Just one section below us the tickets listed for $100! (Telitha recommends stubhub to save money. Ours were $5.) I'm still boggling, a little. Telitha and Nolan's strategy of "get cheap tickets so you don't mind arriving late and leaving early to avoid the parking lot mess" seems like a winner.

Turning into my dad

Photo048
Originally uploaded by jbellis

CCP had this demo of their MMO Eve Online at Pycon. I saw it, and my first thought was, "This is way too complicated."

I remember when my father started saying that about my video games.

Kind of a bitter moment for me: I've aged out of the target market for games.

One of those days

I took Isaac and Melissa to Wal-mart yesterday while Matthew took a much-needed nap. Isaac is a handful at the store now -- too big to want to stay in the cart, too little to be trusted out of it -- but Rachel needed a break, so I took them both.

Isaac lasted a few minutes in the Kid Chair part of the stroller, but as expected he quickly tired of that, so I sat him down in the business compartment, trusting that I could confiscate anything he looked close to ruining and move it to the underside of the cart before it was too late.

Butter: he tore it open, but I got it before any butter was actually eaten. Heavy cream: saved. Simply Lemonade: hahaha, good luck opening that one kid. Pork chops: I knew better than to give him the chance; those went directly to the underside. Can of frozen grape juice: saved, with the opening zipper half opened.

Can of frozen orange juice: not saved. Oh, and it wasn't frozen, either.

Isaac spilled a third of it down his pants, where it dripped through the cart mesh onto everything I'd stashed underneath, including Rachel's valentines day cards. (Crap!) I took the juice from him and just stood there, at a loss. There was so much sticky, everywhere, that I didn't know where to start. So I cursed a little, in French. If you're going to raise a child bilingual, you might as well be thorough! I didn't yell at him, but he could tell I was upset. (Ça ne va pas, non? Ça ne fait pas! Merde alors!)

Eventually I decided that there was nothing I could do to ameliorate things, so we got moving. Fortunately we only had Rachel's flowers left on our list. When we got to the checkout counter, trailing orange dribbles, the cashier saw the puddle we'd formed while waiting but didn't realize the source immediately. She bustled over with a roll of paper towels, and had satisfactorily contained the mini-puddle when she noticed the cause standing in the cart, watching her. "Oh, it was you!" she said, in an aren't-we-cute voice. Isaac was in a friendly mood, and rattled his cart at her in approval. This knocked the rest of the juice off of its perch, right at the cashier's feet. Now that was a real spill. I think even she was daunted, momentarily.

She got the "hazardous floor" flags, closed her counter, cordoned off the spill with the towels, and paged the mop guy. Unfortunately he was busy with a spill over near the floral section. Gee, wonder who could have done that?

We were at a lull in the action, so I took Isaac off to wash off his hands. For a kid who likes to get into stuff as much as he does, he actually hates having sticky hands, and he'd been brushing at them futilely trying to get them clean(er). So I hoisted Melissa into the cart with instructions to load stuff onto the conveyor belt while Isaac and I washed up. He was happier with his hands clean (his clothes were a total loss), and kept patting me anxiously to see if we were still friends. I reassured him that I still loved him, and we collected our groceries.

Fortunately, the woman in line in front of us whose shopping we'd interrupted by showing up and leaking all over had a sense of humor about it. I think she might have worked there, since she and the cashier were chatting away the whole time like old friends.

I took Isaac's clothes off before depositing him in the van.

Then we got home and Melissa broke the silverware drawer by dancing on it too hard, but that's another story.

More peanuts

Odd how whenever I go to make one of these posts I either don't have enough to bother with, or I have too many.

• Post-church Sunday afternoon wiggles: "Matthew, I don't want you tying your sister up!"
  
• More wiggles: "Stop climbing up that wall with your rope; there are pictures hanging that I don't want you banging." 20 minutes later, I have to break up climbing the wall with piles of couch cushions. Yes, pictures were banged.
  
• Matthew is outside sharpening sticks, in case he runs out of sharp things to poke bad guys with. He gave one to Melissa, who showed it to me: "Matthew gave me a stick! It's pointy! It's cold. I'm going to make it a bed for it to get warm. I'm going to keep it in my room and take care of it; that will be its home. It's a girl stick, because that's what I want. I will give it a pink blanket."
  
• Matthew: "I can't find my stick. Where was the last time you saw it -- the one that I sharpened on both ends?" Me: "Downstairs, when you made me admire its pointedness." Matthew: "Well, what did I do with it after that?"
  
• Melissa's breakfast of champions: honey nut cheerios mixed with cocoa puffs.
  
• My co-worker's daughter, on learning to drive with her father: "It wasn't THAT big a deal. It's not like there was anyone on the sidewalk when I went over the curb." I'm really, really not looking forward to teaching Melissa to drive.
  
• Rachel signed Matthew up for a bank account; now he's getting junk mail. He is, of course, thrilled.
  
• Working at a BigCo has its upsides. I asked, "How do I send out these dozen t-shirts?" and was told, "Just give the addresses to Assistant X and she'll take care of it." That's pretty awesome.
  
• Matthew: "Why is 'buttocks' more polite to say than 'butt?'"
  
• I noticed Melissa squatting by her scooter. "Melissa! Do you need to go potty? Go!" Melissa stood up. "I don't need to! I already peed!" I didn't understand at first: "Go potty!" "I already peed!" and she pointed to the puddle on the sidewalk. Then I realized that she had, in fact, peed through her tights and onto the sidewalk, and I changed my command to, "Go change your clothes!"

Peanuts

• Matthew: "how many feet are in a mile?" Me: "5,280." Matthew: "What!? That doesn't make sense!" Matthew discovers the virtues of the metric system.
  
• Texas grammar lesson: the possessive form of "you all" is "your alls."
  
• Good news: one month after joining the corporate mother ship, the Snack Closet has not disappeared; it just became three Snack Filing Cabinets. Bad news: we had to padlock it to keep other divisions from raiding our snacks. This puts a damper on rummaging. (Evil corporate plan all along?)
  
• Isaac broke the ps3 by jamming multiple DVDs into it. Good news: Sony "fixed" it by sending us a replacement unit. Bad news: the replacement unit wants to format my hard disk--which fortunately I did not send in to Sony--presumably to prevent me from pirating my own videos.
  
• Had my laptop open when Matthew asked why popping your fingers makes noise. Thank you, Google.
  
• Matthew would really love to learn French with Isaac, and he tries hard to mimic me. So far, he is still comically unable to make a French r sound, among other phonemes. Melissa is more linguistically gifted but does not care.
  
• Melissa is in love with tights, but sometimes her judgment is questionable. One outfit: black shirt, black tights, lime green skirt.
  
• It bugs me to see Watterson is doing his best to pull a Salinger: achieve success, then spend the rest of your life hiding from it. I got a bootleg Tracer Bullet shirt on eBay to give Watterson the metaphorical finger. What a waste of talent.
  
• Played Primus too loud for Melissa, who asked me to turn it down. I'm totally going to remind her of this when she is a teenager. Repeatedly.
  
• Melissa: "The stars are really giant? They must be far away since they don't want to crush people. Those are nice stars."
  
• Let the kids stay up late Friday night so they could sleep in Saturday, but they both both got up at 7 to watch cartoons. Crankiness ensued.
  
• Good thing Christan's parents sent Matthew home at 6, because I get Christian and Conner mixed up and it would be embarrassing to call the wrong house to ask for my son.
  

Mr Mom again

160 years ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne (yes, that Nathaniel Hawthorne) was left in sole charge of his five year old son while his wife visited her parents. His journal entries have been turned into the under-appreciated book, Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny, by Papa, offering "a meticulous, blow-by-blow account of a man taking care of a young child by himself." Hawthorne spoke for all parents since Adam when he lamented, "it is impossible to write, read, think, or even to sleep, so constant are his appeals to me in one way or another."

Hawthorne had some advantages (his full-time cook and housekeeper) and a big disadvantage (no television). But fathers today still approach watching young children for days alone with the same trepidation. ("Every father should have some alone days with his kids," Rachel comments. "It's good for you.")

But when Rachel left for a long weekend in Washington for her great grandmother's funeral, I wasn't worried. Partly this was because I had Rachel give me a long list of activities before she left (although she ended up taking the zoo and Sea World passes with her). Partly because I was an Experienced Dad, no stranger to the rigeur of being harried to my wits' end. But mostly because Rachel was taking Isaac, so I would only have the older two. Two kids is easy... compared to three.

What does half a week with Dad look like?

We went to McDonald's every day, except Sunday. (But, I add, "only" once a day: breakfast Thursday, lunch Friday, and dinner Saturday.) I've said before that one of the drawbacks of San Antonio vs Draper is that McDonald's is the only fast food with a play area, so it was a near-monopoly. Bonus: free wi-fi, so I even got some work done.

I bought Melissa some flowers -- pink ones -- Thursday morning when we went grocery shopping. She was extremely pleased, and insisted they go on her dresser so she could see them in the morning.

Without Isaac to watch in the morning, I had pretty light duty on school days: after getting Matthew ready and out, Melissa usually wouldn't get up for another hour, and she had a great attention span for art at the table -- suitably protected with newsprint -- or reading games on the netbook. After picking up Matthew from school the fights^W sibling interaction would start and then it was substantially less peaceful.

When Melissa spilled red soda on her green skirt at lunch, I threw it out rather than attempting stain removal. It's a good thing Rachel was only gone a few days or her daughter might not have had many clothes left. Melissa spills very near to every single meal, no matter what kind of drinking vessel you give her. (And yes, it was an older skirt with the flowers peeling off it, for the record.)

Matthew and Melissa got chocolate chip cookies whenever they asked for some. But I did not neglect nutritional discipline: "you have to finish your pudding before you can have cookies!"

With Isaac gone, I could leave headphones or DVDs out and be reasonably sure they would be where I left them, intact, when I came back for them. This was awesome.

Unlike last time, I didn't save all the cleaning for the day Rachel got back. But, also unlike last time, the kids can actually help with the picking up now. At a glacial pace, granted, but with my laptop at hand, glacial progress is good enough; they picked up the downstairs on Friday and the upstairs on Saturday. I still got to do anything more complex than putting toys away, though.

The climbing wall

While Rachel was gone, I took Matthew and Melissa home teaching with me. When we arrived at Jasper's, we had to knock several times to be heard over the roar of the vacuum cleaner: a bad sign. Moments earlier, their three and five year old had been discovered industriously carrying packing peanuts from a shipping box upstairs, to shred them on the carpet. Apparently they'd been at this for some time before they were caught.

Jasper's wife was pissed ("do you know what your children have been up to?") and Jasper, who was no dummy, knew what to do: stay out of sight until the storm blew over. So Jasper decided this would be an excellent time to show us his climbing wall, safely out of the combat zone in the garage:








For scale, Jasper there is 6' 4". (He's also struggling to gain more weight than his current 160 lbs. Just to make all you people like me with the opposite problem feel worse about yourselves.) Not shown: the other half of the wall, off to my right.

After we left, Matthew asked when I was going to build a wall like that. "Maybe when Grandpa Ellis visits next, he can show us how to build one," I offered. "But first we have to buy a house instead of renting."

Grandma Sloan

May 30, 1905 - January 26, 2010

These are always the hardest posts to write. My last great-grandma, and the only one I knew very well died last week. Not only did she live a long life, but up until about 5 years ago, a very independent and healthy one. She had her shotgun, she had her dog, and so felt quite content to live on her own. Grandma really loved her great-grandkids, and we adored her in return. I remember many summers spent playing cards with her on the back porch and eating ice cream or cookies. She always had something for us and delighted in feeding us. I remember helping her in her vegetable garden, collecting the fallen apples in a wheel barrel, or tossing a ball for her beloved Pomeranian, Toto.

When my family moved to Washington, we stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa Van Duker for a few months while my parents looked for a house. Grandma Sloan lived at the bottom of the hill right by the bus stop, so we'd stop by her house first after school before heading up the hill. She was always waiting for us and we'd spend an hour or so chatting about our days, "helping" her clean up any pesky leftover cookies, and running around her yard with Toto.

Later, my parents moved to Puyallup. Due to the school situation, I opted to stay with my grandparents to finish off the school year. One of the highlights of my day was seeing grandma. She always had a big smile. We'd talk about the news of the day- she was very well informed about the latest in the news- or read the jokes in the Reader's Digest together. Sometimes she'd tell stories and other times she'd ask me to play my viola. Now I wasn't any great talent, but she liked to hear me play anyway and I'd oblige. She loved the few Irish jigs I knew. Grandma's mother was Irish and her father a Scotsman, and she told stories of how as a child she had to wear the family plaid. The 11 children lived in Canada on a farm and rode horses into town to school. She truly saw many remarkable changes in her lifetime.

At the funeral, Grandma Van Duker reminded me of one of the stories she'd tell from her childhood. Apparently her father had a mean goose that would chase them all over the yard and hiss at them. One day four of the youngest kids were left home alone while their parents were out and about. They decided to teach the goose a lesson. They captured the goose into a great big butter churn and then started churning the goose around and around. The goose made a huge ruckus and when they felt it had enough the let him out. The goose staggered around the yard and became quite docile from then on. Never bugged them again. Unfortunately for the butter churn, the goose was loose- leaving a horrible mess to clean up. They hurriedly scrubbed it with soap and bleach before their parents got back. From then on they never ate butter again from the churn and their father would puzzle why they never wanted butter with their bread!

Within the last few years it got harder to see grandma. Her mind started to go and sometimes she'd remember you and other times not. Visits tired her and I would stay for a short while until she fell asleep. Her body was just slowly giving out on her. You could tell when she was there though. Her blue eyes would just sparkle.

Four years ago, when I told her the name of our second child she got excited. "That was my mother's name! You named her after my mother!"

Melissa and Grandma July 2006

I know it was time for her to go. Her spirit was stuck in a broken body. Her friends, siblings, parents, and only child all died before her and she missed them terribly. It is hard to be on the side saying goodbye though, and I miss the grandma and person that she was and regret that my children won't know her. For them, all I have is a few stories.

Miss you Grandma.

Isaac Cleans Up Part 2

We keep our garbage can on a 2 foot high ledge in the kitchen. Recently the little man has discovered that he can now climb the ledge and access the garbage. Yesterday he took all of his unused diapers and deposited them into the trash can. That evening he helped clear the table of all the used napkins. He was so pleased with himself.



Today he has been putting his dirty diapers in the trash. Hmm, this can be useful! Still, we're keeping a close eye on the garbage can. When I dressed him this morning he vigorously protested the shirt I'd picked out. While I was getting another (more acceptable) shirt, he toddled off with the rejected shirt and tried to put that in the trash too!

The princess party

Melissa attended the Disney Store princess party at 11:00 today. The run-up was grueling:

Melissa: "What time is it?" "9:30."
"What time is it?" "9:35."
"What time is it?" "9:38."

(And that's not even counting all the "is the princess party today? questions this week.)
At the party there were lessons (curtsying 101, princess posture, etc.), paper tiaras, a tea party, and cookies. Melissa was very pleased.

a quickr pickr post

Peanuts

* Rachel: "How festive! We have Matthew underwear on the stairs!"
* I'm sitting in the bathroom. Matthew knocks on the door: "Dad? Can I see what you're doing?" I suppose more creative people have multiple uses for a bathroom, but for me, it's pretty single purpose...
* Melissa: "Do you want a musical instrument that is a bass?" Me: "No. I don't know how to play one." Melissa: "You use a bow! Like this! [demonstrates bowing motion]"
* Matthew: "If Melissa bothers me, can I flip a spoonful of melted ice cream at her?
* Matthew, paging through the phone book: "Wow, there must be over a hundred people in San Antonio!"
* My father, here for the holidays: "You don't look as out of shape as I thought you would." My family is _all_ good at damning with faint praise.
* Rachel: "Matthew can't close one eye yet." Melissa: "I can close _two_ eyes!"
* Rachel: "Did you know you can buy agar and petri dishes on Amazon?" Uh-oh.
* Every morning now I play "move all the chairs to the living room so Issac can't use them to climb on the table." I hate that game.
* Isaac's job is to keep the house from getting too clean. He takes his work seriously: when he escaped from his high chair with yogurt on his fingers, he didn't just go over to a window and start whacking sticky handprints on it. No, he ran down the wall whacking each windowpane once. Then he went back and started on a second pass before I caught him.
* Isaac will answer "where's your head?" in French and English.
* Melissa, as I carried her to bed against her will: "You stupid dad!" They grow up so fast.
* I've done some complaining about the new office Rackspace moved us into. It's pretty spartan (bare cement walls, open seating, metal ceilings apparently _designed_ to spread noisse), but when Rachel visited she was pleasantly surprised: "Hey! you have carpet!"
* Me: "Do your parents know you're inviting Matthew over?" Matthew's friend: "My dad knows, and he's the boss." Matthew: "My mom's the boss. My dad's like the joker."
* Rachel and Matthew had a blast making slides of cheek cells today. They got some really clear views, "so clear even Daddy can see it!"

Isaac Cleans Up

The floor receives a well-balanced diet three times a day curtsy of Isaac. More than once I've wished that we had a drain underneath our table and could hose the floor after a meal. Either that or just feed the kids in the bathtub.

Moping up the stickies. Isaac loves to help.

More playing with the the photos.

Finding Melissa

I was explaining Cassandra to one of Rackspace's architects over lunch on Dec 16 when Rachel called: "I can't find Melissa. I sent her to clean her room, then when I went to call her to come eat I couldn't find her. I was downstairs almost the whole time, and I didn't hear the door open, but I've looked everywhere and I can't find her. If I can't find her in another ten minutes can you come help look?"

I'm a little slow but I realized that the right answer here was, "I'm on my way." We'd walked to the Thai place for lunch, so I ran back to the parking lot and drove home. (It was a long enough run that I was quite sore the next day. I call this "the Melissa exercise plan.")

At home, I doublechecked Rachel's canvasing. She'd been thorough: all the closets, under all the beds -- even in the furnace recesses, which wouldn't have occurred to me. No Melissa. I called in my Loud Daddy Voice. No Melissa. But her shoes were all present and I didn't see any jackets missing (although she has several), and it was cold enough out that I thought that if she HAD taken off she'd either gone inside or she'd be back.

We said a prayer, and I checked our closest neighbors. Melissa is not shy about inviting herself over to play with her friends, but none of them were home. The few people who were home hadn't seen her.

One of the women I talked to suggested that she might have gone down to Matthew's school. That seemed like an idea worth following up on, since she's set off to do just that before. (After a lady in a pickup truck brought her back the last time, Rachel instituted the rule that either Melissa has to come to school when I dropped Matthew off, or Rachel needs to be awake in case Melissa woke up and decided to pull that stunt again.)

Nobody at the school office had seen her, but they said they'd keep looking.

Having exhausted the high probabilities, I started moving down the lower ones. I expanded my radius of neighbors, and was doing this when a patrol car and an unmarked cop car went by and stopped in front of our house. Rachel had called the police after calling me the first time, and they were finally arriving (about an hour later).

I kept going down the street, and a few minutes later Rachel called me: "they found her." She'd hidden in one of the large padded bags we keep under the guest bed for our dining room table leafs. The difference between amateurs and professionals: Rachel and I had both bent over, seen the closed bag, and moved on. The policeman lifted the bed up and from that vantage point it was clear there was something else in the bag. Good thing, because they were about to call in the helicopter and everything.

We called the school and the nice lady who said she'd help drive the neighborhood and look to say "never mind," and sat down to figure out what to do with this girl. (We're still working on that one.)

My family knows stubborn, but to hide silently in the dark for an hour and a half, at the age of four? That's pretty exceptional.

A letter to Santa

Matthew wrote this letter to Santa:

Dear Santa,
How are you? I am doing good. This year I have a little good and a little bad. I will try to do my best in scool. I will leave milk and cookies [arrow and more writing on the back] for you. there will also be carrids for the reinder.

be safe
Matthew

He also had an optimistic wish list for Santa.

1. elechric sorw (electric saw)
2. migerscop (microscope)
3. tellascop (telescope)
4. fillter (felt - for his craft projects)

I had to downgrade his expectations a bit. "Santa doesn't do dangerous gifts." So the electric saw was out of the question. A telescope and a microscope are both big gifts, and there are a lot of kids so I didn't think Santa could do that. He was a little disappointed, but seemed to understand.

On Christmas day, Matthew got a microscope. He has been in little boy heaven all day long. But that is for another post...

A milestone

I was raised on a bland diet: neither of my parents is fond of spicy food, so my mother never cooked it. We didn't eat out to speak of, so I wasn't exposed to it that way either.

I didn't feel like I was missing anything. Why eat food that was painful? But when I started dating in college and going out to more restaurants, I found that I really liked Asian food, especially Thai food. Most Thai food is spicy, although I understand that American restaurants tone this down for wimpy white person taste buds. So if I had to learn to like spicy food to eat Thai, that was a trade-off at least worth considering.

So I've been working on this for years now, slowly, and now I'm mostly on a par with Rachel, who had the advantage of growing up with Tabasco sauce. Tonight I made Thai beef salad with Serrano peppers (substituted for the "thai red peppers" it called for; I'm pretty sure they are not to be found in San Antonio), and our guests commented that Serranos are spicier than Jalapenos.

I was pleased, because when I was a kid I thought Jalapenos were very, very spicy. Of course I knew by now that Jalapenos are really at the bottom of the minor leagues for spiciness, but hey: progress.

(Only recently did I learn that "the whole point of spicy food is that at first it is painful, causing the release of endorphins to the brain. With time the pain goes away and you still get the endorphins." A light turned on...)

Why all our soap bars have holes in them

Photo035
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Melissa likes to screw them onto the bottom of the faucet, like this.

Dodged a bullet

Despite Matthew's best efforts, he just sprained his elbow this time. The doctor advised him to "take it easy." Ha!

He already has his cast picked out for next time though. "They have glow in the dark? Cool! I want the glow in the dark water-proof cast when I break my bone again!"

Matthew's elbow, part 2

Last Thursday evening Jonathan told Matthew that he needed to clear the table. Instead, Matthew proceeded to ride on the over-sized exercise ball like a cowboy on a bucking bull, whooping it up. Unfortunately things did not end well for our hero. The "bull" bucked him off and he landed with his arm overextended. Crunch. He cried a bit and after that got if you'd been doing what you were supposed to be doing you wouldn't have gotten hurt from his father. He complained a bit about it hurting and we iced it, but there wasn't any swelling to speak of and he was still bouncing off the walls, so we didn't think too much about it.

The next day he was still complaining a bit about his elbow but said it only hurt when he straightened it all the way or when he tried to touch his shoulder. Since he didn't seem to be in too much discomfort, we sent him to school, but after school he still didn't like moving it. It looked to me like he needed to head to the doctor's office.

The timing could have been better. Jonathan's car wouldn't start, and I had a dinner to deliver to a friend.

Matthew's orthopedic clinic fit him in with the PA in a different office building, since his doc was in surgery for the rest of the day. I had an hour before we had to leave, so I threw together a dinner of chili. muffins, and a chocolate M&M pie, all while entertaining Isaac.

At 4:15 it was time to:

• Drop Melissa off at her gymnastics class,
  
• Drop off the dinner,
• Take Jon and Matthew to the clinic. It turned out to be quite a bit further down the freeway than either of us expected, but where else could we find a place open and ready to see Matthew at 5 PM on a Friday?
  
• Go back to pick up Melissa. Freeway traffic was bad, so I took the back roads, and it was still terrible. To top it off a blasted train decided to go past, and it was loooooooooooong! Grr! Fortunately Isaac mostly napped and when he wasn't zonked he took the trip with pretty good grace. I arrived 10 minutes late to gym class and collected Melissa,
• Turn around and go back south again to pick up Matthew and Jonathan. Our timing was good and we arrived just as they were walking out of the building,
• And pick up the babysitter for our date night!
  

Matthew was sporting a splint and grinning. The x-rays didn't show an obvious break, but as we learned the first time, growth plate fractures don't necessarily show up on x-ray immediately. Either it's a sprain, or he broke it and the fracture just isn't visible yet. He has a follow up appointment with his doctor tomorrow, and we should know more then. According to Jonathan, Matthew charmed the lady who applied his splint. She thought he was just too adorable and so polite.

[Post by Rachel with edits by yours truly, by request]

You're Older Than You've Ever Been

Matthew was singing this song with great relish today:

You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're older STILL!

TIIIIIME is marching ON!
And TIME is still marching ON!

By They Might Be Giants

Repeat over and over. Thanks, Uncle Jeremy, for putting this gem on his MP3 player.

For my birthday he also gave me a book:




















Would you believe he picked it out all by himself? And bought it with his own money too!

He was really excited to give it to me. We will enjoy reading it together, I'm sure. ;)

The Nutcracker

Saturday Melissa and I went to the Nutcracker. It was her first time to see a live ballet and she was so excited she was skipping.

She laughed at the naughty mice, sympathized with Clara and her troublesome brother, clapped for the "toys," and was enchanted with the snow ballerinas. Melissa loved the first part and made it through most of the second part before getting a bit bored. And hungry.

When asked what her favorite dancers were she quickly replied, "the pink ones!"

O Christmas tree

The second year of our marriage, Rachel and I got an artificial tree at Lowes, and Rachel has hated it more every year, mostly because it takes at least an hour to set up under the best of conditions, and two with "help."

This is the year that her hate for that collection of plastic finally overcame my reluctance to kill a live tree to have it shed the living hell out of our living room for a few weeks. It's every bit as bad as I feared, but Rachel likes the smell and keeps saying things like "What a pretty tree!" so this might be my fate for the foreseeable future.

(I think part of my immunity to the tree's charms might be that my memories of pine scent skew heavily towards trying to scrub pine sap off my skin as a boy -- much harder than you'd think -- rather than nutmeg and apple pie. The only trees we had with branches I could reach were pine.)

Melissa is thrilled, I think partly because she believes that buying and decorating the tree brings Christmas that much closer -- she keeps asking "is Christmas tomorrow?" -- but mostly because she adores pretty things. She was so anxious to get the tree that she offered to pay for it: "I saved lots of dollars!" I reassured her that buying the tree was Daddy's job, but she was still excited to help, and ultimately I accepted a single penny from her purse.

My cousin's wife Jen warned us to "keep it filled with TONS of water or it just [sheds] incredibly worse," and so far Melissa has been eager to claim that duty. She was dressed for church before the rest of us this morning, so I handed her a beaker with strict instructions to only fill it halfway full from the sink before taking it to the tree. The next time I came downstairs, Melissa met me with a hangdog expression. "Daddy? I had an accident." With Melissa lately, "having an accident" usually involves needing a change of underwear, so I was wary: "What kind of accident?" "I spilled. I spilled the whole thing in the bathroom!" So I told her to get a towel and wipe it up, and she scampered off, relieved again.

Now we are decorating it while Isaac naps. Rachel and I hung the lights ("Your dad didn't set much of an example for you here, did he?" "No. His contribution was primarily to bring the tree down from the attic") while the older kids broke ornaments in their excitement. The score is currently 1:1. Now Rachel is hanging the beads.

Update: now (a day later) the score is 1:2:2. Isaac and Melissa have each broken two.

Matthew and Melissa Art

Portrait of Heather
(oil pastels)

by Matthew

Matthew sketched this picture while in Houston and added the oil pastels when we returned home.

Snowman
(construction paper and cotton balls)
by Melissa

Mountains
(crayons)
by Matthew

This was a quick doodle for a friend.

Farmhouses on a hill
(oil pastels)
by Matthew

Matthew spent hours working on this and was so pleased with it when he finished.

Girl in Pink
(crayons)

by MelissaWas there any question who the artist was? Pink is definitely her preferred color to express herself.

Winter Scene
(paints)
by Matthew

I forgot to ask the artist, but I think that is a cow in the middle there...

Y-Trees
(paints)
by Matthew

In this piece he learned a new technique in art class. To make the trees, he painted Ys.

Peanuts

• Melissa, blessing the food: "... We thank thee for Mommy, and Daddy, and Mewissa ... [quietly:] dat's me! I'm Mewissa! I'm a girl. I saying da prayer. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

• "I guess, technically, I already beat [Katamari Forever]. But not on drive mode! And I still need to collect some cousins and presents!" -- Rachel responds to a suggestion she play something else

• Rachel: "You know, I would hate being the guy manning the phones at the Butterball Turkey Hotline on Thanksgiving. Because you know it's bad news, and it's too late to fix it."

• Rachel: "Melissa, I'm going to put Isaac to sleep now. Please play quietly until I'm done." Melissa, five minutes later: "Daddy, Mommy is _gone_! Maybe she went to orchestra!" It's hard to tell when Melissa is actually paying attention to what you tell her. (It's also amusing that, a year later, Melissa still equates "Mommy is gone" with "Mommy is playing in the orchestra.)
  

• Things I never thought I'd have to say: "Matthew! No sawing the railing!" (I was hoping I had misinterpreted what I thought I was hearing from inside the house, but Matthew just replied, "Okay.")

• I don't really see the point of adding slices of white tissue-bread to a plate full of barbecue, but to the kids it was a revelation. Matthew tried to figure out why his mother only ever bakes whole wheat: "Mom?" Yes?" "Do you know how to make white bread?" Yes. "Did you ever make any?" Yes. "Did it turn out okay?" Yes...

• Matthew: "Were Satan and King Herod friends?"

• Isaac's job: take shiny, fragile ornaments off the tree and pull the tops off. Daddy's job: put the tops back on and re-hang higher on the tree.

• Me, washing the pie Rachel gave him off Isaac: "You get him dirty, you clean him up! That's the law of the jungle!" Rachel: "No, the law of the jungle is 'Teach him to say Da-da.'"

At the Kids Workshop

Rachel found out that Home Depot offers a free activity on the first Saturday of each month called Kids Workshop. Every month there is a different project to build, and they give you a badge for each one you complete to put on your Official Kids Workshop Apron.

We went yesterday for the first time. It officially started at nine, and we arrived shortly after that. It was a zoo. The kids were immensely pleased with their aprons, especially Melissa, who told every employee she met that "I a worker, too!" The project was a 7-piece wagon, which was just about right for Matthew to do himself and Melissa to do with some help from Dad. By the time we were done about an hour later the crowd was much thinner, so we'll plan accordingly next month.

Some drama occurred when Matthew hammered a plastic axle in too hard and broke the head off. He took out his anger on the next nail he came across, which probably wasn't the best idea since he knocked one of his boards clean off. He started crying, "Now I won't get a badge!" I helped him put it back together, and although still mad at the broken axle, he was consoled that he did in fact still get a badge.

Melissa was tickled to death by the whole thing.

We bought a couple cheap boards for the kids to saw and hammer at home. Last night and this morning they were outside late and early hammering away (in their Official Worker Aprons, of course). This may be the best anti-princess activity yet, if it keeps up. It might not; this morning, Melissa failed to hold a board the way Matthew wanted, so he yelled at her and that was the end of her desire to participate today.

All in all, this is quite possibly the best freebie in America. (I understand Lowes has a similar program, but we haven't tried it yet.)




- Taken at 10:14 AM on December 05, 2009 - uploaded by ShoZu


- Taken at 10:06 AM on December 05, 2009 - uploaded by ShoZu
a quickr pickr post

Houston and Cousins

Thanksgiving day we invited some friends of ours to dinner. They'd just moved into town the weekend before and were still in the midst of boxes and unpacking. Deja vu! We moved the same weekend last year.

I cooked everything including the turkey the day before so we could play all morning, and relax during the afternoon. It was nice to see them. Boy their four kids were wired after being stuck in a car for two days and then cooped up in the house with boxes! Naturally a good time was had by all and all the kids whooped it up all over the house. Everyone was tired at the end of the day and slept well. Whew!

Friday we got off to a late start to Houston to see James and Cameo with their two cute boys. Heather and Will flew in for Thanksgiving weekend too, so it was like an extended cousin dinner. I sure miss those monthly dinners... Matthew and Melissa were delighted to see cousin Jacob and play with him. And they got to have a sleepover in his room. I wonder how much sleeping went on...

Saturday James, Cameo, and Jonathan took the big kids to the park to run around while they played ultimate frisbee. Jonathan didn't bring sneakers or cleats so he opted to play barefoot. (Yes, it was that warm last weekend, in the 70s and overcast. Then the next weekend Houston got snow. Go figure.) Jonathan had a good time, but he managed to do something to his foot. What is it with that man and frisbee? James and Cameo caught the BYU game that night, while the rest of us took the kids bowling. Jacob was a real bowler, but Melissa got bored after the fifth frame. Matthew wavered between frustration and elation. He hates losing. Explaining that it's just a game and he's still learning hasn't had much impact. Fortunately for him, Heather and I are also really lousy bowlers, so he was right around our scores. "Gutter ball!" The bowling alley was sophistocated enough to have the bumpers only pop up for the kids. I was impressed. Regrettably, I probably could have used the bumpers too. Heh.

The evenings were spent playing games. Word to the wise, Cameo rocks Dutch Blitz.

Sunday Jonathan forgot his church clothes and I gave him way more harassment than he deserved. Poor longsuffering guy. Haha. He thought I put them in the car, and I assumed he'd done so. Oh well. James outfitted him and he just wore his black socks, no shoes. It worked well enough. :) Thanks James. After a delicious lunch of crepes and orange juliuses made by Will (Jonathan: Wow, Will mixes everything in a blender, and he's good), and a few more games; we packed up the kids and drove home.

Isaac didn't nap much on the way to or from Houston, but at least he tolerated his carseat better this trip. He can be bribed with M&Ms now.

SeaWorld - Ho!

We made it to SeaWorld!

We live a half hour away, but it's taken us a while to finally check it out. We originally were planning to go on Matthew's birthday, but it rained and Isaac was sick to boot. Boo! Jonathan suggested going on Thanksgiving since it was unlikely to be crowded that day. He was right. We got there and the parking lot was maybe 1/5 full. We walked right in and checked out the dolphins first thing.

The kids wanted to get a bit closer, so we shelled out only $12 for three tiny trays of sardines to feed the dolphins. Matthew and Melissa loved it. Unfortunately the dolphins and the kids were a bit too wiggly to get a good picture.

Here's the best out of a series of bad shots. :p


We saw the Shamu show and WOW was I impressed! Naturally I left the camera in the stroller parking, but it was amazing. The 3 whales leaped out into the air with their trainers standing on the end of their (snout?). They did flips, "danced" in circles, slapped water at the audience, and carried their trainers riding and standing at impressive speeds on their backs, fins, and snouts. It appeared that the trainers and the whales were having a blast out there together. Very fun to watch!

Matthew and Jonathan rode a splash rollercoaster together. Matthew begged to go on it and he just squeaked by the height requirement. It went up did a backwards dip, rotated frontwards again before racing to the bottom in a splash water fall. Jonathan said that Matthew was pretty whiteknuckled and he asked him at the end, "Did you like the ride?" Matthew hesitatingly responded yes. "Do you want to go again?" "No!" He did like the splash at the bottom, but once was enough! Melissa was insanely jealous that she didn't get to go to, but I think it was just as well.

Instead she rode some of the tamer rides.


Matthew up close and personal with the penguins. He asked a few questions and really enjoyed seeing the penguin up close.


One of the many pictures Matthew took of the penguins.

The aquariums were fun to visit too, and the shark tank was HUGE! There was something for everyone there, even play areas for Isaac. We'll be going back sometime since we purchased season tickets as a Christmas present. Maybe next time I can get some good pictures of the kids!

Gratitude

I started this post over a week ago (finally finished it and hit publish). Hence the delay despite the November 28 date.

The turkey and trimmings are stashed in the refrigerator after another delectable Thanksgiving feast. Now I just have to think of 1001 ways to use up turkey.* Turkey pancakes, anyone?**

I am thankful for my little family and the three ring circus starring Matthew, Melissa, and Isaac. They keep us laughing.....and humbled. Boy do they humble us from time to time! I am also grateful for the my co-ringmaster who keeps me sane and puts up with my quirks. Thanks honey.

I'm grateful for good parents, Jonathan's and mine. I couldn't be luckier when it comes to parents who worked so hard to raise and teach me, and parents-in-law who welcomed me into the family as a daughter. We have great siblings too, both by birth and by marriage. We love and like to be around them, and count them as our friends as well as our siblings. How fortunate is that? Someday we plan to live closer to them so our kids can get to know their aunts, uncles, and cousins better.

Our kids are healthy. In particular, Isaac is thriving, and for that we are very grateful.

Matthew and Melissa are gentle people and (mostly) try to do what is right. Sure they argue from time to time as siblings do, but they also look out for each other and will share their last piece of candy with one another. Melissa always runs up to Matthew when we pick him up from school and throws her arms around him and gives him a kiss. She misses him during the day. Matthew protects his sister in the playground from bigger kids, and always sees that Melissa gets her fair share. He'll even divvy up his goody bag from friends' parties and offer it to his little sister. Both are very good to their baby brother and can't bear to see him cry.

I am grateful for Texas. We've enjoyed our year of respite in the great state of Texas. 2008 was an interesting year. While I wouldn't take anything back since we've learned so much, I'm still glad that 2009 has been peaceful. The people here are good people and look out for others. Our family has been kindly welcomed into the homes and lives of many different families both Texas natives and transplants. Living near five military bases, we have met people from all over that have adopted San Antonio as their home. This is a state populated by people that are unabashedly proud of their state's great heritage and very patriotic to country and to state. Matthew vacillates from claiming to be Utahn and Texan. I've told him he can claim both.

At this time of year my thoughts are more frequently turned to the Savior and his atonement. I am so grateful for a living, hearing God, and his Son, Jesus Christ. In times of weakness, I have been comforted, and do not doubt that God lives.

May you have a blessed Christmas and know our thoughts are with you, our friends and family, even though we are far away.

*I didn't do turkey pancakes, but we did have turkey enchiladas, homemade turkey mac 'n cheese (with stuffing topping), turkey wraps, and turkey sandwiches, naturally.

**We are all a little tired of turkey.

Peanuts

• Matthew left his mp3 player down. Isaac ate the foam padding off the headphones. The circle of life: I remember when Matthew ate the foam off one of mine.
• Muppets: "A photographic memory? In your case, that means a memory that needs developing!" Matthew: "What's developing?" (Even funnier than the actual Muppet Show, or explaining 1970s technology in 2009, is the kids cracking up at the slapstick bits.)
  
• Matthew: "I may be cute, but I'm also a little bit sweet."
  
• Melissa: "Taste knee bullets! Right, dad?" Me: "?" "Tanks need bullets! Right?"
  
• Rachel showed Melissa how to use the radio part of her clock-radio. She started on a classical station. By bedtime, I could hear guitars wailing. That's my girl.
  
• Melissa: "Can I have more flat potatoes, please?" (She meant McDonald's hashbrowns.)
  
• Watched the WCG Starcraft finals live at 2 AM. (Jaedong 2-1 Stork)
  
• "I hate legos! They're stupit! [sic] And I hate Isaac!" Matthew learns that trying to build something on the floor is an exercise in frustration.
  
• Every couple months, the traffic waves part just right and I take the 50mph curves on 281 S at 80. This makes my whole day go better. Glad I got this in one more time before we move offices. (I just realized what this means: no more snack closet.)
• We had friends over for dinner last week. The chicken pasta broiled a little too long, and got a little toasty. Matthew told our guests, "That's okay; my mom burns things a lot."
  
• Friend: "Did you finish your book?" Me: "Which book?" Friend: "The one you were reading in church." Rachel: "WHAT?" Friend: "Oops."
  
• Melissa, singing: "A is for apple, M is for Melissa, E is for Melissa, L is for Melissa, ..."
  
• Took Melissa with me to drop stuff off at FedEx and pick up Thai for lunch. In between, we had time to stop at Toys R Us, and Melissa charmed an empty but cute pink gift card from the cashier. She showed her prize to Matthew, who was green with envy -- not for the pink card per se, but because "You got to go to Toys That Are Us? No fair!"
  

Laundry Fairy's Ditty

This is the laundry that never ends,
Yes, it goes on and on my friend.

One lady started doing it, not realizing how much it was,
And she'll forever wash and fold it just because-

This is the laundry that never ends....

Peanuts

• Another nerd dream: I was teaching SICP, but I wished my friend Paul was teaching it instead of me. (Paul wrote a lisp-to-python-bytecode compiler, only that part isn't a dream.)
  
• Need to blog about the birthday party we had for Melissa's invisible friend.
  
• Rachel: "you know what Firefly reminds me of? Cowboy Bebop." She's right. It's a live action Cowboy Bebop with more soap opera and less action.
  
• Isaac's morning ritual: diaper change, nurse, walk to the ps3 and eject whatever disc Rachel or I was playing last night, unplug Daddy's laptop.
  
• Flew to Atlanta for the NoSQL East conference. (Didn't speak, this time -- just wanted to meet potential Cassandra users.) I've never been called "dearie" more times in my life than by the waitress at the greasy spoon for breakfast. In a Southern accent, of course. On the way back, Delta fubarred the seating assignments somehow, assigning half a dozen people to the same seat. Chaos ensued. Good times. Isaac was _very_ happy to see me when I got back.
  
• Isaac isn't as into horseplay as his siblings were, but things like driving a truck over his arm totally crack him up.
  
• 20 minutes late to the ward halloween party was not late enough for it to have actually started. It was a madhouse: they combined parties with the neighboring High Country ward, and the line for food stretched around all four walls of the gym. Fortunately we were near the front of the "people with small kids" group, and were done eating forty minutes later (when the line had shrunk to two and a half walls). They had a "trunk or treat" there but (a) it was going to be another hour before everyone ate and (b) we had to go to do real trick-or-treating. So we did.
  
• Bishop Cowart: "Our youngest son went away to college in August. I've got to say... [He pauses, and he looks like he's going to get emotional] it's been nice."
  
• My friend Ellis's brother is in China. They have church meetings over Skype. Cool.
  
• Matthew is in little boy heaven: Uncle Jeremy sent him a Sansa music/video player, and preinstalled Rockbox (so it has games, too). Matthew is having fun with the games but more fun figuring out everything it can do. Also, the songs Jeremy loaded, including "the Mahna Mahna song." So we had to show him the Muppet Show source. Seven-year-old (and four-year-old) comedy GOLD. The phone call brought down the house.
  
• Rachel rescued a couple of her 12 year old "young women" from waiting at church an hour early for the temple trip. At the table, one asked the other, "is Paris in Italy, or Italy in Paris?" I kid you not.
  
• I realized that if practice could make me good at writing, it would have happened by now. That's me over here, proving talent does matter.
  
• Another thing I thought went without saying: "Matthew, don't squirt your brother with the water bottle!" Isaac is soaked.
  
• Someone left a bunch of gumdrops where Isaac could reach them this morning. He was a happy pumpkin -- happy, and sticky. (I guess that's step 5 on his morning to-do list: check for anything sticky and/or crunchy within reach.)
  

Isaac finds the marshmallow

One of the kids left the pantry door open (AGAIN) and Isaac took full advantage of the chance to explore its forbidden delights. He decided to see what was inside the jar of marshmallow creme and was not at all disappointed by what he found.

I put him in the high chair so he wouldn't get anything stickier than he already had, and relieved him of the creme. He was mad, but he realized he still had plenty on his hands to lick off, and busied himself with that for a while.

I had a trail of marshmallow to clean up, and then Isaac (and finally the high chair, which was by then not a little sticky). I'd just dressed him, too!

Fire Station

On Thursday, we went to the fire station with a small group of moms and kids. Melissa was thrilled. She got to climb up into the fire truck,

try on the hat,

and the heavy coat.

The captain asked the children fire safety questions, and Melissa knew the answers! We'd been discussing and practicing safety the day before, but sometimes it's hard to gauge how much they retain at this age. She knew her stuff. Made me proud.

How to get Melissa to sit still

Rachel: "I've never seen her so patient. She's not like that when _I_ do her hair!"

Me: "Maybe that's because you don't act like you're doing her a favor."

Melissa didn't quite make it through "Return of the Jedi"

Matthew really enjoyed it, though. He kept up a stream of commentary/questions. "This is going be FUN! [lightsaber noises]"

A letter to Uncle Brian, from Matthew

Dear Uncle Brian,

On Halloween, I went trick-or-treating with my friend Christian. We went across the roads with each other, and also we had a lot of fun. I was a knight, and Christian was a pirate.

My jack-o-lantern had some square glasses. It looked funny.

Today, right now, it's night.

Tomorrow I will have art class. I like art a lot, because there's different kinds of art: you can make sculptures and pictures.

I'm doing good. I hope you're doing good too.

I got a new [mp3] player called Sansa. It's like an iPod.

[Here Matthew wanders off to go play with the Sansa, a birthday gift from Uncle Jeremy.]

Love, Matthew

A letter to Uncle Brian, from Melissa

Dear Uncle Brian,

My invisible friend went trick or treating too! And she was a fairy, and I was a fairy. We're both fairies for Halloween, and we go to houses to get candy. I have wings, and a shirt, and a skirt, and tights, and sparkly shoes, and a crown. Mommy made my crown out of flowers!

We carved the pumpkins, and we cut a circle in it, and a square for the roof [top], and a face -- mine was a happy face, with nice eyes ... and one nose!

That's all!

Love, Melissa