Happy Holidays!

Sending our love to all our family and friends, in all the various places you wonderful people are!

Here's a picture of Gaz showing off our new tree--totally homemade and awesome. I think we're going to do this every year.

Letters and St. Nick

Can you tell I've got a bit of time off work?

In last week's homework (for which she must practice writing a letter--upper & lower case--and then draw a picture of a thing that begins with that letter), E was for Earth. It was originally "Evil," but there was editorial disagreement over how one would draw it. I suggest a mean face, but Gaz insisted that would be too easily confused with "angry." Earth is much easier to draw.

Today, F is for Ferris-Whee-at-Navy-Pier. I've been trying to talk her into at least writing out "ferris wheel," but it seems that if she can't write out the whole thing, she won't write down any of it. Since she drew in a huge crowd all around the ferris wheel and popcorn stand, I'm guessing it will just have to stay untitled. We had nary an argument about getting the homework done, or sitting down to the homework, or anything at all homework related, and for this I am infinitely grateful.

I hope you all have had a happy St. Nicholas Day! Gaz got a chocolate snowman from the German market, new paints, a bracelet, and many stickers, some of which she took to school to share with her class. Mrs. K. was so excited that Gaz wanted to share her shoe loot, because she celebrates the day in an appropriately German fashion at her house too.

Bulletin!

If you put a crazy straw in the keyhole of Gaz's bedroom door, you can use it as a lever to release the alien octopuses that eat people.

In more sane news, Gaz sends her thanks for all the nice Valentines she received. She's also been making a ton of her own, and we are now practically drowning in hearts. She's having a good time, though, so can't complain too much.

Festivities and Frustrations

Sorry there are no pictures up yet. There are technical difficulties. Rest assured that pictures exist, and I'll get them uploaded as soon as I can.

So Halloween has now passed us by, and this is the source of my biggest frustrations. First off, the costume itself did not go well. I had a lot of errors to correct, because I have been extra exhausted lately, which translated into inattention and clumsiness. Another issue is that Gaz has a huge growth spurt to the tune of an inch or so immediately after her birthday, so she ended up a bit too big for the biggest size of the pattern I had from last time. There were problems with the plan I had, too, which is annoying because the whole plan was for this to be easier and less hand-intensive than last time. The long and the short of it is that I spent a whole month and no small amount of frustration and blood and banjo time to make this thing.

After all this, she wore the Mothra costume she insisted on for all of ten minutes on Friday before complaining that it was itchy and made her "a little pink" (which I think means it was hot), so she frantically demanded that I get her out of it. I did get some pictures of the finished costume. I took it with us to the Halloween event we went to up at our old favorite park, but she refused to wear it, even after seeing all the other kids dressed up. She got her bag of treats there, courtesy of Ald. Gene Schulter, and then was totally done with Halloween. She already had a bag of candy, so why would she need to dress up in that itchy old costume and go out in search of more?

I have resolved to not make Halloween costumes anymore. I'll make play clothes and assemble play costumes, and she can just pick from those next year.

Complicating Halloween this year is the passing of Mark's grandpa, whom we call Grandpa Great now that there are a bunch of great-grandchildren in the family. He lived a good, long life (he just turned 95 earlier in October) and died peacefully and without pain. It's not a surprise and he's definitely in a better place now, but it's never fun to say goodbye. I'm going to miss his thrilling tales of working at NASA.

Holidaze

Christmas with the Mitchells was a smashing success. The best present Gaz got was days of constant playing with her cousins. This is not to say that she didn't receive completely awesome material gifts, but the highlight for her was definitely playing with The Goils. It was a raucous house of little blonde girls, and when we weren't all running after them to keep an eye out for Polly Pocket shoes in toddler mouths, we were happily (if wearily) enjoying the fact that all our girls were truly enjoying themselves, and not destroying property.

When we went to church on Sunday, the older girls were persuaded to stay with Gaz in the nursery during the service. When we first got there, Gaz looked around a bit unsure. The two ladies who minded the nursery were the only other ones there apart from us. Then Brynn got out a toy grill and Gaz noticed that there were a couple of plastic drawers full of toys. She never looked back to see me after that. This was a bittersweet moment for me--proud of my girl for being so independent and sure of herself, but a bit sad that our time of being a mama-and-baby unit is slowing winding down. I know it's not a lightswitch and she still needs me quite a lot, but it sometimes seems to be daily and not so much hourly now.

But as I was thinking on this last night in the shower, Mark and Gaz came in to join me. She'd woken up and cried and cried when Mark tried to get her to calm back down and go back to sleep. She still needs me just enough.

Weaning is a process for both moms and babies, I think. We both want the same thing, but it's going to take us both a while to ease into our new roles. While we haven't begun any actual weaning, I feel confident letting Gaz set the pace.

Happy Fourth!

We've had a wonderful holiday--great weather and generally good baby temper--and now, somehow, our Gaz baby is sleeping through the insane fireworks bombarding the neighborhood skies.

I hope none of youse has grabbed the business ends of any sparklers! (And if you have, well you learned your lesson didn't you?)