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holiday gifts

We don't do Santa in our house. Christmas and Hanukkah, for us, are about giving and lights and the joy of thinking about other people in the cold of midwinter. Sam gets gifts from us and from lots of other people, and we figured Sam would give gifts to everyone as soon as he was old enough for that to make sense. So this year (starting, actually, with birthdays a few months ago) I started asking him seriously what he thought various people would like. Every kid we ask about, he's convinced would like a train. Or, if questioned again, ("Do you really think Zoe likes trains as much as you do?") he might switch to a truck, or a racecar. Adults, in contrast, he's sure all want glass trains. I don't think Sam has ever seen a glass train, or had such a thing suggested to him; my guess is that he can't imagine anyone not liking a train because, well, duh. But adults like finicky fragile things that you can't play with but instead just have to look at-- so, glass trains it is.

(We ended up going to the candy store instead of looking for glass trains for everyone. He can imagine people liking chocolate too, and I don't think anyone will be sorry to get it!)

halloween and spelling

Here's Sam Friday evening in his lion costume, in his preschool room at the end of the day. A bunch of the kids went out trick-or-treating together in a neighborhood close by the school that goes all-out (closing streets off, major decorating efforts, etc). So they had a quick dinner at school then got dressed. J. took him; I went home to hand out candy (and escape the mayhem).



On Saturday we had friends (J's postdoc and his wife) over for dinner. While we were talking after dinner, Sam was laboriously sounding out the spelling of a long and complicated word on his (3-letter-space) "word whammer" toy (a gift that's been unfortunately compelling him to make all words 3 letters long). He ran into the dining room excitedly to show it to us: ZLF. "I spelled xylophone!" he exclaimed with such pride that, really, how could we tell him he was wrong? Also, if he were writing in Hebrew, he'd be pretty close to correct (what with the optional vowels).

pics

Wow. So much for my attempt to post once a month... It's been a rough few months, but things are looking better on many fronts these days.

Here are some pics of Sam hiking in the woods and running on the beach on a recent weekend in Maine (our break between the end of classes/grading and the beginning of summer work). We stayed in Freeport, and went hiking at Bradbury Mountain State Park one morning, followed by a bit of shopping in Freeport (while Sam and Josh napped in the car); the next day we went to Popham Beach and walked around, then drove to Portland and went on the Narrow Gauge Railroad (a real steam train). Sam was actually more interested in the train tables we encountered along the way (three separate train tables) than in the steam train itself, but all in all it was a very nice weekend.







More hopefully soon...

Three years minus 2 months

I think I'm going to start posting every month on or near the 20th, just so I get a bit more regular with the posting again. Whew. Sam's nearly 3, and seems suddenly older (than 2, that is) these days. Not only has his language evidenced a notable spurt in sophistication recently-- examples soon, I promise-- but he's also shot up in the last month: pants that used to fit are all too short, and pants that we had to roll up no longer require rolling. He's still showing some charming 2-year-old defiance (when it's time to wash hands, he will wail dramatically, "nono I don't *want* to"), but one can explain many other things to him quite reasonably. It's fun. He's funny, too. His and J's silly-word games have progressed, and a current favorite is the "sometimes I wear a ____ for a hat" game (most memorable fill-in? "Sometimes I wear a grocery store for a hat.")

Here are a few things that have happened since the end of October:

- Sam has become fully day-time potty trained. No efforts towards night-time potty training, though. What's the point, really?

- Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt L. came to stay with us for Thanksgiving (which Uncle D and Aunt S hosted most fabulously). Sam had a great time with them, and they were a major help, especially since I'd gotten a call scheduling a job interview for the following week just the day before they came (so was frantically prepping a job talk and teaching demo, and prepping for my interviews w/the members of the department).

- I interviewed for a job. Fingers crossed.

- We celebrated Hanukkah. We didn't light the menorah every night, but we did it a few times, and the other nights we at least lit the big candle that we keep on the dining table, and which Sam loves to have lit for dinner. We also went to a lovely Hanukkah party one night at our upstairs neighbors' home. Sam has been enjoying his "doctor tools" and puzzles from Aunt S and Uncle D, and his car tracks and Colorforms (do you remember colorforms? I totally did) from us.

- We had Sam's daycare classroom's potluck. Note to self: don't try to make a last-minute hors d'oeuvres for an event to which you'll be coming straight from work, which you're also organizing, and to which you'll be late because you have to stop and pick up cards for the teachers along the way. The potluck was fun, though. We stayed late with a couple of other families, put on music, and the kids danced and danced (while we sat around drinking wine and chatting). How cool is Sam's daycare?

- We took Sam ice skating for the first time, outside of the Charles Hotel. He wasn't as into it as I thought he would be, given how much he likes to slide around on the ice in his shoes (and on the floors pretending to skate). But it was fun for a few minutes at least:



Then we flew to MN to spend Christmas with Omi and Opa. We had dinner with my HS friend D. and her family. Brownie sundaes for dessert keeps four (one off-camera) kids very quiet.




We did some fun winter-snowy things with Sam: a couple of small snowmen (the snow was too dry and powdery to attempt anything bigger, sadly), and some good sledding. Sam wasn't as enthused abotu the sledding as we'd imagined, either, though he liked it. He did say many times on both sledding occasions, though, "I don't like the dust part" (the snow blowing up into his face when we'd hit some powder).



Doesn't he look spiffy in his coordinated winter things? G'ma and G'pa bought him the jacket, hat, and boots for Hanukkah. Sam had been asking for orange winter boots; they arrived just before the first of several snowstorms we got in Boston.

On the way back from sledding with Sam and Sam's Opa, J. slipped on the icy street and broke his wrist. Fortunately it's his left, so he's only been slightly disabled-- with the most recent version of the cast he can even type. But our car is a manual transmission, so he hasn't been able to drive since we got back. The cast should finally be off this Friday, and I'm not sure which of us will be more relieved.

Sam and I baked and decorated some cookies:




On Christmas Eve we lit the candles on the "crimmus tree" (J. can't stop picturing the whole thing going up in flames, but while I share his anxiety-- we do keep a bucket of water nearby-- it's overcome for me by a combo of fond tradition and just loving how beautiful it looks). We sang carols and opened presents. The bullet train from Uncle M. and Aunt R. was the runaway (no pun intended) hit of the evening, and of the days to follow.









It was competing with the Spiderman scooter Omi bought when he couldn't stop riding it around the consignment store, and of course the tricycle he got last year which was rediscovered with joy when we arrived, and which he rode at alarming speed through the house. Next year I'm sure it'll be an "outside toy."

We got home a couple days later and geared up to host a "New Year's Eve in Spain" party-- continuing the tradition started by friends who began hosting New Year's Eve parties set in locations 6 hours to the east, in order to be able to toast the New Year at 6PM (midnight Paris/Tunis/Barcelona time) and get kids in bed at something resembling reasonable. (I note with a bit of embarrassment that for our Snudge lately, bedtime has been something like 10PM... but embarrassment only because there seems to be this ethic that children should be in bed by 8. Sam sleeps til 8:30 (sometimes later). It's all very civilized.) Anyway... the party was a blast. Some of our favorite parent-friends joined us with babies and toddlers, and some of our favorite nonparent-friends joined us too and marveled at the chaos.

Here's Sam (and J's cast) in exhausted post-party-ness, Dalí-esque mustache still faintly evident: