Dear Friends & Family,
It’s been years since I’ve actually managed to get out a new year’s card on time, let alone write a holiday letter to accompany it. But this year it might happen -- at least for those of you in the
So what are we up to? Well, let’s see. The kids are, of course, wonderful and delightful, and periodically drive us completely and absolutely nuts. Alison is 6 and Andrew is 2. They do play together shockingly well most of the time. My theory is that there are two reasons for this. The first is that Andrew is desperate to do virtually anything that Alison is doing exactly the same way that she is doing it, and Ali simultaneously loves to be the leader. For example, one night at “teeth time” Ali was sitting in the bathroom doorway flossing her teeth with a little dinosaur flosser (yes dinosaur, and they do come in a variety of colors!). When she was done with the flosser she tried to toss it into the trash can and missed, and so picked it up and dropped it into the trash and then went to her bedroom. Two seconds later, Andrew sat in the doorway, flosser in hand, and deliberately threw the flosser at the floor and then picked it up and dropped it in the trash can.
My other theory for why they get along so well is because Andrew’s speech is still pretty limited, and so Alison gets to make most of the decisions most of the time. Andrew’s speech has grown from nothing (nada, no indication of comprehension or words, absolutely nothing) a year ago to the occasional three word sentences now (thank goodness). But a lot of the time he still doesn’t really understand complex questions or else we don’t understand the responses, but regardless, the result is that Ali gets to make many decisions for the two of them.
For Alison, the coming year is full of a lot of firsts. She started first grade yesterday at Marlton Elementary and after a nervous morning is absolutely thrilled with it. She said that Mrs. Menzel is her new favorite teacher, and yesterday was so much fun that it felt like two days. Today wasn’t quite as fantastic, but still pretty good. Tomorrow soccer season starts and she has her first game. In first grade, soccer consists of a 40 minute “practice” session (the primary coach has stated that if, by the end of the season, one girl can pass to another and the second girl actually receives the ball and keeps it moving she will consider the season a great success). Then there are two games that are played simultaneously (4 girls on each side) for 40 minutes. I get the impression that soccer is really popular in Marlton, and when we arrive we will be faced with a sea of little boys and girls on a massive field. The kids are given T-shirts and matching knee socks as a uniform. Ali’s team’s T-shirts have a cute puppy on them because they’re sponsored by a local pet shop. The coach said we lucked out this year -- there is a local funeral home that sponsors a lot of the teams!
Meanwhile Andrew has moved up from the Camels into the Tiger Class in daycare. Today was his first day. He wasn’t as excited to be starting in a new room as Ali was, but he seems to have had a good day nonetheless. He’s actually had a formal diagnosis of a speech delay, so once a week he and I get to play games with a teacher supplied by the state to work on his speech. On the one hand, I’m fairly dubious that it’s doing anything. On the other hand, his speech has improved so dramatically over the last year that maybe I should give the teacher some credit! His favorite things include virtually anything that has to do with the Sesame Street character Elmo (much to my dismay, Andrew spent months referring to Red and I interchangeably as “Da,” and used the term “Mama” exclusively for Elmo. At this point I am pleased to report that Elmo is “Mamo,” I am “Mama,” Red continues to be “Da” and Ali is “Ee-ya.” He mostly calls himself “Bee-bee” (baby?) but occasionally uses “Doo-doo”).
He also loves the aforementioned dinosaur flossers, hoarding them after use and insisting on having them in bed with him (clearly he’s the second child -- had Alison wanted these things in bed I would have absolutely forbidden it, but if it makes bedtime easier at this point I say let the child have his flossers). Finally, he is besotted with his potty seat. Not that he can use it effectively, mind you, but he is crazy about his “pee-pee” nonetheless. It’s one of the ones that looks like a little white throne with a removable black potty insert to catch the kid's output. He sits on it fully clothed. He sits on it when he’s just wearing his diaper. And he sits on it as it’s meant to be sat on. He loves it so much that there was a period when he insisted that it be with him all the time -- we had it in the living room, and always in his room at night. Well, one night shortly after his second birthday I put him to bed as usual, and went next door to get on my exercise machine. 30 minutes later I got off the elliptical machine and walked past his room. And what did I see? Andrew, in a bed full of toys and books, sitting on his potty chair (yes, that was on the bed too), with the insert on his head like a hat, head tipped back, drinking water from his sippy cup! And indeed, for a while he called the black insert his “pee-pee at” (potty hat).
Not nearly as much to write about Red and I. We’re both still working at R. Red is the campus database administrator, though really he’s that plus a “do all the other bits and pieces that need doing” kind of guy. Unfortunately he’s been suffering from some pretty serious migraines for the better part of a year. He’s had all sorts of tests that have come up normal (thank goodness for that, but it’s frustrating not to be able to identify a (benign) reason for the problem) and the current approach is to try and find a medication that will help without having too many side effects. Hopefully the current one he’s trying will be a winner, though with most of these medications you need to start out with a very low dose and increase it slowly, so it is probably going to be a minimum of another month or two before the current medication approaches a dose that is considered the standard effective dose. The one bright side to this is that most of the time he finds that sitting at a computer distracts him from his headaches rather than increases them. So most of the time work is OK and if he’s feeling lousy at home he can retreat to the computer room.
As for me … well, in June I finished up my 3-year term (with a break for maternity leave) as department chair and am incredibly relieved to be done with it. It’s something I might consider doing again when the kids are older, but for now I’d rather get back to my teaching and have some real time for research as well as more time with the kids. It was great to have had the experience, but it’s also absolutely wonderful to be able to have an hour or two here and there at work where I don’t have continuous interruptions and what seemed like a never-ending series of fires that need fighting.
Now that Andrew is a bit older and things just feel easier, I’m also trying to get back to some of my old hobbies a bit. I managed to make it to Israeli dancing twice a week over the summer. I’m really hopeful that after the holidays I’ll be able to keep up that frequency, I really enjoy it a lot. I’ve also pulled out some old embroidery that hasn’t seen the light of day for years. It’s a cover for a throw pillow that’s essentially a picture of a single giant flower. Every few weeks I manage to work on it for half an hour or so and add another petal or leaf or something. And I’ve just purchased a quilt pattern off of eBay to replace one that I’d lost years ago. I have probably a quarter of the work done, maybe a third, and perhaps by the time Ali goes to college I’ll have finished it!
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