What's new.

Well, I certainly did not intend to take such a long break.

 Did anyone know that it takes 18 hours to drive from Houston to Estes Park, Colorado? We have not done it yet, mind you, but I am trying to plan the first annual Our Family Vacation for mid-May, and, as is highly unlike me, I am planning ahead to make sure it actually happens. We may put off Colorado for another couple of years, because of the 18 hours. Does anyone have any closer suggestions for mountains? New Mexico? The other option is the beach. I enjoy the Destin area of Florida and it is at least 6 hours closer than Estes Park. I've found some cute houses to rent in Seaside--any opinions/advice on that??

 We have done some holiday traveling. We spent a few days with the grand folk on both sides. We got to watch my sweet friend Corrie get married.

Her family (she is one of seven kids) were with me when I lived in Hungary and they are dear, dear to me. It was wonderful to see the kids all grown up. Corrie and her twin sister Carmen reminded me that I had taken them to see their first movie in a theatre (they were 16 at the time) which I had forgotten. We saw the Emma Thompson "Sense and Sensibility" in English with Hungarian subtitles.

 I am starting an Informal Big Year because on January 1, I happened to spot a Great Blue Heron coming in for a landing in Angus, Texas, on our way home from Dallas. Since then, I have added a mockingbird (our neighborhood), and a Great Egret (in a ditch just outside our neighborhood). Also a common grackle, a crow, and a mourning dove.It's probably going to be more of a Small Year, but it's something more than nothing. I am also going to try to do watercolors of each of the birds I spot. Lofty goals, have I. We got a children's book about John James Audubon, and a miniature folio of his, and I have been Inspired.

 That's it. Except some pictures. I forgot to post evidence of our yearly "Nutcracker" trip, a generous Christmas gift from Grandmother Pate. I should link to the previous two years so we can marvel at how much these little ladies have grown.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Well, the world may not have ended yesterday, but this happened:

Yes. That is our dog. WEARING CLOTHES. Maybe you will remember this post, in which I excoriated the kind of people who dress their animals in clothes and otherwise treat them as human beings. Oh, how far have I fallen.

I was just tired of Sasha and her shivering. Chihuahuas tend to be nervous anyway, so when the ambient temperature drops below around 74 degrees, they are nervous AND they shiver from the freezing temperatures. The choices were either A. Send her back to Mexico, where she clearly belongs, or B. Buy some sort of warming garment, even though she has her very own BUILT IN fur coat.

I also needed to get her claws clipped because it had not been done in over a year and she looked like Edward Scissordog. It cost $19 to get her claws clipped and only $5 for the fleece jacket. The kids really wanted to get her all sorts of Christmas treats at Petsmart and I told them that living with us and sleeping in my bed are more treats Sasha deserves.

To refresh your memory, we did not choose Sasha, she chose us.

Which means she is a Calvinist.

That will be all. A wonderful Christmas awaits. God with us! Isn't that something??

Invisible frenemy

Helena: I had Penupuh in my dream. She had long brown hair. Like you! Then I hit her. In the face.
 Me: Why??
 Helena: Because she was drawing on my picture. Of a boweena. THEN she frew a fit. But her daddy was on the potty.
 Me: At a party?
 Helena: No, ON the POTTY. Maybe poo poo.

 I think I need to be glad that the invisible friend is getting hit in the face, and not the siblings, n'est pas?

 Yesterday, she wondered what we were getting Jesus for Christmas. I asked what she thought he might want. "A Batman costume," she said firmly, "AND a cool Batman fast car."I thought about gently suggesting that what Jesus might actually want is a little girl who doesn't hit her invisible friend in the face just because she drew on her ballerina picture.

 It is a good thing she is generally so cute, because she is also doing some routinely annoying things. For example, she takes my bookmarks out of my books. This drives me crazier than it probably should. It's just that if I happen to find a few minutes to read, I end up having to sift through the pages to find where I left off, by which time I no longer have a few minutes to read. I just started reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In fact, I am about to read another chapter while I let the kids watch an episode of Shaun the Sheep on Netflix. If you know anything about the book, you will realize that this is ANATHEMA and will probably cause the universe to fold in on itself. Which is actually okay, because isn't the world ending tomorrow anyway?

If it doesn't, I'm planning to post again. Probably some pictures of the multi-generational yearly pilgrimage to "The Nutcracker."

I don't have any words for the terrible deep sadness in Connecticut this week. So I won't even try.

In my pink Cadillac

I just got an email from Toys r Us, and one of the items in the Recommended for You! section was a Power Wheels Fisher Price Barbie Cadillac Hybrid Escalade EXT in Pink for the bargain online price of $359.99.

Toys r Us, you know me Not At All.

There was this kid who would come to a park near our old apartment with her nanny. She had one of those kids-sized battery operated cars (I don't remember if it was an Escalade) and she would come driving up, even though I am pretty sure she lived just a couple of streets away. Sometimes she wouldn't even get out of it, she would just take it for a leisurely drive through the park. My kids would stare at her and probably wonder why they were forced to walk to the park and then play on their actual legs. After a few minutes the little girl (she was actually not at all little, she was alarmingly large for her age--surprising) would whine that she was hot and ready to go. So she would turn for home and the nanny would shuffle along behind her. Is that what her parents picture when, later that evening, the nanny assures them that they got outside and played at the park? It was very much like that scene in "WALL-E" where all the humans have turned into these enormous blobs who ride in electric chairs on moving belts everywhere because they have devolved from lack of work and purpose.

 Helena has been wondering out loud (is there any other kind of wondering at this age?) what life was like for her before she was born. She will ask, "Was I playing with Jesus? Was I in the dark?" and this morning Harper, who is a touch snippy in the mornings (learned behavior from moi) said, "NO! You were an itty bitty thing that didn't even eat!!" Then, because it is entirely appropriate over the breakfast table, we discussed the umbilical cord.

 I've been trying to work with Harper on the volume of her voice. I will dispense little bon mots such as, "if you have something important to say, people will listen even if you whisper," and she will look at me and say something extremely non-important in a very loud voice. We are also working on keeping our mouths closed while chewing. The baby carrots almost did me in at dinner tonight.

I started a new book today. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo (is that her actual name?) It is really terrific so far. We went to the park after we finished our school work this morning, and after I untangled Helena from a rose bush (painful for me but, thankfully, not for her. She cried in frustration, just for good measure) I decided to walk laps around the park while reading. It went pretty well.

This is the only decorating we have done thus far. I have four yards of felt next to my desk that I have every intention of turning into a one of a kind, extraordinarily beautiful tree skirt. If I could only pry myself out of my metaphorical Escalade.

They shall have music wherever they go

Helena would like to extend her congratulations to Johny Football by showing him that she is cuter than he is in this uniform. Also that she is #1 and he is #2.

I just this minute finished making photo calendars on Shutterfly because I got an email today informing me that today was the absolute last day to get 40% off. It took me THREE hours and FIFTEEN minutes, and at 10:59 pm I had this sinking feeling that the special deal was Eastern time and that I would have done all of this work for no reason. Thankfully, the good folks at Shutterfly seem to be on Central time. I am unsure as to whether or not these calendars are going to be worth the time I spent on them. I am reminded of the utter chaos that is my method of storing the pictures I have taken for the past 7 years. I have eight memory cards of various gigabytes on the table next to me right now. I used only 2 for the calendar. I presume the rest of them have the entirety of the other 5 years of my children's lives documented on their tiny plastic-ness. That seems a touch risky, does it not? Maybe I should do something about that. But good grief, that would entail doing what I just did for the last THREE hours and FIFTEEN minutes, only for much, much, much longer.

Has anyone done any studies to document how it is affecting our kids just how documented their lives are these days? My generation generally had a few poorly focused, poorly lit photos (some of mine were from a Polaroid Instamatic camera) glued into some sort of tweed album to show that we had indeed been infants and toddlers and snaggle-toothed first graders. Some families took a few grainy home movies (not mine). I liked looking at that album. My kids really like looking at pictures of themselves on the computer, and I feel certain they would really enjoy photo books of themselves if I could summon up the will to get them made.

A couple of days ago there was a considerable ruckus coming from the backyard. I peeked out and Hudson had devised a drum set out of plastic buckets and was playing a jazzy beat, while Helena was pounding on the metal hammock stand (where is the hammock? I haven't seen it since we moved) with a metal ladle and singing in a loud, loud voice that wasn't entirely melodic. That will have to be it for today.

A baby for Christmas

Today we passed a fertility clinic on the way to play with the S's, and on the clinic marquee (yes, a marquee. For a fertility clinic. Welcome to America.) it had "IVF HOLIDAY PROMOTION!" and next to this was a photo of a darling baby in a some Christmas pj's and an adorable hat.

 Does this disgust anyone else? Does anyone think that the actual Baby of Christmas might want to walk into this clinic and start knocking over tables? You know, I have been trying very hard to reign in my cynicism, but things like this make it hard.

 Which reminds me of a quote I saw on some blog a few weeks back that made me uncomfortable. I think it was something like, "A woman at 40 will either have become radiant, or she will have become bitter." I am aware that I tend to be generally disappointed and cynical and, yes, bitter. I really want to be radiant instead. It is much harder.

 In other, more peppy news, tonight Helena and I were reading Mirette on the High Wire, and on the first page, there is mention of "Acrobats, jugglers, actors, and mimes from as far away as Moscow," so I mentioned that Moscow was the capital of Russia. Helena nodded and said, "Penupuh has a dog. Named Person. And a sister named Enema. No, Emma. NO, Gemma!" I can't tell you how relieved I am for Gemma that she is not Enema.

 Two other funny things Helena is doing lately, that seem to point to her becoming a professional hillbilly some day:
 1. She says, "these ones"--eg. as she is helping me unload the dishwasher, she will grab the very sharp knives and say, "I can dry these ones!" and I will be very conflicted as to which crisis I should deal with first: the grievous grammar infraction, or the possibility of bodily harm.
 2. She is lately fond of the redundant 'at' at the end of her queries: "Mommy! Where is the brush at?" and I will say, "Oh! Helena, you just need to say, 'Where is the brush?" and she will say, "Yes. But where is the brush AT? I need it." It is APPALLING

 I had my friend Merry's cookie exchange this Monday night, and, as usual, I have been eating so many cookies since then that I am now altogether sluggish and unable to do simple math equations. I think I still have around 10 left and they are starting to get a bit dry. My impaired faculties keep me from making sound decisions about whether or not to finish them off.

We went to Oil Ranch last Friday, so let us document that with a couple of pictures, shall we?

Bird can be a verb

Yesterday, Helena told us that Penupuh lives in Asia!  I asked her which country in Asia. "Actually, she lives in Russia. She speaks RUSSIA." Me: "0h, she speaks RussiaN?" Helena: "Yes, she does speak RUSSIA and also does buhway. She is in the Nutcracker." Then I tried very hard to remember if Russia is considered part of Europe or Asia.

Anyway, Penupuh is shaping up to be a fairly interesting imaginary friend.

I watched a cute movie a few nights ago. It's called "The Big Year" and it's based on a book about a few guys who participate in a birding quest (refered to by amateur ornithologists as a Big Year) in which the goal is to see hundreds of different bird species in the United States in a single calendar year. The quest involves extensive travel (I was very interested to discover that an area near Anahuac, Texas, which is close to where I grew up, is something of a birding Mecca) and a level of commitment that makes a normal life almost impossible. I'm pretty sure I want to try it at some point. Maybe we can take a year off as a family and do it together! The movie, incidentally, wasn't as hilarious as it should have been considering it starred Steve Martin, Jack Black, AND Owen Wilson (add Bill Murray to that trifecta and it might be Comedy Perfection in my world) but it was sweet. At one point, the Owen Wilson character (who is a legend at the Big Year--755!!) says, with a self-effacing shrug, "I just love to bird."

Here are some birds I have painted for cards lately. Harper calls them my Fat Birds and they are, perhaps, a bit too plump. As I get more skilled, perhaps I'll try for more authenticity. I ordered Harper a miniature Audubon folio for Christmas, which I will probably enjoy as much as she does.
 
I actually had great aspirations of painting all of our Christmas cards this year, and then I came to my senses and realized it would take me approximately 150 hours, so instead my dad took a picture of us in their backyard on Thanksgiving (Hudson looks a touch peaked because of the vomit) and I used a 75 % coupon for cards printed on a machine. As usual, I have fallen short of my ideal, and am reconciled to Just Fine.

Now we are going to walk to the park because children are starting to tackle one another, and that rarely ends well.