About Me

Merry Christmas!

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:21:22 -0600

The stockings are hung, the presents are wrapped, the house is clean. I have a little time until Ross is due back from the Christmas Eve late service so I’ll write a few words.

I took the kids to the 5 pm service at the GUC tonight which was lovely as usual. It would have been even better if I’d been able to see it, but Ingrid is in age range where trying to get through a church service is futile (from 6 -18 months is the worst, I think). She knew Dada was up front and uttered several loud and “Dada”s during the service. She was determined to get up front and relentlessly tried to get there for the whole hour. So I had to leave for a good bit of it and felt bad leaving Simon on his own, but he had the Battleship app on the iPhone to keep him company.

I put her straight to bed when we got home, then Simon, Ross, and I had pizza by candlelight, watched a kid’s version of the Christmas story, and Simon went to bed without any fuss. He must have been tired!

This December Simon’s preschool teachers invited parents in to share holiday traditions, and I couldn’t really think of any particular ones to share, so I just brought a couple of stories and read them to the kids last Thursday. I read a version of the Nutcracker and brought the music for the kids to dance to, but my CD didn’t work. So that was a flop. But the kids didn’t really seem to care, and Simon didn’t care either. He was just happy I was taking him to work with me for the rest of the afternoon. So I guess it wasn’t that much of a flop.

Last Wednesday while at work and remembered that Santa’s sleigh is on certain El trains in Chicago, so I looked up the schedule and realized if I busted it I could make the very last one of the season. So I picked up the kids, stopped at Walgreens for some cash and emergency snack supplies, and we ran the block from the Walgreen’s parking lot to the South Blvd El station. I was really hurrying because I’d told Simon it was a surprise and I didn’t want us to get to the platform and have the surprise be just the cold wind of a regular train passing us by. I was carrying Ingrid (stroller was in the garage at home), and dragging Simon by the hand as fast as his little lets could go. But he was into it - it was a surprise! So, we finally got to the station - in time.

I should know after years of using public transportation that if you are about to embark on the stairs going up to the platform, and the train is not there yet, you have plenty of time. No need to sweat the last few steps. But I was in such a mode of hurrying, that I was zooming up the steps as fast as we could go and my foot slipped on the slimy, grimy steps coated with biological waste and who knows what else. Since I was carrying Ingrid I couldn’t really break my fall so my knee hit the steps. Hard. It hurt like hell but I couldn’t exactly collapse there in pain so I made it up the rest of the way, then sat on the platform for a few minutes thinking how stupid that was. My kneecap is still purple. In honor of the Purple Line, I guess.

Anyway, what else have we done this month? I had the idea of talking about a different character in the Christmas story each week for Family Home Evening. So we did angels, shepherds, animals, and wise men. I guess we forgot Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Oops!

I have noticed a behavior pattern associated with FHE. I’m sure it’s not unique to our family. Simon is totally into FHE and is excited when we get to have it, but yet when it’s time for FHE he gets totally rowdy and ignores everything we say and basically becomes impossible, and even Ingrid starts getting crabby. It’s like they sense we are trying to do something organized and have a natural reaction to thwart it. So we just keep it really short and get to the treat part as quick as we can. It’s better than nothing, right? We made & decorated sugar cookies one week and Simon rightly pointed out that Christmas is about love so we added a heart-shaped cookie cutter to the bell, tree, and gingerbread man and decorated them with pink frosting and red-hots. I’m like a kid - frosted sugar cookies are still my favorite cookie. We put some in the freezer to save for Santa, and that’s what Santa ate tonight.

This year I’m enjoying not going anywhere and looking forward to a week and a half off. It’s nice to take a break from the routine and remember Jesus’ birthday. My blog entries are going to slow down even more over the next few months because I’m teaching a class for 10 weeks starting Jan 3, and it’s going to consume all my free time. I have every night from now till mid-March mapped out with what I need to read and write, and there’s not much time for anything but that. So I’ll let you know how that goes... Merry Christmas!

We’re in

Thu, 3 Nov 2011 17:56:52 -0500

Sometimes, even after you’re all grown up, you still need your parent’s help. We couldn’t have done this move without my mom & dad. Our move went fine, but the unpacking and organizing is the hard part. I seriously do not know what we would have done if my parents hadn’t come to help this past weekend. We both went back to work right after we moved, and Ingrid’s been unsettled and wanting be held all the time, so we got virtually nothing done until they came.

Dad put together three pieces of furniture for us, hung a mirror & towel rack in our bathroom, and did various other things. Mom put together our kitchen and helped with other unpacking while I held Ingrid. She also worked her magic and got Ingrid to go to sleep at times. They did some shopping for us, too. It was such a huge help and really saved us. I have been more tired and stressed than since 2007-08 (worst time of my life); things are piling up at work with 2 people having just quit and this being my busy season with proposals and the move and Ingrid only letting me get 5 hours of sleep most nights with all her waking up and having to read 60 resumes so far for the positions I need to fill. Being a grownup kind of sucks. Can someone come be the responsible person for me, please?

Anyway, here are some photos from this weekend. I didn’t get many pictures, mostly because there wasn’t much to shoot - just a chaotic house. The kids were both pirates.

We are so grateful to be in our house, sometimes I think I’ll wake up and be in 540 Michigan Ave!

Our new address is:

8430 Kedvale Ave
Skokie, IL 60076

We’re moving

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:00:52 -0500

At long last, through the generous help of family and through hours of house-hunting by Ross, we’ve found a house to buy. We’ve been in our one-bedroom condo for 6.5 years, and thought we could possibly be here for another 6 years because of the terrible housing market. But, I can hardly believe it, in 10 days we’re leaving! We have a closing date and a tenant, and we’re outta here. We have some good memories of the place, of course. Our kids were born here and all. But man, we are SOOOOOO ready to get out of here!

Here are some fabulous things we’ll be able to do in our new house.

Run the hairdryer and iron at the same time without tripping the circuit breaker.
Use the air conditioning and the toaster at the same time.
Use the toaster and the hair dryer at the same time.
Do laundry any time of day or night.
Do laundry even if we don’t have any quarters.
Keep laundry detergent next to the washing machine without anyone pilfering it.
Use the printer without the lights dimming.
Put whole chunks of food down the kitchen sink.
Use the kitchen sink and the dishwasher at the same time.
Clean up the kitchen after the kids go to bed.
ALWAYS FIND A CLOSE PARKING SPOT.
Not have to worry about our cars getting ticketed when we’re on vacation.
Enjoy air conditioning in every room.
Control our own heat.
Enjoy silence at night (no banging pipes).

It’s going to be awesome.

As of October 24 our address will be:

8430 Kedvale Ave
Skokie, IL 60076

I won’t be blogging for a little while, but I’ll be back with pictures after Halloween. And some time in the future I’ll be moving this blog to a new platform. I’m not sure what it will be yet, but Apple has announced it will quit offering Mobile Me next June, which is what I use to publish this website. So that’s kind of inconvenient. (Thanks a lot, Apple. Last time I pick your software for something I want to use indefinitely.) But I’ve never really liked it much, people have trouble commenting sometimes, etc. If anyone knows if there’s a way to host something created in iWeb another way (just for archiving purposes), let me know!

She’s one!

Thu, 6 Oct 2011 22:17:23 -0500

My Ingy baby turned one this week! She was such a beautiful newborn, wasn’t she? The weather the week she was born was sunny and warm, and we’re having the same wonderful weather this week.

We love Ingrid so much, even if she does still wake up once or twice each night! A few days ago after a particularly hard night Ross and I joked that we were going to vote her off the island. Simon didn’t like that at all! He loves his sister and is really proud of the small ways he can help take care of her.

Ingrid is eager to leave babyhood behind, I can tell. She started walking at 10 months, lost interest in nursing around the same time, and can already communicate really clearly. She shakes her head with a decisive “no” when she doesn’t want something, and points to things she wants. She’s even started trying to drag me around to get me to do things she wants. Tonight she wanted something on the kitchen table so she tugged on my shirt and pointed. She can say “Ma,” and we think she said “Da” once, but it was just that one time, so it’s hard to know.

She wants the same things Simon wants. If I get Simon a drink or snack, she cries the second I hand it to him, because she wants one, too. Now we have to do two sippy cups - not that Simon needs a sippy cup, but so the two of them can have the same thing. She wants to do the things he does, too. She tries coloring with crayons like he does. She can’t apply enough pressure with the crayon to make a mark, but she gets the concept.

She loves music, is always trying to get in the middle of Simon’s cello practicing, and loves videos on the iPhone. She hates having her hair washed, diaper changed, nose wiped, or face washed. I can’t wait to start having conversations with this girl. This next year is going to be so much fun!

Here is a little collection of pictures from her first year.