When I arrived home after running a brief errand this afternoon, I found this note on my desk, and in the freezer a small container of delicious cheesecake ice-cream with extra strawberries mixed in. Yum!
Apparently Caity had been and gone while I was out. I have a daughter who is both thoughtful and works in a creamery. Life is good!
(Thanks Caity, I love you too!)
Cover to cover. I am so proud. I've had him read bits and pieces before, but I haven't pushed him to keep working through the entire book like we did before bed tonight. Yes, Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! is beginner reader but he is just in kindergarten.
Lyne tells me that he's even better at reading in french — he is in french immersion so that would be logical.
As a reward I read him the Pluto pages in the Jumbo Book of Space; he was excited to explain to me how people thought that Pluto was a real planet but then realized that it wasn't. The book covered that but we've discussed it before... and Victor never seems to forget anything about space. It occurs to me that since he read me the first book he technically didn't get a bonus book.
Speaking of Victor's obsession with space, he was explaining to me earlier today that SpaceX's Falcon Heavy must be for travelling to other planets, because clearly the Falcon 9 is adequate for travelling to the International Space Station. The Falcon Heavy is basically three Falcon 9's strapped together. This was rather out of the blue, since the last time I discussed the SpaceX programs with him was over a month ago. Admittedly SpaceX has been a popular subject in this household in the past.
Anna will never voluntarily nap. But after school, if you get her into the right circumstances, napping is pretty much inevitable.
In this instance, Victor was at Beavers and Anna was playing in my office. She climbed onto my lap and was singing (Joey, her little stuffed cow, was dancing to the song), and she started “reading” the Economist that was on the desk (turning the pages and looking at the pictures). After a couple of minutes of this it occurred to me to transfer her to the chair in the corner and put the sweater over her... she was happy with this (except Joey had to be above the sweater, not under it), and kept reading and singing (and Joey kept dancing)... she likes looking at magazines. I went back to my computer and continued doing whatever I was doing for a while with her singing in the background. At some point I noticed her singing had stopped and I took this picture. This chair seems to be a pretty happy napping place for her.
In the past few months the “bedtime snack” has started to become a ritual. At first when Victor started to complain “But I'm hungry!” just before bed we took it as a bedtime delay tactic... but it has become clear that he really is hungry, and we've started to ask him “are you hungry?” before he brushes his teeth.
For example, last night he ate well at dinner, having three good servings of meat tortellini (I ate a lot and he ate more than I did). But nonetheless, just before teeth-brushing time, I asked him, “Victor, are you hungry?” He said, “oh, yes” and proceeded to eat a yoghurt, an applesauce, a cheese stick, a granola bar, two cookies, and a glass of milk, only pausing to assert “I'm still hungry!” after each.
Forget about putting away money for university when he becomes an adult, we've got to start saving for groceries when he turns into a teenager...
Anna loves building. Here she is Saturday morning just after breakfast.
Victor's gingerbread masterpiece.
Anna and her gingerbread victim.
The kids decorating the tree. Not sure what's up with the hats. We don't keep it that cold in the house.
Of course eggnog is a requirement. Hmm, that's not just eggnog, is it?
The parental units did participate in the tree-trimming as well.
Caity regards the camera with suspicion.
We declared Victor to be the gift distributor, since he can read the labels now.
Victor had been asking for Mario Kart for the Wii ever since he was introduced to it at Kevin and Mindy's, so we gave him that. He was very happy and wanted to play it at once. But once he saw the space shuttle Lego kit (from Grandma) that was what he wanted to play with first.
This track (also from Grandma) was a big hit with everybody, parents included. Except later in the week when Anna woke us in the morning because she had not one, but both of the battery-operated vehicles tangled in her hair, one on each side of her head. She didn't agree that they made cool hair accessories. We make sure her hair is well tied-back before the track comes out now.
Our camera is sufficiently old and abused that we let Victor run around with it occasionally. These are some of his pictures.
Anna really got into the spirit of giving. She was putting all kinds of things into this box and giving it to people. Just to promptly take it back so she could put something else in it to give away again.
Anna loves to be silly, which I think is great. This face, which she frequently breaks out, is kinda freaky though. Hopefully as she gets older she'll tone it down before she gets herself locked up for crazy just from this face.
Anna likes to arrange a number of (preferably tiny) objects into a “show”.
We went to a gathering for New Year's eve and had a blast. We didn't bring a camera, though. The kids ate first and then we put on a movie (Rio) for them, and then the adults ate. A year ago, Victor and Anna would have promptly fallen asleep, given the time (past 8). Pulling some photos from around a year ago:
I think this is Victor waiting for us to read him a book before bed (February 2011).
Here is Anna asleep on the living room floor in the afternoon; she didn't want to take a nap (December 2010).
And here's Anna asleep on her chair at the kitchen table in the afternoon (December 2010).
It would seem these days are over... both kids were awake until shortly before midnight. Luckily there were no meltdowns, they were both pretty happy the whole time. If they need sleep (or food), any little problem can become a life-destroying disaster.
