confetti

Last night when I informed Sam that his friend Judy would be extending their afternoon playdate by staying for dinner, he said the news "filled his heart with confetti." They had a good time (see below). Last time she was here (a few weeks ago), I was in the kitchen while they constructed various things at the dining room table. Sam began a declaration: "Judy, I love you *so* much, that..." and she cut him off: "Sh! Not in public!" Aww.

(On another previous occasion, noted by Stephanie, Sam requested that she (Stephanie) draw a picture of a god pretending it's going to eat someone. "If it looks exactly like The Monster, I can tell Judy that it's just a god so she knows." Sam and Judy spend a lot of time talking and thinking about The Monster, first observed in Judy's house but since then seen numerous times by both of them as well as a coterie of classmates, and which they battle continuously and enthusiastically. As Sam put it to a friendly purple-haired Trader Joe's staffer, who'd handed him a sample, a few weeks ago: "The Monster is what really brought us together.")

Sam's kindergarten Family Week was last week. On Monday, we went in almost an hour earlier than usual in order to decorate the Drama Area-- Sam had requested a rainforest, and I'd spent a few evenings the previous week cutting big leaves out of green construction paper with him, and then stapling them to green streamers. I'd also made some paper parrots and snakes. We attached all of them to the ceiling in the classroom. After the kids got there and had their morning meeting, we had the Family Interview: the four of us were asked a series of questions by the class (well, Frida didn't spend that much time in her chair, preferring instead to rearrange the date-number cards on the calendar behind us). Where are your ancestors from? What's your favorite letter? Kind of art to do? Type of car? Thing to wear? Then J. took Frida to daycare, and I stayed on to do a "special snack" with rotating groups of kids: I'd brought sushi rice, squares of nori, and toppings-- sliced Japanese omelette, cucumbers, and avocado. So the kids smooshed sushi rice onto the nori (or just onto a napkin, if they were wary of the nori), and added toppings as they liked, then dipped into a little bowl of soy sauce. Reactions ranged from delighted (both by seasoned sushi lovers and enthusiastic newbies) to skeptical, but everyone at least tried the rice. Three hours after I got to work, just as I was getting out of a meeting with a team of research assistants, I got a call from one of Frida's daycare teachers-- she'd thrown up. I picked her up and spent the next two and a half days at home with her. Thursday she was well enough to go back, and J. dropped her off while I headed back to Sam's classroom to do the postponed special activity. Last year we did a big didactic "parts of the brain that do X" activity, but this year we changed it up and made animal masks out of paper plates. Whew. (Thursday afternoon was my worktime at Frida's daycare-- it's a coop-- so I only worked one full day last week. Oy.)

Snippet of video from this evening, taken by our upstairs neighbor on her fancy new phone:

felt mousies

for Valentine's Day.

snow and snow and snow

For the week leading up to Christmas, we went to Minnesota. We were delayed by a day on the way there (our flight was canceled after we were already at the airport, with the car parked in long-term parking, all the luggage and both carseats checked, and the four of us seated at the gate eating lunch). When we got to Minnesota, we found what we thought of, at the time, as a lot of snow. Plenty for me and Sam to make a snow monster:



and for Sam to go sledding even in the backyard.

Opa took Sam and J. downhill skiing, and Sam had a ski lesson:



Sam and I made a gingerbread house:



On Christmas Eve, J. stayed home w/Frida, while Sam and I accompanied Omi and Opa to their church to hear Omi play violin together with the young recorder-playing son of the church organist. It was the early, carol-filled children's service; Sam was much less into the carols (he sat quietly drawing monsters all over the paper program) but listened very intently to the story about "everyday angels" told by the pastor.

That night we opened gifts, per German (and Omi/Opa) tradition:



We were supposed to fly back on the 26th, but this time snowstorms in the Northeast delayed us for two days. One upside of this was that we got to see my friend DeNean and her kids, who returned home from their holiday travel the day we would've left.



Sam had his first Wii encounter, and Frida was charmed by DeNean's oldest, Grace (who was a flower girl at our wedding! but is now old enough to be a fantastic babysitter).



Then we got home to a bit of snow:



And then it snowed some more, and some more, canceling school about once a week all of January, including during the week J. went away for an intense writing week:



Those piles (pictured in the previous post) on either side of the driveway are towering 8 or so feet high, making it very hard to drive in and out; similar piles all over the city make it tough to see around corners for traffic and to find on-street parking (meaning a lot of folks park halfway into driving lanes, making driving tricky as well).

Sometimes it's fun to get out in the snow. Sam made a quincy with the boys next door and their dad, and went sledding with J:



But other times it's just "wintry mix" and rain/sleet/ice, so we've been doing a bunch of fun indoor stuff. Like folding all of the paper-alphabet-animals that Uncle Markus sent Sam:



or drawing, with the gorilla that Opa gave Frida:



I was very happy to find a family-oriented Day of Service activity to do with both kids on MLK Day, put on by these fantastic folks. Sam made a bunch of valentines for house-bound Meals on Wheels clients.

In not-fun indoor activities, Frida had her first ear infection, spending a miserable couple of feverish days before we figured out it wasn't a passing reaction to her vaccines.



Amoxycillin worked well, but then a week later she had an allergic response (Grandpa figured out what was going on-- we thought it was a rashy virus). Benadryl followed amoxycillin. She's fine now. (And can eat surprising quantities of cheerios with milk.)




She also got her first haircut-- just the bangs-- while Sam, for his part, decided he wants to keep growing his hair until it's long. Sometimes in the mornings it looks kind of wild:



Hope you're well amidst all the crazy weather.