This one is for Uncle Paul . . .

Joseph said to me last night,

"Mommy I'm going to use this to buy a firetruck. A fire truck is a beautiful thing to buy . . ."

I wonder where he got that idea?

Uncle Paul took us to see "his" fire trucks last week. He predicted that Joseph would last less than five minutes and he was right. But we let Joseph leave as soon as he wanted to and he emerged unscarred from the experience of seeing fire trucks up close and personal. He has NOT STOPPED talking about it since.

Margaret and her Dollies

I made Margaret a doll for Christmas this year. I'm not really all that crafty but I had low expectations. Basically I wanted a stuffed rag doll. I didn't finish it in time to bring it along on our Christmas trip so we saved it for Epiphany. But I confess that I was a little worried that someone else in the family would give her a doll and mine would get relegated to second place. My fears were confirmed Christmas morning when Margaret opened her gift from Grandma Marga. It's a cute little baby doll with blinky eyes. Margaret held it sort of at arm's length, flicked each eyelid, and tossed it aside. Joseph loved it and called it "Mr. Dolly."

My doll met a slightly warmer welcome. It got a hug and lots of dragging around by the hair. As things have settled, both dollies are about equally tied for Margaret's affections. She's doing this weird thing lately where she insists on filling her arms with as many things as she can carry before walking around the apartment. This might explain why our place usually looks like a tornado hit: Margaret is always carrying five things and Margaret is always moving around.

Often her arms are filled with both dollies and a pink-trimmed blanket made by Eric's great-great-grandmother (I think). But mostly we see a lot of this:


Joseph likes to strip the little pajamas off the first dolly and I'm thinking of making a couple more outfits for it. I gave the rag doll loose, wild hair to match Margaret's.

Violin

Almost as soon as Joseph was born we decided that we wanted him to play the violin. We hope all of our kids are musical but especially for Joseph we wanted to give him an activity that could be special for him, that he could excel at, and that he could start at an early age. We've been researching methods of musical training and talking to various musicians for a couple years and we settled on the Suzuki method of instruction. The Suzuki method works on the premise that very young children can learn how to easily play an instrument the same way they learn language--by listening and imitation.

Unfortunately, lessons and instruments aren't cheap. This is a high priority for our family but after looking into local teachers we decided last fall to wait a year. But for months Joseph has been obsessed with the violin. He turns half his toys into violins. He knows his left hand from his right and has long known which is his bow hand and which holds the violin. He has a tiny violin puzzle piece that he is always asking to play. He can pick out the violin (and many other instruments) by ear from recordings and from the radio. It was a little heartbreaking to have all this enthusiasm and no vehicle for it.

At Christmas we spent a lot of time with Eric's family, many of whom are or were music teachers. They convinced Eric that he could teach Joseph himself. Eric does not know how to play the violin, but he does play several instruments and just has a lot of innate musical sense and ability (far more than I do, despite my music degree). When we got home from our travels we looked into violin rentals and we were surprised at how inexpensive two instrument rentals would be. Eric went out at the beginning of the month--in time for our Epiphany celebration--and got a full-size violin for himself and a 1/16 size for Joseph (even then, it's a bit too big). We already had the books in place.

Joseph was so excited when he opened it. He pulled it out of the case, asked for the bow, and started "playing" immediately. The top picture is that time. Eric let him just play with it for a little while and later (bottom picture) they had their first lesson.

They try to have a short lesson together most evenings after dinner. I'm always putting Margaret to bed (she is not a help to the lessons!) so I typically miss them but I got to see the tail end last night. We are so proud of Joseph. He has learned the proper, very particular way to hold the bow and is working on placing his left hand correctly on the neck of the violin. He loves to work on his good violin posture and he is learning to draw the bow nice and straight across the strings. He's still a long way from "Twinkle, Twinkle" but he takes his playing very seriously and is always ready for a lesson. Eric is really enjoying being the teacher and is studying hard himself so as not to pass on any bad habits. He's finding that playing is a great break from dissertation-writing and job-hunting.

The best thing about celebrating Christmas just a little different from all your neighbors:

Free Christmas trees.

We all had a really wonderful Christmas tour of New England this year. I was too busy to blog much about it but it didn't matter because we saw almost every reader of this blog in person. Thirty-seven relatives (including the surprise visit from GI Grandpa and Stephanie). We miss our family every Christmas so it was nice to share the holiday with everyone this time around.

Despite that, we did also really miss our own Christmas traditions that we've begun to cultivate over the last four years. We didn't do much by way of decoration, we didn't get to finish setting out our Nativity and, for various reasons, we didn't even exchange gifts with each other. We decided just before leaving on our trip to give gifts amongst ourselves on Epiphany, the Feast of the Three Kings, which is tomorrow.

Our family really likes to follow the liturgical rhythm of the Church year, especially at Christmas. We try to save Christmas activities and celebrations for Christmas itself and focus on Advent until December 24th. Then we put our tree up on Christmas Eve, decorate it and everything else, and break out the Christmas cookies. Last year we tried to stretch the celebrating through all twelve days of Christmas. This year was no trouble as we've had lots of family to see and gifts to open. But it was a little sad to come home to our undecorated apartment earlier this week and still be waiting for our own family's small celebration tonight and tomorrow.

Then we were out for a walk last night and Behold! Christmas trees everywhere! We joked several weeks ago about stealing one off the curb when we got back to DC but we weren't serious. Most of the trees are wet, dead or huge. But outside an apartment building just five blocks from here we found a perfectly healthy, perfectly little tree and we dragged it home. In no time at all we crammed two strings of lights on it and hung all our ornaments. It's a bit "Charlie Brown" but, hey, it was free. I love it.

Naptime

We have a couple sleeping bags that recently made their way out of the closet in Joseph's room exciting his curiosity. Eric pulled this one out of its stuff sack for Joseph to check out and Joseph immediately named it the "take a nap bag." He loves this sleeping bag and snuggles into it every naptime. He usually tries to persuade me to cinch the face opening so tight that he can't see, but I'm a little nervous about letting his sleep like that for two hours . . .

The naptime ritual is further embellished in that he recently decided he needs some animal friends to nap with him. We have an entire doll cradle full of stuffed animals that the kids heretofore never touched, so I'm glad for the sudden interest. Every naptime I ask Joseph who he wants to sleep with and he always replies, "Ostrich. Pony. Panda Bear." If he isn't tired, which is the case more and more often as he gets older, he still has to have a "rest time" and I hear him on his bed with these three animals making up stories, quoting from stories he's read, and just generally having a good time. Joseph is a kid who needs his down time even when he isn't sleepy.

I love going into Joseph's room after nap when he has slept, though. As soon as I hear talking I open his door and he immediately starts chattering away about his dream (I assume). A couple of days ago I got this:

"Mommy I was just talking to Jesus. I was telling him about a bulldozer. Because I don't have a bulldozer but I need a bulldozer. It should be a red bulldozer."

Got that, Jesus?

Broken Camera

I haven't been blogging because our camera has started producing pictures like this:
That's supposed to be a white candle. Ditto on the walls. We already asked someone for a new camera for Christmas, so don't all run out and buy us one! Until then, I do have a few from the archives that never made it to the blog . . .

Now that Margaret is walking I've put her to work around the house. It's so nice to be able to put my feet up after dinner and let someone else clean up.

Just kidding. Maybe someday. We were just talking last night, though, about gifts we should give the kids. I had a few ideas for Margaret but I was really coming up empty on Joseph. Eric said, "Well, what does he do all day?" He plays with books. Really. Part of the reason, I know, is that he can't get to toys that easily on his own. But even when he's in his wheelchair or mobile stander he pretty much follows me around and wants to do whatever I'm doing. Same with Margaret. I just cleaned out the two bottom cupboards of my kitchen and removed all the cleaning supplies (which were already non-toxic, by the way) and breakable objects and filled them with all my pots, pans, bowls and tupperware. She'll sit and play for quite awhile. Her favorite toy this week has been a can of tomato paste. Yesterday I was cleaning a closet and gave her five cans of tomato paste and a box. She was happy for 45 minutes. I've said it once, I'll say it again. Kids don't need toys.

In which we are not (quite) scammed

I offer this post both as an entertaining story and a service: don't let this happen to you!

Our family was downtown this afternoon. We had a quiet morning, went to noon Mass and then all went to a Starbucks en route to the main library. Eric needed some caffeine to get going on studying and I needed some food to deal with children's book hunting. Downtown was pretty festive today: no one was working but the many department stores were mobbed and everyone was in good holiday cheer.

As we sat enjoying our food and drink, a respectable-looking middle-aged man came in and asked the cashier for change. The cashier said they'd been super-busy and didn't have any change to spare. The man headed back out but as he passed by our table he hurriedly and distractedly tossed four five-dollar bills in front of Eric and asked, "You got a twenty for four fives?" Eric pulled out his wallet and I looked, curious, because neither of us usually has any cash on hand. The man asked me almost frantically for directions to New York Avenue which I obliged as Eric handed over the one twenty dollar bill I'd seen in his wallet. The man called something over to another customer and then looked down at his hand and showed Eric a one dollar bill, saying "You only gave me a single." Eric was bewildered. He'd already pocketed the four fives so he opened his wallet again. There was no twenty in there this time and he was just about to give the man his four fives back when I was struck with unusual boldness and said, "No. He gave you a twenty." There'd been a twenty in the wallet a minute before and if it wasn't there now, the man must have it. He pulled the twenty out from under his arm and said, "Yeah, but I wanted twenty ones. You don't have em?" He gave us the twenty and took back his one and fives and disappeared quickly out the door.

Pretty slick. In hindsight this all sounds like one of those chain e-mails you read, thinking, "How could someone be so stupid?" But it all happened so quickly that we didn't even realize we'd been almost scammed until the man was out of sight. First, why would anyone want a twenty for four fives? And why did he drop them all on the table before Eric had even reached for his wallet? Second, why does a pedestrian in Chinatown need directions to New York Avenue (obviously weird to anyone from DC)? Third, he picked a man eating with his two children and distracted the wife with conversation keeping us off balance through the entire transaction. The man changed tactics so quickly at the end that we were left thinking we'd been confused--but only for a minute. We talked to the Starbucks employee who said the man had had a lot of cash and we called the cops but I bet that guy made a killing in Chinatown today.