12/22/21 Bad boys

Yesterday, Julian told me that his first-grade best friend, Aditya, is now forbidden to play with Julian by his father. Apparently Aditya came home upset about Julian's non-stop rough-housing one too many times. Rough-housing is OK of course, but not quitting already when it's well past time to, is not OK. I apologized to Aditya's mother once. She was gracious and kind, but obviously rattled on behalf of her son, I felt all that much worse.

And today, Gabriel got into a fight at CDC, and ended up hitting his (former?) friend Minoj. He almost got sent home for not talking about it with the CDC director, who determined it was a disagreement rather than an act of aggression (bullying). Then I saw the CDC director giving Minoj's mother an "Ouch Report" -- something the CDC has to do in writing to report an injury that occurs while in their care. I approached Minoj's mother and apologized. She was gracious and kind, but obviously rattled on behalf of her son, I felt all that much worse.

Boys will be boys is one thing, but I'm getting tired of my sons alienating their friends, and putting me in a weird position with their mothers.

I don't know how much this matters, but both Gabriel and Julian's former friends are only children. Maybe they're just not used to the rough-and-tumble dynamic that brothers get to exercise and develop (overdevelop in our case). Certainly this doesn't justify my boys' behavior, but my guess is that their friends' threshholds and expectations are set differently. For example, Gabriel claimed that Minoj provoked him by filling in some holes Gabriel had dug, and Minoj probably never expected to be clobbered for it. Julian would still have filled in the holes, but he'd know darn well what he was risking. If Minoj had a brother, he might have done things a little differently -- like duck.

12/22/11

12/20/2011 Off the air

Well, it's been what, 6 months? No wait...since September.

Sigh --I've lost my voice again, this time as much as possible and still have one at all. (There was one time I completely lost my voice, like really, NO sound at all, but that's only happened once.) I remember I had to postpone a phone interview for my current job in September because I'd lost my voice then. That's only 4 months ago. Great. I never get used to not being able to mumble "thanks" to someone who holds a door or whatever, and having people whisper back to me.

I'm absorbed in a work project that I'm having so much fun with, it almost feels like I should pay them. Tonight after dinner I sat right down to write up something, and next time I looked up, it was 10:30. It's been a long time since I've been that psyched about something! Unfortunately, I need to ask some questions on the phone tomorrow, don't know how that's going to happen.

Partly because of this work project, partly because of this bronchitis (it'll turn to horrendous coughing next), partly because Gabriel is still slightly recovering from his knee injury, and largely because there's NO SNOW, I decided to postpone our short trip to the mountains this Thursday. Wah! How could this happen to me, the first winter I'm completely ready to ski all winter all if I could. Instead the low snowfall makes front-page news. To add insult to injury, there's a blizzard in New Mexico -- send it our way please! I feel bad for the ski resorts and all the surrounding businesses that depend on a busy Christmas, actually.

My consolation is finding a cabin that we can stay at for 2 nights right before New Years' next week (no easy feat; most places are booked and require 5-night minimums). For that, we don't need ski snow; the kids will be very happy to play right outside, and while I'll regret not skiing, I think I'll be happy to just hang out inside. But maybe by the 29th it'll snow!

12/20/2011

12/18/2011 Errands

A few days since I've written....few remarkable things transpired. Unless you count Christmas cards -- I finally sent some out this year!

Friday morning we were awakened at 6am with piercing shrieks -- Katrina. Dave got there first, and found her covered in blood. Another gushing nosebleed. One pajama sleeve was soaked, and there were large spots of blood all over her bedding, pillow and pajamas. Julian's had nosebleeds before, but never with this sort of volume. By the time it stopped and I got her cleaned up, it was time to get ready to go to work anyway. Ugh -- I felt it all day, having to get up so early.

This weekend we put up Christmas lights -- late, but we're one of the few families in our immediate neighborhood that does anymore. Julian told me that our neighbors across the street don't celebrate Halloween or Christmas. I got some gifts ordered, some things boxed up and sent out, packaged some things to return, caught up on everyone's laundry, mostly finished updating my Google Contacts so I could send out Christmas cards, made a few batches of holiday meringues, ordered jackets for all 3 kids, finally ordered some new shoes for Katrina, labelled and washed a pile of new sweatshirts, and various miscellaneous other things. Yet it feels like we didn't do anything!

I've planned for us to go on a one-night trip to the mountains to snow-play and ski, but the skies aren't cooperating. There's very little natural snow right now. Wah! I hope that fixes itself in the next few days!

We decorated the tree also. I let Julian and Katrina place most of the ornaments (Gabriel was playing piano and didn't join us), but I put some of the more fragile ones up high. This is so much more fun to do with kids -- or rather, watching them do it.

Though Gabriel didn't join us for the decorating, he did help me put the lights up. That was always my job when I was a kid, now I can pass the torch to him!

I had to make two batches of these holiday meringues to get them right, and sent some to my niece and nephew (who hopefully will share with their father and uncle if he's there!). These are so pretty, and easy -- I think this just skyrocketed to my favorite Christmas cookie.

One night after dinner, Katrina got a pencil and piece of paper, and began intently writing something. At one point, I walked by her and peered over her shoulder, and she rebuffed me immediately: "Nooo! Don't TALK to me now!" I feel the same way when my head is overflowing with words and I just must write them down and don't want to be interrupted.

Later I walked by her and saw her carrying the paper. This time, she let me look at it. I was absolutely stunned. Usually she writes little things like notes to herself, or to-do lists that contain items like "ask for ideas." But this -- !

God

We are in God,
Where we die.
How did we die?
We ate too much
candy: that's how
we died
When we visted God we really died.
God is really in sky.

And she was so directed while writing it, like she knew exactly what had to be said, and where to place it. It's almost a little creepy, but I remember my sister telling me that my nephew Aidan went through a phase of being interested in death. I don't sense that Katrina's giving it any real deep thought, but she mentions dying a lot. She told Dave later this was a song.

Gabriel's knee seems to have fully recovered, and after two physical therapy sessions and a lot of muscle relaxants, my TMJ is allowing me to chew mostly normally, but with very limited opening.

No school next week!

12/18/11