Your mummy loves you

Luke, it is amazing to think of all that you are at seven years old. You love Legos, pharoahs, magic, swimming, Harry Potter, and Plants vs. Zombies. You're a voracious reader and a tenacious debater. You have a healthy sense of skepticism and a wildly curious and creative mind. Your laugh is so contagious it has been known to make even the lamest joke seem funny. You have friends, young and old, all across the country. Could any of us have imagined this outsized personality growing out of the tiny baby whom we first met seven years ago? We could only have dared to hope.

Have a mummy cake, Luke. I love you, my seven-year-old boy.

Grab Bag

Making a mess, and some cookies.





Works of art.





Delivering some snacks and a note for Santa on Christmas Eve.





Hogwarts!





Water heater pillow!





Skype-ing Seattle.





Laughing all the way.

Mercy Mild

For all of the frenzy surrounding a large winter storm, you have to admit that the storm itself is quite serene. The tiny flakes float and drift and cover everything, from your eyelashes to the path that you just shoveled clear a few hours ago.

We had a riotous Christmas day, filled with food and cousins and big piles of wrapping paper and a large custom water heater pillow. Then the day afterwards was stunningly quiet, with no cousins, and with fluffy white snow falling steadily from 11 am onwards. It was a little too powdery to make a snowman, but apparently it was just right for running around in circles and yelling, "AAAAAHHH!!!"

Today in the forecast: Lots of snow play, followed by conditions of hot chocolate and snuggling under blankets.

Points and circles

Some of my favorite pictures from the week aren't necessarily the ones that document every minute; they're just the ones that capture a moment of happiness. Like Zach's time in the ball pit. I took him to free-play at MyGym this afternoon while Dave took Luke to a movie, and we had the place to ourselves for more than 90 minutes. Guess who took advantage of the opportunity to conduct a variety of experiments by rolling balls down inclines?

Here is Luke the other day after he and I made cookies. While Zach is a little more free-wheeling with his fun, Luke seems to get frustrated a little more easily. There's a new game on my iPad that Zach and Luke both like to play, but to advance to the next round you have to fail a couple of times to figure out the rules - and Zach is fine with that but it drives Luke nuts. Tonight Luke and I played through a level on the game and talked it through and failed, failed, failed until finally we got it right. Then we had a major victory celebration. When I see this cookie picture (which followed a few mess-ups) it reminds me of the same sense of pride and satisfaction in a job well done.

Next is a shot from the butterfly room at the Academy of Natural Sciences. What I love about this picture is that it looks like they are having a really good time together. For whatever reasons - maturity level, personality, etc. - those moments are few and far between. But I'd like to think that as Zach gets older and their interests converge a little more, they'll be able to do more stuff (and have fun memories of what they did)together.

Last is a picture of Dave sitting on the floor at Macy's with the boys while they wait for the light show to start. This picture says a lot to me about the kind of dad Dave is, as he sits on that cold, hard floor. Yesterday after our little trip into the city, Luke and I drove to Joe's house, while Dave and Zach took the train there. Of course they could have gone in the car with us, but Dave made it a point to set up a special train trip for Zach because that's what Zach loves. While Luke and I were in the car, I told him, "Just think about how great it is to have a dad like your dad. He's taking you to the movie Tron because you think it's cool, so he thinks it's cool too. He's making a special train trip for Zach because he knows how much Zach loves trains. This is a guy who will do just about anything for you guys." And that basically says it all.

Just chill

You don't see any pictures here, do you? One possible reason is that we toured the mint and the Federal Reserve today and absolutely no photos were allowed. Another reason is that I am still trying to figure out the technology end of this vacation. I love the iPad (and oh, do the boys ever love it) but it sure has been tricky trying to figure out how to do some things on here. But the only thing more boring than having technical difficulties is reading about someone else's technical difficulties, so this train of thought cannot continue.

In four days we have visited the wildlife sanctuary and hung out with alpacas, traipsed through a river park to see deer and ducks, and done two day's worth of cultural stuff in Philly. It's cold, but the weather hasn't seemed to slow anyone down. Yesterday it was a real thrill for me to experience the full Philadelphia cultural spectrum within about three hours: from watching the Nutcracker at the Academy of Music with the womenfolk (thank you, Sara) to eating pizza while standing at the counter of Lorenzo's on South Street. Dave took the boys to the Academy of Natural Sciences while I was out Nutcracker-ing, and he managed to keep them both thoroughly engaged, solo, for several hours. Tomorrow we are headed back into the city to view one of the most famous light displays in the country (voted tops by US Airways magazine at least) and then off to Joe's for a few hours.

Zach seems to be doing a little bit better; it's hard to measure but he was sure in a good mood after we baked cookies and later got a bag of shredded money from the Federal Reserve. Tonight I asked him to draw some designs on some butcher paper so that we could use it as hand-crafted wrapping paper. He spent about three minutes drawing two large scenes involving snow and cars; then spent the next two hours talking about how proud he was of his wrapping paper. Oh, and it is quite a sight to watch him operate the Trains and Jelly Doodle apps on the iPad. Makes you think that kids his age were literally born to do this.

Luke has been busy with a crystal-making project, along with cookie-baking, movie-watching, and Googling pharaoh stuff with my dad. Getting here so far ahead of Christmas has been confusing for both boys, who are certain it is imminent. Dave finally made up a calendar for Luke to hang on to that has all the milestones of our trip carefully marked. Personally I don't want to look at it because it's all going too fast for me already.

1200 pages

What is it with me? Only minutes to go until we fly, a million things left to do, and here I am blogging again. But I couldn't resist putting up a picture of Luke, having the greatest of great days. He had his holiday show, which went off swimmingly, and he and I finished the third Harry Potter book. That's 1200 pages of serious reading we've done together in the last three months, and that doesn't even count the other stuff we've read to him or the stuff he's read himself. If this kid isn't a bookworm, I don't know who is.

Now, off to fly the skies...

The Cram

These are the actual words I said to Dave before I left for work this morning: "Luke's snack is done. Zach's lunch is done except for the water bottle. His nap bag is downstairs in the front hall. I put three gifts in Luke's backpack for the EDP teachers; they each have labels with their names on it. Here is the platter with turkey club sandwiches for our class tonight; please stop by the house and pick them up before you drop Luke off at the class. I put 25 holiday cards on top of your wallet for you to drop off when you go to the mailbox. You don't have to do anything with the hummus appetizer plate because I'll be putting that together tonight after class and before I leave for the party."

Did you get all that?

The last few days have been a crazy whirlwind of gift-giving, extraordinary Christmas displays (up and down the Naples canals), cookie-making, and present-wrapping, all topped off with a massive fireworks show at the pier. We are cramming in as much as humanly possible (not necessarily by choice) before we leave for our holiday sojourn on Thursday. Everyone's got a holiday show, or presents to be wrapped, or cards to be written, and it is getting difficult to keep track of it all. Yesterday when Luke invited two friends over to our house, and simultaneously accepted an invitation to go over to another friend's house, my head nearly exploded.

Here's the final clincher: Zach's ears have been so goopy that when I took him to the ear nose and throat doctor yesterday, the doctor finally admitted that Zach's case was a little "extreme." He prescribed Zach some new eardrops that will supposedly dry him out, but if his ears are not dry by New Year's Day, the doctor is going to send us back to the hospital/operating room so that Zach can get a hospital-grade ear-vacuuming. Mmmm. Ear vacuum. One of my new favorite phrases.

Anyway, I have a few spare pictures on my cell phone sitting around, and a few spare seconds, so what the heck? In no particular order: Still photo from Zach's holiday show, Luke's delight when opening a magic kit from Suzi and Bill, the boys with the pizzas they made at the local pizza parlor's kids' open house, Zach feeding the fish yesterday at the wilderness park (note the short sleeves). We are headed to much colder climes - let's hope they are quieter too.

Pain in Debut

Dave has picked up some fancy friends as a result of his real estate blog, and as a result we got invited to a high-profile party last night. The party was thrown by the publisher of a local luxury-lifestyles glossy magazine, and the pages of said magazine are always filled with party pictures and bold-face names. "I've never been a bold-face name before," I told Dave. "Maybe if we go to the party they'll take our pictures!"

So we headed over to the party last night, trying to look appropriately glamorous without looking like we were trying too hard, and sure enough there was a photographer there, snapping pictures left and right. Then Dave saw the host, who greeted us warmly and encouraged us to help ourselves at the taco bar. Mmmm...taco bar...two words that no one ever has to say to us more than once.

We piled our plates high with the most delicious tacos you've ever tasted, and then headed up to the balcony. I had just taken an enormous bite of taco when who should come over to us but the photographer. So I held up my forefinger in what I thought was the internationally recognized hand gesture for, "Just give me a moment while I chew and swallow," but the snap-happy photographer was not in a waiting mood. I was trying to eat so quickly I swallowed an enormous mouthful of (admittedly delicious) taco, but the flash went off just as I was grimacing from the gigantic lump in my throat. So there, folks, is my debut as a bold-face name. Bulging throat and all.

The next six days are going to be an enormously over-scheduled nightmare, so don't expect too much from me on this front. I'll leave you with a link to a short video from Zach's holiday show last night (thanks, Bill). Poor Zach is down to about 40 percent of his normal hearing capacity. He managed to do the hand gestures but never sang a word, instead looking like a (very handsome) deer in the headlights for most of the show. Kind of like me, except much cuter and without the enormous mouthful of taco.

We Are the Champions

Dave and I are making latkes and chicken soup for an impromptu Hanukkah celebration tonight. This sets Zach off in a flurry of excitement as he goes off in search of our menorah: "Where's the candle trophy?"

A thrill of hope; the weary world rejoices

For the past eleven years, since Dave and I have been married, I've been carefully cultivating a little Christmas ornament collection. It's a mish-mash of ornaments people have given me and ornaments I've bought at half price after Christmas every year (come on, you KNOW me). I've amassed nice variety of fun objects, ranging from lollipops and cats and dogs, to incredibly intricate sailboats, to a chicken water jug. My Empire State Building got crushed last year, which was highly disappointing. But, as I've told the kids, "The first rule of ornaments is that ornaments break." (It's kind of like Fight Club, except you can talk about the ornaments.) "If an ornament breaks, we'll be sad about it, and then we'll clean it up, and then we'll find another ornament to love."

Each year since the kids have been around, they've helped us as much as they can manage or understand but it hasn't been a fully coordinated family effort. This year was different.

This year we finally experienced - together - the full-on joy of opening the box, re-discovering our old favorites, deciding which ones we want where, and hanging them up together. Zach is finally old enough to "get" the concept of choosing an ornament and hanging it on the tree (as opposed to taking all of the ball ornaments and running off with them). Luke is old enough to remember the ornaments he made in past years and have fond memories of bringing them home.

When we were finished, we turned off all of the lights except for the ones on the tree and sat there marveling at our glorious handiwork. "This was a very nice Christmas," declared Zach.

Of course, there is an awkwardly large cluster of ornaments right at the front of the tree at the bottom. Am I going to move them? Nope.