The Holidays

All of them. God there are a lot. We've been going for a week straight and there is still more to come.... It seems to get longer and more complicated every year. Solstice eve we celebrated with an electricity-free evening (that was my idea). Cookie singed all the finger tips on one hand by dipping them in hot candle wax, and the cat was also burned. No flames, but plenty of smoke.




The solstice party at the Waneks was so much fun, but I didn't end up sleeping close enough to the corn stove. It seems like I'm never close enough to the corn stove. The party ended at five, and the kids got up at seven thirty.

Then we did christmas with the fam. Ama wore her green fancy holiday dress and her spooky tights (just to inject some halloween spirit into all the holiness). Cookie got a skateboard from Santa, and Ama got a lambskin. Cookie asked me, "Mom, to get Ama's lambskin, did Santa kill a lamb? No, Santa wouldn't do that. He must have just found a lamb that was already dead."

Drama

The prognosis doesn't look good: I think we may have a case of early-onset terrible twos. It seems like every moment of my life is caught up in a huge power struggle with Ama. I think she hates me. This is a picture from her 18-month JC Penney photo session a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere between the 17 runaway attempts and the throwing of the teddy bear, they seem to have captured her essence perfectly. The furrowed brow, the anger burning in her eyes, injured and blaming. She used to be nice.

We have all varieties of drama these days, from naptime drama to mealtime drama to the dreaded baba drama. She habitually throws things. If she doesn't happen to be holding anything when she gets mad, she will go looking for something to throw. Sometimes she will go pick up something she has just thrown in order to throw it again. In fact, I think you could measure her anger by how many times she re-throws the same object. One throw is mostly just for show, or even out of habit. Two throws means she is angry for real. Three or more throws means you messed up bad and you will be punished to the fullest extent of the Ama.

Cookie enjoys the show. When Ama is visibly agitated, he stays close, handing her things to be thrown. She screams and he giggles with each thrown thing. "Ama, here's your bottle." Crash. Giggle. "Ama, here's your dolly." Crash. Giggle. "Ama, here's your apple." Crash. Giggle.

I think I might be going insane.

Ama in the Bath 12-07

Here are two little videos of Ama in the bath when she is about 18 months old. I am uploading them in 2012, and it is so impossible to me that she was ever that little or that chubby...she is so lovely! I love that her personality shines through even before she could really talk. I love you, Ama!

Layee Layee Hoo Hoo

Before it got freezing cold out, Cookie and Ama were in the front yard together screaming and then listening for the echoes to bounce back off of the houses across the street, or wherever they were bouncing. I heard Cook explaining it to her very seriously. He said, "It's called an echo. Or sometimes it's called a lay-ee lay-ee hoo hoo." Apparently we learned about echoes from the goatherder marionette scene in The Sound of Music.

Birthday Letters

I had a really cool idea right around the kids' birthdays this year (that would be Aprilish). I decided that it would be great to start a new thing where every year I would write a letter to each kid on their birthday. So then, as an adult, they could go back and read what I thought about them and what they were like each year of their lives.

It seems like a simple enough plan. One letter per kid per year (that's a total of two letters per year). Unfortunately, it is the middle of July and I haven't written either. I think of the time I have wasted checking my email or cleaning or looking through junk mail or whatever and think: why can't I do this? Why can't I just sit down and write a letter. It is such a good idea. And it would be so easy. In fact, I could be doing it right now, couldn't I? See? See how I am?

Well, it was 107 degrees yesterday, so I guess it is the season for North Dakota to shrivel up and turn brown. When the lawn gets crunchy. Cookie is in soccer this summer, and Ama is officially a toddler.
We went to Mexico City at the end of May, and Ama got baptized. Catholic. Don't ask, you don't want to know.

Spencer came with us this year, which was kind of trippy, because it was the first time anyone from my world had ever come into contact with anyone from Daniel's world. It was trippy but still pretty much uneventful.

As Cookie gets older, it gets less and less okay that he doesn't really talk in Spanish. Mexican relatives blame us for that, as well they should. I will keep trying with him.


Here is Cookie on a boat at Xochimilco, the floating gardens and flower market in Mexico.







This is Arlet, Daniel's niece. Age 4.









This is Ester, also Daniel's niece. Age 2.

Cook performing at Urban Harvest 2007

Here is a picture of Cook performing at the Urban Idol talent contest at Urban Harvest during the summer of 2007 (he was 6 years old). He wore the White and Nerdy shirt I bought for him at the Weird Al Yankovic concert, and performed the White and Nerdy rap. Too bad there's no video of it...it was awesome!

Cook and Ama with Dad 4-07