Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Right?

It’s been a slightly strange Christmas season around here so far. I had a bad cold and cough from the beginning of November to the beginning of December and then we were all felled by the stomach bug. Jane, Mendy, Cate, me, Telfer and then Chris. The grandparents might be re-thinking the loveliness of our proximity about now! The stomach flu is just, well, gross. This kind of says it all: at one point Telfer had to make an emergency Costco run for more laundry detergent. But I think everyone is better.

We are decorated and decked out in twinkle lights. Jane has managed to leave the tree mostly alone. After several friends mentioned it, we started Elf on the Shelf this year. Cate named the Elf RYAN of all things. Pretty sure our friend Ryan Scully is the only Ryan she knows, so hats off to you Ryan, our Elf is named after you. We have one of Ryan’s paintings in our bedroom so we talk about him and how he’s an artist and what that means, etc. Ryan the Elf shows up in a different place in the house every morning, after a night spent back at the North Pole tattling to Santa. It’s pretty fun.

We have a tree in the living room but I also decorated a little fake tree in Cate’s room. It’s a Chicken Soup with Rice tree after Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months (one of volumes in the Nutshell Library). I filled clear glass balls with rice, tied on spoons and set bowls in the branches. I am the delighted one, Cate thinks it’s normal to make a Chicken Soup with Rice tree.

In December I will be
A baubled, bangled Christmas tree
With soup bowls draped all over me
Merry once, merry twice
Merry chicken soup with rice

Good things lately:

1. Cate and her cousins bonded at Thanksgiving.

2. These two pictures. Telfer took Cate to the Christmas tree farm to pick out our tree. When the saw turned on, this is Cate screaming, “TOO LOUD, TOO LOUD!”

3. Telfer and I spent a night up in Seattle two weeks ago marking our first time out together for a night without children. Unless you count the romantic weekends in the hospital while awaiting Jane’s birth. Believe it or not, I do NOT count them! Chris and Mendy watched the girls – all involved had a good time – except for the spread of the stomach bug..

4. I came out of the bathroom the other day after taking a shower and found the girls sitting like this at their little table. Doesn’t Jane look like a big girl? That’s mostly a figurative comment as she had her 15-month check-up yesterday and is still not on the chart for weight. BUT! In keeping with tradition, she has a gigantic head (90th percentile for head circumference!) So sweet to see them together like this.

I think I am finally done here…