Holiday Leftovers

Hope everyone had great holidays. Here are six snapshots of life on CloudEight in the weeks since I last posted. Cheers!

On Christmas morning, while waiting for the twins to wake up before going downstairs, Owen was excitedly reciting to Deanna and me a litany of items he expected to find that Santa had brought. Having spoken to Santa only hours earlier, I had some inside knowledge and was somewhat alarmed that Owen’s expectations far–exceeded what Santa had actually deposited downstairs. In an effort to manage the situation, I explained to Owen that it had been my experience as a child that Santa usually only brought one or two of the things I had asked for. Owen mulled this over for a moment, looked at me sympathetically and said “That’s too bad for you” before continuing on with his expansive list.

We have a crèche Advent Calendar - a magnetic manger scene that is empty on November 30 but gradually fills up during December as each day, another magnetic member of the manger scene is taken out of the numbered boxes surrounding the scene and added to the manger. Owen was super-excited about this from Day 1, although it probably seems to a kid in those interminable waiting weeks before Christmas that almost every box opened on the 1st through 18th is either a star or a sheep, with only the occasional shepard, cow or inn-keeper to break the monotony. Finally, in the last crazy pre-Christmas week, the big stars of the show like kings, Mary, Joseph, etc. finally appear in the mix. By December 23, the scene was complete except for Jesus, causing Owen to leap out of bed on Christmas Eve morning with the cheerily urgent statement: “I need to get Jesus out of his box."

Cooper sneezed in the car the other day, causing a flood of snot to accumulate on his upper lip. Owen watched Cooper using his tongue to lick off the snot and casually remarked: “Cooper is using my old trick.” Cooper enthusiastically disagreed, as did Hayden, leading to a spirited argument among the three as to who had actually originated the snot lip-licking trick. To accurately picture this scene, you should know that the twins debating skills are a bit rough yet, consisting mostly of loudly and frequently repeated shouted statements like "No, not you" accompanied by an emphatic arm gesture. Deanna’s frustrated contribution of “Do any of you actually believe you are the first kid to lick snot off of his lip?” only served to raise the intensity and volume level of the debate. Such, sadly, is the level of discourse in our house of small boys these days.

The most frequently heard Christmas greeting around our house this year was, of course, “Happy Birthday.” Sadly, the boys were not wishing Jesus a happy birthday, but instead took the line from Frosty, who enthusiastically and emphatically wishes himself a happy birthday each time the magic hat is placed on his head, causing him to come to life. An early season viewing and a couple of subsequent repeats of this holiday “classic” caused the twins to happily yell “Happy Birthday” periodically throughout the season whenever they felt filled with the Christmas spirit.

Deanna brought the boys by my workplace last week to check out my fancy new office. At one point, the twins were simultaneously engaged in some vigorous pounding on my computer keyboard. This seemed like harmless fun until I noticed that in their randomness they were causing various programs, functions and screens to manically appear and disappear. Since that time, my e-mails are all printing in a tiny, almost unreadable size font, a problem that has now stumped our tech person for a 3rd straight workday.

Last night, the boys and I had spinach salads with carrots and cherry tomatoes, and a chicken stir fry with lo mein noodles and vegetables and teriyaki sauce for dinner (kudos, by the way, to my in-laws for generously putting this meal together before leaving after a long day of babysitting. You guys rock!). Anyway, as I sat there watching all three boys cheerily eat it all – broccoli, mushrooms, water chestnuts, etc. - I was pretty proud. Two of them even asked for second helpings of spinach salad for God’s sake. Whether their good eating habits are the result of blind luck, a good example set by Owen (who has always been an unpicky eater), good and consistent parenting, or a combination of all three, I can’t say. What I do know, is that for all the unknowns and guesswork and randomness and uncertainty involved in raising kids - a project which you will not really know if you have done well at until years and years from now, if ever - this little tangible thing made me feel like we are doing at least something right. And yes, I do realize that by writing this, I have jinxed it and am now in for many years of picky eating.