Author: Doris

I paid someone else to cut my children’s hair today. Vince really wanted to get a mowhawk. Then he asked for a faux-hawk. We compromised on a short haircut where you could put gel in to spike it up a little.

Freshly shorn and rabbit ears!

Last night, we drove into DC to go to Jeremy’s work Christmas party. It was freezing cold and we got there at 6:30 – I wasn’t sure how long we were going to stay as, you know, we all get sleepy at 7:15 pm.

You know, most Christmas parties are famous for someone getting drunk and acting all stupid, but at this one, they broke out the banjo and 3 guitars and sang songs around the candle-lit tables.

Edda fell asleep – which meant that we could stay a little longer at the party – although she did get up at 9:30 pm really angry that she wasn’t at home tucked into her real, warm, soft bed. (We did leave pretty soon after that).

Vince would have liked to have more kids at the party, there were only 3 other kids that were around his age, all the other kids were 6-18 months old. They took over Edda’s DVD player and watched Toy Story and Madagascar.

Edda’s school had a little special program in which an animal foster organization brought in foster dogs and talks about what they do for the animals and how they find forever homes for these doggies. Since Vince had never been to Edda’s school and he would ask about it every once in a while, I figured this was a nice opportunity to head on over.

We get a little tired if we are out past 7:15 pm.

This weekend, we had a potluck at church. I love potlucks, it’s the whole reason I joined my church. Food, folks and fun! It was a super interesting challenge, because we were trapped in the house the day before because of the snowstorm, so I was determined to make a dish that did not require any grocery shopping. We had a bunch of cake ingredients, so for the sweet dish, I made a plain white sheet cake decorated with rainbow sprinkles and for the savory dish, I made (well, Jeremy made) a Japanese curry with rice. We had the curry mix in the pantry and had a bunch of carrots/onions/potatoes also sitting around and we chopped up a bunch of frozen chicken breasts.

After potluck, there is always a round of crafts. Edda and Jeremy frosted a cookie with “E” for Edda. Neither Edda nor the high school volunteer manning the craft station look too thrilled about the whole thing. Crafts are not Edda’s forte. Those cookies were yummy.

On the way out, we found a little snowman and I wanted to take a picture of it because it was super cute and Vince yelled out, “Wait! I want to make it a little more Christmas-y” and he stuck his two crafty Stars of David on the tree. I didn’t tell him that he actually made it more Hanukkah-y. Pretty funny.

It snowed all day today – the first snow of the winter. I had plans to go to gymnastics, church, Trader Joe’s, Target and IKEA today, but none of it happened. I decided at 10 am that I wasn’t going to run any errands today and slowly but surely, all of our plans with other people this weekend got canceled one by one.

Jeremy had to work most of the day today (with a break for swapping in the snow tires) and Vince spent most of the day outside in the snow getting soaking wet and playing with pals – so Edda and I (the super-home-bodiest of the bunch) stayed inside and ate and baked! I baked two kinds of cakes today – used up 4.5 cups of sugar and 0.75 pounds of butter. I also did a lot of Christmas shopping online – yah internet and fuzzy slippers. Since I’ve been working from home, I think I’ve spent a total of 8 hours outside of the house in the past five days. I’m not sure that is a good long term ratio of slippers vs. outside human contact.

It was Eliana’s first experience with snow, it was very cute watching her try to catch snowflakes!

We split some bananas tonight. Vince contemplates the mysteries of the ice cream scoop.

Vince made me do a lice check today on his head. Lice is a big thing at school these days (I think a couple of cases have been reported at school) and the kids were talking to each other about it and Vince thought his head was itchy and wanted to make sure that he was lice-free. Which he was. But as I was looking though his hair, I decided that my own head felt itchy. Arg. Just thinking about lice makes my head itchy. Scratch, scratch.

The holidays bring out the Grinch in me – I don’t like to shop, I don’t like how the days are getting shorter and colder. My children are of two extremes, Vince is asking daily for things that he wants (and whining at any hint of hesitation at fulfilling his every wish), Edda is silent on her wants. Both of these extremes send me into an funk.

Since Thanksgiving, we’ve been seeing old friends – from high school, from old jobs, etc. These are the people who you used to see every day for years, and then for whatever reason, we just call/email once a year or so just to catch up. I’ve been feeling pretty good about Edda these days, not too anxious or too fretful. But all these kind, dear friends ask about Edda and how she’s doing and I start explaining how well she’s doing, no huge health issues, enjoying school and outings – feeling OK about it all and then all of a sudden, a little catch of emotion starts in me and I can feel that I’m about to cry. Sigh. But I don’t cry and the afternoon continues in a lovely way.

Last Xmas, we got Edda a book of Norse Myths. I got it because I love the Greek Myths and the Norse Myths are related to the Edda Sagas, which are probably the most well known use of the name Edda.