Phoebe the Head Hair

 Phoebe's kindergarten class has been learning about the body for the past two months or so. They talked about skin and hair, bones and blood, lungs and heart. During that month of night shifts, Scott came off a shift and went to the school to teach the class a few things before coming home and sleeping for the day. Phoebe's class presented a play about the things they learned. Each member of the class represented part of the body. Phoebe wanted to be hair. So did another boy. They bickered about it before deciding that Phoebe should be "head hair" and the other kid "body hair." You can see Mister Body Hair in the photo above wearing the costume with pipe cleaners coming out of it. Awesome. Phoebe was stoked about her role. She said something like, "Hair keeps your head warm and keeps it from getting sunburned." Well said.

 Nancy, Jared, and new baby cousin Ethan came to visit from Philly for a few days. They got to witness the excitement of the class play. We also did the typical Boston touristy stuff: lobster rolls, Freedom Trail, Mike's Pastry, and Old North Church. They also cheered me on at an indoor track meet. It was me with a few dozen college girls in the 3K, the shortest distance I've raced in who-knows-how-long. I was dead last at the first lap and 8th place by the end. I ran an unimpressive time of 11:16, but I shook some rust off and got "The Old Lady Award," as Phoebe called it (I was the only "open athlete" or non-collegiate runner in the race). I am hoping to race a 5K on the track soon.

 This is Phoebe's amazing teacher Val. She and Justin were Bruce's kindergarten teachers too, so we know them well and just love them. At the beginning of the year, I was worried that they would be expecting a Bruce Junior and would be disappointed when Phoebe was not what they expected. But they have embraced Phoebe and her antics, and have done so much in helping her mature a bit this year.

 On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Scott went hiking with a friend who is trying to hike all the 4000-foot mountains in New Hampshire. He has done 40+ of them, and Scott helped him check one more off his list: Mt. Osceola. They made it to the top, snapped a few pictures from the cloudy and snowy summit, and made it home for dinner. While he did this, the kids and I went to a community service project and made valentines for veterans. Bruce's valentines were almost all roses-are-red-violets-are-blue poems. Phoebe's said things like, "You are strong" and "I love you" scrawled in her all-caps handwriting. Oliver's were the typical toddler paint and marker mess, so I helped him make his.

Hello blog.

Quick update since I've been a bad blogger.

1. Scott is on a mammography rotation. He probably deals with lots of frowny females, but doesn't talk about it much at home. Instead, he is busy putting together applications for fellowship (a few years away still) and watching YouTube videos of people climbing stuff.

2. I just ran a 3K at a local college indoor track meet. It was the first time in years that I've run that short a distance, so I finished strong and felt like I needed more laps. I will be racing the 5K at another college meet in a few weeks. 

3. Bruce is getting into computer coding. One of his New Year's resolutions is to learn JavaScript so he can make a Minecraft mod. He recently wrote me an essay about why he thinks his bedtime should be later (it's 8 pm right now). He said everyone else in his class stays up later. I told him no one else gets up as early as he does (6 am without an alarm) and that all I do is laundry when kids go to bed. 

4. Phoebe got a book-making kit for Christmas and has been a prolific author, producing dozens of stapled books. She recently picked up ice skating and is still crazy about firefighters and Tae Kwon Do. 

5. Oliver picked up a few words in the past few weeks. "Done" is his favorite word and he uses it after meals, when he is sick of playing with a particular toy, etc. He also says "hot" and "mommy," but not in that consecutive order. He loves Bruce and Phoebe and loves picking them up from school.

Happy Noon Year

When we got back from Ohio, most of us got sick. Scott, Oliver, and I got nasty colds. Phoebe had some kind of bug that made her sometimes feverish, sometimes sleepy and tired at weird times, and all the time whiny. Random photo above: that would be Oliver posing for a picture at the piano, one of his favorite places to hang out. He loves playing, then stopping and clapping for himself like it was a recital.

She was bummed about missing church (really), so I told her we could do something cool at home. She chose to have her hair braided, which is remarkable considering that 99% of the time she doesn't let me touch her hair at all.

Once we recovered, we headed to the Children's Museum on New Year's Eve. We got a membership as a gift from Scott's parents, so we tried it out.

 The kids had a blast of course, and they tell me they want to go every single day this year.

 A few minutes before noon, we huddled in the museum lobby and watched a "ball drop" to celebrate the "Noon Year." We counted down, got sprinkled with confetti, and went back for more play!

Christmas 2014

 We went to Ohio for Christmas this year. The weather was great and there was hardly any traffic on the day we drove, so the trip there was relatively quick. The kids were eager to get to "Grandma's House" to play on the four-wheelers, run through the backyard, play with the collection of Legos that has been building for 40+ years, hang out with cousins, eat cookies, etc.

 We got to meet two new nephews - Jacob, this little guy pictured above, and August - both born in the past six months.

 Uncle Ben was nice enough to ride with Phoebe, who has a thing for the throttle.

 Scott was happy to grow a Christmas Beard. It got scarier for a few days after this photo, and then the miracle happened: he shaved.

 Christmas morning was wonderful as always. The kids loved tearing all the wrapping paper off of everything and loved playing with their new stuff even more.

 Phoebe got this giant stuffed giraffe, which was tricky to hide in our place for a few weeks and then haul to Ohio and back. Somehow it was still a surprise on Christmas morning. She tells me that "Giraffe" (pronounced jur-RAF-fee) is the sister she never had and insists that she eat at the table with us, sleep in her bed with her, and so on.

 My parents have a lot of wooded property and we did a lot of wandering through it. We got very muddy, but had a lot of fun hiking around with Grandpa.

We survived Nights.

 

 Happy New Year! You probably thought you have been written off the Christmas card list, but you would be wrong. The real reason is that the end of our year got a little crazy. I simplified things and put the card thing on hold. You may just get a valentine this year. And one more reason to postpone cards: the photo above is our only family photo from this year. Selfie with 'staches. Awesome.

 Scott worked four straight weeks of night shifts, which put a damper on family life. The only good thing about nights was that Scott and Oliver had a big breakfast every morning (after Bruce and Phoebe went to school and before Scott went to bed for the day). They enjoyed their "second breakfast" together.

One morning, I woke up at 6 a.m. to Oliver running across my bedroom floor. He tripped right before he got to my bed, face-planted into the sideboard, and started howling. I turned on the light and there was blood everywhere. The bottom of his nostril had a nasty cut, so I packed the kids into the car for Oliver's First ER visit. Scott just happened to be working in the emergency department, so we got to say hello. Oliver didn't need stitches, which I guess is good but I felt dumb for bringing him in. The kids were happy to see Scott and happy to make it to school on-time and eat breakfast at the school cafeteria, so perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.

All in all, I am sooooooo glad those nasty night shifts are over. I need someone to put my cold feet on at night.