Happy Birthday to Papa!

Papa is 43 today!  I remember his 20s!  Where did the time go?

Since his birthday is on a busy Monday, we celebrated in our family tradition on Sunday, starting the day with cake (in his case, Geburtstagbrezel) and presents.
Papa is a tough guy to buy for because he really doesn't want stuff.  Papa likes experiences, so Mama planned a unique one!  I organized a sitter for the afternoon, so we could have a "Date Night" at a local glassblowing studio.  We each made a paperweight, an ornament and a drinking glass.













Each project built up skills needed for the next one.  It turns out blowing glass was hard work!





It was also great fun, and after the glass has time to cool properly, I can go pick up our projects.  They were still so hot when we left that we couldn't see the colours.  We can't wait to see how they came out!

Happy Birthday, Markus!

Immunization day

Our sweet Stephanie received a long-dreaded immunization today from our wonderful doctor.  When we experienced our pediatric debacle this summer, the immunization process there was so traumatizing that she has been living in fear of this one remaining immunization (I wouldn't let them continue after the two she received there; they were so harsh and scary).  Lately, she has brought it up a lot, so I figured we better get it out of the way.  I talked a lot to her about the gentleness and kindness of our new doctor, Dr. Ke.  I told her that the immunization itself would probably hurt a bit, but Dr. Ke wouldn't hurt her, that I trusted Dr. Ke and she could too.

Dr. Ke was as wonderful as I had expected.  She even drew a smiley face on the band-aid she put on Stephanie's arm.

Stephanie still cried from the stress of it.  And cried and cried after we were back in the car.  Poor mite.
I was so touched and proud to observe that while she was so very worried about it, she kept all her tears bundled inside her until we left the doctor's office.  She always tries so hard to be brave.

We went to the local bookshop and chose a new book as a treat and indulged in a chocolate chip cookie.

By the time we went to school an hour later, the stress of it was gone.  She was so proud, relieved it was over and so very proud she had been brave.  By the time I picked her up from school two and a half hours after that, she had found her groove.  She was asking me to tell everyone about her immunization, and she couldn't wait to show off her band-aid with the smiley face.  She even told Ellie that she is ready to get another immunization from Dr. Ke anytime because Dr. Ke is so nice and gentle.  Ellie was incredulous, but I had to smile.

Oh, this girl.

 

I know

With the girls are sharing a room, Markus and I take turns reading them their bedtime stories each night.  Tonight is Markus's night.  Their bedroom is directly over the kitchen, so I can hear his soothing voice through the ceiling as he reads them to sleep...and I know our girls have the best father in the world.

Glorious sunshine

It has turned into the most beautiful afternoon outside.  The grey of the morning gave way to sun early in the afternoon.  The snow that has stood on the grass for well over a week is melting away, returning green grass and golden sunlight and bright white of the melting snow to the palette that has long been greys, blues and browns only.  It does my heart good, heals the soul.  I had forgotten during our Australia years just how difficult the grey winter months can feel.  Trying not to be a complainer, knowing full well that there are months of this to come...but I will soak up these perfect afternoons, hoping to store up a bit of their magic for the days ahead when I will need it to break up the grey.

 

Sick again (still)

Oh, the sickness.  When we were all sick over the holiday, I told myself "at least we could just be sick and get better", because getting better is what I thought we were doing.  Everyone seems to be doing that except me.  Today, I succumbed to this germy awfulness and called the doctor.  Eight times (no one was answering).  At noon, she returned my pathetic and sad voicemail and I went in straight away.  Less than an hour later, I had antibiotics and an inhaler for the wheeze in my chest.  I don't know if I've ever been so happy to have antibiotics in my hands.  Let's hope this does the trick!

Forced march

Snowboots and winter wear were tested.
Snowballs were thrown.
Snow was enjoyed.
Sunshine was celebrated.

A new year begins

Well, I think I can safely say this year's holidays were a bit of a wash.  Markus and Stephanie woke up sick on Christmas; Ellie and I were sick for New Year's.  We got some kind of awful cold/flu that was bitterly awful and draining for around 3 days, and a lingering lethargy and wracking cough for a week plus.  Ew.  It certainly ruined our plans for a relaxing, fun holiday.  As Markus pointed out this morning, it seems the year hits fast forward and leaps into high gear as December draws to a close...and for what this year?  We couldn't really enjoy the holidays at all.  No extra celebrating.  No reflecting on the year passed.  No resolutions for moving forward.  Sigh.

So here we are: January 2013.  A new year has begun, whether we were ready and waiting for it or not.  It's time to embrace it.

2012 was a year of big, stressful changes.  Any year involving an international move is hard, very hard.    Markus and I have been stretched thin by it.  So many huge changes, and many of them not particularly welcome...  Luckily, the girls are doing quite well.  Their schools, especially Ellie's, have been a tremendous blessing.  Ellie's school is exceptionally good for her.  She is very happy there, and we feel she is as well-matched to her environment as can be.  Stephanie also enjoys her school, though it's not so much a great match as it offers hours she loves (only 2.5 hours each weekday afternoon).

What will 2013 bring?  In truth, I cannot guess.  As much as I feel ready most days to pick up and move right on out of here again, the reality is that we will be spending 2013 settling in and staying right here.  School will continue through to June, hopefully offering up a fun spring break at the end of March.  I will ride in Muses again on February 7, and we hope the whole family will be able to go to New Orleans for that this time.  For now, getting 100% well again and preparing to restart school on Monday.

2013, here we come!

Merry Christmas!

Oh, this poor neglected family blog.  Will it ever see regular posting again?

Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Our first Christmas back in the States was celebrated with Mimi!  Hooray!  Mimi drove over from Virginia on Saturday and staying through Christmas morning, wanting to be here when the girls opened their gifts...and such a mountain of gifts there were!  My goodness, we are all very spoiled this year.



Ellie is such an avid reader (she devours books like they are going out of style), so her favorite gifts were books (naturally).  She received 10 and has read them all already.  Luckily, she loves to read the same books over and over, so the reading has only just begun.  Mimi gave the girls some awesome Playmobil sets (a zoo and a stable, as well as some smaller sets), and Ellie has really enjoyed those too, particularly the zoo.  It was such a favorite that Papa allowed it to stay set up in the middle of the living room floor for three days before he just couldn't handle the disorder anymore and it went to the playroom (where she resumed playing with it).



Stephanie received many beautiful presents, but thus far, her undeniable favorites are Ruthie the Deer from Mama and a musical Christmas card from Grandmary.  She has carried both items around almost constantly since Christmas morning.  Ruthie the Deer is her new best friend.  She has been with Stephanie non-stop, even sleeping with her at night which is very unusual (Stephanie often finds sleeping with toys disturbs her rest).



Alas, Markus and Stephanie both woke up sick with colds on Christmas morning.  Papa was rather cranky about it, and Stephanie just sounds poorly.  Both of them are coughing and exhausted and occasionally feverish, though now we're on day 3 and are slowly getting better.  Unfortunately, we had planned a trip to visit friends in North Carolina that we have had to cancel since Papa and Stephanie were too sick.  The weather has also been rather wintry (a winter storm strong enough to be named like a hurricane would be in summer), and the airports are a mess.  We will try to meet up with them sometime in the spring.

On Boxing Day, we woke to grey skies with a predicted snowfall of 4-6 inches between 10am and 2:30pm.  We didn't believe it.  We should have!  It started snowing at 9:40am and didn't stop until the afternoon.  It was so cold out that the snow stuck.  Markus could not be stopped from shoveling and salting the driveway before dark.  

 

Now, he and Ellie are outside throwing snowballs near each other.  He has lugged at few at the glass door right in front of me since he can see me inside on the computer.  Stinker.

Winter wonderland

Despite two of us having bad colds, there was no resisting a morning walk into the village to get bagels.  A little bit of Sewickley in the snow for you to see...

It has been hard seeing so much fun snow and being too sick to get out and play in it.

Winter solstice

The first day of winter.  Naturally, it snowed.

It was just a little snow, but it was enough to satisfy the hungry heart of our Ellie, who was thrilled.  When we told her the weather forecast, she simply shrugged, saying "Of course it will snow!  It is the first day of winter!" as if we really were too simple-minded for words.

When we awoke the next morning to a thin layer of snow blanketing our world, she was over the moon.  She ran into our room before dawn, begging to go out and build a snowman.  She couldn't wait another second, so she dressed quickly and was outside in her snowsuit before we had even budged from bed.  We could hear her delighted cry (something like "Hee-hoo!" packed with as much pure delight as you can imagine), and that brought us to the window to watch her.  After breakfast, Papa and Stephanie joined her outside.  It took almost every bit of snow in our yard (front and back), but with Papa's help, they did build a snowman/snow Gruffalo/ "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer Snowman".

A bit later, we all walked into the village and went to Starbucks for their ever-popular-with-our-girls donuts, and people couldn't seem to believe our girls were wearing snowsuits in the 2 inches on the ground.  We encountered no other kids, so it was funny to realize that ours were the only kids out and they had been out for hours.

Several weeks of winter ahead.  We look forward to many more snow days of joy to come!

Big girl milestone!

After weeks (months? years?) of requesting, the parents finally agreed that it was time for ear piercing.  I had always told the girls that they needed to be 7 years old, but the closer she got to her 7th birthday, the less Ellie asked.  I thought she was waiting, but she was changing her mind.  By the time she did turn 7, she insisted she needed to be older, perhaps 9 or 10.

Stephanie, however, was more than ready to get hers pierced.  Someone was 7, so why wait?  The urgency increased dramatically when one of the girls in her class got her ears pierced.  Two other girls had theirs pierced as babies, leaving only Stephanie and one other girl without pierced ears.  She just couldn't accept that.  She began asking up to five times a day until finally over Thanksgiving holiday, Papa and Mama agreed it was time.  We managed to get to her wait until the day everyone went back to school and the mall was empty again.  I took Stephanie to get her ears pierced last Tuesday.





She is sooooo proud!  We have shown these earrings to everyone we can.  Although she's still too shy to talk to people she doesn't know, she does insist I talk to people we don't know so I can tell them about her getting her ears pierced: people in shops, other moms at school, big kids at Ellie's school, people in line at the grocery store as well as the check-out person...everyone needs to know!  Without fail, everyone asks if she cried or if it hurt, but she proudly answers no to both.  To my amazement, she didn't even flinch when the woman at the mall pierced her ears one at a time.  Cool as a cucumber.  I told her she is a tough little nut, which she also proudly repeats to anyone who listens.

Naturally, the questions from all these people flowed back to Ellie.  Why don't you have your ears pierced?  Don't you want them?  Honestly, I'm not sure Ellie was ready.  She was still feeling quite anxious...but one cannot have one's little sister upstaging oneself for long.  On Saturday afternoon, Ellie got her ears pierced too.  Papa came along this time to witness the milestone.



Two big girls with their ears pierced!  Amazing.
(although in this photo, I still really see the baby her isn't gone quite yet...)

 

And then I laughed until my eyes watered

It has been cold and drizzling non-stop for a week.  The daytime and nighttime temperatures are almost identical, hovering around 40-45 degrees F.  Looking at the forecast for similar days to come, Markus shook his head in disgust and muttered:

"This must be what nuclear winter feels like."

Dinosaur nest

Ellie insisted I come outside so she could show me something amazing.
There is a strange, circular depression in the grass in our front yard.



 "Mama, look at this!  In the time of the dinosaurs, this wasn't grass.  This was probably mud, and this place is where the dinosaurs made a nest!  And we can still see it!"

 

First brush with carnage

The girls were playing outside this afternoon when suddenly Ellie started screaming (she gives new meaning to the expression "screaming bloody murder").  This is not altogether unusual or indicative of real trauma, so I was prepared to let it go until I heard Stephanie start screaming at the same decibel level.  Not good.  Still, I felt casual.  I made my way to the back door, looking out in time to see our cat Camilla proudly running toward me with a chipmunk in her jaws.  Ah ha.

I lovingly shepherded our tender-hearted girls through the door (cat and chipmunk stayed out, thank you very much) and tried to calm them down.  They were completely beside themselves, hysterical with woe.  After a few moments, Stephanie's screaming kicked up a notch and I saw her looking at a very bloody finger.  What the?  Now my stress gear kicks in.

While washing her finger and dialling our doctor, I managed to extract the story from our sobbing girls that Ellie saw the dying chipmunk and started screaming because she was so upset.  Stephanie wanted to save the chipmunk, so she tried to take it from Camilla, at which point the chipmunk bit her savagely on her pinky finger.  Poor mite.

Fortunately, our doctor believes nothing worse will come of it than the hard lesson not to touch wild animals, even to try to help them.  I cleaned Stephanie's finger thoroughly and plopped her in front of The Muppets for distraction.  Ellie resumed wailing for a while, saying she wanted to give away the kitties and get our canary and blue fish from Australia because "they never hurt anyone or anything!"

Poor little loves.

Bowling

The weather this weekend was bitterly cold and damp (freeze warnings at night!  I had to finally turn on the heater), so of course the girls didn't want to go outside and play.  That was just fine by me, except it was a 3 day weekend for Columbus Day.  By Day 3, they were a little tired of each other and of being in the house...but there was no way they wanted to be outside for a long time either.  I took them bowling.







You can see they had this interesting metal frame ramp for kids.  I had never seen one before (I grew up with the push and hope method), but this was neat.  Place the ball on top of the ramp and let it roll.  It builds up a bit of momentum and ideally knocks down more pins.  Since their scores were rather close to mine (ahem), I give it a big thumbs up!

They had a blast!  Well, Stephanie and I did.  Ellie was having a blast until half-way through the first game, Mama scored two strikes in a row, and her competitive edge got the best of her.  We played another game in which no strikes or even spares were achieved (not by intention either), so she was mollified back into good times.

We hauled all the way to Mount Lebanon (a 30+ minute drive each way) to bowl.  Stephanie nearly fell asleep on the way there, and we were all exhausted on the way home...but we all agreed it was worth it for the fun, though we cannot do it often.  Today, I mentioned this to a new friend, and she wanted to know why we drove all the way there when we could have gone just 10 minutes away to bowl (and that's why being friends with locals is more useful than using the internet to find things, alas).

Our Ellie

Oh, this girl.  This girl right here.  The seven-year-old with the sweet smile and the warm, loving heart that is three times the usual size.



One of the moms stopped me at school pick-up today.  She told me her daughter (in Ellie's class) had been very sad this week and was having a hard time...but Ellie, our sweet Ellie, had been taking care of her.  She had been with her every day, putting her arm around the sad girl's shoulders, assuring her it would be all right and generally looking after her.  The girl had mentioned the extra care to her mom, but then even the teacher had written her an email saying she shouldn't worry because Ellie was making sure she was feeling as happy and supported as possible.



This sweet, sensitive girl.  This intense, occasional drama queen, sometimes maddening girl.  This studious, focused, dedicated girl.



We are oh-so-blessed to share our lives with her.

Here we go again

Hi there, friends and family for whom this blog is intended!

I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but this blog is going password-protected again.  As before, you will have to sign in with a password you choose.  I can't see it.  When I make the blog private, Google will send you an email inviting you to view the blog.  You will click the link in that email and set up a password.

I know it is so very much easier to check in with us when this is a public blog, but alas, sketchy behaviour* is once again motivating this change.  It's unfortunate, but I think it's either password protection or no more blogging.

I will make the change by the end of this week.


*What sketchy behaviour?  A significant number of visitors being directed here by a Russian porn site cannot be good.  I don't know how or why, but that needs to stop.  I've already gone into my flickr account and hidden the pics of our nudist Stephanie from her toddler years, but still.  I just can't have my words and images out there in this kind of crazy.

Peanut gallery

We were trying to get Ellie to figure some math tonight.  A 12th grader came to the door, collecting for charity.  She couldn't believe he was in high school because "he looked so old!"  If she is in 2nd grade and he is in 12th grade, how many years older is that?

Stephanie piped up with some guesses: "10!"  "12!"  "Painting!"

Numbers of Ellie...and Stephanie

Ellie was completing a homework sheet "All About Me in Numbers" with questions like "What are the numbers in your street address?  What is your height in inches?"

The last question was "How many books do you own?"

This one was overwhelming.  I told her she didn't really have to go count them but to just make up a number higher than 100, like 147.  She asked if she could put 1000, but I thought that might overdo it.

Then Stephanie suggested, "Put '50 like a tiger'."

Obviously.

First day of Pre-K

Ellie wasn't the only girl in this family who started school on Wednesday.



Stephanie has started attending FriendShip preschool at the Presbyterian Church near our house.  The preschool is not religious, though they do say a prayer of thanks before snacktime.  It has a play-based learning model, which Stephanie loves!  She has been a happy camper since day one.  She was so very ready to go to school.  Of course, I'm sure it helps that last week was a starter week with only one hour of school each day for three days.  Her regular week will be daily "school" for only 2.5 hours, a far cry from her rigorous, highly regulated 8:30-1:30 days at her previous Montessori school.

I've always been a big believer in the Montessori method for under-6s.  While no one approach is perfect, I really like the emphasis on independence and structure in the Montessori system.  It was ideal for our rule-bound Ellie; not so much for our free-spirited Stephanie.  We always suspected that a play-based program would suit her personality better, but it wasn't worth sending the girls to two different schools to find out.  In this location, however, we have no choice about that; two different schools was our only option.  Stephanie is thrilled!

In the US, Kindergarten is the first year of mandatory schooling.  The year before that in most preschools is called Pre-Kindergarten or Pre-K.  Since Stephanie won't reach the Pennsylvania age cut-off for kindergarten until next year, she is in pre-k now. Her teacher, Mrs. Lear, is very kind, warm and experienced.  She gave up teaching kindergarten more than 10 years ago and has been teaching at this preschool ever since.  There are only seven other children in the afternoon class (mornings are more popular; we couldn't get in), so the small class size is fantastic.  From the very first day, Stephanie has gone in without a backward glance.  We're so happy we found a great place for her too.