Here is what Christmas looked like around here, and at various relatives’ houses too.

First of all, in chronological order at least, was the traditional gingerbread train.

We keep telling the kids that no, they cannot eat it, especially since it is more than a couple of weeks old. But that doesn’t stop them from picking bits o’ candy of it and eating them anyway.

Next, on Christmas Eve, we finally put presents under the tree.

The older two would have been fine if we put the presents out earlier, but the 2-year-old probably would not have left them intact.

Along with that went the stockings hung by the closet with care.

Sorry Santa – no fireplace.

Then Christmas Eve morning, after opening stocking presents, we had a new recipe of eggnog French toast with apple-cranberry compote.

The kids just wanted syrup with theirs.

Christmas was at the grandparents’ house, and one of the grandkids’ presents was a Fijit, who was hungry at one point during the day.

I’m glad that toy belongs to a child who does not live in my house.

Now for some more food:

The grandkids made reindeer cupcakes.

Let me rephrase that: the grandkids made cupcakes that are supposed to resemble reindeer.

The next day, we had a Christmas celebration at the other grandparents’ house. The penguin appetizers there were entertaining.

I didn’t try one, so I don’t know what penguin tastes like.

The ever-popular seven-layer salad made an appearance.

Ever-popular with me anyway; I don’t know how other people feel about it.

And then our Christmas days were done, all with temperatures in the 40s or so. It was not a white Christmas.

But the day after that, we finally got some snow.

The End.

The kids got to participate twice, since we had our set of boxes that we packed and their grandparents had a set of boxes for them to pack too.

We’ll do the grandparents’ boxes first.

Grandparents’ Boxes

Step 1: Gather Stuff

Go to the dollar store and fill a cart.
Put all the items on your dining room table.

Step 2: Gather Boxes

They say any shoebox will do, but we opted for the official OCC boxes.

Step 3: Pack the Boxes

Have the kids work their way around the table, grabbing items and putting them in boxes.

Step 4: Done

Then you send in your boxes. In our case, that meant taking them to church. It was their first time in church, but they behaved very well and sat quietly the whole time.

Our Boxes

Step 1: Gather Stuff

Go to the dollar store and fill a cart.
Put all the items on your dining room table.

Step 2: Gather Boxes

They say any shoebox will do, but we opted for the official OCC boxes.

Step 3: Pack the Boxes

Have the kids work their way around the table, grabbing items and putting them in boxes.

It’s a nice touch to sharpen any pencils that you include in the boxes. And include pencil sharpeners too, since the recipient might not have access to one otherwise.

Step 4: Done

Then you send in your boxes. Same thing this time, but it was our church instead of the grandparents’ church. Either way, the boxes should look like this when you’re done:

except the lid should be closed.

Oh, the deadline for the OCC boxes was this past Sunday, so you’re too late for this year now. Better get a head start for next year.

The first step in all of this pumpkin-carving business is to select good pumpkins. Pictured here is a perfectly-formed pumpkin. It’s easy for us, because our neighbors grow and sell pumpkins. It’s on a small scale, but we still get a nice selection.

The next step is to cut open the top


Step 3: scoop out the innards

Step 4: Cut out the design
You may want to freehand it

or you may want to use a template

It’s difficult to get the tape to stick to the pumpkin though.

Step 5: Display the jack-o-lanterns

Tips:

Have a big enough workspace:

It helps to have something to hold the seeds, especially if you want to roast them later:

If a child is too young for carving, get him a small pumpkin for coloring:

The End.

Here are our boys’ costumes:

Alpha:

Toad, from Mario Kart.

Beta:

A president of the USA. Not any particular president, although it does seem to be modeled after the duck from the Duck for President book.

Gamma:

Gamma was Yoda for the second year in a row. Next year, Delta gets this one and I really need to carry him on my back while I wear a sleeveless tunic thing like I mentioned last year.

Delta:
He was a mouse. I didn’t get a good picture of him by himself – he was always wrapped in a blanket or something like that.

Some Guy:

I was a Pacman ghost. I did not wear this trick-or-treating. Rather, I had a race the weekend before all the trick-or-treating, and the event encouraged costumes. I wanted a costume that would be of something that should be running or is being chased. Hence, the ghost. Alas, no one in the crowd of runners decided to go as Pac-Man, so the effect was not as apparent.

In case you’re wondering, it’s a piece of blue fabric that’s sewn together to drape over me, and we put some glow-in-the-dark fabric paint for the eyes and mouth.

The Yoda costume was store-bought. Everything else was hand-made to some degree.

• 9:00 am – I get a call from my wife. She is calling as she is leaving her doctor appointment for a regular weekly check-up before her due date. She tells me that we have to go to the hospital. The doctor said to be there in an hour because we’re going to have the baby today, even though my wife isn’t feeling any contractions. We decide to wait until lunchtime or she feels contractions, whichever comes first.
• 11:45 – I get home from work and greet my sister, who is over to watch the kids while we’re at the hospital
• 12:25 – We get Alpha off the school bus. They had a half day, so now all the kids are together with some cousins.
• 12:45 – We leave for the hospital
• 1:05 – The nurse chides us for not arriving sooner. “I’ve been waiting since 9:00,” she says.
• 1:15 – They hook up monitors to see how contractions are going. There are some contractions – they’re just slight enough that my wife had been dismissing them or not noticing them.
• 1:30 – two students from a nearby nursing school arrive. It’s their rotation on the maternity floor.
• 2:20 – the doctor comes in and checks things
• 2:30 – the doctor decides she wants to deliver the baby soon, so she breaks the water. The nursing students get to help clean up
• 2:35 – contractions every 3-4 minutes, looks like the doctor will get her wish.
• 3:15 – parents arrive. I greet them and usher them to the waiting room. They do get to peek into the delivery room and say hi.
• 3:30 – epidural is in. Good thing, because the contractions are coming in waves now.
• 3:40 – the doctor checks things again. She brought a resident with her. There are a lot more people in the room this time than for the other 3.
• 3:50 – the doctor and resident get suited up and then the pushing starts
• 4:08 – baby is born. He is silent for the first few seconds, but then he starts crying like one would expect. It’s always amazing how the baby can go from not breathing air one second to breathing air the next second.

For those keeping track:

• Baby #1 – at least 90 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #2 – 20-30 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #3 – 6 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #4 – 5-10 minutes of pushing. I didn’t keep good track this time. Things progressed too quickly and I wasn’t facing a clock.

then you’d better save up for cleats.

If this is how your child looks when you take him to a gym and give him a ball:

then you’d better save up for the bookstore.

She was interviewed earlier in the week by a TV station. People are normally interested in her story because she shouldn’t be doing as well as she is, at least according to conventional wisdom. But the interviewer didn’t ask about that and kept to a list of questions that you would politely ask any stranger whom you’ve just met.

The morning of the event, the station scheduled a follow-up interview.

Live TV.

The goal was to be there in time for the interview (8:00). We woke everyone up at 6:30 and left the house before 7:00. At 7:30, we were a mile away from the stadium. At 7:55, we were a quarter mile from the stadium. At 8:00, we were still a quarter mile from the stadium.

But we texted my sister, so she watched on TV for us. At 8:10, we had parked and met up with everyone else. So close, and yet so far.

Okay, that’s enough of the details. Now here’s some random tidbits of the day.

Venue

Let’s start with the venue. The starting line (and finish line) was in front of the local baseball stadium

The Dark Side

One of the highlights of the day for the kids was the Star Wars appearance.

I don’t know what the pink blaster shoots, but I didn’t stick around to find out.

Clothes

The kids get custom-made shirts. Custom from their grandparents, not from the race. They have a family photo on the back.

Nana B. is the one with the solid pink shirt that all the cancer survivors get.

Gamma was fascinated with the family photo once he realized he knew the people on the shirt. He wouldn’t let Beta go for several minutes while he studied his shirt.

The Race

There was a 1-mile walk, a 5k walk, and a 5k run. Since I’m preparing for a half marathon in the fall, I figured I might as well do the run since it fit with my normal training schedule. I think I did better than I thought I would do, but I don’t have an official time, so I’m not sure. I got passed by a guy pushing a baby in a stroller around the 2.5 mile mark. I caught back up with him at the finish line though.

Everyone else in the family did the 5k walk.

Well, almost everyone. Delta started complaining after a quarter mile, so my wife sat down and rested, along with Alpha and Gamma.

And here’s the finish line. It’s about 40,000 people milling about in a few blocks.

• You can always brush a 2-year-old’s teeth.

  If he likes the toothbrushing process, then you’re good because he cooperates.

  If he doesn’t like the toothbrushing process, then he cries. And when he cries, he opens his mouth and you are free to brush his teeth.

  Now when he turns 3, he might learn to clamp his mouth shut to thwart the attempt at hygiene… But don’t tell him that yet, please.

• Don’t pour as much into a cup as you think he can drink.

  Rather, pour as much into the cup as you want to clean off the floor.

• Don’t try to argue with him.

  He will be more persistent than you.
  Example:
  2YO: Where bumblebee go?
  Parent: It’s not a bumblebee – it’s a fly.
  2YO: Where bumblebee go?
  Parent: It’s not a bumblebee – it’s a fly.
  2YO: Where bumblebee go?
  Parent: He flew out the window. Look there’s a fly over there!

  The goal is to redirect his attention.

  Or outlast him until his nap time.

It turned out that his top teeth have the same propensity.

I hadn’t realized it before this happened, but I was looking forward to having a child with that adorable smile where the top two front teeth are missing. Sadly, I have been denied that stage.

With Alpha’s bottom teeth, the baby teeth became more and more loose, and they eventually came out. His top teeth however, just moved forward (and pointed forward too) and became slightly loose but nothing more than that. I think they were settled in and found a comfortable spot.

My initial thought (to which the dentist agreed) was that we should wait it out and something would eventually happen. But after a few weeks where the baby teeth didn’t move and the adult teeth were in and functional, I figured something should be done. (The new ones weren’t completely in, but in enough so that he could use them.)

I took the morning off work and drove Alpha into the dentist’s office. They took an X-ray too see if the baby teeth were going to interfere with the position of the adult teeth. But before the results came back, he looked at and felt the teeth and decided to pull them. The X-ray results just confirmed that decision.

First they put some topical gel on his gums. Not bad. Alpha was still comfortable. But the gel was just so the shot wouldn’t be as painful.

SQUEAMISH ALERT:
The shot then went in at the juncture where the lip meets the gums. I was sitting in the room and could see procedure very well. It was between the layers of skin, so as the plunger on the syringe went down, the bubble of skin got larger. When the shot was done, Alpha had a very large blister above his tooth and was crying. Actually, the crying started as soon as the shot did. That was a big needle, so I don’t blame him. And notice I said “tooth”, not “teeth”. That foreshadows that the dentist did only one side and needed to do another shot for the other side.
END OF SQUEAMISH ALERT

Alpha did very well. He certainly didn’t like the shot, but he held still through the pain and made it through. Before the shot, I think he was looking forward to a trip to the dentist. A classmate of his may have said that she got her teeth pulled by her dentist and it didn’t hurt at all. Now he knows better.

With the blisters under his lips, his lips looked a little puffy.

And we had to wait a few minutes for the anesthetic to take effect. He and I talked for a bit, and he kept feeling his lip. Eventually the dentist came back in and got to work.

First was the standard dental pick – the metal probe/hook/scraper thing. He poked and pulled and pushed with that with no luck. On both sides. Maybe he made progress, maybe it just made him realize how stubborn those baby teeth were. Either way, Alpha was relieved that he couldn’t feel it at all. I also was glad for that.

Then the dentist pulled out the pliers. Not rusty old pliers like some people use, but nice shiny (and sterile) pliers. He pulled the tooth, and twisted the tooth. The pliers must have slipped off at least 3 times before the tooth gave up. And then he had to do the left side, which put up just as much of a fight. You’d think that tooth would have seen what happened to the other guy and just gone quietly. But nooo….. Same process on that side too, and then we were done.

Alpha got to pick two prizes out of the treasure chest. He got a set of wind-up chattering teeth and a something else that was quickly forgotten and lost. And he got some pieces of gauze. His job was to hold the gauze in place until we got back to school, which he did.

At school, he took the gauze off and I saw two large spots of dried blood on his gums.

I figured those were the scabs, and I hoped that he would take it easy during lunch time, which was coming up soon after I dropped him off. And I hoped that he would take it easy during recess, which was just after lunch. I believe I told him to tell his teacher if he felt bad or if his teeth started bleeding again. He nodded and headed off to class.

Here is how the teeth looked after school:

You can barely tell there were any baby teeth there anymore. And now he has a loose tooth on the bottom. If I see the adult tooth come through before the baby tooth is gone, that tooth and I are going to have a little chat.

100 Days

There was a big celebration of making it through 100 days of school. Here is one of the items from that time:

I like that he wants 100 books and 100 carrots. How many kids would say that?

Friend

There was also a celebration of Valentine’s Day. One of the things they did was draw a friend. So whom did Alpha draw?

He drew Beta. And they’re jumping on a trampoline. It’s good to know your kids like each other.

Other than knowing my child already has fond memories of playing outside, I also liked his self-portrait:

Word Search

I always liked word searches in school. And outside of school too. So it’s nice to see that Alpha also likes them:

I don’t know if the word search was too easy or if they just had extra time in class, but he found extra words and added them to the list to cross off.