Let it snow

Twenty-four hours of snowfall didn't cause us to break stride last weekend. We attended Edith's final ballet class; Tom presided at the memorial service of the church's longest-standing member (69 years); and my choir enjoyed a successful Christmas concert. Meanwhile snow fell throughout, and by the end we had a good 14 inches or so. Shoveling (twice) was probably the most exercise I've gotten all semester, sad to say. It felt good.

Waking up to deep snow Sunday morning

It's all an adventure...

...until you fall into a drift bare-handed

It wasn't really a ballet recital but rather, a parental observation day. The children usually don't get to wear tutus, but for this last class they donned pink tulle, crowns, and wands and danced to the Nutcracker. The emphasis in 4-year-old pre-ballet class is on the pre-. For me and Tom it was our first glimpse behind the doors of the classroom, though, and we enjoyed it.

The daughter of nerds

Edith: "If you sleep with me, we can do math problems together in bed."

Holidaze

At last classes have ended(!), and I can post about Alice's birthday, as well as other recent events of note. You'll notice that in addition to the more obvious disadvantages of a Christmas-season birthday, being born near the winter solstice means a visual record of one's birthday considerably impoverished for its indoor, flash-lit quality.

Mor-mor was able to join us in Princeton for 24 hours on Alice's birthday proper. The day dawned rainy and wretched, and it was quickly decided that bringing muffins to share with one's class perhaps isn't worth the damp and cold when most of one's class is still toothless anyway and that both girls could spend the whole day with Mor-mor and Daddy rather than go to school for the morning. (Mommy, alas, had to teach.) Fortunately the weather cleared in the afternoon, and they were able to get out around town.

Edith eagerly absorbed any time Mor-mor would give, but she did allow her grandmother and sister a moment to admire the birthday girl's favorite "tee" outside the front window.


That evening after a rice-and-beans dinner (one of Alice's favorites), we stripped her down and gave her the cupcake Tom and I had selected for the classic first birthday messfest. To our surprise she took a microscopic nibble of frosting, then smilingly moved the cupcake to the side and was done. Not the best strategy for climbing out of the 9th weight percentile, perhaps, but at least our friend and family dentist Dr. Lee will be pleased.


As mentioned in an earlier post, Alice's gift from her parents was a new carseat; she climbed right into it before we even got it in the car.


Indeed climbing into chairs of all kinds, but especially chairs her size, is one of Alice's favorite activities these days. She loves getting herself up, then turning around, getting her legs out from under her, and beaming on the world from her new perch. Last Saturday morning she accompanied me to a baby shower and made quick claim on the guest of honor's childhood rocker. As the only ex utero baby present, she also evaluated some of the gifts for the parents-to-be, including these infant spoons.

On Sunday a bunch of Lanks arrived for a triple-P: preaching (Tom), party (Alice), and pageant (Edith and some 507 other children). Slotted for several indoor hours on a packed day, the party was a more modest affair than Edith's first birthday extravaganza on our front lawn back in May 2006. Yes, we're aware of the charges of neglect and favoritism to which we're opening ourselves up down the road.

Finally, a crayon Alice could eat. (I decided on orange after looking in the cupboard and realizing we'd never made the Halloween cupcakes we intended.)



Alice approached this cake with somewhat greater enthusiasm and persistence than the cupcake on her birthday, but I think it was primarily the chance to practice utensil use that appealed. She won't let anyone else spoonfeed her at this point but loves to try herself.

For some reason she was anticipating the flash in this sequences of shots and deliberately closed her eyes a fraction of second before I snapped the shutter each time!


Meanwhile the older cousins enjoyed themselves at the kids' table. In keeping with the crayon theme, Edith had the bright idea of covering the tables with butcher paper and putting crayons at each place so guests could leave Alice pictures and notes.


We all left the party for the Christmas pageant at church, in which the 3/4 year olds were the youngest group, comprising the stable animals. They did an excellent job with their songs and were not bashful or uncertain even when the orchestra played the introduction to the wrong piece. Edith is second from the left in the row of animals, the taller cow. Hopefully there will be more pageant pictures to come from other sources.


And after the busy weekend, we got through a busy schoolweek, which ended today with a visit to Dupree from the Big Man in Red. I was hoping the teachers might put the girls on his lap together for a photo, but they had that idea only after he left. Too bad, because Alice apparently started shaking as soon as she saw him, and her teacher decided it would be too traumatic to have her sit on his lap alone. Considering how much she wants to do what Edith does these days, a joint effort might have worked. Ah well. Meanwhile, Edith and Santa enjoyed a brief chat. (I trust he had a face under there somewhere.)


This weekend, Edith's ballet recital, Tom's first memorial service as presiding minister, my choir Christmas concert, and SNOW...

Stats

Hardly the measure of a birthday, but for curious grandparents and those who enjoy parsing the box scores--and because I need to wind down from a day's worth of midterm exam number-crunching before bed--here are Alice's 12-month measurements, a placeholder for further birthday updates to come:

28.75 inches (32nd percentile)
18 pounds, 7.5 ounces (9th percentile)

Yes, she's back down at the bottom of the weight charts, which we'd expected since she has been sick with colds and eating poorly for the last month. But our pediatrician didn't seem concerned this time and instead spent the visit affirming all signs of Alice's thriving development.

Still, it was interesting to go home and look at the girls' baby books side by side. At Edith's 6-month appointment she was 18 pounds, 8 ounces. She tripled her birth weight in the first year; Alice doubled hers in the same time. Edith was over 23 pounds at a year. Her weight made it possible for us to make a ceremony of turning her carseat to face forward on the afternoon of her birthday, hoping fervently that her being able to see us might help forestall the screaming we'd endured in the car for a year. Alice is still rear-facing for the time being (20 pounds is the minimum weight to face forward), which is fine with us, as she isn't nearly as angry about car rides as Edith was at this age and rear-facing is the safer position anyway.

She did get a brand-new big-girl carseat from her parents for her birthday, as she was maxing out of her baby bucket seat lengthwise. We'd put away Edith's previous carseat for Alice, but unfortunately we put it in an unfinished part of the basement, and when we went to retrieve it we found the whole thing mildewed, from cover and straps down to the styrofoam core. So our poor storage choice resulted in Alice's getting something new for once. She seems tickled pink to be in her Britax throne, and the princesses in the backseat babble and giggle away with each other.

Oh, and the mean on the midterm was 82.3. Good night.

One year

Dear sweet Alice, our happy baby, where did the first year go?

Advent, past and present

Yes, that's snow! Just a smidgen, but coming down in big glorious flakes on a Saturday afternoon well before Christmas, and still on the grass Monday evening. Edith and I are hoping it bodes well for a snowy winter.

As we move into early December I find myself nostalgic about our two-week wait this time last year, from Alice's due date to the day she finally was induced to be born. In part I miss the relative calm and focus of that week last year compared to this year's grueling schedule, but more fundamentally I'm nostalgic for that extraordinary period surrounding the birth of a child--both the highly anticipatory, almost luminescent, final days of waiting and then the first exquisite moments with the newest person in the world, a time like no other.

We attended a lovely Advent Night Sunday evening--incredibly our 5th, as handmade ornaments from 2005 attest. Last year at Advent Night we were on the eve of the 42-week appointment with the midwife and imminent induction but were enjoying our last few hours as a family of three:


This year Advent Night began somewhat more hecticly. Tom walked to church at 3:30pm for a committee meeting. The girls and I were set to follow at 5pm. Alice finally has begun protesting rides in the carseat and was crying and struggling as I buckled her in; Edith and I promised her that she would only be in the seat for a few minutes. Then I turned to Edith but was having trouble getting her buckles cinched over her puffy winter coat; needing both hands, I tossed my keys over the headrest into the driver's seat. At last Edith was strapped in tight, and I shut the back door and turned to the front. It was locked. So was Edith's door. So was Alice's and the front passenger-side door and the trunk. Somewhere along the way either Edith or I must have hit a lock button. Trying to sound as calm as possible, I asked Edith through the closed window to reach forward and hit the unlock button on her door. She was strapped tight and couldn't. I asked her to use her foot, as she did all last summer to hit the window-lowering button. At this strange request she grew a bit uneasy and kicked at the door ineffectively. As the situation dawned on her she began to cry, joining Alice, who was already at full tilt. I remained even-keeled and even casual as I tried to talk her out of her panic, telling her we could manage the situation as long as she would try again to hit the button with her foot. She sobbed and shook her head, not even willing to try. Then I asked her to unbuckle the top of her carseat, so she might have enough freedom of movement to lean forward and use her hands. I imagine most four year olds are experts at getting out of their carseats, but Edith never has had patience with inanimate objects, and when panicked it turns out she's not even willing to attempt manipulating them. One or two ineffective squeezes on her buckle and then she quit, shaking her head and screaming. I told her the only alternative was for me to get the spare house key out of hiding, let myself in, call Daddy, and wait for someone to bring him home, which would take awhile. Edith nodded that this actually seemed better to her than continuing to try to unbuckle herself. Grrr. So that's what we did. We got Tom out of a meeting, but Alice was in her seat a good deal longer than we'd promised.

Actually, she's the one I should have asked to unlock the door, as she spent the early hours of Saturday morning practicing getting people in and out of vehicle seats:

One shouldn't compare one's children, but it's hard not to note the contrast between Edith's tendency to scream at puzzle pieces that won't click into place and Alice's steady work at getting all the people into the school bus (a task on which she'd already spent a good five minutes by the time I picked up the video camera).

After the locked doors incident Advent Night looked up. This year's crafts were all new and generally excellent. Of course Edith zeroed right in on the edible Christmas tree:


After that we made a cute cardinal out of a painted pinecone, Christmas tree ball, felt, and pipe cleaners and decorated a napkin ring with a felt poinsettia. Alice played happily throughout.


We finished the evening with dinner, desserts, and carols in the company of good friends, who originally started sitting with us at this event five years ago in order to have a chance to play with baby Edith...and at last are expecting a baby of their own.

Here's to the last few hours of Alice's first year...more posts later this week, I'm sure.

Last pageant, first pageant

Torrey's mom was emotional tonight: Torrey and Edith were performing in their final Christmas pageant at the Dupree Center.


I've always enjoyed watching the pre-K class in these shows, since as the oldest in the school they are the kids who seem clued into what a performance is about, are able to stage some legitimate songs and scenes, and usually seem to enjoy themselves. Indeed, Edith has been enthusiastic about putting together this show since the beginning, and today she was jumping-out-of-bed, wiggling-in-her-carseat, tell-us-everyone's-role, worried-we-would-miss-it excited.

Her class presented a series of Christmas customs from around the world. Edith was Balthazar, the beardless wiseperson, when they demonstrated how Spaniards celebrate Epiphany with elaborate parades. She carried her Tupperware of myrrh--handy for keeping the stuff fresh in a stable with no refrigeration. Jon-Gabriel made a most excellent singing camel.


For her part, Alice has been at the ready for weeks with her twinkle fingers for the infants' "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" number but got stagefright at the actual event. Or maybe "stagefright" is too strong a term. She and her classmates were too busy staring in amazement at the crowds of people singing to them and snapping their picture to remember to do their hand motions. But none of them cried, refused to sit in the buggy, dropped a paci, or poked his neighbor in the eyes. In their synchronized staring they were as perfectly matched as the Rockettes. So for infant performance, call it a triumph.

Enter the infants (Alice in middle, rear)

Cute as the children were, when I look at the pictures it occurs to me a Jewish daycare probably wouldn't have dressed the babies in these stars. They were chosen innocently enough, but maybe they should have been five-pointed.

Still, if all the infants did was sit in a buggy and stare, it was amazing to look around the audience at the countless smaller babies in their mothers' arms and reflect on how much has changed since last year's pageant, which was our first stop after being discharged from the hospital after Alice's birth:


Obviously I shouldn't be pretending Torrey's mom was the only emotional one. In fact, when Adam's daddy said the blessing over the food at the end of the show, I found myself getting choked up when he gave thanks first for the children and then "for the strength you give us to parent." Throughout the crowd there were appreciative little sighs and laughs. Spending my workdays on the other side of University Place, in an atmosphere where an intellectual machismo keeps people from acknowledging that parenting is a major job consuming much of one's time, and an incredibly hard one, it was a welcome thing to be in the middle of a crowd of parents of young children, all in the trenches, affirming how hard it is even as they give thanks for the blessing of those children. Funny: admitting as much didn't seem to make them any less legitimate scholars. Just more fully human.