Merry Christmas!

Life is never dull with two kids under 4 on during Christmas. Some highlights for me:

• Thanks to my Great Uncle Jim, we had “reindeer food” for the kids to throw outside last night. Ricky (nearly 4) was certain that we needed to spread some in front and in back, so that whichever way the reindeer approached the house they’d see the food. (FYI – reindeer food is some oatmeal with some sparklies mixed in.)


• Putting Ricky to bed last night, he promised me he’d go to bed right away. I explained he needed to come get us when he woke up so we could go downstairs with him; he thought this was OK. In fact, he laid out his plan: “I’ll knock on your door, then I’ll knock on Grammy & Grampy’s door, then I’ll lie down at the top of the stairs and sleep while you do your shower things you need to do to get ready.”


• Ricky woke up at 5am. Made a bee-line for our room, then spent the next 45 minutes whispering excitedly in a stream-of-consciousness monologue that nearly had Robin and I in tears.


• My big toy of the day: the Toshiba combo DVD/TiVo player. It’s a nice win on a couple levels: it replaces my cranky DVD player, it’s a progressive scan DVD player, and it’s a series 2 TiVo (which means I have the option of piggy-backing on my wifi network at home, streaming MP3s to the TV and displaying photos from the home computers on the TV).


• Other fun gifts: The Two Towers extended edition on DVD, My Fellow Americans (a collection of speeches and personal notes from all of our Presidents, along with audio recordings of every President since Harrison), and A Life in the 20th Century (Arthur Schlesinger’s account of American history from 1917 – 1950).


• Robby, the not-quite-two-year-old, has started a tradition: sleep through Christmas. He wakes up fine, makes it through a half dozen or so presents, then collapses. He did it last year, he did it again this year.


• My favorite gift-opening story comes from my brother, whose oldest daughter (just turned 3) received, among other things, some new underwear. She was so excited by the gift that she stripped down and put them on. The men in the family tried in vain to claim it was a house rule for all women from that point forward.

• The rib roast just went in the oven, everyone (except yours truly) got a nap during the day, and we’re looking at a low-key evening.

Thanks again for the kind words for my son Robby. We’re (mostly) over the trauma of watching him go through the seizure, and he’s as resilient as ever. It looks like we’re through it.

One last note: one year ago today, I wrote about an e-mail I got that put things in perspective for me. Steve is fortunately home, as are a number of other family friends. But well over 100,000 Americans remain in harm’s way. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers as we celebrate the holiday.

Happy Holidays!