December Part II

Today is my brother John's birthday. I was just thinking that there should be some sort of birthday exchange program. Anyone born in December automatically could be assigned a random birthday in any other month. Maybe a drawing out of a hat, or such. It would be a world a bit easier, one of those minor improvements that would make everyone happy.

Last night was my Ed. class final, so I'm done with school for the year. But of course, next year comes awfully quick. Those classes will both be on-line, so I won't have to commute in to town a couple of days every week.

Yesterday was the big Christmas pageant. It was pretty cute for the parents, but Charlie suffered agonies of boredom. I figure it's good for him to have to suffer through it a couple of times before he's one of the kindergartners having to stand up and sing. That will really make him suffer! After the pageant Charlie went home with my Mom and I went to Emi's class room. There I was the glue-gun queen, putting sea shells onto Popsicle stick stars. The kids were making ornaments and I always like to help out with the crafts. The different personalities are so interesting, and how different kids approach their creative work is enjoyable to see. There are the tidy kids with the alternating little shiny stars pasted on to the ends of their ornaments. There are the impulsive kids with one giant sea shell pasted on to one part of the ornament, coming up to me over and over again as the ornament evolves. There are the carefully planned out kids who bring up a bunch of things for me to glue, all carefully thought out and arranged. There is Emi, with her three dimensional art work and her photo proudly displayed atop a huge bead that is glued firmly to the center of the star.

Today is also chore day, our Friday morning work. Since Emi has furlough Fridays she is home from school and she gets to help out. She vacuums the carpets and scrubs the sinks in the bathroom, and usually dusts and sweeps her room. Today she is also gathering a couple of bouquets. Charlie takes out the garbage, picks up the yard, and cleans his room. I always have to check under his bed. That's his bank- he deposits anything extra under there and always seems surprised when Mom or Dad finds his stash.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Well, it certainly is the most exciting. Emi is constantly on: making projects, writing letters, drawing pictures.... She wears herself out, not to mention the rest of us. Aaron and I have to make it a priority to help her slow down a bit or else she ends up in a frenzy of non-motion. Spinning, excited, expending energy, but going nowhere. Structure and direction are highly important for her. She certainly sets the tone for the rest of us. My goal is to get most of my own Christmas shopping done so that when school lets out next week we can focus on a few projects (fudge making is high up there on the list) and a few out-door activities.

Charlie is also excited, but when you have Emi as a big sister average kid excitement seems tame. His excitement manifests in him laying on the floor, making sound effects as he flies his Tinker Toy space-ships on some inter-galactic mission. This morning he made a "space rocket", as he called it, out of the vacuum cleaner parts. He's laying on the floor under the coffee table having some great adventure. He loves the dogs and they figure in on the adventures. Old Lenny, who Charlie announced is his favorite dog, is a patient, long suffering mountain which is climbed and battled over. Lenny lays there, seeming to enjoy the attention, but occasionally he'll slowly stand up and wander away when it all gets to be a bit much.

Being that we live on an island, we get our Christmas tree early. It's hard to find a tropical tree, there are some gorgeous Norfolk Pines but they grow slowly and aren't a big piece of the market. Shipments of trees come mostly from Oregon and this year the companies that order trees ordered less than last year. This practically ensures a shortage of trees and, sure enough, Christmas trees are sold out already. It puts pressure on a person to get a tree early. They go on sale the day after Thanksgiving! We feel like we really hold out since we wait until December!

Aaron is off in Oahu visiting his Dad this weekend. Chris and Deanna are there since Deanna is running the Honolulu Marathon. Last weekend I was in Oahu with Special Olympics, which was fun but a long, hard weekend of work. It started at 4 a.m. on Saturday and ended at 6 p.m. on a Sunday with a six hour window of time for sleeping in between.

I had the last test for my computer class last week. I can already feel my brain forgetting all about Access and certain Excel functions. I'm done with everything in my Education course except a 'final reflection.' It'll be a couple of hours on the 17th. I have been reviewing a bit but that class is pretty much over as well. It was intensive but there was a lot that I learned and overall it was something I really enjoyed.

The kids are playing Operation right now: Emi went to our neighbor's house for a Yard Sale and came home with a whole collection of things. She bought a gold and jewel studded belt, a couple action figures for Charlie (she has them hidden away for part of a Christmas gift, along with a whoopee cushion), a kitty figurine, and a little flower snow globe.

I'm off to take Sparky on a run. Lenny is too old. He gets shorter walks around the neighborhood and comes home to sleep afterwards.

December

Ah yes, the most exciting month. That is, the most exciting month if Emi is any indication. The girl turns into a radio that is always on and always happy. We put a few Christmas lights up on the front of the house and that was it: the switch was thrown and she found her excitement to be uncontainable. The nice thing is that she's a happy kid and even though she's not a Santa believer, she is a Santa pretender. Meaning she both likes to pretend that there is a Santa and she likes to BE Santa. She is making her list of what to get everyone and she has already asked for: baseball mitts, Wii games, and most recently, golf clubs. What? Golf clubs?! Our neighbor boys play golf with their Dad and Emi took a few swings last night and now she wants a club. I find that pretty funny.

Our Thanksgiving was nice and calm. We skipped the holiday routine, deciding to save it for Christmas. We're going to host a big family Christmas feast and so for Thanksgiving we just headed to the beach with a few ham sandwiches. We went to Hapuna and it was the sort of day when everything was just perfect. There was a light cloud cover so we didn't fry. There were waves, but kid sized waves. There was a breeze but it was a light, on-shore breeze so we didn't get sand-blasted. And then, as if the stars aligned, the people who remembered their shovels (we forgot ours) left the beach early and left their huge hole, which Emi and Charlie promptly moved into. Emi gleefully made 'candy' sand-balls, and Charlie made bombs. The kids also invented their newest boogie board game. Emi would catch the wave, ride in towards Charlie, and he would do a running tackle and ride in the rest of the way on her back. It was pretty funny.

Last night we took on a new family member. Lenny. He's a old dog whose owners moved to the mainland today and couldn't take him with them. He's nearly ten years old and he's a lot bigger than I had thought he'd be. He's very calm and very sweet. Charlie, the dog whisperer of the family, is in heaven. Lenny, however, is rather pathetic. He's settling in, but he's waiting. He walks to the front door and gazes out, expecting someone to come and make his world right again. He doesn't really make much noise but occasionally a little whine will be there way in the back of his throat, almost under his breath. Poor old guy. Right now he is looking at me with his cloudy, brown eyes with his ears cocked into a question. He's also breathing on me and he could use a tooth brush. His fur isn't stinky, but his mouth sure is! Time for doggy breath mints to enter into the picture.