Merry Christmas!

Bearing the Consequences

We are going though the long arduous process of reducing and cleaning out, getting 4 people and all their junk to fit into a Southern California bungalow. It's been a painful retooling of all our concepts of sentimentality — what is worth clutching and what can be let go. Stacy and I have taken the brunt of the burden, but even the kids have been called on to re-evaluate favorite toys and books and trinkets. They've surprised me with the things they attach value to and have trouble giving up, and the things they quickly offer up to Goodwill that make Mommy and Daddy cringe. But all in all they've been surprisingly willing to pitch in and make the sacrifices.

As she was going through L's room they had to address the pile of stuffed animals that proliferates in that room. (If real endangered animals reproduced at the rates the pandas and lions and dinosaurs do in L's bedroom, we'd really have no extinction worries.) L has a set of shelves that have become the defacto animal shelter and it seemed reasonable to all parties that we should keep only the animals that could fit on those shelves.

The Perkins Family Menagerie

Sorting through the pile Stacy offered up a particularly large teddy bear that would have consumed a lot of shelf space and precluded a lot of the others. L's face momentarily fell, but after a moment of thought she steeled herself and agreed to the parting. The bear was packed up and delivered to its future home with no further discussion.

L, preparing to part with Mommy Bear.  Oh, if we only knew...

A day or so later Stacy walked by L's room and found her gazing at the shelf of the stuffed survivors with a solemn expression.  "What's wrong, L?" asked Mommy.

"I'm just sad," she said.

"Why?"

"Well, when we gave away the Mommy Bear, it left all the little bears orphans. We gave away the Daddy Bear last time."  Stacy was a guilt-ridden sobby mess when she told me the story later.

Mommy?...   Daddy?...

Sheol

I heard the first news about today's events driving into work.  And then more when I had to leave one building to go to a meeting in another midday.  And then the deluge on the drive home and I had to turn off the radio.

My kids can't understand why I keep hugging them and crying.  I can't stop crying.

Food for Body and Soul

Our church, Grace United Reformed Church, had our annual Christmas party last night. It was, as usual, a great time of fellowship with family and friends — and the fantastic food didn't hurt either. After dinner we were treated to a showcase of talent as the kids provided the evening's general entertainment. Pianists, violinist and flutists. Oh my!

A Congregation of Kids

Miss Nancy knows how to get a party swinging.

We are expanding our church facility, and last night we got to use the new space for the first time.  It is still a work in progress - no furniture, no carpets.  But hey!  Spill all you want, kids!

Cole was the ring bearer in our wedding.
He's grown a bit since then.

The "Sounds of Grace" Quartet

The kids' choir.

Somehow I don't expect J's this mellow when playing at home.

"Rocking Around the Christmas Tree"
L left them wanting more

"Up on the Housetop" played down on the piano.

We're so grateful for our church family.

Merry Christmas, Grace URC!

Bread Brutality

It is rare that L is actually encouraged to enact violence on something. She is much more used to being scolded for wanton destruction and general brotherly abuse. So when I asked her to help me knead up some bread, it was a chore she could... <e-hem> really sink her teeth into. She could, shall we say, really knuckle down.

After a half hour of savage assault and battery, it was into oven.

The fruit or our manual labor!

My Rose E'er Blooming

When she was in first grade L joined a vocal training class sponsored by El Camino College in which two of her church friends, S and A, were involved and loved. That class was a prep class for the far more serious and focused South Bay Children's Choir. This year she was old enough to join the formal choir, bequeathing her spot in the little-kids' class to N, who jumped at it enthusiastically. Since then she has spent every Saturday morning from 9:00 to 12:00 in some pretty serious rehearsals. Last night, after a particularly grueling week of every-night practices, all the training was put to the test. The South Bay Children's Choir performed their Holidays in Harmony 2012 concert at Marsee Auditorium on the El Camino College campus.

L's choir, the "Meistersingers" performed a half dozen Christmas and Hanukkah choral pieces, alone and with various combinations of choirs of older kids, the "Choristers," the "Choraliers," and the "Bel Canto Singers." L's group, being the youngest, was decidedly more squirrelly, but they did sound amazing for such young kids so early in their training. The older choirs were simply phenomenal. There is a transcendent, unearthly quality to a seriously well-done classical children's choir that gives you goosebumps on your soul.

There were a number of notable guests in the audience. Grandma Lynne, Aunt Joyce and Aunt Claudia all came down. Uncle Kyle and Miss Sera caught the show; Mrs. McCarthy and Kathy George (a.k.a. "Grandma Boop") from church were able to make it. Even Pastor Greg was able to come.

I've got to admit, she had a pretty proud Pop in the house as well.

The diva greets her fans.

The show doesn't end there, however.  On Christmas Eve L will be travelling with the choir up to Los Angeles where the South Bay Children's Choir will perform at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Christmas Eve Music Fest, broadcast nationally.

Taken in by a Toothsome Grin

For the last month we've been warned with ever increasing anxiety that N's first dental shedding was imminent. A little wiggle, the slightest of perturbations, was all that was needed to assure the owner that his tooth was about to fly the coop. Stacy and I monitored the situation closely, but for several days there was little to no evidence of dental dispersion. We, being the tooth fairy liaisons and responsible for tooth fairy client general well-being, tried to manage expectations, but N would have none of it and got more and more monomaniacal and as fixed in his thinking as his tooth appeared to be in his jaw. Surely it was looser! It was on the cusp! Any minute now!

Not yet, but any second, I just know it!

The great thing about inevitability is that sooner or later the dice come up in your favor. A six-year-old boy can only go through so many cumulative seconds and not have a tooth fall out. The laws of physiology demand it. All of human precedent was in our favor. On Tuesday, November 27 inevitability got around to giving it up. What had been a slooooooooowly increasing wobble suddenly took on a pretty impressive flap and the end was truly in sight. Unfortunately an end in sight, but not yet realized, is generally an agony of excruciating proportions when you are six and several teeth behind your sister.

Once it became clear that we were in fact in the dental deathwatch we knew that we simply needed to put N out of his misery.  A mother with an iron stomach and a clean Kleenex is pretty much all you need in such situations.

Mommy takes matters into her own hands.

The gaping hole of success!

I think Olympians have won gold medals and felt nothing like this sense of accomplishment.