Year Ending
Well, another year is coming to an end. The last few months have been busy and fun.Lux loves school - Fort Hunt Preschool, or Windmill Ghoul as she calls it (there is a huge operating windmill in front of it and she can't pronounce the Sk sound). From the very start she has been thrilled to go and has never shed a tear. The boys outnumber the girls 8 to 3, and she seems just as likely to be playing dinosaurs with Sam as she is to be playing house with Sissy or Isabel. She loves her teacher Miss Rose and couldn't be happier. We are very pleased.
Nick loves the school too and I am sure he will be happy to start next fall. The one downside to school, however, has been that we have all had more than our fair share of colds this fall. For a while there it seemed like we were catching to new cold before the old one was gone.
Nick runs around quite quickly these days, but never seems to last more than a week or two without getting some kind of bash on his head. Luckily he hasn't needed stitches or a doctor's visit, and hopefully his brain hasn't been injured by all that bonking. It certainly doesn't seem like it, as he is still talking up a storm and surprising us all with his ever increasing vocabulary. Only recently he has started saying "I love you Mama" which is particularly sweet. He is also quite polite, with lots of "tank yous" "sorrys" and "welcomes". He is very attached to Paul and would rather be in Daddy's arms than anywhere else.
Sadly, Nick is also an unbelievable screamer. He loses patience easily and slips quickly into tantrum mode which, true to 2 year old form, involves lying on the ground on his back and kicking and screaming. Lots of his tantrums start with Lux - even when she is being kind or helpful he often distrusts her and starts wailing. Hopefully this will pass as he ages. We do our best to ignore it. And luckily, he mostly does it at home.
This has made traveling not the horror show it could be. We all went to San Francisco in October, tagging along with Paul who had a meeting. There was a bit of a twist which had Nick on Paul's lap on one flight and Susan and Lux on a separate plane. We were all concerned with how the flights would go, but it was smooth sailing. Unfortunately, it was a bit harder once we arrived in California. It took both kids a long while to adjust to the time change and Lux decided she didn't want to walk, but wanted to ride in the stroller. Unfortunately, we had only brought the little single stroller and Nick couldn't yet walk far on his own, so much of the day was spent with Susan carrying Nick while pushing Lux up and down San Francisco's massive hills. And then Lux got sick, which resulted in a lot of time spent holed up in the hotel room. At least the Stanford Court was a moderately nice hotel, in spite of its namesake, and the room service was excellent.
Lux and Nick got to visit and play with their cousins Hera and Pia and with Uncle Mike and Aunt Devi and Aunt Danielle and Gina, particularly while Paul and Susan went to the Cal football game. Then, a few weeks later, we did it all again for Big Game. That time we all flew together and Lux and Nick continued their streak of excellent plane flights by behaving admirably.
Sadly, something truly terrible happened. Somehow, we lost D-doll. We had bought the bathtime Little Mermaid doll for Lux for her first Christmas. Way back then she loved pulling on hair and the doll was one of the only big soft ones we could find that had "real" hair. Lux pulled and twisted the hair on D-doll for nearly three years, nonstop, until it was half gone, the rest firmly tangled into dreadlocks. She loved that doll.
We suspect she was left on the airplane from DC and we did all we could to try to track her down, with no luck. Lux, as she often is during trying times, was rather stoic. Fortunately, we had a doll with us, intended to be a gift for Hera, that Lux was willing to accept as a substitute. For the next week and a half we kept expecting her to break down, but Lux steadfastly refused to even mention D-doll's name.
Back at home we were able to give her Car Doll, the same model as D-Doll, purchased shortly after the original in case of just this type of situation. Car Doll was always a poor substitute for D-Doll in the past, one that Lux gladly let Nick play with. Car Doll's hair is still comparatively luxurious, her mermaid tail still shiny and intact, but Lux gratefully accepted her. After a brief discussion, Car Doll has been rechristened D-Doll and Lux seems okay with the whole situation. Perhaps we were more traumatized than she was.
After a few days in the Bay Area we flew on to Maui to celebrate Susan's 40th birthday. It was for the kids' first trip to Hawaii. For months leading up to the trip one of Lux's favorite games had been "Pretend Go to Hawaii" which largely involved sitting on the playroom floor and pretending to be on an airplane and never, ever arriving in Hawaii. So actually arriving in Hawaii this time was pretty great.
The first few days were tough. The kids were still adjusting to the time change and Nick was in full "screaming and wanting to be carried by Daddy" mode. But Grandad and Janie were there to play with him and he warmed up pretty well. Nick liked being in the ocean and playing in the sand, but really hated it if even a drop of water from a wave touched his foot. That would result in, you guessed it, screaming. So we found a couple of ways to make the beach enjoyable for him - we sometimes let him play on dry sand, but then he demanded someone make constant trips to the waves to bring him buckets of water. Luckily Grandad and Janie had the patience for that. Otherwise, we could dig him a little wall at the waves' edge to protect him while he played in a little puddle behind it or we could simply take him straight into the ocean. After a few days he even started to "surf" by sitting on his knees and balancing on a body board as it rode over swells.
Lux was a bit afraid of the waves at first, too, but warmed up considerably and was running in them by the end of our stay. She also loved the castles we built her and liked to bob in the swells in Mom or Dad's arms, but she wasn't a fan of the surfing. Both kids also loved the condo's little pool and would have spent all day there if they could have. The trip was a real success and both kids truly enjoyed it. Lux said many times that she wished she could live in Maui and Nick regaled us with cheers of "Hawaii, yea!" "Alo-HA!" and "Palm tree!" the entire trip. They managed to survive without a single sunburn and in spite of liberal applications of SPF 50 have cute little tan lines.
Nick's absolute favorite thing about the whole trip was POG, a Pineapple, Orange, Guava beverage that was likely his favorite because the second ingredient, after water, is sugar. Lux became quite a fan of Happy Hour and looked forward each day to meeting Grandad for cocktails at the bar - she was partial to pineapple juice and Shirley Temples (hold the cherries).
They absolutely loved visiting the aquarium and Nick really seemed to like the sailing trip we took, once he got over the indignity of having to wear a life vest. Lux was a real trooper on the trip - we suspect she was quite seasick, but wouldn't admit it, and she spent most of the voyage huddled on someone's lap. Still, once we had landed she was her happy self again and claimed she had enjoyed herself.
We also went to a luau, which the kids liked. Lux very much wanted to hula dance and insisted we allow her to wear a grass skirt. She looked very sweet trying to join in with the performers. She ate several servings of Kalua pork, an old favorite which we have made for her birthdays and Gold Cup parties, then promptly fell asleep on Paul's lap, since she had refused to nap and never did get on Hawaii time. Nick got to stay up and watch the fire dancers, which mesmerized him.
The whole trip was so enjoyable that even though it took forever to get there and back we are already talking about when we can do it again. Maybe next time we'll stay even longer and Nick will be standing on that surf board.
Lux's current obsessions are fairies, art, Barbie and Disney movies, dancing, music and school. Nick is all about rockets, cars, trucks, pushing buttons and heavy equipment. He also likes to draw, but has a hard time remembering what is okay to draw on and what isn't. The couch, wall and carpet have all suffered. Both kids love listening to the Music Together CDs, chasing each other in circles and using our old Apple tabletop computer which we have set up for them. Pirates are a favorite and they both dressed as pirates for Halloween. They also are enjoying Lux's new digital camera. Make sure to look for her photos on our photo page.
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