Sturm Haus

get your groove on

It was 9 degrees this afternoon when I checked the weather after lunch.

Too cold to do much of anything other than wear enormous duffle coats and listen to the Black Keys.

Here's the duffle coat:

Source: eddiebauer.com via Heather on Pinterest

 

And here's the Black Keys:

You're welcome.

Happy Friday!

meep meep

For the next week, give or take a day or two, I'm driving a 200X Jeep Liberty.

It's kind of bouncy and very upright. It's missing its rear windscreen wiper, and the seats are a little beat up, so it's basically the perfect loaner car - in good running condition, small and easy to drive, but not so new that I'll worry about Cheerios in the back seat or dinging a door in the parking lot. Best of all, it's a loaner, and FREE. Thank you, thank you, thank you Bodyshop People!

All this car switching lately means my car seat installation skills have been getting a workout. I got the Britax Marathon into the Liberty's back seat (tethered and all) in 3 minutes flat tonight. In the dark. While it was snowing. Nice tight fit with a seatbelt install (Annabel's too big for Latch now), and we're good to go for tomorrow morning. Popped in Otto's booster and threaded in the shoulder belt, and we're all set.

I'm not a super geek about car seats, but I bought good ones that are easy to install. Needless to say, buckling up is non-negotiable. Safer for them, safer for me. And yes, Bel is staying in that 5 point harness for as long as she fits -- she is much too much a busy body to be in a booster where she could unhook herself! And Otto will be in his booster until he outgrows it. He'll also be in the backseat until he's 12.

Oops. Make that 13. My bad.

Sadly, my children are being raised by two people who care nothing for being cool.

On the up side, odds are pretty good that they'll live long enough to complain about it.

Now that the 3rd car is gone, Jon can park in the garage -- a fact that makes him very happy, especially tonight. It's sleety and snowy and yucky out right now. You know, normal Michigan winter weather?

We might even have to break out the snow shovel tomorrow. Egads!

ack!

This morning I waved cheerfully as my brother and neice toodled off down the road in the Subaru. The car is off to retire in Colorado, where they don't use salt on the roads to rust the body (according to my service manager, anyway). Hopefully Matt got through Chicago OK. I tried to send him south to I-80 via Hwy 12, but he misunderstood my directions and followed road signs instead, ending up going via I-94. Which is fine, but requires close sign watching and involves lots of traffic where 94 and 80 intersect. And, depending on the day, can be treacherous with lake-effect snow. Ah well. He figured it out, I'm sure!

I called the body shop this afternoon, hoping for good news about my car.

Instead, the lady on the other end said cheerfully, "parts... blah blah blah... ready for paint... blah blah... they're estimating your repair will be done on Monday."

Not today Monday, but next Monday.

(imagine the saddest face in the world. that was me.)

So tomorrow I'm heading over there to take whatever freebie loaner car I can get my hands on. Last time it was a 90's-vintage Toyota Corolla. I just hope my children fit in the back seat. As Annabel observed thoughtfully this afternoon, "Mom, you drive us places every day! To school, to day care, to the doctor, to the store..."

It occured to me this afternoon that we have survived Christmas, New Year's, deer strike, Otto's birthday, and a family visit -- all within a few weeks. Life has been a little crazier than usual, hasn't it? Today I stayed home with the kids. We walked to the park this morning and played. Had lunch. Took naps. They're now deep into screen time as I contemplate making dinner. Jon should be here soon I think - he took advantage of me being home today and stayed late at work.

Oh, and I left my garage clicker in the Mazda.

Sigh.

seven

For his lucky 7th birthday, the birthday boy got a beautiful, sunny, warm spring-like day. So warm and lovely we opened the sunroof and enjoyed the blue sky.

He got to celebrate at school, where his classmates sang happy birthday to him, then did a drumroll and cheered for his first bite of birthday cookie -- their cue to chomp into their own.

(I'm telling you now, Sugar Cookie Bars are the way to go if you need to make a ton of cookies quickly).

An early ride home and a little bonus time on the PS3 was followed by dinner at Noodles. Then home again for cake (a few bites of chocolate) and presents.

Such a difference, 7 from 6. He's tall enough to flip up the keypad cover on the garage and enter the code to open the door. Confident enough to fill his own cup with lemonade at Noodles. Reading well enough to open an email message, follow the directions to "click here," and then enjoy a silly birthday spoof video of Darth Vader. Responsible enough to make sure his field trip flyer was in his backpack at the end of the day, rather than leaving it for me to carry home. Bold enough to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and help himself to a snack.

Yep, I think seven is going to be good.

kapow!

I hit a deer on the way home last night.

Or, as Kathy at work says, I had a "hit and run." The deer ran out and hit me!

It's dark here by  6pm this time of year, so it was pitch black as I came around a curve that runs through a wooded area. There were 2 cars coming the other direction, and their headlights made it hard for me to see that there were 3 deer crossing the road and not just one. I kept braking and braking -- hard enough to make my bag fly off the passenger seat and onto the floor -- and I missed Deer 1 and Deer 2.

Deer 3 was not so lucky.

And neither was poor Radar, who looked kinda like the Terminator in that scene where his shades get knocked off and you can see the creepy red robot eye peeking out. Driver's side headlamp and a chunk of the fender in pieces on the road, I pulled off to the side and grabbed my phone.

 
Radar is cuter.

Lucky for me, the only thing terminated was the deer. Radar will be fine after a little (hopefully) cosmetic work. I was careful though -- I called the local towing company, who came out with a flatbed truck and gave Radar a ride back to their storage yard. Today they took it on to an area body shop, who then faxed me the paperwork to get the repair rolling. Fingers crossed that they're done by next weekend -- I still have my Subaru, but only until next Sunday, when my brother is flying out to drive it back to Colorado.

My commute is about 50% blacktop county roads through fields and woods. So I actually think I've done pretty good to go 7+ years without a deer strike. The sheriff's deputy who came to take my report said I was the 3rd deer accident of the evening already (to which I replied "Huh. Must be a party we don't know about." He laughed a little too hard at that.). And someone who lives near where I stopped said that there've been 4 deer accidents there in the past couple of months -- which makes me think there should be a sign. Maybe even a deer crosswalk. With a light.

glug glug glug

At 2:30 this morning, Bel wakes up howling that her ear hurts. "Which one, Bel?" I ask. She points to her left ear. So we get out the heating pad, the Tylenol. We get her resettled. I ask again, "which ear, Bel?" She points to the left one again (it's always good to see if you get a consistent answer).

This morning she told me, "my ear was talking mama, going glug glug glug." She giggles like it's really funny. And I remember that yesterday evening she'd talked about using her old Elmo sippy cup again, which I didn't think anything of at the time. But I bet she was thinking it'd make her ear feel better to slurp from a sippy cup. I give her another dose of Tylenol and dial the doctor's office for Jon, who's taking on the sick child assignment for the day.

Actually, I have to look up the doctor's office number, which is kind of refreshing. I used to have it memorized from calling every other week -- but since it's been months since we last went in, it's fallen out of my brain. This is a good thing.

I try to talk Otto into going to day care, but he says no. He wants to stay home. In his pajamas. I tell him he has to get dressed, he'll be heading to the doctor's office with Dad and Annabel, and his lip comes out. "I wish I could just stay home," he grumps. By himself, he means. At his LEGO table.

Not yet, kid! C'mon, get dressed and I'll get you some breakfast.

Later Jon called to tell me that the nurse confirmed that Annabel has a pretty good infection brewing, so we're on the pink stuff now. Both kids got their flu shots, too. Everyone's been in a grand mood despite the shots and the ear-inspection drama.

So, to sum up - we have snow. We have cold. And we have our obligitory ear infection.

It finally feels like winter.

new year

Annabel keeps telling me it's still Christmas.

"See mom! There's snow! It's still Christmas!"

We've explained that Christmas is over, that Santa will come again next year. We say we can have Christmas every day in our hearts, if we want. She likes that idea.

She also likes the idea of decorating for Valentine's Day. Tonight, as I followed her up the stairs to bed, she exclaimed "and we can put up the little lights, mama! In my room!" And I had an instant vision of her sleeping in a princess bed, snuggled into fluffy pink pillows and duvet, with white twinkle lights wrapped around the headboard and footboard.

Actually, that might not be a bad alternative to leaving on her lamp all night (she's going through a fear-of-the-dark phase).

She talked to my mom tonight on the phone and asked for coupons that she can use to buy unicorns. My mom said "You want grandma to bring you a unicorn next time I visit?" And Annabel thought that was a fine idea - 1-2-3-4-5-6 unicorns, grandma! So I guess we're into unicorns now.

She is not a child who is easily swayed once she's decided something. She said one morning at church, "I like God," and I realized she thinks our dear, funny pastor is God himself. After the service we chatted with him about it, and he assured that he worked for God but wasn't God.

Two weeks later, she said something about God and church and it was pretty clear that she still thought Pastor was God. If I try to correct her now, she just gives me a sideways look, as though humoring me by listening. "Sure mom," she seems to be thinking. "Whatever. You can try to tell me different, but I know better." I've stopped correcting her directly, but take chances when I get them to talk about the other things Pastor does besides lead the service wearing his robes. We sat next to him at Advent soup supper one night, and she chattered away telling him all sorts of things. It made me think we've either done something very right or have really missed the boat on the whole religion thing so far. Maybe a bit of both.

My oldest is, as far as I can tell, more of a born skeptic. He's starting to like Bible stories, and now that Bel is there to egg him on he'll go up front for the children's sermon. Mostly, though, he goes for the toy room.

He got several fantastic LEGO sets for Christmas, which he and Jon promptly put together. One of our New Year's weekend projects was to create a LEGO play/storage place in his room. I've been collecting ideas on-line at Pinterest, and with Jon's help and a vintage type tray found in Nana's basement, we created a spot in his room where his LEGO fantasies can run wild. Tonight he wanted me to take a couple of videos with my phone, and he was so delighted with the result that I promised to set up the Flip and tripod for him tomorrow so he can do his own videos. I have a feeling there are several more episodes of The Pizza Shop & The Alien in the works.

We have the rest of this week to finish recovering from the holidays. Otto heads back to school on Monday, so for the next few days he gets to sleep in a little bit, go to day care and hang out with his buddies all day, and have real peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Simple and happy things.

Bel and I had better start working with hearts cut out of construction paper, doilies, and twinkle lights. Valentine's Day isn't just going to celebrate itself, you know.

Merry Christmas!

have yourself a very LEGO Christmas...

The kids are eagerly awaiting Santa, but have been happy to keep themselves occupied today with the LEGO Star Wars Advent calendar.

Jon and I did a little last-minute shopping (for weekend food/party supplies, mostly). I did a bit of final decorating today too, mainly putting out the manger scene, candles, and some flowers. I had Annabel arrange the creche, and Santa ended up joining the mix. Which is perfect, really.

Now for the traditional Christmas Eve homemade pizza, and the traditional Skyping of the relatives! Especially my mom, who's stuck at home tonight with a broken arm--if you have extra good wishes to send her way, please do. I wish we could zap ourselves to her house to provide comfort and joy.

Maybe Beaker can help:

Since zapping is not yet a valid form of travel, we have to wish everyone--from Florida to Washington--a virtual Merry Christmas from Michigan. Where there is no snow, for the first time that I can remember. And I am not complaining.

KA-rissmas is coming...

This morning I played this song for Annabel:

She loved it, of course. Who wouldn't? She also likes the 12 Days of Christmas. And Rudolph. And Santa Claus is Coming to Town. And Jingle Bells. (I believe you now get the drift.)

She's starting to worry that without snow, there won't be Christmas. It was the first thing she asked this morning when she woke up -- "did it snow outside?" I reassured her that Christmas and Santa come whether there's snow or not, but I'm not sure she believed me. And what the heck, Michigan? Why do we bother to live this far north when there's not going to be snow at Christmas?

We went to see Santa yesterday at the mall. Otto, of course, was pretty calm about it. He told Santa he wants LEGOs and more LEGOs for his gift. Bel talked to him too, nervous but excited, and she told him she wants a "dancing belly-button dolly." Santa's eyebrows quirked, but he agreed. I'm wondering where Santa finds something like that (if you have any hints for Santa, send them my way -- I'll forward them along).

When we walked away from Santa, Bel chattered happily to her daddy, "I talked to Santa! And he liked me! And he was nice!" Sweet girl - as if anyone wouldn't like her! We ran errands together Saturday and she made all sorts of random people smile.

The pics turned out pretty well (to be released on Christmas!). Annabel is happy that she's not crying, Otto is happy that he looks cool.

He's counting the days to winter break - has been for a couple of weeks now. First grade has not been easy, not at all. In fact we're working through having him evaluated right now to see if we can pinpoint what sort of trouble he's having. Academically (that means when tested) he's doing well, but as far as following directions, fitting into class, and getting his work done he's having issues. The specter of ADD has already raised its head, but we'll go through the diagnosis process with our pediatrician before jumping to any conclusions.

As part of the process, I went to a parent-teacher conference a month ago that included several specialists from around the school. The social worker. The reading specialist. His teacher. The principal was in and out. In total there were probably 6 other people at the table with me, all sharing their opinions about how he's learning (or not, as the case may be). As it was a brainstorming session, all sorts of ideas were tossed around, from epilepsy to being gifted. It was a little surreal to have these experts telling me there's something not-quite-right about my oldest's behavior, while at the same time encouraging me to remember that the high school has a partership with a local college that allows students to start their college career before leaving high school.

Whiplash much?

The most important thing here is that Otto thinks he needs help, too. He gets discouraged and worried sometimes. Freely admits when he's overreacted to something. Says he has trouble focusing. It doesn't help to tell him everything's OK when he knows it's not, so what I'm telling him is that we'll find ways to help him do better.

Lucky for him, he lives with two parents who love him to bits, has health insurance and a good pediatrician, a caring, committed school staff, and supportive family and friends. Whatever's going on, we'll figure it out and work on it.

In the meanwhile, there's SANTA! And cookies, and Christmas music, and too much eating out because we're busy running around. Life is good, and winter break starts after school lets out on Thursday. Hooray!