Liam is describing to Helena about a play he is going to do for us. After playing in a band with guitars, they’re going to do “that song” from Monsters vs Aliens. Helena says:
“How about this time I sing and you dance because remember last time I almost kicked the clock off the wall?”
Helena decided to help Dori make cookies. She learned not to turn on the food processor at full speed with just dry ingredients in it.
Liam has finished reading it after four nights – sixteen pages a night.
The kids woke up before we did and took off downstairs. The sound of Ada squealing with delight could have awoken anyone. By the time we got downstairs, the kids had their stockings opened up and Ada was into her candy, well, when she wasn’t in Liam’s.
The opening of presents took way too long – well, they get too much. In all, it took at least four hours looking at the time on the photos. Then once they were all open I took them downstairs for them to see the Wii that Libby had sent them. At this point, they still didn’t know that Dori was coming to visit that night (although too late for them to see her, so that had to wait until the morning).
One highlight was Helena getting a stuffed sea turtle. Ada runs into the entrance and begins to cry. I guess that she wanted it more. I had to run out the next night and look for it at Toys ‘R Us before problems occur.
Helena just sent Ada the courier down to deliver a message to Liam.
12-24-09
Dear liam,
I wish for once you would come and vist me and ada sooner or later.
Sincerley,
Dr. Helena :-)P.S. I see you like to make up games
He handed it to me to read to him. I told him to read it to me instead. Other than sincerely, “Dr.” and “P.S.” (which he pronounced “piss”), he read the whole thing aloud.
I told him that he is now a reader and pretty soon he’ll be sitting down and reading books on his own. He looked away and then smiled about that. Well, then he went back to making up his games.
The kids come home with about five or six things each. Then there is the work at home. Every day there are about 25 to 30 (or if Liam is particularly inspired, many more) new pieces of work for us to have. They get all over the house. And I’m the only one who sneaks them into the recycling bin. But some I save. Here are some that I’ve kept.
And after typing in descriptions for them all, some apparently weren’t saved, and I don’t want to do them all again. So here it is in a nutshell.
Helena doesn’t draw very often at home, but she does bring home lots of stuff. She likes working with things like felt, beads, etc. So she brings home more projects. She also brings home lots of papers from school. Two or three math pages a day. Reading logs. Notes to and from friends. She spends much more time reading at home than drawing. She likes to write as well, so most of what she does at home are letters and notes to others. Her favorite thing to draw are scenes of sea animals. Dolphins, whales, fish or all sorts. With seaweed, and with the dolphin jumping out of the water.
Liam is constantly drawing. He likes to draw Monsters vs Aliens characters, but he can also draw other animals that he makes up. And he likes to draw large. He staples, glues, or tapes sheets together. And he edits them constantly. He makes books and has us write down what is going on in the story. He likes to draw animals that have superpowers. In all his stories, the good guys win, though. Even when they are shot at, something happens so the good guy isn’t hurt. He also likes to draw mazes and has us do them. They are impossible to figure out. He’ll have you redo it every few minutes when he adds something new. It is very time consuming.
Ada usually doesn’t draw at home. She’s another reader. But she brings home what she does at daycare, which is usually just what the other kids do. I don’t think that she has ever asked anyone there for paper just to draw on. She’s happy to paint or use Play-Doh when the other two are using it, though. Or ripping up what Liam has done.
Still bummed that all my comments weren’t saved.
Helena found presents that were from Santa in the bedroom last night that Dalen had wrapped but had left out. After being confronted about it, Dalen had to tell her that there wasn’t a Santa Claus.
Dalen and I had talked all these things a few weeks before. I assumed that she may have already heard from other kids that there wasn’t a Santa Claus, but she probably brushed it aside like she does with conversations with me about God. Dalen said that she has asked before, but Dalen convinced her that there was.
Anyway, Helena asked three questions when she found the package.
When I came down the next morning after my shower, Helena told me that she knows that I eat the cookies that are left out for Santa.
I was out at Target and Helena called me at 10 pm to tell me that she just found out and that she was sad (and cried). That was only 50 hours before Christmas, so it is really a bummer that she couldn’t find out until just afterward.
Since Liam hurt his arm (on a Sunday which is our usual skating lesson time) we haven’t been going. But now that the rink is up across the street, we can go there.
Liam’s arm is in a cast, so he was careful, but he never did fall. He really likes to watch the men (and woman) play hockey in the rink.
Since it was a Sunday, the rink wasn’t cleared of snow. There were people who brought their own shovels and we worked on it quite awhile to get lots of space cleared off.
I think I’ve written about this on the blog already, but Ada just loves reading books. She picks out about ten at a time and goes through them all. She doesn’t really ever put them away, though.
Here she is in the kitchen although she usually camps out on a couch. Sometimes she’ll go upstairs by herself and sit on Helena’s bed with books all over. But we usually can’t allow that too long because she can also do some serious damage to her room (wals), her hair (cutting), her animals (product), or Liam’s room (makes it messy which he does not like one single bit).
Helena the workhorse.
Dad: Ugh, I just heard something.
Helena: That was a fart. (laughing) Liam farted.
Liam: That was a toot because I can’t smell it
Yesterday I was at Best Buy picking up a new television so that I could get the large (and old) one out of the living room. While I was there Dalen called to ask when I would be home because Liam had to be taken to the emergency room. He and Helena were playing (she was chasing him around) and he slipped and fell on the floor – elbow first. He had been screaming and shaking since he fell. At that point, I was waiting in my car for the workers to bring out the floor-model entertainment center that I got as well since the old one wouldn’t fit down the stairs.
So Dalen asks me to pick the other two kids up from the clinic, which is where they were just headed. I had to go home first because the seats were not in the van because of the furniture. I get home and drag the television in and go to the restroom. Then I go outside to get the entertainment center out of the van so that the seats will go back in. As soon as I shut the door I realized that I didn’t have the keys, so dumb dad couldn’t help out. At least I got the garage cleaned since I had left the door open.
Liam came home in a sling. X-rays showed no real damage. But the doctor said that Liam should stay home the next day because he would be in more pain that day. I stayed home with him. When I went to drop off lesson plans and tell his school that he wouldn’t be in that day, Dalen called to tell me that they had looked again at the x-rays and wanted him to see a specialist. So we went and we were told that although they can’t see a fracture, at that age they assume that there is one, so they put him in a cast for four weeks. He wasn’t in pain at all during the day, which was nice. The bad thing was that he acted as if  – what is the word? – resignation? – like he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do anything fun for a long time. (Turns out it isn’t that much of an obstacle to having fun).
After the cast was put on we went to the mall to shop for gifts for mom, Helena, and Ada (from Liam). He wanted to go on the Log Chute ride as well. The poor guy shook the entire time going around. Once we got to the top of the chute I thought he was going to crap his pants. Turns out that you go down it twice. The woman asked if we wanted to go again since it was slow…Liam said “no” because he didn’t want his cast to get wet!
Oh, and we saw Sarah Palin. We weren’t the people that threw things at her. She’s the one in red!
Helena was at a birthday party at the Rollergarden (where she got to see the paramedics pick a kid up who had a run-in with the wall) so I took Ada and Liam to see Hansel and Gretel with the Minnesota Orchestra. (Illegal!) photos didn’t turn out so well. Afterward we walked around the skyway a git, Ada played a violin, and then Liam got mad that some kids were throwing sticks at a squirrel. “They shouldn’t be mean to nature”.
