Snippets

Some random odds and ends. It's 1:30 AM and I have no hope of stringing this together into some sort of cohesive narrative, so I'll just go with bullet points. Jamie Pickavance, I know you will forgive me.

-- I wish there was some way to record and post John's dinnertime prayers. Oh my. I know it is not the charitable thing to do, to be rolling with laughter as your son prays over your food, but it's just so funny. Last night he prayed that God would bless our food to make our arms, legs, feet, legs, shoulders, arms (again), and brains strong. He usually finds a way to indict his sister for something ("Lord, please help Betsy to not spit at me") and almost every day, he is thankful for video games.

-- Speaking (writing) of video games, we had to hand down a punishment decree of no computer time for John yesterday. Why? Because he "broke" the computer, accidentally deleting the all-important Austin option on our company's VPN software. The one gateway we have to American internet. (Since restored.) How? We're not sure, but it happened while he was trying to turn on iTunes because he didn't like what was playing on Pandora. My four year old is computer-savvy and picky. Neat.

-- Discovered today that Betsy still gets carsick. Very, very carsick. The downside? Well, the puke, obviously. We had to sacrifice her cute new Gap shirt to the side of the road because, well, ew. The car seat also took one for the team. And reeking of vomit doesn't really help with bargaining at the children's market -- the sellers somehow knew that I had to buy something, and fast. The upside? It happened in the company car (um, sorry NI employees) and our driver (again, not ours really but for the purpose of the story) pulled over and bought water and Kleenex to help clean her while I undressed her. A heroic move by the man who would then spend the next hour sitting in the puke-smelling car with the kids while I finished my errands. Yes, I kept shopping. Two days til Christmas, people!

-- We are getting ready for Christmas and Santa's visit. John is very excited to leave cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer. I hope that Santa arrives early enough to bring me some good American baking supplies so that I can make cinnamon rolls for everyone. Have I mentioned how much I pink-puffy-heart Pillsbury and their fabulous refrigerated dough products? I had hoped to compensate for my lack of Grands Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls (and the 55-cents off coupon I'm sure you'll all going to use for them) with Pioneer Woman's homemade cinnamon rolls, but that plan kind of fell apart when I couldn't find packets of Fleischman's yeast.

-- We attended a birthday party yesterday afternoon for a sweet little boy named Lucas. Lucas and his family just moved here about a month ago from England, and his mother Val is absolutely precious. Val is from Brazil and her husband Rob is English, and Lucas speaks both English and Portuguese. We got to sing/clap along to the Brazilian version of Happy Birthday, which is just a way better version than our English one. Loved hearing the conversation between John and Lucas about Santa vs. Father Christmas.

-- Betsy's learning new words all the time, including "self" for all the things she wants to do independently, like comb her hair or buckle her high chair straps. Or put in the DVD she wants to watch, which results in some of the new words Tommy has learned when he finds the chocolate fingerprints on the back of one of their movies. Betsy and John also have a new game that they play every night. There is a light switch just at her height in John's room, and when we gather in there to read and sing and pray before bed, she will make a beeline for that switch and turn out the lights on her brother, who screams in horror and turns them back on. (Repeated until someone falls off the bed or starts crying, and with that joy in our heart, we start reading.) Betsy is also working on counting. She can do 1-11 if someone starts with her, but on her own she usually just bellows out "5-6-7-8." She hasn't yet learned jazz hands.

-- John has added two new yearly occupations to his list. He now says that when he's 24, he wants to be a technical writer, and when he's 21 he wants to drive a subway and drink a Tiger beer. We hope it won't be in that order.