The Old Year

This isn't a post about the kids really. I've never liked New Year's very much as a holiday. It always seemed too melancholy to be a celebration. But this year I am especially loathe to leave behind. Maybe I should feel the opposite, but I don't. It has been a year marked by loss and change, but tonight, just an hour and a half before we start a new year, a new beginning, I want to pump my fists in the air and scream for time to stop.

It was a new beginning for us, moving here, but we are still all reeling from the loss at leaving our network in San Diego. The friendships and connections that were, and too those that were growing, the possibilities of what could be in the years to come. I see, too, that my perspective is perhaps somewhat rosy, that an image may be most beautiful when it's frozen in time, that the ideal of what was may be as flawed in reality as the ideal I held of this place, this life, before we moved here. Still, flawed or not, what a wonderful network it is. What a wonderful community you are all a part of there, and I miss it, you, dearly. Juan too, so much more than I imagined.

The new year will start without my brother. As every year will now. It has occurred to me again and again over the past week. The holidays passed, but I was not as marked by sadness as I have been in this last week. The idea that it is time for a new beginning, it seems terribly wrong, too late. Just as John's transfer seemed, too late. The world is too small now, without Alex. Always eager to outgrow me, measuring your height against mine, your hands against my hands, arm wrestling until finally, on your visit to San Diego a few months after I moved down here, you were. It may have been the first thing you noticed at the airport, "Hey, I"m taller than you!" you said. Alex, I wish I were ten feet tall.

Mary Lu turns One

Ok, now I've waited through birthday and Christmas and I have a billion photos to post, so I'd better get on it already. Here I'll post a few from Mary Lu's birthday. I know I already did this, but it was a rushed version, and I feel Mary Lu deserves a richer ode. So, here goes. . .

Mary Lu loves to swing. Maybe I'll include my favorite photo of Mary Lu ever--swinging. She is a climber, a novice runner. She loves to be startled and chased, but she's not too crazy about being swung about. She yells. She now at times yells, in deep and loud bursts, bent slightly over and head cocked, hands on her hips (back of the wrists on her hips and hands, relaxed and open sticking out behind her back like she's about to shake a tail feather, looking just like some haughty southern firecracker telling someone what for). She likes to stand up in the bath and which is some improvement over her tendency, a couple months ago, to fling herself backwards in the bath from the sitting position. She stands precariously on chairs, beds, and looks at us until we tell her to sit down, then she slowly lowers herself, smiling, generally into a squatting position until we tell her to sit on her bottom, which she does. She turns lights off and on, loves getting in the refrigerator and digging through it to find something to carry around the house--mustard, butter, salad dressing. Don't try to take it away from her. Like her brother, she loves to drive the car. She "vrooms" and turns the radio up LOUD, I turn it down, she turns it up. She likes to lie in the middle of the floor, still, for a few minutes here and there. She puts everything in her mouth. Always has. I imagine she will outgrow this. Today, after she chewed a piece of cardboard off something and went to the cabinet to throw the piece in the trash. She finds tiny bits of trash on the floor and brings them to me. . .usually. She brings us books to read all day long and is partial to books about animals and babies and books with surprises. She loves the alphabet. About two months ago, right after we moved in, she began to associate the song with the letters and she sings "ahh, bahh," when she wants to go look at the letters and sing the song. She loves animals, she's drawn to them and wonderfully gentle with them. She loves people, especially people her age and Juan's. She does not love Santa. She waves, often with both hands, at characters in books, at the dogs, at us. She is an adventurous, brilliant girl. So sweet, and so full of joy. She gives wonderful kisses, often prefaced with a loud and drawn-out "mmmmmmm."

A Birthday Note

Just a quick note on Mary Lu's birthday. How wonderful it was to get birthday emails etc. from some of Mary Lu's, and my, friends. It really meant a lot and I wanted to say a public thank you. She had a great day with lots of naps, a couple turns around the cupcake plate, and some playtime with new toys. Juan even let her play some with the firetruck he picked out for her gift.

We just celebrated as a family today, and will have a small party on Friday.

As a birthday ode to Mary Lu, here's what she's up to. . .She's talking all the time, it seems like her vocabulary grows ten-fold each day. The thing that really amazes me about her is that she seems to need to just hear a new word once, and then says it. She says this one word, loudly and forcefully a lot. It may be "go" or "no" it may be both. She's working on running, she does sort of a fast walk with her upper body way ahead of her lower and then she usually falls. She holds her own in toy battles these days. She is as happy and loving as ever and had adopted this wonderful new tendency to hold on to my neck when she hugs me. She'll come running at me, arms up, I'll lift her up and she'll hug me tight and hold on.

She and Juan are down in our bed now, so I should make my way down there. I'll post birthday photos soon, but here are some others.

Snow!

It finally snowed here yesterday, and is at it again tonight. It's barely a ground cover and the grass (and our unraked leaves) still peek through. Still, it's pretty. We had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving here. Our friends, Jenn and Brian visited from Portland and it was, well, comforting to have old friends in our home. It made it feel more like our home to me to make those kinds of memories here.

True to conventional turkey lore, there were some mishaps. I overfilled the turkey pan with the fancy gravy I tried to make (to give John his props, he did try to warn me, but I said, "no, it's fine, it will spill and just burn off.") and this created, literally, the smokiest environment imaginable for the next several hours. When I had to open the oven to check the turkey (forget basting, we only opened the oven as necessity dictated) we had to clear the room. We cooked all morning with all the windows and doors open, and it's cold here. So, we all lived, the turkey was dry, my green beans wilty. Jenn made yummy stuffing and brussel sprouts, though, and I made a good torte. Also I liked my bread. Maybe I'm a better baker.

We went exploring and found a cool frozen lake to walk on. It was unnerving to me, but I did it. While there we met a local, older man who came out to check if the ice was thick enough for ice fishing. He wore heavy orange overalls and had a distinctive accent (Eastern European? Scandanavian?) He walked out onto the ice with a little hatchet and hacked away until he hit water. He said it needs to be about 4" thick to ice fish. I thought this was all really cool. Then he slipped and fell down and started crawling his way back to shore. He'd hack at the ice with his hatchet, get a good hold, then pull himself. He was only about 10 feet out to begin with. I asked if he wanted a hand, but he didn't. He just continued to hack his way back to the side.

Mary Lu genuinely seems to like the cold. She seems to get a kick out of freezing wind blowing in her face. Juan is less of a fan. He likes the snow, I think the arrival of the snow will keep him in good spirits for at least a few days. He was notably unimpressed by the lake. He had fun sitting and having John push him on the lake once, but that was it. As for me, I like the snow, and the seasons. No, I don't like to be cold, but I don't like being hot either come to think of it. Right now the only thing that really gets me down is the constant putting on and taking off of coats, mittens, hats, etc. Auggh!

Over the holiday I did learn that Oroville is most likely a place best enjoyed when there is outdoor recreation to be had. As it was, it was too cold to spend much time just walking around outside, the mountains aren't yet open for skiing, and so we spent a great deal of time at home or in the car. Jenn and Brian were good sports. I guess this is something I took for granted in San Diego, as there was always something going on, and I didn't really need to plan. I'm confident that Oroville can be exciting too, it may just take a little more help on my part.

Ok, here are a couple Thanksgiving photos, including one of Brian flying Juan through the house which Juan got a big kick out of. Juan and Mary Lu got a big kick out of Jenn and Brian in general, and I got more free time than I can remember since Mary Lu found Brian SO much more fun to hang out with than me. Juan spent a good deal of the holiday carting around the cooler pictured here. He was being a tow truck, or possibly "Mack" from Cars.

Books

So. . .Mary Lu is CRAZY! Many of you with wild children of your own will know what I'm saying here. She is up on and all over everything imaginable thing, all of the time. Tonight she took her second terrible spill off Juan's bed during story time. She went straight back from sitting, nothing to break her fall, and hit the back of her head on Juan's wooden rocking horse. It was really scary and I'm still a little nervous as I write this. Storytime pretty much always goes something like this, me: "Now the star-bellied Sneetches had bellies. . .Leafy no bite!. . .with stars, and the plain. . .Leafy NO BITE!. . .bellied Sneetch. . .Mary Lu sit down. Sit down. Mary Lu. . .bellied Sneetches had none (I stop here to put Mary Lu on the floor). . .upon thars (Mary Lu cries to get back up). You get the picture. Mary Lu and Leafy have a grand time but I imagine it's less fun for Juan.

I'll put a few photos up here. Mary Lu and Juan outside with his garage sale tractor. Mary Lu's reaction to trying cheese today. She decided today that she should eat cheese and crackers off Juan's plate. Juan is doing really well. He is still play-acting a lot and is really excited to go see a children's theater perform Robin Hood tomorrow night. I'm really hoping we can find him some kind of performing arts outlet around here eventually because at least now he seems very into it.

It gets dark here so early, so we're all in bed earlier and still up at the same time for the most part.

To all you book savvy folks, I'm looking for book recommendations for both Juan and Mary Lu. Usually I browse the bookstores, but that's no longer an option. I'd love to hear about any good ones you've seen recently.

More soon, love to all,
Jessica

Here's a few Jack-Lantern pictures.


Juan carved this one (with adult....well
Daddy supervision)

Halloween

We had a great Halloween here in Oroville! We spent the afternoon and evening with some new friends at a local park, and trick or treating on Main Street. As you can see in the photos, Mary Lu spent much of her time at the park face down on the pavement, trying to eat the gravel. She was relentless. . .every time we turned around. So much so that she gave herself quite a scrape on her nose, as you can see in the later photo of her in the wagon. The wagon, too, proved ill-conceived. For about 5 minutes she was happy to recline and take in the 0ohs and ahhs of her passing admirers, then (predictably probably by all but me) she spent all her time trying to climb head first out of the wagon. Juan had his face painted by his friend, Ellie, and was introduced to the scary side of Halloween as some of the shop owners had scary displays and costumes. He didn't say much about this, but when his friend, Elijah kept wanting to touch this motorized monster that lifted his own head off, Juan wouldn't let him. Elijah kept reaching out to touch it, and Juan kept grabbing his arm. I thought this was very representative of Juan's character. More along those lines, Juan was also the only one to get wet in the nearly-freezing lake. It was really cold here last week, but this week is lingering in the mid 40s during the day. Skies today and yesterday are gray and I'm sure we'll have snow soon! Also, Mary Lu has five teeth now and she likes to take off her diaper. Juan finally saw the Cars movie and talks about it all the time. He played some floor hockey yesterday with one of his preschool friends and had a great time. Ok, I'm really done.

Kids

I was going to upload photos, but it will have to wait. Some big things going on for Mary Lu though. She is talking up a storm and now makes animal sounds. Pig was first a few days ago, but yesterday she started mooing and meowing. She really likes to moo and oink. She is walking faster and farther. Tonight she would go really fast across the kitchen and then fall and laugh and laugh. She is getting her, what are they, eye teeth? wisdom teeth? I don't know, the two pointy ones in just in time for halloween and it's very cute. Juan started his Canadian preschool today on the Inkameep Indian reservation. He's currently going to two preschools. I'm sure it's all very ridiculous, but I guess I can admit that I'm a little ridiculous. At any rate, he has an Okanogan language lesson once a week at this school which is pretty cool--just colors and numbers and such. He is really into Leafy and she is a pretty great dog. She's still learning the fine line between playing with the kids and chewing on the kids, but I'm hopeful that we'll get there eventually. Mary Lu gets her revenge by torturing Leafy when she's asleep. I'm not kidding. ML sees Leafy sleeping across the room, heads straight for her and pulls and prods at her mercilessly.

For a San Diego Afternoon

Today I am whole-heartedly missing San Diego. I just looked at a friend's blog and I recognized the slide she was taking her daughter down and I am flooded with memories of Juan and I at Balboa Park, at the zoo, Seaworld. . .Trolley Barn. Those years that it was just Juan and I and our adventures together. It feels a little like another life, and I miss it so much. It feels like those were OUR places and we left them behind. It is an overwhelming feeling at this moment. I suppose we just need to find our places here still, and it is harder here. It will take more work and more creative thinking. Surely our golden days weren't left behind in the tunnel at Trolley Barn, or with the Ankylosaur sorting blocks at the Natural History Museum, in the sand at Fanuel Park. Thank goodness for Mary Lu as she heads into this wonderful second year of adventure and discovery, she will help to propel us along toward new discoveries. Still, when I think of those SD places so dear to Juan and I, I imagine a part of us there--me in my earliest mothering and a two year old Juan full of wonder and curiosity.

Veranda Beach

Finally started choosing paint colors today. After a week of agonizing over a color palate, I decided to copy someone else. There is this 1960s-ish, madras and bermudas type, dirty dancing-esque, grab your sister and run down the street to meet the Good Humor Man resort going in down on the lake. It's basically like I died and went to retro-heaven. They are so beautiful, check them out at www.verandabeach.com.

Southern Cali

Friends in San Diego and around, we are thinking of you tonight and hoping that you and yours are safe.

Soccer etc.

Just a couple photos of Juan and Mary Lu. Here is Juan at soccer practice and Mary Lu also at soccer practice, and Juan and I making an apple pie crust. Good grief, my bangs. Mary Lu cut a new tooth today on top.