Monday, December 22, 2008

I'm back

Whew. Um. So I kind of went missing for a few months.

Just. Busy.

Our house is on the market, and precluding that was much time spent sorting through belongings and cleaning up storage areas and even whole garages. And cabinets and drawers and any other places I could envision my happy potential home-buyers snooping. But our happy home-buyers haven't found us yet. And so we wait. And have our lives interrupted constantly to stop and make the house presentable in the midst of 4 year old mayhem and a dog with an ugly bed on every floor of the house. So that's, you know, where I've been.

Sami seems so, so grown up to me. To us. Michael and I comment on it all the time. Just like whoa! How'd she get that tall?

She's in official preschool and adores it. She pronounces regularly to anyone that will listen that home days (meaning no school on those days) are just "BORin'." I think we can all imagine how she's coping 4 days into her 19 day Christmas break. Gah.

She's enjoying the wintery cold snap we're in much more than she did last year. She loves having me "bungle" her up so she can go to the park with Daddy when he takes Jazzy out to run each morning. She returns so brightly pink-cheeked that you just want to plop her into a cup of hot chocolate and drink her up.

She's lost most of her mispronounced baby talk. Like, when her teacher finally taught her how to properly say "yellow" instead of "lellow," I'll admit it wrenched my heart a little. But she still assures me she has "sensible" eyes and ears when she spots or hears something I may have missed. I'm sorry. I'm not correcting these. They're too adorable and they'll be gone soon enough without my assistance.

Maybe I cherish them so much because she has a pretty amazing (to me, who has not hung out with 4 year olds previous to my own) vocabulary. When she was but a wee infant I took it upon myself to always answer her questions and to talk to her like I would anyone else. I don't try to be overly complex or anything. But I also don't hesitate to use "big words" if it is required to properly explain a concept. And she uses some really big words in exactly the right way which never fails to amuse me. And humble me to think of the miracle of the human brain to be able to learn like it does even at 4 years old.

She is also strong-willed. The inherent stubbornness abundant in both her father and to somewhat much lesser degree in her mother seems to have multiplied exponentially in her. Good Lord. Trying to work our way through these last months has been the most challenging part of being a mom that I've yet experienced. Tantrums. Hissy-fits. Demands. Call it what you will, but we're still coping with them. And this is from 2 adults who made up their minds early on that they would never give into a tantrum since any sane person knows that only begets more tantrums. Sami? Tantrums? THEY DON'T WORK!. Why oh why do you continue with them? Why? I'm going to be ultra-eccentric when I grow old just to get back at you. So there.

She is so fricking excited for Christmas this year. Thank God for her present & surprise-gifting over-achiever of an aunt supplementing the Christmas presents this year. Times are tough, and a 4 year old shouldn't have to be aware of it at Christmas time. I'm not saying she should have EVERYthing she asks for by any means. And I've been making her gently aware of the cost of buying "things" and trying to explain that's why Momma and Daddy work -- to earn money, etc. And how that all works. But I'm just saying -- having Aunt Bec doing her thing delights more than just Sami. (Thank you, Aunt Bec.)

I feel very humbled and blessed this season. First and foremost for all our good health. I've seen and heard such heartbreaking stories recently -- I can't say it enough. I am so, so thankful for that. And for all of us being together. And after that, really what does much else matter? Anything else dished out to us, somehow working together we'll get through it. With that said, I'm very thankful we both still have our jobs. But I'm smart enough to know that that could change at any time. For now we still have a beautiful house, 2 fairly reliable vehicles, and I only have to be a little careful when grocery-shopping. :-)

There. I've gotten the stopped-writing-for-months- first-entry-back-is-intimidating thing behind me. So let's leave off there.