Christmas 2005 / New Years 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
After a much needed break last year (thank you, dear husband!), I am back at the keyboard this Christmas. Life hasn't slowed down. I'm just a little better at keeping up.
Our 1995 Dodge Neon went out with a clank and a roar this year. Last January at a routine oil change, our mechanic told us that our catalytic converter pipe was rusting from the inside out and would cost over $500 to repair. He couldn't tell us how long it would last, but assured us we weren't presently in danger and would know immediately when the pipe rusted out. Since our Neon was 10 years old and worth almost nothing, we decided repairing the catalytic converter was extra-ordinary means and declined the repair.
The car suddenly sounded like we lost our muffler on our drive to St. Louis in February for my sister Sarah's wedding. We stopped in Bloomington-Normal, had lunch, and found a mechanic who, after hearing our story, temporarily clamped the pipe back to the muffler. Afterwards the Neon sounded better than it had in months. We questioned our mechanic's integrity until, as we were about to get on the expressway home from St. Louis, we heard a clank, then a roar in our engine and scrapes along the pavement. We hobbled into another mechanic's and feared this guy wouldn't let us out of his shop without a new catalytic converter. We sat in the waiting room, watching sparks fly under our car and scheming. What did we have in the car of value? How could we get it out? What if we just disappeared, walked down the street, and got on the next Amtrak back to Chicago? We were relieved when he temporarily welded the catalytic converter pipe back to the muffler. The remaining trip was uneventful.
Once home, car shopping shifted into high gear. We decided we needed a minivan to fit our long-term lifestyle. After research, test drives, and meeting pushy salespeople, we settled on the lowest end Honda Odyssey available. I sent Bob out with our friend, Keith Sorn (who loves to make a deal), to several dealers who had “exactly” the car we were looking for on the evening of March 10. Bob drove home a brand new 2005 Honda Odyssey. We suddenly were a Honda family, a minivan family, and, temporarily, a two-car family. We donated the Neon to charity in April.
We took a family vacation around my sister Jessica's Las Vegas wedding last May. (As a side note: Jessica lives and works in Las Vegas and took over a year to plan her wedding.) Since Las Vegas is not exactly our style, we drove from there to San Diego and rented a condo near the beach in Oceanside for a week. It was beautiful! Susan enjoyed the beach and ocean nearly every day. We visited the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park and took a harbor cruise. Our friends Matt and Clara Hess and their kids, Louis and Jim Bo, drove down from Los Angeles twice to visit us. We did not exhaust the things to do and hope to return some day. In the mean time, we plan to take our beach vacations a little closer to home, in Michigan or Wisconsin, where we can drive to the lake and don't feel pressure to go sight-seeing.
Early in the summer Bob put the finishing touches on his most prized DIY project - a compost bin. He filled it with everything we raked out of the planting beds, crabapples from our tree, almost all our leaves, and the neighbors grass clippings. To my surprise, he shoveled out a garbage can full of compost this fall. Bob assures me we can and will use it.
Bob started a new job in July. He is managing one other guy and together they are the IT support staff for a group of currency traders at the Gelber Group in downtown Chicago. He wears many different hats in his new position, is working with new programming tools, and enjoys the challenge. The new job even brought us another step into the 21st century - he got a cell phone for 24-hour technical support.
Both Bob and I still sing in our Parish choir. We thought Bob might have to take the year off for Peter, but although we have to take him out every now and then, he has never missed an entire Mass. Susan enjoys the choir, and the non-parental attention that comes from it. Sometimes she even sings with us.
With the encouragement of a friend from our choir, Beth Ann Toupin, and my husband, as well as babysitting from Beth Ann, I started voice lessons with Sr. Maureen, our parish music director. In exchange for free voice lessons, I cantor when I am available. It's been fun. I've also been keeping busy with our La Leche League group (I am now a Leader), architecture continuing ed classes, and a couple of small kitchen / addition projects for family and friends.
Susan did not start preschool this fall. Instead, she enjoyed a week at Zoo Camp over the summer and takes a fun park district class once a week. She is a budding photographer, capturing unique shots with the digital camera. She's also expressed an interest in learning to read. We do lessons from a phonics based, SRA DISTAR method book occasionally, but it is slow going. We take long breaks when she gets too frustrated. She is afraid we won't read aloud to her after she learns how to herself.
Susan says she wants to be a mommy when she grows up, and practices by “giving birth” to baby dolls and stuffed animals at least once a day. She is a sensitive soul! At the circus in November she spent 75% of the show sitting on Grandma Marianne's lap, scared by the acrobats' stunts and worried for the clowns in the slapstick routines.
Peter is a delightful toddler to have around. His bad moods never last too long and often only need Mommy or Daddy to “up-me” (in his words) to make everything all better. He doesn't have nearly as many words as Susan did at his age (he is now 18 months old), but communicates very clearly. He is a curious little boy - buttons were made for pressing (especially Daddy's cell phone, the answering machine, and TV remote controls) and Legos for stacking and unstacking in countless combinations. He loves beep-beeps (cars, trucks, fire engines, police cars, etc.), choo-chas (trains), and most animals but especially dog-dogs, shats (cats), and orseys (horses). He seems to have a naturally good arm with his ball-balls (anything he can throw), so baseball games might be in our future. He also gets slapstick - at his first circus experience, he stood on my lap, bouncing and pointing excitedly through 90% of the show (he slept through 10%). This sounds very stereotypical boy; we swear we did not socialize him differently than Susan.
Susan enjoys Peter much more now that he's older. Recently she taught him how to play “Ring Around the Rosey.” He loves the game so much that he will turn himself around in a circle, say “ashes, ashes,” then fall down on his bottom. Of course, I referee our fair share of disputes over knocked down towers and coveted toys. But generally, Susan and Peter get along fairly well. Susan is even a source of comfort to Peter when Mommy or Daddy isn't around.
We took advantage of our last year of freedom from the school calendar this fall. At the end of October we drove down to Kentucky for 5 days to visit with and help out Bob's sister Jeannine's family after the birth of her second child, Nathan Robert. Then in mid-December we spent about ten days with my parents and sisters in North Carolina to celebrate Christmas early. My parents also had me working on drawings for an addition they plan to build in January. I felt a little rusty as I drew those lines for the wall section and details, but it also feels good to finish a set of drawings again.
As life settles down after the Christmas holidays, please know that you and your family are in our thoughts and prayers for a joy-filled and blessed New Year!