down in the trenches

If life is a battlefield, sometimes you'll be out front advancing and reveling in the glory of gaining. And sometimes you'll be holed up in the trenches doing everything you possibly can to stay alive and still not make any headway. Right now, I'm in the trenches. I'd rather not list all that I'm struggling with because I know to some they'll seem paltry and insignificant, even I think they are. I know I should keep my chin up and just keep plugging away. I know that I'll get over this pretty quickly and look back with understanding. I know that its most likely related to my no-exercise, no-shower, no-sleep existence today. I also know that Alec is upstairs screaming when he should be sleeping. Aieee. Wish me luck as I make a desperate attempt to succeed in having patience for the first time today. (Pardon my overused analogy but thanks to my current book, war is on my mind.)

Alec the amazing

One fun experience for me as a father has been to be outright amazed at my son. Alec has done this several times, most recently this morning. We had a chance to go ice-skating as a student family housing activity. I was thinking it would be worthless to even try and get skates for Alec, because he wouldn't be able to skate or anything, but we ended up getting him some anyways. His first try was close to what I expected. He tried to walk, instead of just letting himself slide, and was ready to be done in no time at all. After a break, we "helped him" get up the courage to try again. This time, he went between me and Brittney, with each of us holding one hand. This time, he absolutely got the hang of sliding, just keeping his feet still and steady while we pulled him around. And he just loved it! He wanted to keep going and going, it was the funnest thing. By the end, after many times around, he would move his feet slightly and it looked just like skating. Kind of a small thing, but I was just so impressed by his courage and ability to be able to figure out how to do the right things so quickly, and have fun at it. So often he has exceeded my expectations with his skill and courage. I sure love that boy.

Working up his courage from the safety of the stroller.
Charlie slept the whole time, which is his way of saying he loves ice-skating
Alec skating:

Fun at Home

We've had lots of "fun" at home this week. It started off with Chris getting his paper submitted for the paper/IJCAI conference deadline on Monday. Yay, Chris! Then on Tuesday, I gracefully skipped a few stairs carrying 6 loads of laundry and tweaked my ankle a bit. The real fun, however, began on Wednesday with Alec's amazing ability to throw up food within seconds of eating it. At least he was able to keep some medicine down so his fever didn't shoot up much higher than 100. We read lots of books, watched lots of movies, and changed lots of daipers, as Alec's throwing up progressed towards coming out the other end. The fun continues today as I am finally able to walk around without an obvious limp and Alec is finally eating normal foods. We're celebrating by going ice skating for an EV-wide event. We'll just have to remember to bring 5 or 6 diapers and changes of clothes for Alec and hope we keep things contained. Since Alec has still been getting over a cough he got around Christmas time, we've been trying to teach him to cough in his elbow and he actually does it about half the time...what a sweet boy.

Stomp Rocket

Alec got a stomp rocket from his cousin Mady for Christmas. We took it to the park last Saturday to try it out and not only does Alec love it, but he can do it all by himself! Its wonderful, thanks Mady!

Picture Post

We left at home some of the bigger toys (thanks grandma and grandpa Archibald!) we couldn't fit in our car and set them out the morning after we got back.
Charlie helps uncle Jordan dominate at Blokus.
Grandpa had fun with all the little boys and all the little boys loved Grandpa.
We took the Anderson Island ferry for fun on one of our last few days together.
My dad and mom were great to hold Charlie in the evenings so I could socialize with my siblings. Taken today during the post-church nap.

Christmas and Alec's Birthday

We had a wonderful Christmas. All the family together in matching pajamas eating chocolate at 8:00 in the morning (or maybe that was just me!) It was fun to watch so many little kids get so happy opening and playing with their (and others') presents. People were very thoughtful and generous with their gift-giving to us. We're were unexpectedly blessed with nice sweaters, games, a food mill, pride & prejudice, stuffed animals, toys and trains. Pictures from other parts of the break will come soon. The last picture is of all the paper soldiers we did of all the grandkids as a surprise for Grandma and Grandpa.


For Alec's Birthday we went to Round Table Pizza's lunch buffet....WITH DESSERT PIZZA. This is the best stuff ever, and no other Round Table that I know of has it except the one in U.P. WA. After dinner and a fun game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" with cousins, we ate the Train-under-the-Tunnel cake I made for him. He loved us singing Happy Birthday to Alec so much that he kept singing it to himself while he ate his cake, "happy day ayec." It was indeed a happy day to think that 2 years ago we were welcoming our sweet Alec into our family. We have been crazy happy ever since.

Alec on Christmas Eve

Tonight, after fun celebrations with both Alec and Brittney's cousins here in Washington, Alec and some of the other little cousins set some cookies and milk out for Santa, and sprinkled some granola in the snow out front for the reindeer to eat. He was being very talkative afterwords, in his very cute and excited manner, and we busted out the camera.



Here is what was said, for those of you who don't speak Alecese.

Alec : Santa hungry
Mommy: Santa's hungry? What is he gonna eat?
A: Reindeer hungry. Sky. Ground.
M: The reindeer?
A: Eat it. Sky. Eat it. Mouth.
M: What are they gonna put in their mouth?
A: Eat it. Go sky. Eat it.
M: Are the reindeer gonna eat their food, when they come down from the sky?
A: Uh huh.
M: Can you say Merry Christmas?
A: Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!