'Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was sleeping, not even a mouse.
The stockings were ready for this years fill,
if only the children would lay still!

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of Santa and double strollers (and perhaps a sugar plum or two) dance in their heads.
I was in my jammies, and Stranger in his scrubs - for he was at work
fixing the broken and eradicating germs where they lurk.

When upstairs I heard a pitter-patter,
I sign and get up to see what is the matter.
Down comes the oldest with questions about Santa to ask
Will Santa still come if I get up to potty? What if I need you? What if I tinkle in my bed? I sigh at this task.

Finally she's settled, downstairs in my bed,
I sit down to read, "This is a great book" a friend had said.
Until 10, read I did,
and then climbed into bed next to a tossing and turning Karate Kid.
A pillow between us to block most of the blows,
the only thing uncovered are my poor toes.

In the middle of the night Stranger is finally home,
craving sleep I creep up the stairs, to a twin bed alone.
Asleep at last, bedtime has long passed.
Of course, it doesn't last.

Now the youngest takes her turn.
I stumble out of bed as my head begins to churn.
A whimper, then a cry, then a full blown wail,
try as I might, I'm moving like a snail.

Hush! Before you wake everyone else,
I pick her up and something sure smells!
A fresh diaper, now please go to sleep
Don't make a sound, not even a peep!

Two, three, four, five more times she cries,
I can't figure out where the problem lies.
At 5:30 I remember, on the floor is where she threw her dinner.
Perhaps a graham cracker will now be the winner.

When I return with her prize,
I see that finally she had closed her eyes.
Back to bed I creep,
Please, I just want to sleep!

Two hours with all of us sleeping is all that he had,
to fill the stockings and leave presents to make the children glad.
Thank you Santa for working so late,
Hope you enjoyed the cookies we left on your plate.



Merry Christmas from one tired mom! 8 )

Force to be reckoned with

Now that EasternStar is walking - she is a little tornado of destruction! It is awesome to watch her discover the world and try to figure out how things work. She has mastered opening the drawers in the kitchen and pulling stuff out, outsmarted our child-proof locks under the sink (thankfully she is only after the roll of paper towels in there), and loves to pull things out of the garbage can.

I'd forgotten how fast a little one can tear apart a room! Here she is "helping" with the coupons:

Snow Day!

On Monday, we had our first dusting of snow of the year. The girls were eager to go outside and play before it melted so as soon as we had breakfast and dressed we headed out.
Thankfully Stranger didn't have to work until Monday night so he didn't miss out on any of the fun!

At first, EasternStar wasn't too sure about walking around in the snow, but she was happy to sit in it and watch TinyDancer run around.

There was just barely enough snow to make a snow angel. After sledding, this is TinyDancer's second favorite activity to do in the snow.

Stranger was excited that he finally got to wear his new hat. We bought this from some guy selling hats out of a suitcase in Red Square. He later took off the Communist pin.

Eventually EasternStar decided to try out walking in the snow.

And took a turn riding in the sled.

Both girls had a good time! I think that Stranger did too.

Sadly, the snow melted by lunchtime and we haven't had any since. We're hoping for more next time and we're hoping more comes soon!

I'm marrried to ....

a Board Certified Pediatrician!

Yay for Stranger!

Christmas came early for Stranger this year. We found out yesterday that he passed the Board exam for general pediatrics. We thought that we were going to have to sweat it out until Jan or Feb - but the results are in early.

What does this mean? Not much for right now.....but once he is done with training (2 years and 6 months!) it benefits the billing rate of the hospital. Or something like that. Well, depending on what Obama's "reform" looks like.


Congrats to Stranger!

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Whew! We've had a busy few days. Here is how we spent our Thanksgiving weekend, in pictures:

On Wednesday, the girls "helped" to make squash casserole and green bean casserole. They had great fun playing with these boxes. Why do we have so many toys again? 8 )


Since EasternStar is just a little picky, we thought that we blend all of the wonderful flavors of Thanksgiving into one convenient package. Here she has turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green beans:

Doesn't it look yummy? 8 )

Here she is considering her "Thanksgiving Gruel". After 3 bites she was done:

She opted for the less traditional meal of keilbasa. She did enjoy the pumpkin bread and the cranberry bread and the pumpkin pie:

After dinner, TinyDancer and Grandpa got to work on their train set down in the basement:

And EasternStar got to play with her favorite ball:

On Friday, my sister and BIL and their two sons came down for Thanksgiving Round 2. The only thing better than 1 Thanksgiving is 2 Thanksgivings, right? 8 )

After dinner, the grandkids decorated "their" tree at Grandma's. This is the best shot that I have of the four of them:

On Saturday we went downtown to see the train display and go ice skating. Here are TinyDancer and EasternStar bundled up in our stroller:

First we went ice skating:

EasternStar was very put out that 1) we did not bring skates for her and 2) that she was not allowed to walk on the ice. She managed to pull through though.

After skating for a bit, we walked to the train display and met up with the rest of our family. EasternStar had fun watching the trains go by and banging on the glass seperating her from the trains:

Clearly TinyDancer was very excited:

By the time that we were done, everyone was tired:

On Sunday we pulled out our outside decorations and put the lights on our house and in our yard. Here is our work midway through. EasternStar and I went inside to make lunch and we left TinyDancer in charge to document if Stranger fell off of the roof like he did in 2006. We wouldn't want to miss that!

On Monday we decorated our Christmas tree. We've never put up our tree this early before. Christmas seems like a long ways away! Every year, TinyDancer gets a special ornament that sums up her interests for the year and SleepingAngel gets an angel ornament. Here are the ornaments for this year. For TinyDancer, a violin:

For our junk-fook junkie EasternStar, a cookie on a stick:

And for SleepingAngel, an angel sitting on an ice cube:

The girl's masterpiece after it was done:

Whew! We are tired but it was a great 4 days!