Merry, Merry

December 2013

 

Dear friends and family,

We hope you are all well and happy. We can’t believe another year has flown by so quickly – I think we’d better get used to it so I can stop saying that every December. Our family is busy like everybody else, with work and school and activities and all the good things we can fit in. We’re having a great time with two children now old enough to ride bikes, swim, help around the house, and entertain us all day with their antics, singing, dancing, and funny personalities.

Claire is a first grader. There are 18 boys and 9 girls in her class. We can’t figure out how it happened, but the three other first grade classes have the same ratio. Luckily, she’s no doormat and doesn’t have any complaints about the situation. Claire takes tennis lessons and art classes and is always producing pages and pages of drawings, embellished love letters to mom and dad, and sculptures and contraptions of all kinds made with whatever materials we give her. We love her generous nature, her hourly hugs and kisses, and constant crafting.

Audrey is in fourth grade. It’s a whole new era with more homework; more social activity; more concerns about hair, clothes and friends; and more desire for freedom. Audrey is a Girl Scout, loves to read, takes piano lessons, and horseback riding lessons. She is good at the piano and it’s lovely to hear her practicing and mastering many familiar songs. This month Audrey turned 10 and we see teenage-dom closing in. We enjoy her sassy sense of humor, her singing in the shower, and her checking out 30 books at a time at the library. 

Mark is very busy as a freelance industrial design consultant. He sometimes has more work than he can do, and we are grateful for the bounty. This summer he went to Korea twice for one of his clients. And he just finished a 3-month contract with Hewlett-Packard that had him living in San Diego during the week. It’s feast or famine for us – he’s home all the time or none of the time. When he is home we keep him running with a list of work and play that just can’t be done without him - he’s good to all of his girls.

I still do quite a bit of freelance and volunteer at the school every week. We rent a garden plot from the city, and I am busy picking, planting, weeding, and watering all year long. We are lucky our climate is so mild we can grow vegetables year round. That’s a lot of veggies, but we eat a little bit of everything, including junk food. I play tennis and do yoga regularly and love finally having the time to be active. Both kids in school is a bit crazy, but awesome - half the day I do whatever I want and need to do and the other half I do whatever they want and need to do. I’ll take it!

Mark and I both turned 41 this year and it was definitely easier than turning 40. I might even say we are finally starting to feel like adults (middle age has a way of forcing the issue), which is weird. It’s a good life we have, that’s for sure. Not to say we don’t face our fair share of stress and struggle – but none of that is fun to read in a Christmas letter. Fortunately, our difficulties are all the kind that lack longevity, and when we look at the big picture we think of ourselves as very lucky.

Our girls are our main focus, and now that we are not drowning in the slobbery stage, we have come up for air with a vengeance. Survival mode was the name of the game for so long – now it seems, the world is opening up for us. 

All our love, Mark, Melissa, Audrey and Claire

Great Big Giant Satin

We did our annual wedding dress photo shoot in October this year, even though it's supposed to happen in July. But at least we did it! I think one of the many tough things about being a mom is keeping up with traditions. They are important, but end up being peripheral when life gets busy, at least for me - I tend to focus on basic needs and ignore everything else when my to do list gets horribly long.

My girls cooperated this year, but complained a lot about one very unromantic thing about my dress: it smells funny. It does, and I don't know why, but I am guessing it's the plastic bag the dress is stuffed into year round, leaking its funny fake smell into the fabric. But we pressed on, ignored the bad lighting, and got it done quickly.

I don't have dreams of them wearing this dress when they get married, but I love to see them in it. I wore it that special day and my girls were nowhere to be seen - so I like connecting the dots this way.

A decade of Audrey

Our sweetheart turned 10 this week. We are so lucky to have her. It's fun to see how much she's grown up and how many exciting things are ahead of her. We can't help ask ourselves how it went by so quickly, but we have a billion memories, so I know we didn't miss much.

This year I told Audrey a little more of her birth story than I usually do, thinking she is old enough to hear about the extreme circumstances surrounding her arrival. She was, as always, very curious. And we spent a little time telling her our funny memories from when she was little.

March 2004

Like the time she was standing next to the bathtub while I was taking a shower, pulling on the shower curtain and babbling. The next thing I knew she landed at my feet. She fell right in and was soaked. She looked so shocked, but didn't cry. Mark pulled her out while I laughed.

Like the time Mark took her to the Aquarium of the Pacific and parked her in her stroller next to the touch tank. He looked away from a moment and when he looked back at Audrey her head was wet. She had stuck her head in the water.

Like the time when Audrey was about 6 or 7, doing crafts like mad and having a love affair with the scissors. She was snipping away at some paper and cut off a chunk of her hair. I walked into her room and found her sitting there looking at this chunk of hair and I said "Did you cut your hair?!" and she said "Well, not on purpose!"

Audrey's always entertaining. She always has a comment to make. She always has the wiggles. She sings, she dances, she jumps. She tells us jokes and lately she's delivering some great one liners. "No offense pigs, but I really love bacon." We love it.

Audrey really loves to read. She loves her snacks: rice crackers, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, and cheese sticks. She has started to clean her room without being asked. She does her homework and practices piano - we don't have to ask her, but we do have to listen to her complain. Audrey loves animals and wants a pet very much. She did get horseback riding lessons for her birthday, so maybe that will fill the need.

Audrey's wings are out and we just need to stand back and let her fly. It's tough because all we want to do is keep her close and safe. No one tells you that giving your children their freedom is not exactly instinctual. It helps that she has achieved this grand number - no more kidding ourselves about her whether she's ready or not.

November 2013