One Fish, Two Fish

Although Elizabeth's teacher wasn't looking for someone to care for the class goldfish over winter break, Elizabeth volunteered. (Very likely influenced by a scene in the Beverly Clearly book Otis Spofford.)

Now we have fish!

I have been pretty dedicated to not having pets, ever. Barb seemed to be of a like mind. These two unnamed fish are changing that. They are a gateway pet. Barb and the girls have already agreed that we should get some goldfish of our own. Next thing I know we'll have a Siberian husky named "Jingles" in our back yard.

The Best Christmas Ever

Christmas wasn't just December 25th. It's not easy to give it a start date, so I'll say it started with the aforementioned Santa Party on the 21st. The next day we had a really nice time visiting Noah and Shelly and some other friends, while the kids had a movie marathon in the den. That party involved an ugly sweater contest that I'm not ashamed to admit Barb and I both lost. I worked on the 23rd. Then on the morning of the 24th, Aaron and Wendy and Lily and Kai came over for pancakes in the morning, and the kids exchanged gifts. Elizabeth and Lily -- who have sometimes played a game in which they called themselves "The Poopsters" -- were thrilled to receive wind-up toys that pooped candy. That same night we went to Brian and Teresa and Riley's for dinner, and another gift exchange.

After Christmas day with Grandma, we went up to Mt. Hood for a nonpareil Christmas dinner with Jen and Elwood and Joshi and Billi.

Here it is: the pure essence of the joy of present-unwrapping. Suzanne was thrilled to this level mulitple times during the multi-day holiday. I think here she is unwrapping an activity book from Wendy and Aaron. When she unwrapped her gift from Santa, on Christmas Day (it was the music box), she declared, "I'm so happy!" True story.

Kai was less interested in the Viking helmet he got than were most of the older people (adults included). Barb and I are convinced he'll grow into it.

The girls embracing their stockings on Christmas Day. I was unfortunately indisposed at the time they ripped into their stockings; luckily, Barb captured some of it with the camera.

Elizabeth is... The Winner!! Here she is opening her gift from Santa: a Princess Twilight Sparkle with Spike doll set. I was glad that she seemed at worst mildly disappointed that she didn't get every My Little Pony plus the Crystal Palace play set that she'd asked for from Santa.

Suzanne opening another gift. 

Grandma is talking to Uncle Scott while the girls play with their presents.

Elizabeth and Suzanne were both thrilled to receive a sack of dollar coins from Uncle Scott and family. Here is Suzanne immediately depositing her Christmas wealth into her piggy bank.

I got Barb (among other things) a custom bra-fitting kit. Here, she is playing with the enormous cups that came with the kit.

Suzanne rocking the coat that Jen gave her to share with Elizabeth. The coat is awesome (Suzanne is convinced that it's real fur), but the sharing part might be tough.

The girls prior to going to Jen and Elwood's.

On the way out to Jen and Elwood's, Mt. Hood was capped by this incredible lenticular cloud.

Billi, Joshi, and Elizabeth cuddling with the new mega-stuffed animals.

The girls in the evening, ready for bed, but willing to pose for a last Christmas picture in their new nightgowns (thanks Aunt Lucy and Uncle Carl!).

Santa Claus is Coming to... Milwaukie?

Right from the get-go, I didn't like the idea of a Santa Party. But it was something Lily's grandparents had bid on at some silent auction. And they'd won it. So of course they gave it to Aaron and Wendy. And despite their crazy schedule (what with Aaron's first show as creative director of his new company having just opened last night!), they decided it was now or never to take advantage of this opportunity to have Santa Claus himself come to Joel and Joyce's house where friends could gather and get some one-on-one time with the man of the season, the genuine Kris Kringle.

My beef was this: Santa ain't got time to come to Joyce and Joel's house in Milwaukie, Oregon. Santa's a busy man! He's not a birthday party clown!

Santa spent most of the party plopped down in a chair not talking to anyone. Most of the adults said hello to him, but it was weird trying to have a conversation with the jolly old elf. For one thing, I wanted to talk to my friends. I don't see them as often as I used to. For another thing, talking with Santa seemed like it would either be illusion-busting, or work. Either I have to say things like, "Do you get any Santa gigs off season, or is this a strictly December kind of thing?" or I have to buy into the fantasy and ask things like, "How's Donder doing these days? He seems like kind of the forgotten reindeer."

Elizabeth and Suzanne were pretty shy around him. And why wouldn't they be? To a kid, Santa is godlike. It would be like having a birthday party for a born-again Christian kid, and having Jesus hanging out. A bit intimidating. I personally like to keep my divinities at arm's length.

But the party itself was fun, and the kids did pose for a picture with Santa (except for Suzanne, who was more interested in the food -- man, that kid can eat!). So all in all, it was a positive holiday experience.

But weird.

Barb and I weren't afraid to pose with Santa.

The girls open their gift bags.

As Suzanne was preparing to go to town on her candy cane, she declared, "It wouldn't be Christmas without candy!"

Drawing Progress

Suzanne has crossed some sort of drawing threshold. She used to draw wild scribbles that were almost always pictures of "rushing rivers." But lately she has graduated to actual representational shapes. It's awesome and fascinating. When I got home from work, she was drawing a "game" for me. When we played, it consisted of me pointing at the various shapes and structures she'd drawn, and her telling me what they were. I pointed at a pear-shape with radiating lines (thinking it was the Sun), and she said, "Spider." (Actually, she said, "'Pider," because Suzanne doesn't bother with leading esses at this point in her life.) Elizabeth, who was hovering jealously nearby, jumped in to count the legs. Lo and behold, there were eight of those radiating lines. It was, indeed, a 'pider.

Elizabeth knows she's a much worse illustrator than I am. She is. But she's fifty times better than I was at five. Nevertheless, it annoys her already to be worse at something than I am. This instills in me a vague fear of her teenage self. She's going to attempt to crush me -- or worse yet, she won't because she feels sorry for her old man.

She's really good at drawing, at least compared to me. Just recently, she's gotten lips down really well, and she's working on hands, which are super hard. Feet are also hard, but you can always encase them in sneakers. You can't realistically have all of your characters wearing mittens.

The heartbreaking thing for me is that Elizabeth regularly puts herself down because her drawings aren't as good as mine. I don't want to overpraise her, but on the other hand I'm thinking, "You're a better drawer at five than I was at ten." The trick is to get her interested in continuing to work and improve at her drawing despite the barriers to success. She obviously enjoys it, even if the product of her work is not up to her ideal standard. She gets frustrated at what she can't do.

Welcome to the party, pal.

Much as I like my own comics, few though they might be, I'm stymied by my inability to use perspective to position the "camera" where I want it. I can't put it above the heads of my characters at a 45 degree angle, because I can't draw figures at that angle.

In any event, Elizabeth is getting better every day. Here is my proof:

This picture is all about the hands. Check out the right hand grasping the needle. You can see some eraser marks there, showing that she worked at it. I have never given Elizabeth any instructions on how to draw grasping hands. She tried it for the figure's left hand, too, with less success. Still, pretty cool. The three-dimensional gems in the necklace are nicely done, too, but that's a trick I taught her. The eyes are her attempt to ape the anime-eyes of My Little Pony: big black pupils with two or three white orbs of reflected light. Another interesting point is the fact that she has spirals at the elbows. This is a well-established cartooning trope, and I have no idea where she got it from, if anywhere.  I don't do those elbow-spirals.

I like this recent picture for the content more than the craft. It's got the cartoon thought-bubbles showing what the flower is thinking. The flower is imagining herself cradling a baby flower in her leaf hands.

She drew this while I was brushing her hair this morning (and for a few minutes afterwards). This is by far her best human face yet. Those lips and that nose are a breakthrough.  Upper extremities are a bit Thalidomide, but so it goes.

Lord of the Ponies

Elizabeth has really gotten into the TV show (nay, the world) My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's about Twilight Sparkle and her friends who live in Ponyville, in the land of Equestria. They have adventures and learn valuable lessons. I was surprised to find out that it is a genuinely good show, with fun characters and an interesting art style and a rich world to explore. The lessons/morals are pretty basic, but on the other hand the two people in my household who watch it most are five and two.

Elizabeth got an MLP doll set for her 4th birthday, well before she knew the difference between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. She got a Princess Celestia (one of the two sisters who rule Equestria), a Twilight Sparkle (the protagonist of the show) and a Spike (Twilight's baby dragon pet/friend). These dolls came into play here and there pre-MLP, but after Elizabeth discovered the show, they've been central to play. Now, if they're not watching My Little Pony (which they're not, unless it's a Saturday, a Sunday, or a date night for Mom and Dad) the girls want to play Ponyville.

Ponyville isn't a game. It's a way of life.

Because there are six main pony friends (plus Spike, plus the two Princesses) in the game world, we have to sub in other dolls for the five ponies and one dragon we don't have. (We had a Spike, but soon after getting involved in the show, Elizabeth lost her Spike figure at the park. Her loss, some other fan's gain.) So the girls have designated certain dinosaur figures (a gift from Uncle Scott from a year or two ago) as the ponies. This causes all sorts of wonderful dissonance (such as the pegasus Rainbow Dash being portrayed by a pteranodon). But no doll dissonance is greater or more enjoyable than the fact that Rarity, the fashionable and pretty pony, is played by the most hideous dinosaur we've got: the bump-headed Pachycephelosaurus.

Rarity.

Our in-lieu-of Rarity, played by Pachycephelosaurus. Not quite the charmer that Rarity is, but that's what imagination is for.

This wasn't my idea. It was the girls's.

So we played Ponyville for a number of days, with the girls taking great care to build the structures of the hamlet using wooden blocks and toy trees and whatever toy was in the toy basket, and populating it with the real My Little Ponies, the dinosaurs, and the other animals that pretended to be My Little Ponies (a farm horse figure for the down-to-earth Apple Jack; a miniature giraffe for the shrinking violet Fluttershy). Then, one day, Barb was re-arranging furniture in the living room and Ponyville was destroyed. At the same time, the dining room was opened up by the furniture shift and became a "wasteland."

So the ponies did the only logical thing, and, rather than rebuild their lush village, they moved into the wasteland. Into the vast cavern that was the area beneath our dining table.

The new town was christened "Princessville" (despite my campaigning for "New Ponyville"). We've been playing there ever since.

But recently, things have taken an ugly turn.

It started with Elizabeth (who is always Princess Twilight Sparkle), playing her part with uncharacteristic aloofness. Twilight would just stay in her room. If one of the other ponies asked to see her, they would be rebuffed by the royal guards. So Suzanne and I would play, and Elizabeth would watch, delighting (one would imagine) in the fact that her princess didn't have to sully her hooves with everyday matters such as growing a new apple orchard, or finding places for the refugees of Ponyville to sleep.

Today, however, it got worse. While I folded laundry, Elizabeth and Suzanne used every last wooden block, and most of the other toys, to build for their princesses (Suzanne is always Princess Celestia) huge, luxurious bedrooms. In so doing, they took away the wooden block beds of the other ponies.

So the game was this: the non-princess ponies (all played by me) would express various forms of outrage at their beds having been removed; they would suffer all night lying on the ground; they would complain to first one princess and then the other; they would remark in wonder and disgust at the opulence of the princesses accommodations.

And the princesses would at best do nothing, and at worst relegate the complaining pony to a time-out room.

Ah, human nature!

The line of creatures in the foreground are the "ponies" who have found their beds gone. To the left is Princess Twilight Sparkle's decadent bedroom. Suzanne is lording over Princess Celestia's smaller, but even more luxurious, abode. Once again, wealth has concentrated with the powerful.

The post script of this story is that when Barb learned of this play, she explained to Elizabeth how awful Princess Twilight Sparkle was behaving, and that the responsibility of the ruler was to the ruled. Barb compared the actions of the selfish Princesses to a self-centered rajah in a book they'd recently read. Elizabeth absorbed the lesson and consequently Twilight Sparkle became much more just and generous. She removed some of the blocks from the walls of her bedroom to provide beds for her subjects.

And she blamed all the past evil on Princess Celestia. Which is to say, Suzanne.

Stubborn Suzanne

To continue the "[Adjective] Suzanne" series, let me present Stubborn Suzanne. The picture above was taken when we were at Plumper's Farm ("Never again!") buying pumpkins and spending too much money. Admittedly, it was cold and damp. That said, just because it is cold and damp doesn't mean you should refuse to wear your boots. However, that is just what Suzanne did. Her feet were cold in her un-insulated rubber boots, so she decided she would not wear boots at all.

"But," you are asking, "how can one walk around a cold, damp farm (with the threat of stepping in the poop of multifarious creatures that every farm presents) in stocking feet?!"

An excellent question, perceptive reader. The answer is: one cannot.

After Barb and I exhausted our extensive repertoire of incentivizing, cajoling, threatening, wheedling, ordering, begging, etc., I ended up carrying Suzanne around for an hour with her cold feet in the pockets of my sweatshirt.

Then she was happy.

Stylish Suzanne

The Two-Child Dilemma

I remember being at Anson's house when I was a child, and his dad coming home from a business trip of some kind, and presenting his two children with identical gifts (for some reason, in my no doubt flawed memory, these gifts are identical Animal House t-shirts and identical yellow Sony Walkmans). I thought it was kind of weird at the time. (Which I shouldn't have, given that Mom had purchased for my two older brothers and myself identical leather Fonzie jackets from Charney's not too many years before, which purchases were probably good at mitigating sibling rivalry, but which caused untold trouble when we went to a new school [George Washington Elementary] after moving to Syracuse. Walking into school as a trio of Happy Days greasers, we were derided as Baldwinsville gang members, among other things. I fought somebody on the very first day of school on account of that jacket. I'll always remember it, because the playground was covered in gravel -- and not little pea gravel, but big honkin', flinty pieces of gravel; the kind one could reasonably fashion into arrowheads, or knifepoints -- and that gravel was integral to the hurt I lay on the kid I was beating up for making fun of the Fonzie jacket my Mom had bought to avoid us brothers fighting.)

Which brings us to the hair-bow struggle.

We were getting ready to go to a dinner party, and I made the amateur mistake of offering a ribbon I'd found in the basement to Suzanne as an incentive to encourage her to get her hair done by Mom. She loved the idea. The problem was, Elizabeth loved the idea, too.

So I went looking for another ribbon. Thankfully, I found a beautiful red ribbon that coordinated with Elizabeth's unseasonable Christmas dress. Unfortunately, we cut her hair short the month before. Where Suzanne could flaunt a close-to-the-nape pony tail that looked like something out of an illustrated fantasy novel about unicorns, Elizabeth could muster only a stubby tail, like one of Jay Gatsby's docked polo ponies. To say that she was unhappy with this would be an understatement. There was an explosion of grief.

Suzanne's beautiful ponytail.

She's pretty happy with her 'do.

Elizabeth's short, high, and reportedly uncomfortable ponytail. Note the grimace in the mirror.

Elizabeth hated hated hated the high ponytail Barb was forced to tie.

Parents are constantly balancing their need for peace and quiet, versus their perceived need not to spoil their child, versus the child's need for whatever it thinks of in that millisecond as being fair and right. If there's a winning formula, somebody please publish it and make a million bucks. I'll buy the book.

As we move forward in this relatively new world of parenting two kids (remember, Suzanne hasn't turned three yet), I struggle all the time with this discrepancy problem. For instance, Elizabeth has a treasure box that we bought for five cents at a yard sale. But now Suzanne has grown up with the understanding that kids have treasure boxes. But she doesn't have a treasure box. So she piles her treasures (mostly filthy bird feathers and fir cones) on our bookshelf. Recently, we bought a brand new treasure box for her. It cost $23.00.

Halloween Two Thousand Thirteen

Let me get this off my chest right away: Halloween is the hardest holiday to photograph. It's dark, the kids are running around like madmen, and the light sources are odd (not to mention spooky!). I don't have a fancy camera. I do the best I can with what I've got, but year after year it's not very good.

Despite my photographic frustrations, we had an awesome time this Halloween. Elizabeth wanted to wear the same costume she's been wearing for three years: Gemma the Witch (although this year she dispensed with the red hair and green face, thank goodness). Suzanne was content to throw on the cow costume we got as a hand-me-down from someone (Joshi and Billi is a good bet). It's cute and comfortable, and who doesn't love a cow?

We met up with Aaron and Wendy and Lily and Kai. I was the only lame-o without a costume. Barb took Elizabeth's suggestion and went as The Ocean (blue bathrobe over blue shirt, various marine animal cut-outs pinned to the robe, wave crown on head, and smartphone playing wave sounds in pocket). Unfortunately, Aaron and Wendy showed up as "Sick and Tired Mom/Dad" wearing bathrobes, which took a lot of wind out of the sails of Barb's costume. She just looked like another bathrobe wearing parent, except she had a paper crown for some reason.

We trick-or-treated for three or four blocks, then headed back home. There were a lot of people out and about, which was nice. When we first moved to this neighborhood, almost no one trick-or-treated. Barb and I feared that the tradition (which, if I remember my childhood correctly, was so much fun) was dying out.

Well, if it died, it's back with a vengeance, like the ghost of a man executed for a crime he did not commit.

Suzanne (L) and her friend and neighbor Ani (R) at the Southeast Indoor Park. Not sure who the kid in the middle is. 

The girls prior to heading out to either Trick or Treat the neighbors.

Suzanne, Barb, Aaron, and Ani outside of Ani's house.

Lily and Kai as Little Orphan Annie and The Great Pumpkin. Lily looks annoyed because it took me a long time to get my camera to focus in the pitch darkness.

Elizabeth inventories her loot. As usual, after gorging on candy Halloween night, Elizabeth was asked to pick out four pieces of candy to keep. The rest went onto the front porch for the Candy Fairy. Failure to give to the Candy Fairy results in no candy at Christmas. Pay it forward.

Aunt Cindy Visits!

What a pleasure it was to have Aunt Cynthia visit. The occasion was Mom's birthday, but Aunt Cindy stayed with us (as she did last time she visited Portland, prior to Suzanne's birth) and Barb and I got some quality hours with her.

Cindy has always been the parent-generation relative that seemed more like my generation. Even when I was quite young, I had the feeling that I was following in her wake, rather than leaving her and her type behind (as, I think, kids are supposed to feel about the prior generation as they forge the new reality). She's younger than Mom by a few years, but some combination of personality, happenstance, and experience (I imagine), rendered her modern in a way that my other (beloved!) relatives of her generation are not.

She's the cool aunt.

It was very comfortable having her as part of the household, if even for a few days. The girls seemed to enjoy her company. Cindy and Mom took a long drive out in the country. We went to the Chinese Garden and to the Hopworks Urban Brewery. Mom took Cindy to the Barley Mill. It was fun and satisfying.

Elizabeth flips through the guidebook at the Chinese Garden while Suzanne abides.

Our family.

The sisters consult.

Aunt Cindy reading to Mom a plaque on the subject of motherhood. I can't remember the particulars, but it was beautiful.

Tea with the Larrison girls.

Suzanne: Then and Now

March 19, 2011.

September 28, 2013.

Last Camping Trip of Summer

Sunset (or was that sunrise?) in the north woods.

I decided not to entitle this post "Last Camping Trip of the Year" because, who knows? This post is out of order, because I'm getting caught up on catching you, dear reader, up on our events of the last couple of months. There's a lot! For a family that likes to do less than the rest, we certainly have been active.

In early September, we went camping with Anson and Alder. This is most unusual! They live in Seattle, we live in Portland. Sometimes it seems like they live on the Moon, we live in Pellucidar. But we both made an effort, and met somewhere between the two cities in the beautiful, mossy, rain-soaked woods.

It was a long drive. The girls were fantastically well-behaved in the car, despite the fact that we only got out to stretch our legs once, and briefly at that. They are both good travelers.

Elizabeth was very excited to see our two friends. I think she admires Alder a lot, and feels that Anson vies with Pat for the title of Silliest Man Alive. Suzanne didn't know what to expect, but was game for anything.

We had a good time, just hanging out. There was a short hiking trail we managed to spend hours exploring (with a lengthy stop at the rocky riverside). The river was roaring and muddy from the recent rain. I had hoped to go swimming, but the water, even where it was not capped with white, was too muddy even for me. And it wasn't very hot, unless you were hiking in corduroys and a sweatshirt while carrying a 36 pound girl in footsie pajamas. Then it was hot.

Anson and I got to go on an adventure to find split firewood. The campground host was out of wood, so he pointed us toward a private party that sold wood cheap. A five mile drive through the backwood roads took us to an expansive property full of outbuildings and rusty equipment and cord upon cord of wood. A nice old fellow sold us some at five dollars per wheelbarrow-full. I think we spent $20 and filled the back of the Volvo practically to bursting.

Elizabeth listens intently to Alder reading Little House on the Prairie.

Little Camp in the Big Woods -- Barb bought a pavilion in case it rained. It didn't, but it was kind of fun to have, knowing we could shelter under it if the weather took a bad turn.

The Wood Nymph.

When the sun came out Saturday, the whole wood steamed.

Suzanne and Elizabeth inside a huge, rotten stump. They are hugging puppets (Oliver and Clara, respectively -- Joey doesn't travel much, being both fragile and too precious to chance losing). The inside of the stump was dotted with little red beads of fungus.

Mist on the river.

It's not camping without marshmallows. Surprisingly, Elizabeth likes her 'mallows burnt and black. The one pictured is undercooked to her. This is surprising because she likes her meat rare and her corn frozen.