Family Game Night

We've developed a weekly tradition of having a family game night once a week. Reed was the one that started it (remember my post about how he's the fun parent?), and we've continued the idea over the past two weeks. Our favorite so far is Yahtzee, because Cal can be involved. As you can see below, Cal is really into rolling the dice -- he likes shaking them inside the cup, and is delighted with how loud he is allowed to be while playing.

Yahtzee is basically a game of chance, but it feels even more that way when you have a tiny tyrant doling out fortune or failure from his booster seat at the head of the table.
Cal can say the word "Yahtzee" now, too. So after dinner is cleaned up on Monday night, we say, "Cal, go get Yahtzee," and he runs over to the game shelf yelling out, "YAAAAAHHHTZEEEEE!!!" Too bad he doesn't give Mommy and Daddy the occasion to yell that during the game!

Gothic Guest Lecture

I got to do something very cool today. One of our friends at church teaches high school English, and asked me to come in and give a guest lecture on Gothic Literature for their Dracula unit. I was totally thrilled to do it. The students were great for me -- four classes of them -- asking questions and participating well. I gave a keynote presentation with clips from movies based on Gothic novels, like Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Psycho, Dracula, and even Beauty and the Beast.

The only problem is, it was so much fun, I want to go out and get my teaching credential now. Ah well, there's a time for everything in life, right? Someday!

Christmas Marimba!

A fun memory from this Christmas season was the marimba! My sister Hannah brought home the marimba from school for the duration of winter break, and boy did we ever take advantage of it!

My mom dug out some of our old Christmas piano books for beginners, and one person would take the treble notes, and the other would do the bass.
Everyone got a turn, and we did everything from "Carol of the Bells" to "Jolly Old St. Nicholas."
For me, the funniest part was when I told Hannah how much fun we were having with her instrument. She replied very somberly, "I really had to pull some strings to get it." Whatever strings had to be pulled, I'm glad she did it, because we all had a blast with our Christmas marimba.

Trains with the Uncles

When my brother Ryan was growing up, he loved Thomas the Tank Engine. You'd think having the Thomas videos playing daily in the house would get really annoying, but actually, we all sort of ended up loving them. The old classic VHSes that we owned featured real models and Ringo Starr's British narration. The trains were really cheeky, too, and the tales didn't even feature a moral sometimes. It was kind of awesome. The more recent DVDs are pretty whitewashed and PC. Oh, and CGI. No thanks.
While we were visiting for Christmas, my mom dragged out Ryan's old Thomas train set. It is as awesome as the old movies. The pieces are all wooden, and the trains fit together with magnets. Carson and Cal were totally enthralled.
The great thing about the train set is that toddlers can actually put the pieces together. It entertains boys age 1...
...to age 21:
We loved hearing the bin of wooden tracks being dumped out each morning. It meant that our little boys were happily playing.

I Did It!

When we moved to our new apartment, Cal quickly discovered a lot of fun things to do. Specifically, he discovered how fun it is to throw things down the stairs. As much as he loves it, we have strictly enforced a "no throwing down the stairs" rule.

Last week, I heard a small toy bounce down the stairs. I began to stomp slowly up the stairs to let Cal know that he was in trouble. When I arrived at the top, Cal ran out of his room holding his stuffed dog, Jellycat and shouted, "I did it! I did it!", as if Jellycat were accepting responsibility for throwing the toy.

Jellycat often "helps" us wash dishes, eat dinner, or put away toys. Now, it appears as though Jellycat has become Cal's personal whipping boy. Meg and I got a good laugh out of the whole thing. It's kind of hard to get mad at Cal when he does such funny things.

Being a Good Manager

Reed and I had a conversation recently, and for some reason, it really stuck with me. He was talking about his manager at work, and how good he is at "protecting the team."

When someone asks his manager what day they can have a project done, his manager takes into account everything that could go wrong, and gives a very conservative estimate. Instead of saying, "Yeah, we could probably have that for you in two days," he thinks about what would work best for the people on his team.

Reed says that these conservative estimates allow them time to make mistakes and fix them, work hard and efficiently but without extreme stress or unrealistic deadlines, and promotes good morale among his co-workers. We've also talked about how that is definitely a skill--one that I am not blessed with naturally: the ability to set people up for success.

I've been thinking about how this translates into how I "manage" my family. Do I schedule too much for us, or have unrealistic expectations about when we can be where? Unfortunately, the answer is often yes.

I have tried hard recently to be a good manager. I've tried to look at the three people in my little family and decide what is fair to expect from each of them, including myself. I ask myself, am I "protecting" my family from stress and frustration and exhaustion? Am I setting my family up for success?

This has affected how I've treated Christmas, too. The OCD part of myself just needs to say it: sooooo many things did not get done the way I had pictured them, or to the standard that I expected. But I can honestly say that I have worked every day to let things go, to let us enjoy the season (even if it means not getting something "important" done on time), and to not stress about the small things. Because those small things have a tendency to displace the really important moments in our life.

For example, I ran out of holiday stamps when I was doing our Christmas cards. I had two choices: use our Pixar stamps, or put Cal in the car and go to the post office for more.

For those of you receiving an envelop with Buzz Lightyear on it, I want you to know that Cal and I decorated cupcakes together instead of going to the post office. And although that didn't make for "perfect" Christmas cards, it was the right choice to enjoy time with my little boy.

I could give 10 examples like that, of ways that I wasn't "perfect" this year, but ways that made our Christmas season a little quieter, funner, and filled with more family moments, instead of errands and stress. In this way, I feel like I've been a good manager, like I've protected the team. I've let us make mistakes. I've let us not be perfect.

The funny thing is, the person I most often have to protect the team from...is me! But I feel like I have done it this month, and it has made for a joyful, imperfect Christmas season.

And I wish you all the same.

Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Each week, Cal and I go to a playgroup with the other young kids (and their moms) from my church congregation. (For those of you who remember the great egg disaster from last week, Park Day was the activity we were trying to get to.)

I'm sort of in charge (an easily-replaceable kind of "in charge") of organizing Park Days, and as the weather started to get colder, I entertained thoughts of canceling it until next summer. I'm so glad the group decided not to do that. Now, more than ever, our kids all need to get outside! Cal is so restless and squirmy all day, now that we're not going outside as much. I know, I know -- all you Utah & Canada residents are probably freaking out at me right now. Yes, we do enjoy a much milder climate in California, but it's only natural to want to stay indoors when there is a chill in the air.

But for the last several weeks, I've bundled Cal up and we've headed out to a park with our friends. It's been a great way to let Cal wiggle and run and climb to his heart's content, and to let ME get some much-needed adult conversation. I really love Park Days.

The title of this post is related to the fact that, sometimes, I forget that I have a BOY on my hands. This week, Cal and the other boys found the only 20-sq-ft patch of dirt in the whole grassy expanse of the park. The discovery was followed by digging...

...digging...

...and more digging.

Of course, he found a stick:

When we got home, I had to throw all of his clothes in the laundry, and he got a bath -- so much dirt, everywhere!

Then, the party moved to the jungle gym:

Love seeing my little boy play with "the guys" -- and we love Park Day.