The Holiday Season

Its that time of year in Seattle when I try and make up for the short dark days by putting up many little lights. I have just spent 20 minutes sticking little bits of double sided tapes onto hooks which were stuck in turn onto the window casings to support strands of miniature lights.

The longer I live in the US the more gadgets I find. In early years, I nailed tacks around the windows to hand the lights. Subsequently, I discovered U-tacks designed for threading telephone cable along skirting boards. Imagine my joy - 8 years after arriving in Seattle - to discover THE CHRISTMAS AISLE at Lowes. Who would have believed it? There is a product (well, a whole line of products) called Decorating Clips. These little adhesive backed clips are specifically for threading lights all over. You can also buy TREE CLIPS for threading around trees, GUTTER and SIDING clips and various other models. These little tapes ones are ideal.

We have a deer!
The kids are also into this festive business. Yesterday, Josh and Frost returned from Fred Meyer with a 4ft animated and illuminated deer. I bambi you not! It is splendid. The instructions were not so splendid and Josh spent some time in quiet contemplation of phrases like "insert the plastic ring into the fixing hole on the body, then insert the pivot arm into the fixing hole."

Eventually it worked.

Making Forests
I have been collecting little houses at thrift stores because Frost wanted to make a diorama on the mantle this year. At Lowes in that fabulous CHRISTMAS AISLE I also found bags of tiny Christmas trees for $8.95. None are more than a few inches tall and are speckled with glittering snow. The value pack had so many trees that Wren has been setting up forests around the living room.

He holds the trees like little birds in cupped hands as he walks and balances them in obscure and unstable places like on top of the backs of chairs and in the branches of a potted plant.

He loves this game. He does a similar thing with our box of Lego trees - setting them up in forests around the carpet.

While he napped I captured most of them back again and the mantle is now reforested.

Mommy is a Big Dinosaur
I haven't been updating the blog as much recently because Mum is still staying with us and has decided to extend her visit until the day after Wren's 2nd birthday. That is the 14th December. I don't have as much idle time with Mum here - but that is good mostly (except when I feel obliged to keep up with her level of activity.) Today, Mum is sick with a head cold and resting a bit more. She also has a bit of a cough and we are concerned Wren will catch it.

Mum has been encouraging me to do a bit of yoga daily. Apparently, my grandfather did his army stretches every day of his life from his 20s till his 90s and credited it with his health. This morning I did some yoga in the living room and the kids became very excited (a sign I do not do it often enough).

While I tried to perform downward dog Wren tried too - underneath me.

"Wren doing good dogging!" he said.

Clambering out he looked at me and said "Mummy BIG dinosaur!" which caused Mum and Frost to laugh and almost spill tea.

Apparently I am so in need of a diet that I am comparable to a brontosaurus or diplodocos - the BIG ANIMAL in his collection.

Well, the big animal is now going to lie down with a Big Book and pretend to be able to concentrate on at least one page before she falls asleep for 10 minutes. Frost managed to con us into thinking he was ill this morning "Oh, I have a terrible headache and I am DIZZY and feel TIRED and have a SORE TUMMY and ..." but is now kicking a balloon around the living room, complaining of being bored and eating a lollipop.

We shall conduct a more rigorous examination tomorrow morning.