White Christmas!

I didn't take the time to edit this photo, which is why you can see Scary Kidnapper Van in the background. Think of it as ambiance.

We Love Walter

Update

We found an apartment! If they accept our application, we will be moving in three weeks, to a remote southern corner of the city. Further bulletins as events warrant. (Also, many thanks to Taekwando Uncle and his family for loaning us the car that took us to the apartment, which is 90 painful minutes away by bus and a breezy 30 by car.) It has all happened very quickly - we gave notice yesterday, our current landlord showed our apartment 3 hours later, and we saw three places today, including the One We Want. But this is just the beginning - if all goes well, we'll be in our new home 3 weeks from today, and lots of things have to happen very quickly in the interim. Dutch has no idea of what the next month holds in store for her. I'd better go buy some packing tape.

Cardboard Boxes!

It's official; we're moving. The letter goes to the landlord today. I feel kind of crushed under the burden of packing, finding an (affordable and not-awful) apartment, arranging moving, etc... also, school starts in a week and a half. And we have all kinds of appointments in the next month, as I've been catching up on all the stuff I neglected all fall quarter, like having the dentist make sure Dutch's teeth aren't screwing themselves up by filling in the gap (where she had a tooth before she knocked it out last spring). Busy!
But I do like moving. I actually like packing, and I like unpacking. I like exploring a new place. I just wish the logistics - finding a place to move, renting a truck, actually carrying all our junk into and out of the truck - were magically taken care of by a genie. I will proceed to squeeze my eyes shut and wish really really hard.

Words of 2008

Check it out - there's a definition for "walkshed"! I love it!

Allowances

We just started giving Dutch an allowance. Well, I did. Cook isn't fully on board. I just think that given how much of modern life is based on the earning and spending of money, you can't start too early. She already asks for things, she vaguely understands the concept of money, she's subjected to targeted advertising, and I think that means she needs to begin learning how to make financial decisions. It's important to know about money. I didn't know until I was 8 or so that when you wrote a check, you had to eventually pony up real money to back it up. (A side note: I also didn't know until just this minute, when I thought I'd be clever and make a cultural reference, that the Dire Straits song goes "money for nothing and your chicks for free" - I always thought it was "checks for free". I'm apparently a cultural moron, as well as a poor financial decisionmaker.) And I'd like Dutch to know that by the time she's oh...six? Of course, checks won't exist when she's six - you'll just give a DNA sample and they'll withdraw money from your universal account.

One big question is whether to pay the kid for doing chores. (An interesting note on the allowance gender gap - parents pay their sons more to do household chores than they do their daughters.) I'm taking the route that she just gets the allowance, and chores will be part of her work as a member of the family. (That's all hot air, as she has no chores. Getting her to brush her teeth and get to bed at a reasonable hour takes all my energy. Maybe next year...) Anyway, she has to save 20%, share 10%, and use the rest on anything she want outside of the basics (clothes, shelter, food, love, etc.). We opened a bank account for her, and I finagled a freebie piggybank with three sections. So far she's just interested in the putting-money-in-the-slots part, which is fine with me. I'm sure we'll get to the how-to-save-for-the-things-you-want part eventually.

Maybe I'll learn about making good financial choices. I'm pretty sure that grad school wouldn't count.

Hi!

All a Blur

About a week ago, one of my contact lenses disintegrated, and I can't get an eye exam appointment until early January. So I've been wearing my glasses all the time, which always has the effect of making me feel kind of sleepy and detached from reality (probably because the prescription is totally inadequate for my near-blindness). Putting my contacts in has always been part of waking up and getting ready for the day, so when I haven't got the option, I feel like I'm always wearing my pyjamas and haven't brushed my teeth. Also, I'm sick, so I've been generally pretty out of it. This is probably affecting my experience of the holiday. But it has been a good one.

First we cooked.

Then we cleaned.

Then we put on our Fancy Clothes and went to the Nutcracker, where Dutch asked many very loud questions about the plot and the characters' motivations, which I could not answer.


Then we had Christmas Eve dinner guests.

Then we opened presents.
Then we practiced Taekwando.

Merry Christmas!

Some Explanations

Dutch came into the livingroom and sat down with a crossword puzzle and a crayon, and started coloring in the boxes.

Cook: What are you doing, Dutch?
Dutch: I'm just sciencing.
Cook: Really?
Dutch: Yeah. I'm just coloring and thinking. That's sciencing.

Later she lay down on the couch next to Cook and he put his arm around her, whereupon she said "Don't cuddle me. I'm a scientist."

The Night Before the Night Before...

We have had a wonderful holiday. Today we cooked a lot, and Dutch helped with the sweeping, the bathroom-cleaning, the cookie-making, the bread pudding-making, the enchilada-making... really, she was amazingly nice all day. All the Christmas shopping is done (finished yesterday), and now all there is to do (besides more cooking) is fend Dutch from her pile of loot. Today she walked over to the pile of gifts, patted one confidently, and said "I decided I can open just ONE present today."

Tomorrow Dutch and I are going to the Nutcracker (the matinee with recorded music, but it's STILL ridiculously expensive) while Cook cooks, and then we'll come home in time to prepare for our Christmas Eve dinner with some Jewish-Swedish friends. Tomorrow we will eat Swedish holiday buns, some sort of tiny pickled fishies, red cabbage, dill potatoes, turnip-pear soup, beet-and-horseradish salad, rye bread, and blue cheese balls. And pecan pie. And ginger cookies, if we can manage it. (This holiday, we decided to make cleaning secondary to Preparation of Vast Quantities of Food. )

Anyway, it's been a lovely holiday. Lots of sleeping, lots of eating and cooking, and lots of pleasure in Dutch's excitement. She put together her Fancy Clothes outfit for our outing tomorrow - suffice it to say that there will be much sparkling.

Childcare, Work, School, Housekeeping, Miscellaneous

I just bought my planner for 2008. I'm pretty excited. I love making lists. I'm not great at actually executing the items on my lists, but I sure do love to organize them. Last year my brother, in a fit of inspiration, gave me a planner that changed my life - it had the week on the left side, and blank lined paper on the right side. Revolutionary! Schedule on the left, to-do list on the right! It was fantastic! It made me a better person! (No, it really did. Incrementally, but still. And then I discovered the magic of Google Calendar, so I think I've really made progress this year.) This year I couldn't find it at the place he bought it last year, and I panicked. I couldn't find it at another bookstore, and then another! I was overwhelmed by Christmas shoppers! Dutch started whining about how she NEEDS a Thomas the Tank Engine book that talks! I almost whacked her over the head with the damn "book"! We retreated home and I started shopping online, and I discovered that what I REALLY needed (oh, thank you, internets!) was an even more elaborate planner. So I ordered it. 2008 is mine, divided neatly into FIVE categories of to-do lists.