4 Happy Family The personal blog of Kevin R. Hoffmann

Kindegarten Orientation

Holy Shit! Yes, the expletive is warranted and needed at this point. Our little girl is moving up to the big leagues this year and we attended her orientation last night. Blah, blah, blah they grow up so fast...you blink and blah blah blah. I know all the typlical sayings, but this is my kid, our little Maya who just yesterday seemed delayed as we swam with her in a pool in China. It is a total freakout moment.

We did not have time to even build it up for her because we read the letter home incorrectly and did not realize we were suppsoed to take her with us. The kids were in the bath when Court had her own expletive moment and called the school confirming that yes the kids probably should be at their orientation. Stupid parents.

The Evester went with us and we got there with all of thedocumentation, registered and walked back to the library. Total proud moment for me; our kid was absolutely thrilled that her school had its own library and we were thrilled watching her light up and be so proud that she has gotten so big.

The kids had a slide show and all of the parents watched as they stared intently at the screen. They talked about taking the bus, PE class, their 4th-grade buddy and other surface level come-ons like they were being sold a timeshare. The kindegarted teacher is about as tall as Maya, but a lot more pregnant, as in 8.5 months. SHe seemed super nice. Sh rounded up all the kids and took them to the classroom so the parents could listen to presentations from the nurse, the principal and other teachers and therapists. We got to learn about what is expected of us, what we need to buy and how best to support the school and our kids.

We went home and freaked out a little bit realizing how far we have come with her and as parents. This Fall it is going to be really weird watching her get on that bus in the morning; her little legs braving those tall steps up to the bus. She is definitely excited, but probably will not use an expletive. (I am sure she will learn that in school.)

Cabin Fever spawns Bumbo Sledding

Foot of snow and the girls were sick of being in the house. Even the greyhounds were loving the romp in the backyard. Courtney took the kids out on the sled and started the sport of Bumbo sledding. Evie seemed to like it and we are applying for the tandem event for the Vancouver Olympics.

For you non-breeders, non-adopters, a Bumbo is the polyurethane plastic baby containment unit that you can see Evie sitting in the pictures below. All is going well, we are getting ready for the chili cookoff and dealing with lawyers for the finalization of the readoption. Met a great lawyer today and I am hoping she can bring it home for us.

All is well, we have made it through the Snowacalypse even though Courtney broke my shovel.

Silence in the morning…

I have one of hose alarm clocks that has the dual alarms. One time is set to when I work out and the other is set to when I actually get up. this alarm clock also has q CD player.

Like a lot of things involving kids that are 4, a Little Einstein's lullaby classic somehow made its way into the apparatus. Of course it has not been changed since it made its debut about 9-10 months ago.

if you have ever listened to a LE music program or watched a video you know it is a little (lot) reliant on the xylophone. whomever they hired to make this music is to the xylophone as John Bonham was to drums, but too over the top even for Led Zeppelin's taste.

Every morning that I do not wake up 5 minutes before the alarm, I am serenaded by this light and upbeat music and I cringe. But, for the life of me, I can't bring myself to change it. no great revelation, just thinking about it in the shower this morning. it is funny how sounds become hard wired to your system. ever hear your cell phone ringtone out in
public on someone else's phone? Does it cause any panic until you realize it is not you? Pavlovian.

Walking Out

With the temps getting above freezing lately, we decided to shed off some of our cabin free and go for a walk. we bundled up the kids and went for about a 4-mile stroll through paths and mostly cleared sidewalks. Evie was in the kid carrier and Maya was peshing weight limit (and straining my arm muscles) in the backpack. we really wanted to move quickly so we decided to carry the kids. ww also made sure our route passed a park so Maya could blow off some steam and I could rest my creaky bones.

There is a little stream on the path that was partially frozen over in which ducks were flitting about. I had Maya convinced that they ice skating whenever they were walking across a frozen part to get some place swimmable.

Icicle Soup

The West-facing side of our house contains the bathtub that we bathe the girls in most nights. Right now it looks like the upper mandible of some giant snow beast as it is covered in stalagtites (tites because they hold on tight) icicles reaching down about 36 inches.

So, I had the bright idea of opening the window and reaching out and grabbing one so that Maya could play Titantic in the tub (after Evie was out of course). I gave up trying to explain the tragedy of the sunken oceanliner and when she showed general disinterest I resorted to trying to get her to hold it in her armpit. She is too smart and told me that I needed to break it up and put it in her little pot so she could make soup. (As a side note, the kid's tub looks like a flea market exploded in it. There are foam letters, cooking utensils, plastic dolls and various plastic appendages that sometimes outweigh the water. Parts is parts I suppose)

It has gotten to the point now where every night I am the snow farmer and I need to go to the icicle garden to pick what she needs to make her soup. The problem is I have misused the land and have plucked them all in previous nights so I am not going through the window in our bathroom and picking more for her. Did I mention I was a sucker?

I have to say though, she makes a damn good soup.

Who IS that girl?

Quien es esa niña, who's that girl
Señorita mas fina, who's that girl
Quien es esa niña, who's that girl
Señorita mas fina, who's that girl

And we're back.

Nothing like Madonna lyrics to kick off the new year. Seriously, scroll down and take a look at the video. Compared to where we were in the Marshall Islands, this is amazing. Tonight was the first time we were able to get her to consistently laugh and it really felt good. It truly is the culmination of some great strides Evie has made in the previous weeks.

So, a couple of points of explanation. In the one shot you will see me wearing my running headlight. This is not nornal fashion around the house. Maya was in the tub and I was getting my clothes ready for work for tomorrow. Our closet light works sporadcially and currently it is on strike so I was wearing it to try and find some clothes and came out with Maya's towel and tried surprising the baby. So happy it worked so well.

So, it is going to take me some time to get back up to speed to posting, but I will give it a go. Happy 2011.

No News is Good News, right?

As you can imagine, we have been pretty busy with the new little one. She is sleeping through the night and already growing and changing. We could not be happier (or more tired). Maya is doing awesome too and is looking forward to the snow and the holidays.

I wanted to put this out here for those few of you still checking that I probably will not be updating this blog until January. Just one less thing to feel tied to. So Have a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a good solstice.

Here are a couple of pictures until then.

Your 5 Minute Commuter Train Update

Whoa. Evie only woke up twice last night. I has one of the moments of anxiety when I woke up and realized she had been asleep for almost 5(!) hours. I perked my head up to listen for her breathing. (Does that tension ever go away?)

I have had some family in town since last Wednesday which has been extremely helpful for us. Just want to get through today and maybe even get to go out with Courtney tonight for a handful of hours. It has been almost 2 months since we have had some one-on-one time that did not involve planning on dealing with kid wrangling. Things are settling in, looking forward to the weekend.

Video between the Marshall Islands resort and Robert Reimers

Here is a video snapshot of Majuro life that we took during our adoption to the Marshal Islands (like how I get those SEO keywords in there for Google?).

The video is poor and you probably want to mute your speakers so you do not hear our innane chatter in the background of Maya wanting to pay the cab driver. (She always liked to roll up the dollar bill into a super-tight tube that would do Bob Marley proud.)

No commentary here, would like to eventually add site locations to the video on youtube. Before we left I wanted to just sort of see what life was like there. This is just the main drag between the two hotels.

Closure

Yes, we are home and all is well. Things were pretty rough the last couple of weeks trying to get home and avoid the fees from Continental by getting a Dr's note and then actually having our kid get sick and then our paperwork up in limbo. It was pretty trying and I just could not get around to any updates, especially when there was so much going on.

I will try and expand on everything later as things fade a little bit, but we are home and happy. We actually were able to reclinie back on the couch and watch a movie with Evie sleeping beside us. Beinf homoe has made the world of difference, she is crying less (not counting putting her in the car - Kryptonite, really) and we are all adjusting back to life and to our new family situation.

Maya is back to her old self. No hassles, no fights, no crying or time outs. She is back in school, sleeping well and being great. I am back at work and we are all adjusting to new routines. Tired and weary, but happy. We wanted to thank everyone for all the warm wishes and all of our great neighbors that have provided us with our own personalized Meals on Wheels program. You all are life savers and make for a great community.

Not sure when I will update again (most likely soon), but I want to capture those last crazy two emotional, stressful and unbelieveable weeks. We have a ton of pictures and some video to post. Again, thanks for all the prayers, thoughts and comments - we truly appreciate it.