4 Happy Family The personal blog of Kevin R. Hoffmann

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.