On the Orthodontic Tip
It’s been a busy couple weeks for two of our girls’ teeth. M officially graduated out of her orthodontic practice two weeks ago. She had her braces taken off back in June but while her teeth emerged beautifully straight, her gums were “angry,” to quote her orthodontist. He floated the idea of some minor laser surgery to clean them up…
A Not Snow Day
Like the rest of my readers who live in the Midwest, we’ve been hammered by Arctic temperatures for the last 36 hours. Which has led to some controversy. On Monday our school principal sent out an email stating that assuming the roads were in good shape and the school’s furnace, water, and electricity were functioning normally, he would plan on…
Weekend Notes
Our holiday weekend was both busy and lazy. We watched one of our two year old nephews from Friday night through Monday morning. He’s a really good kid – smart and funny and loves being with the girls – but you do kind of forget how exhausting that phase of life is. The repeated questions. The bizarre mood changes. The…
Snow and Sports
A busy and fun weekend around our house. Saturday C and I headed out at 7:00 am for her first preseason volleyball tournament. At that point in the day we had about 2” of snow. The roads were not great, but not terrible either. It helped that no one was out on them, other than parents going to volleyball tournaments.…
Christmas ’18 Wrap Up
After a busy week, things are finally slowing down enough to share some details from our Christmas celebrations. My in-laws came in from Florida last Wednesday. This is their second Christmas since going to Florida full-time, so Saturday my mother-in-law and the girls had their second annual baking day. They baked three kinds of cookies and a coffee cake for…
That Old Christmas Spirit
As your kids get older there are dozens of trade offs as you leave old annoyances behind but also lose moments of joy that are unique to younger ages. Sadly the Christmas spirit is pretty much gone among our girls this year. Yeah, L still has some moments where she’s down. She’s the only kid who has wanted to sit…
Thanksgiving Weekend Notes
Our Thanksgiving weekend was, by one measure, perfect. We were intensely busy for parts of the weekend. At others we sat around and did nothing. Every long, holiday weekend should have that balance. C and I went to watch some of her classmates play for the CYO girls basketball city championship Tuesday night. They lost, handily, but C had fun…
Irish
Our Thanksgiving week got off to a great start. Monday M learned she had been accepted to attend Cathedral High School for the next four years. S and I got an email around noon, which I forwarded to M’s account. When she got into the car after school I told her to check her email. She had a moment of…
Holidays
I mentioned some time after our move last summer that we were all having a hard time making the small adjustments that come with a new home. Where are the cooking pots? Where are the cutting boards? Where is our stash of paper towels? Etc, etc etc. The longer we’ve been in this house, the more all of that newness…
The New Year
Our summer of change, 2018, is officially over. The girls went back to school today. M begins her final year at St. P’s as an 8th grader,[1] C in 6th, L in 4th. The last time all three girls will ever be in the same school building. I think they were relatively excited to go back. M and C were…