It’s
the time of year for cards and pictures and updates and everything else that
comes with it. We wanted to have a bit of a letter to accompany our family
picture again this year, but we also thought we might save some paper and skip the
printing of the letter. We also thought this might be a good to jump-start to
return to the world of updating the blog (for the ump-teenth time). So here it is…
First
of all, Merry Christmas and all that stuff. Hopefully your year has been fun
and safe and healthy and entertaining and all sorts of other positive
descriptors and the negative ones have been few and far-between. Our 2014 has
been a little of everything.
In August Willa turned
two.
It’s difficult to remember, but she was just starting to walk last Christmas.
Now she is a runner and a jumper and a climber and a ball of constant motion
with an ever-present stinker-smile. Lucky for us, her physical limitations keep
her in check: she’s short and pudgy and therefore can’t climb nearly as much as
she’d like, nor can she run fast enough to cause us much trouble. Cora and
Evaline were always small – Cora is the shortest kid in virtually every group
of which she has ever been part – but Willa is even smaller than they were at
her age. She started to attend daycare two days every week this fall, and the
other two-year-olds thought she was a baby and tried to feed her lunch and
“help” her with everything. Out in public she gets some strange looks when she
talks – and, man, is she a chatterer! – because no one expects something her
size to be able to say what she says and know what she knows. She’s a jokester
and quite the ham; she definitely knows she is the youngest and knows how to
use that to her advantage. She adores her older sisters and wants to be
wherever they are and wants to do whatever they’re doing.
In the end, though, she is happiest with her mother, and no matter how independent she insists on being and no matter how much help she refuses and no matter how much of a big girl she has become, she loves to be held and she loves to snuggle and she loves to give big ol’ hugs. She warms our hearts.
At the time of last year’s
letter, Merry was still recovering from her bout with vestibular neuritis. She
went back to work in January and continued to get better to the point where now
it is mostly a memory. Mostly.
Occasionally she’ll turn quickly and you’ll see her swoon a bit and reach out
to steady herself. It’s still easier for her to go through Target or the
grocery store with her hands on the cart. And, probably most bothersome to her,
she still can’t sleep on her right side. But aside from that, she’s doing well.
Regular exercise – yoga or jogging or anything – seems to help lessen the few
lingering symptoms. It seems, though, that the recovery from her freakish
affliction is virtually complete. And that’s probably good, because it left her
available to begin a new job this fall. She’s still teaching and she’s still at
Jefferson, but she’s only teaching for part of the day. The other part of the
day she spends as an instructional coach: she meets with and observes other
teachers and together they strategize different ways to teach and different
methods to utilize in the classroom. She also has a pretty big role in creating
and planning school-wide meetings and professional development. It has been an
exciting transition to this new position and she's enjoying both the challenge and the change.
Ian is just…well, Ian.
He’s
pretty steady and, therefore, pretty boring. Merry is always thinking of
something new to do professionally, but not Ian: he’s still teaching the same
three courses at Jefferson. Merry is always thinking of some great new project
to work on, but not Ian: he really
enjoys the couch, a cup of coffee, and the channel changer when he’s not
working. And besides the growing patches of gray on the temples and around the
edges, he just doesn’t change much. The biggest adjustment for Ian has been a
rather tragic one, unfortunately. In last year’s letter we explained that Ian’s
mother had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and in the spring she passed
away. It’s difficult to have family celebrations without her and it’s difficult
to experience the girls’ lives without her, but we do everything we can to keep
memories of her with us, and we think about her every day. We miss her a lot.
Evaline
and Cora began Kindergarten this fall. (Insert all that “they grow up so fast”
cliché stuff here.) We didn’t know if they could be in the same class, but last
year’s preschool teacher said they worked together to help each other learn and
socialize, so she recommended they stay paired-up and Van Buren Elementary
allowed it. And the year has really started out well, even though Evaline was a
bit frustrated at the start of the year: she was just convinced that “starting kindergarten” meant “reading like an
expert,” so when she wasn’t reading chapter books to us after the first day of school she had to bring herself back to
earth. Luckily for her (and us), she was able to adjust those expectations and
is really enjoying the learning she gets to do in school. It is amazing how
fast they have learned to read. They entered school knowing their basics, but
Merry and Ian were both quick to admit that being qualified to lead a
discussion over The Great Gatsby or create a comparison between 18th
century revolutions does not mean either of us are fit to teach 6 year-olds to
read. So most of the work has done by the great teachers at their school, and
the girls are loving it. They each bring home a book every night and they
usually insist on reading both of them. There have been a few nights where we
wanted to be a bit lazy and we tried to tell them “Oh, you read two per night
so you’re already ahead…let’s take the night off” only to be told “No, I think
we should read tonight.” They work together so well, too: Cora will sit next to
Evaline sometimes and help her sound out more difficult words or help her with
some sight words that are causing Evaline some struggles. And Cora will
enthusiastically create math story problems for Evaline to answer, managing to
ask through her giggles, “So if I
have 12 apples and find three more apples, how many apples do I have?”
Evaline’s response is usually, “Oh, that is so easy, Cora Lynn!” And she usually even has the correct answer. They
have only been in school for four months, but it is incredible to think about
their academic and intellectual growth already. More than anything, though,
what we find the most fulfilling to observe is the pleasure they take in school
and their eagerness learn and do more.
The
best way to describe Evaline overall is to say she is simultaneously a planner
and a dreamer. She concocts elaborate and fantastical visions of what her life
will be like – her life tomorrow, her life next week, or her life in fifteen
years – and she begins to prepare herself (and her parents) for that life, only
to have to adapt to the constrictions of our reality. It really is so much fun
to watch and be a part of. There is simply no telling what her brain is doing
with any tidbit of information she gleaned from a story once read to her or a
side-comment she once overheard or a television show she once watched. As a
definite child of her mother, Evaline loves anything old fashioned (to her this
means it is “fancy”) and would prefer constant discussion of, and play about,
pioneers or Pilgrims or anything 19th century or earlier. While she
lives much of her life in a wonderfully fantastic world of make-believe, she is
still a sweet little girl who is thoughtful of others and helpful and an
all-around joy to be around.
Cora
is a very neat 6 year-old, too. While Evaline often lives in her own little
world, Cora is very much present in our
world. She is the one who screams and laughs loudly and gives full-body
bear-hugs (and near-body slams) to her sisters; she is the one who races
through the house and climbs over everything and makes her immediate presence
known. It’s not that she’s wild and obnoxious, though; it’s just that her
personality is a nice contrast to Evaline’s. While Evaline likes to follow
instructions and build things with the Legos, Cora just wants to play with the
finished product. While Evaline creates the elaborate stories that form the
context for their make-believe play, Cora simply provides the action and the
conflict for their fictional situations. At the same time, it is Cora that will
pick up a “Dick and Jane” book and sit on the couch and read to herself. She is
also the enthusiastic entertainment for Willa. Once, when we had made Willa
leave the kitchen because she wouldn’t stop crying, we asked Cora to eventually
“work her magic” and try to calm Willa down. It worked, and ever since she has
responded to any half-wail from Willa with “Well, I should probably go work my
magic with that Willa.” And, almost immediately, Willa will be giggling and
dancing and racing through the house with Cora at her heels. If Cora is
coloring at the counter, she wants Willa up there with her, with Cora helping her
take-off marker caps or chase after anything that has fallen to the floor. Cora
is a helper. And she’s funny. And she
helps to make our days good ones.
So
while there were certainly some things this year that were difficult and sad,
there were many more things that brought smiles to our faces and warmth to our
hearts. We hope the same can be said for all you, as well. Merry Christmas,
happy holidays, and we hope 2015 is a safe, healthy, and happy year for
everyone!
The Petersens
