1. My sister had her baby. A 9 lbs. 3 oz. girl, and all are healthy after a long labor. Every time we have skyped or talked about her, Maren wants to eat brown cheese.
2. It is graduate application season and we have literally twice the number of applications that we did last year. It’s great, in some ways, but because of my role on the admissions committee I have to review every application and it has taken me all weekend.
3. Jeff has a pretty terrible cold.
4.
My sister is in labour right now in Norway. My mom is there. Maren is super excited about her new cousin, who was due to be born on January 10th and is late. We are excited that the waiting is almost over, and are sending love and good thoughts to Norway.
Earlier this week Maren received a gift in the mail – an adorable headband (sent by her auntie and uncle who are about to become parents). She loved it.
Maren is asleep now, and I am hoping that when she wakes up I can tell her that her new cousin has arrived!
Every parent probably thinks that their child is a little genius. But I'm pretty sure that my child actually is one.
Maren got a 24 piece puzzle for Christmas that we thought she probably wouldn't be able to do for quite some time. She is now able to do it completely independently. We were kind of amazed at how quickly she learned.
Putting in the last piece:
Pointing out the owl:
Though that is impressive, it is nothing compared to what happened this morning. We have a little Halloween books that have a picture on each page and a label for the picture in big letters. Just after waking up, she went through all three books pointing to every single letter and correctly naming them. The only exceptions were that the first time she saw G she called it C, and the first time she saw W she called it M. After I corrected her on each of those once she generalized to all the other instances of those letters. Other than that she flawlessly identified every single letter in all three books. I'm pretty sure she wants to start reading, and I'm pretty sure that she will be able to read simple words before she is three years old.
I don't think we are pushing, I think she just is interested in learning. We are constantly surprised and amazed. I think she really is a little genius :-)
I think we are starting to recognize two things about our house: First, that there is a lot we don't know about being homeowners, especially in cold climates. Second, that our house is going to have constant problems that we have to deal with.
On the first front, we started to have a strange gurgling sound and then a sulphur smell emerging from our upstairs bathroom. It turns out that the likely culprit is the plumbing vent freezing over. There is maintenance that we can do in the late fall that will help prevent this problem, but it is something that we probably will deal with from time to time. Or maybe often.
On the second front, the night after our furnace was "fixed" it stopped working again. The plumber who fixed our sewer problem also does furnace and heating related issues, so this time we called him instead of the company who installed the furnace. He indicated that the first person who came out actually probably didn't do anything helpful at all, and identified numerous problems. Most of the problems likely could have been avoided if the furnace was on a yearly maintenance schedule, which apparently it was not -- it appeared that maintenance had not been done for quite some time.
But now that is all taken care of and our house is warm and cozy. The weather here has actually been quite nice the last couple of days – even getting above freezing. We went out to the sledding hill today and it was busier than it has ever been. I didn't take any pictures, but here are a few photos of a walk that Jeff took with Maren yesterday. They encountered a mountain and Maren wanted to explore, but had some trouble climbing up :-)
I am super tired. Last night I couldn't sleep and then finally figured out that it was because I was cold. Our furnace had stopped producing heat to the upstairs. After getting space heaters in place and trying to figure out what was wrong with our furnace, Jeff and I didn't sleep well last night. But it is fixed today and all is fine. We will probably feel a bit more normal tomorrow.
I am posting late but I figure better late than never. However, because I am so tired I am not totally coherent so you'll have to forgive me.
These are some photos of Maren on New Year's Eve. This first one is her holding several of her favourite things – her wonder woman sword (since she knows nothing about wonder woman she just calls it her woman sword, and since she doesn't know what swords are for she uses it to reach things that are too high for her), laminated picture of a catfish, and a stuffed lion cub that she calls her cat, while rocking in her little rocking chair.
This one is her holding the ukulele that I got her for Christmas.
And this video is Maren's rendition of the final countdown. While playing said ukulele. Toddlers are kind of amazing :-)
st
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