Shmunkin

Toes To Your Nose

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Christmas Photos

New photos from Christmas in the December, 2005 album.

Christmas Video

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Have A Very Shmunkie Christmas

Here it is.  Our first Christmas with a Shmunkin.  One would have thought it to be extremely exciting.  But, the fact is, I really don't think it will be.  At least not yet.

Helen Mei is only 20 months old, and not really into the whole Christmas thing just yet.  I tried testing that theory the other day.  I sat her down and explained the whole thing.  How we, as Christians, celebrate the birth of Christ.  Mary and Joseph and the manger.  The wise men.  How there was no room at the inn, so they stayed in a stable.

(You do, of course, realize they didn't run into a situation where all the Ramadas and Motel Sixes were booked, so they had to stay in a barn.  In fact, the "Inn" to which the story refers is the home of Joseph's relatives, and the "stable" is a lower part of the same house where the animals were kept.  Still a pretty humble beginning.  Just misinturpreted.)

Shmunkin didn't seem to get the gist of what I was saying, so I moved on to the concept of giving.  How Jesus gave of himself for all of us, and how Santa Claus is representative of someone who gives to others, without asking anything in return, short of us being good to one another.  Still nothing.

So I tried some visual aids.  We had "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" recorded on the DVR/TiVo thing, and I played that for her.  She got down from the couch and danced to the opening song, certainly a very peppy little ditty, but otherwise just wondered around the living room babbling to herself, "Ba-ba-ba ba ba-ba-ba ba-ba."  I hope that doesn't mean she's a Beach Boys fan. 

Anyway, I don't think Helen quite gets the concept of Christmas just yet.  Not even the excitement over gifts and family gatherings and other such things.  I'm pretty sure she will enjoy getting presents, and playing with them afterward, but won't really understand why.  We'll save that for next year.

Fact is, we haven't even put up many decorations this year.  As mentioned in a previous post, we are under construction, putting an addition on our house and re-organizing the kitchen.  So everything from one side of the house is now stacked in piles on the other side, and, with the constant comings and goings of construction-based people and their activities, it is all we can do to keep even a minimum amount of cleanliness.  Decorations just won't fit in this year.

Maybe that's a good thing.  Since little has been done at our house for Christmas, once we get to the relatives houses, things will be that much more exciting for the Shmunkin.  She got a taste of it a few days ago at Claire's parents' house.  She found the decorated tree and, seeing the shiny balls on it, made it a point to go up to each one within her purview, then bent down to stare at it and follow her reflection around the shiney orb.

I suppose I could try to relate that to some mystical analogy of daily life, but I won't.  After all, it was just a little girl looking at her reflection.

Hey! There's a New Web-Site

After a year of amusing myself making updates about Shmunkin, but wanting to branch out to other subjects, as well, I have started a second web site.  I am calling it "Pointless Drivel," and it will feature my own assinine opinions on a wide range of subjects.  Check it out!  The site address is www.dombrock.blogs.com/pointless_drivel.   Or you can find it with the link on the right side of this page, found under "My Other Web Site."

I hope you enjoy it.

Changing Times

I have made the statement a number of times on this blog that having a Shmunkin has not changed our lives very much.  Maybe it is more accurate to say she hasn't changed our life-styles very much.  Our lives have changed immeasurably.  But our day-to-day activities really haven't changed all that much.  Oh, sure, I have changed the route I take to work so I can drop Helen Mei off at day-care, and we make sure we are home by her bedtime, and we can't just pick up and take off for a few hours like we used to.  But other than that, there has been little change.

But there has been one thing I've noticed has changed with a Shmunkin.  We are no longer early for anything.  I'm not saying we're always late, we're more likely to be closer to on time.  But I've been used to being early.

Before bringing Helen home from China, I was nearly always at least fifteen or twenty minutes early, especially to work.  I like to give myself a cushion, just in case traffic or something else holds me up.  But not, that fifteen or twenty minutes is more like two or three.  That remaining cushion has been taken up by getting Helen ready.  A recent experience illustrates this point.

On Wednesday of this past week, I made the decision to do everything I could to be at work with that former cushion of time.  To do this, I changed my morning pattern.  While for most people, changing a routine is a small event, for me it is a life-altering experience.  I like my routine, and resist change to it.  For the last few months, my routine on work days goes something like this:  I get up at 6 in the morning, go downstairs to make a pot of coffee and retreive the newspaper.  Then I spend about a half-hour to 45 minutes relaxing and slowly waking up.  I then get a morning bottle ready for Helen, as she normally wakes up around seven.  I take her downstairs, give her the bottle, change her diaper, and relax for a few minutes with her, while she wakes up, then feed her breakfast.  At around 7:20, I head up to the bathroom and get myself ready for work, get dressed, get Helen dressed, then go back downstairs and leave the house around eight.

Leaving at eight makes my schedule somewhat tight.  It takes between fifteen and twenty minutes to get to K the Day Care Lady's house, and another thirty minutes to get to work.  If I chat with K for a few minutes, that means I am arriving to work with only five or ten minutes to spare.

So on Wednesday, I decided I would change.  I got up at the same time but, instead of relaxing with my coffee, I went straight back upstairs and got ready for work so that when Shmunkin got up, I would be ready, and need only get her ready.  And it worked.  I was dressed and ready to go by the time she got up at seven, I got her fed and changed and dressed, and was ready to go at 7:30.  I went out to start my car -- it was pretty cold out -- and came back in to get Helen in her coat and hat and mittens (she calls them "mee-mees").  By 7:45, she was ready, the car was warm, and everything was set.

Except for one thing.  I smelled a smell.  When Helen has to do her thing -- which she normally does before we even go back upstairs to get dressed -- she makes it pretty obvious.  She will actually walk over to something, hold on to it, then squeeze her stomach hard and grunt.  (K told me that, a while ago, she was doing that at day-care and her little frined Nina came over, patted her shoulder, and said, "Poooop."  Nope, she doesn't hide it at all.)  Anyway, I had seen this before, and now could smell something, so I decided to do one more quick change before we left.  Off with the coat, off with the hat and mittens, down with the pants.  I opened the diaper, and there was nothing there.  So we got her dressed again, and headed for the car.

But as we were leaving the house, she started fussing.  I knew that fuss.  She was hungry.  Wanted a  bit more breakfast.  Thankfully, her favorite morning snack is bread with peanut butter, so I got her one of those, and she was happy as a clam.

Back outside, locked the door, headed to the car and, as I was putting her in, I again smelled a smell.  Stronger this time, more likely to have something there.  I suppose I could have just plopped her in the seat and headed out, but I didn't want her to be sitting in a mess that long, so we went back in, took off the coat and hat and mittens, dropped the pants, and found the source of her aroma.  Cleaned it up, got dressed again, and we were on our way.

Of course, by this time, it was about 8:15, and we were behind schedule.  Luckily, we hit all the traffic lights right, there was nothing major in the way, and we were able to get to day-care, and get me to work with about five minutes to spare.  But, still, it would have been nice if it had worked out.

Not that I'm complaining.  It gives me an excuse to go back to my former routine.

Giving Thanks

So, we sort of scheduled ourselves out of Thanksgiving this year.

You may have an idea what happened.  We always debate where to spend the holiday -- with Family D or Family W.  Generally, we have traded off, which has actually worked very well for the past eight years.

This year, we were expecting to go to Family D for the holiday.  Unfortunately, other members of Family D thought we would be at Family W, so reschedule for a later date, the Sunday after Thanksgiving (call it T Plus 3).  However, since we had already told Family W we would be with Family D, they had already rescheduled for T Plus 2.

Oops.  Nothing was scheduled for T Plus or Minus 0.

This kind of thing doesn't happen for other holidays.  Christmas works well because it lasts two days.  Family D does their thing on Christmas Eve.  Family W Christmas Day.  No confusion.  Fourth of July is a long enough day to spend time with both families, and you don't eat enough at either place to feel sick at the end of the day.  Easter, for some reason, never has been much of a problem.  Maybe, since it is the holiest of days, everyone is on their best behavior.

But Thanksgiving gets to be an issue because, while the meal can be rescheduled for a later date, on the date itself you're pretty much locked into one place for the day.  And when you over-arrange, like we did, you may end up out in the cold, so to speak.

So we were left with no place to got the the holiday.  Then the Chairperson of the Planning Committee had an idea.  She said that, since The Shmunkin is the thing for which she is most thankful this year, and said Shmunkmin arrived with us from China just five months ago, what better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than at a Chinese restaurant?  So we called both sets of parents to tell them the plan. Family W. had already booked other arrangements, but members of Family D were free.  The plan was set.

Except it wasn't.  I forgot to check to make sure there would be a Chinese restaurant open.  Small detail, but as I called around, I discovered it wasn't so small a detail.  The first place I called, which is one of the places nearest to our house, left me, at the end of the conversation, wondering what had happened.  It went something like this:

Me:  Hi.  I'm wondering if you will be open Thanksgiving.

Restaurant Person:  864.

Me:  864?  No, I'm just wondering if you will be open Thanksgiving.

RP:  864 98th Street.

Me (Assuming she wanted to make sure I was calling the right place, in case they had more than one):  Yes.  864 98th Street.  Will you be open Thanksgiving Day?

RP:  By I-35W.

Me:  Yes, I know where you're located.  I've been there before.  Will you be open Thanksgiving Day?  November 24th?

RP:  Open every day.  11 AM to 9 PM.

Me:  Right.  Will you be open next Thursday?  November 24?  Thanksgiving?

RP:  Every day, 11 AM to 9 PM.

Me:  Excellent.  Thank you for your help.

At first, I took this to mean they would be open, but there was a small miscommunication.  Still, I checked some other places, just to be sure.  I went through the phone book and, starting with the ones closest to our house, I called every Chinese restaurant within about a twenty mile radius.  Seriously, there had to be thirty of them.  And in each case, I asked the same thing and was told they would be closed, making me question even more what the first place told me.

So I asked my sister to check a place near where she lives (and, coincidentally, near where I work).  She reported a conversation similar to the one I had, but, since it was on the day before Thanksgiving, was able to say, "Are you open tomorrow?"  But, just in case, I drove by to ask for myself, calender in hand, just in case.  And I as I walked up to the place, there on the door was a sign affirming they would, indeed, be open for Thanksgiving.  Incidentally, they will be open on Christmas, as well, just in case you're interested.

So that was our Thanksgiving.  Chinese food, because the thing for which we are most thankful came from China.

Maybe we'll make it an annual tradition.

Building Blocks

A few years ago -- about 1992, I think -- one of my sisters (I have four) gave me a set of building blocks for Christmas.  Actual blocks.  Made of wood, cut in various patterns, the whole deal.  And not those cheap-o, crappy blocks, either.  These were nice ones.

Of course, I never used them myself.  Well, okay, I did, but rarely, because there were always other people around, and I get tired of explaining myself.  For the most part, they just sat in the back of a closet in whichever domicile I called home at the time, waiting for such a time when I had an excuse to play with them again, but without the embarrassment.  That time has arrived.

Now that we have a Shmunkin toddling around, we are able to take out the blocks on a regular basis and play with them, building things and unbuilding them.  Helen Mei, in fact, has gotten very good at both ends of the spectrum.  I wil start making a platform, and she will add to it, very carefully and gently placing the next piece on top of the pile, and another, and another, until she somehow bumps it, and everything topples over, much to her delight.  Then we start again.

I have also begun stepping back and letting her play some on her own, since I think it important she learn to amuse herself and make up her own fun and games.  Those two things -- the block and the self-play -- bring us to today's story.

Tuesday afternoon, after returning home but before dinner time, we had about an hour or so to relax and let Shmunkin be a Shmunkin.  I decided to sit down and watch what Helen Mei play, just to see what she would do.  At first, she just sort of toddled randomly around the room, looking at various things, sizing them up, deciding what would be the best next course of action.  Then she saw the box of blocks, and a little light went off in her head.

She headed straight for the blocks and began digging into the box, loading them up.  Not a lot, mind you, since she can only hold one block in each hand at a time, but she also put one under her chin, allowing her to carry three at once.  Now, I don't know exactly where she picked that up -- maybe it is one of those things children just learn naturally, like knowing how to operate computer games or figuring out the perfect time to throw a temper tantrum in public -- but, once her hands were full and she realized she couldn't carry any more, she stuck a block from one hand under her chin, pressed her head down to hold it, then picked up a third with the now-empty hand.

I was as quiet as I could be watching this, as I wanted to see what she did with the blocks, and didn't want to inturrupt.  Once loaded, she headed off across the living room to the kitchen, where she stayed for a moment or two, then headed back across the living room to the block box.  Marched, is more like it, since there was a definite sense of purpose to her stride.  Back at the blocks, she picked up three more, then brought them back to the kitchen.

I watched this one-Shmunkin parade back and forth across the living room for a good half-hour or so, seeing many such trips, before deciding to find out what, exactly, she was doing with the blocks once she reached the kitchen.  Venturing over myself, I saw she had located an upright 12-pack of soda, and was gingerly building an extension tower on top of it.  While the architectural quality of the extended structure was somewhat lacking, I was most impressed with her ability to get them stacked four or five blocks high.  Of course, some of the blocks slipped and landed, instead, on the floor next to the box but, still, pretty good.

I was even more pleased when it was time to clean up.  I brought the box with the remaining blocks into the kitchen, and Helen very dutifully picked up each and every block and deposited them into the proper container, smiling and having fun the entire time.  Now we hope she finds it just as fun and amusing when it is time to clean her room.

Mousecapades

So, we're finally putting an addition on our house, something we've been wanting to do for a number of years.  In fact, it is something we've been trying to do for a while, but we kept running into the same issue:  Money.  The bank -- actually, banks, since we talked with seven or eight of them -- kept telling us we were over-improving for the neighborhood.  I won't get into the reasons why, but this is actually not possible.  However, we couldn't convince the banks.

(Actually, one of the problems was that the first person we talked to figured out she would make more if we bought a new house instead of expanded the current one, as would her friend, who was a real estate agent, but I won't get into that, either.)

But we finally got things worked out, and are currently in the process of getting our addition.  The hole has been dug and the footings poured, and the concrete block walls for the foundation are nearing completion.  Very exciting.

Unfortunately, the combination of digging out the yard and the cold weather has led to an unintended consequence.  Mice.  We are tearing up their normal habitat, and have more openings in our house than usual, at a time when they tend to start looking for someplace warm to spend the winter, so they have decided to look at the potential of sharing space with us.  And, I suppose the fact that we also have a toddler who is less than totally vigilant about where she drops her food and stuff probably helps them make their decision.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when The Ways and Means Committee first noticed a mouse peeking up at her from underneath one of the burners on our stove.  She immediately put the cat on top the stove, because that is what cat's are supposed to do, right?  Apparently not.  Sure, Henry is god at going out and finding things to bring back to us, like chipmunks, birds, small rabbits and the occasional baby squirrel.  But, when confronted with a mouse directly in front of him, he apparently prefers to merely sniff it and go about his business.  I tried pointing out that he is failing in the one and only responsibility he has a part of the household, but he didn't believe me.

That left the mouse-hunting up to me.  By the time I had gotten home that first mouse day, Ways and Means had named the mouse Marvin.  I must say, it is much harder to hunt and kill something when you are on a first-name basis with it.  So, instead of the regular steel traps that snap on their little mousy spines and heads, I bought the glue traps that humanely catch the mice.  Feeling much more politically correct, I brought the traps home, put some peanut butter in them as bait, and slid them under the refrigerator.

The following morning, I got to see the fruits of my labor.  There, stuck in the trap, was a small gray mouse.  It was stuck in the goo, struggling to get out, and I felt very proud of myself that I was able to so humanely capture the little devil.  What I didn't consider at the time, however, was how to now dispose of said creature.  Oops.  The packaging said I could use some vegetable oil to loosen the mouse from the trap, and let it go outside.  But I wasn't quite ready for that, so, lacking another option, I put it in the garbage.  But, of course, before doing so, I had to show my conquest to the WMC.  She said, "That's not Marvin.  Marvin was brown and about twice that size."

So we continued the mouse hunt.  After a few days, we ran out of the glue traps.  They didn't work that well, anyway.  They were only good for one catch each, and the remaining  mice figured out how to eat the peanut butter without getting stuck.  I broke down and bought the more traditional traps, which, sadly, kill the mice.  But they also make for easier disposal, since I don't have to worry about them suffering.

Something else I've learned:  You never have a mouse.  You have mice.  Quite a few of them.  So far, we have caught eleven, and I'm pretty sure we will catch more.  Every evening and morning when I check the traps, I find we have normally caught a mouse (two this morning!), but the bait on the other traps has been removed.

On the bright side, the concrete guy told me this morning they will today be sealing off the basement window we suspect is the source for most of the mice, so we, hopefully, are nearing the end.  That, or I'm going to start charging them for room and board and, if they give me a nice tip, I'll leave a little mousy mint on thier pillows.

Day-Care -- The Field Trip

K The Day Care Lady sent us a couple pictures yesterday, along with a brief story, I thought you might enjoy.  It relates the tale of Helen Mei and her friend Nina on a trip to the Nature Center...

We went to the nature center today...Helen collected some leaves.  Cute story:  Helen gave a leaf to Nina and I put it in Nina's pocket, which Helen thought was cool, so she put another one in there.  Then I showed her she had pockets, too, which really got her motivated.  She started putting more leaves into her own pockets.  I had it in my head that I would put the leaves in a Ziploc at home and let her take them to show you.,  Then I realized that I had a plastic bag with me, so why not just have her collect them directly in there, which she also seemed to enjoy.  Unfortunately she proved she was not up to the responsibility of handling her own luggage when she tried to throw the bag in the pond, and later left it sitting on the trail while she walked away.  Finally, she started "playing" with it and it got too close to her face (for my comfort), so I had to take it away.  This caused severe emotional upset until I uttered the magic word, "crackers," conjunction with the word "car," which made her forget all about the bag and focus on getting back to the car as quickly as possible!

Of course, once you get back home from such an exhausting trip, it's good to sit back and watch some Teletubbies while having a snack.