| He ate the last rum ball She swears at the ?#$#@$ tax overhaul. Not one kid will flush the potty. Yeah, we’ve all been a little bit naughty. |
Dear Loved Ones,
I should not have announced my intention to start my annual letter, because almost immediately, 1) the toilet overflowed, 2) the TV stopped working, and 3) the toaster set off the smoke alarm. Daily, I question my life choices.
The kids continue to age exponentially faster than Dwayne and me. Kyla received her acceptance to Hogwarts on her 11th birthday. Thinking I was writing a letter to Santa, she advocated that she had been really good this year. I started to scoff, but realized that she was speaking truth. She works hard to love Piper and initiates compliments to everyone. She does her chores quickly so she can get back to her audiobooks, and is the estate’s head gardener. She’s prepping for middle school next year and wants to take lots of math and chemistry, and last summer, attended a living history camp to experience 1880.
Wesley is ridiculously cheerful and charming, and even when he was stung by ten yellow jackets (he wanted to make sure you knew that), he was brave and even somewhat philosophical. Contrarily, his grip on reality is a bit tenuous, as at last count, he’s had over a hundred “worst day of my life” whines, usually as he’s served something he doesn’t love for dinner. A casual observer would note that this almost-8-year-old is an inventor—of course, the casual observer is not usually getting her stuff broken. My favorite retractable hose became his personal bungee cable for daring stunts, and no rubber band, cardboard box, or even innocent coat hanger is safe from Wesley’s, ahem, creativity.
Piper is finding a niche for herself in the family through music—she’s started piano and violin this year. Not quite ten, she hasn’t fully tilted toward “human” yet, and has been caught in pouncing stance on the stairs, ready to hiss and growl at any passerby. After months of saving, she is now the proud mama of a leopard gecko and declares him “cuddly”. When that girl decides something, she’s all in. She taught herself to type this year and really took to snowboarding in a few lessons. She conquered the bunny slope, on a day that ended with me snapping, “Everyone stop crying. Get in the car and start eating cookies. Eat lots of cookies NOW.” That may have been my parenting apex.
Dwayne, who has been faithful to one phone for 6 years, managed to hilariously go through 4 phones in 2 weeks.[1] If I die first, I grin to think what would happen to women when he starts dating. His work building is being gutted and so his whole team is working in Bellevue now, adding a lot of time to his commute. Dwayne has failed National Swearing Day—the day we get our Christmas tree—for a few years now. He’s thinking he needs a new challenge, something that actually makes him swear. I’m encouraging him to try parenting more than a few hours at a time.
I work as a substitute teacher just a day or two a week—enough to justify a cleaning lady and premade dinners. Denise-ing includes PTA-ing, volunteering, and serving in a few capacities at the district level, both as part of our schools’ foundation and a special education advocate. I haven’t run Heartsease Properties into the ground yet; in fact, we may have made too much money on the cabin this year. But since I do a lousy job of bookkeeping until Dec. 31, I can’t be sure.
Our biggest excitement this year was a brand-new kitchen. In a nutshell, we went from 1975 cheap bid to 2017 mid-grade, which is practically a new universe. The kitchen was only out of commission for a little over two weeks, but I will confess that with a fridge and microwave, my family didn’t eat much differently than usual. Basically what I’m saying is that when you call me “goddess”, you shouldn’t prefix it with “domestic”. And if I didn’t make it clear, the contractor did 100% of the work, which is why it was done early and mostly on budget. Dwayne and I can’t fathom that sort of professionalism.
The star of 2017 may be the dented, filthy, crusted minivan, that took us to San Diego and back this summer to spend time with family on both sides of the tree. We did our first amusement park together as we spent a spectacular day at Lego Land, and loved playing on SoCal’s beaches with family. Besides many adventures with loved ones, our best takeaway on this vacation was the invention of “ice cream o’clock”—a summer hit no matter where we were.
Fun family news: I’ll be an auntie again when Brian and Sandi’s second daughter is born late winter. The anticipation of that birth, as well as the Christ, is hard to ignore and my children’s excitement is more contagious than their colds.
May your traditions, family, and friends bring you both joy and peace this season!
With heaps of love,
Denise for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, & Wesley
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[1] Wesley pipes up that after all that, Wes himself got Daddy’s original phone to work again.
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