The new-fallen snow is beautiful on the ground of the quaint English countryside outside my window, but the newly-updated five-day forecast makes it look like we may be surrounded by nothing but slush come Christmas.

Humbug!

Even cuter than Emily thinking that any day with snow must be Christmas is her wishing everyone “Merry Christmas and Happy New York!”. She also calls “fruit cocktail” “cock fruit tail”.

We woke up early this morning to ensure that everyone was fed, clothed, and packed before catching our 9am taxi to the airport. As we do each year, we were off to celebrate Christmas with the family in England. The friendly cab driver brought us right to the terminal we requested which, after waiting in line for 20 minutes to check-in behind 50 people headed to Moscow, we discovered was not the correct terminal after all. So we legged it – with children and luggage in tow – to the new EasyJet terminal which is roughly as large as it would need to be to comfortably service half of the people who were currently packed in there. We got in the chaotic “last-minute” line and watched as every other line moved noticeably faster. We eventually got our boarding passes and had to then leg it another million miles to the mathematically-proven furthest possible gate in the entire airport. We made it to the gate, huffing and puffing, just in time to find out that our flight had been delayed an hour. Nice.

But the plane eventually took off without incident and we flew effortlessly from sunny and surprisingly cold Barcelona to cold and surprisingly sunny England. The view of the snow-covered fields of northern France and England from 30,000 feet was at once divine and austere. And the brilliant sun was an unexpected yet very welcome addition to an already postcard-perfect landscape. A quick check of the five-day forecast seems to suggest that Sebastian’s first Christmas may very well be a white one.

Emily enjoyed a white English Christmas two years ago but, since long-term memories were hard to come by then, she doesn’t really remember it. So she was particularly excited. Very cute was the fact that she thought that, just because there was snow on the ground, it must be Christmas.

Fast and efficient were the tram from the plane to the terminal in Stansted, passport security, and baggage claim. All that was left was to pick up the rental car I had already booked via Budget Rent A Car. I will spare you the intricate spreadsheet I created to find the absolute best possible price from all available rental companies. Picking up the car, too, would have been a quick process had I not got caught in a circular argument with the stubborn sales rep regarding my refusal to purchase one or all of their many optional insurances scams, I mean offers. In fact – possibly out of spite – I ended up not taking any insurance at all!! I knew that great price I found on the Internet was too good to be true. Well, I was proud and cheap and possibly stupid, so I’m driving a little more carefully on the left side of these icy roads than I would otherwise. I also made sure to inspect the vehicle more carefully than usual before signing anything and it’s a good thing I did because I found two undocumented scratches and a cracked side mirror! If I make it through these 12 days without so much as a bump or scratch I will have effectively beat the system.

And then we arrived and Grandma and Granddad’s house. The house was all warm and cozy inside, lovingly decorated to excess with lights and tinsel and cards and a beautiful tree in the living room. Emily was so excited to revisit her fond memories of her last visit by seeing and doing everything in the house that could possibly be seen and done in as little time as possible. And Sebastian tormented poor old Chelsea. Seriously, as rough as Emily ever was with this little cat, Sebastian made him long for those days again by repeatedly attempting to pick him up over his head by the scruff of his neck, and sometimes succeeding. Every time we turned our backs he was after the cat again, laughing all the way. Dinner was delicious, our first evening of English Christmas TV was relaxing, and putting the kids to bed was an utter nightmare. Here’s hoping the next week and a half goes as smoothly, calmly, and uneventfully as possible. Happy holidays!

Try as we might, we just couldn’t get Sebastian into a 12-step program before his 10 month birthday. He only managed to take 11 steps. He didn’t get very far with those steps, but they were definitely steps in the right direction (that’s the last time I use that joke, I promise).

Let’s see… what else is new with our little Marathon Man? Well, he’s on three solid meals a day. That is, if you can call lumpy oatmeal, thick soup, and smooshed-up vegetables “solid”. He will go to town on a rice cake, though. Gotta work those spaced-out chompers somehow!

Oh, and speaking of chompers, it looks like the teething fairy has come back with a vengeance. It only started again a couple of days ago and we can’t tell which ones are trying to push through just yet but the fever, ear pulling, fits of pain, and chewing on anything and everything around the house – include the house itself – is a dead giveaway. We actually found him in the laundry room last week with his head in the washing machine, chewing on the rubber ring around the door. It also makes sleeping at night that much more difficult.

Oh, and speaking of sleeping, right before that bitch of a teething fairy showed up, Sebastian was actually starting to enjoy longer and longer stretches of uninterrupted sleep at night, sometimes reaching as much as eight whole hours! But alas and alack, that is no longer the case.

Oh, and speaking of speaking(?), we may have heard a first word this month. And it was a good one! Sebastian was happily bopping around the house saying, “Daa. Daa. Daa.” as he does, and I went over and added, “Daa Dee!”, which he promptly repeated accompanied by the most wonderful smile. I don’t think he had any idea what he was saying but I’m gonna go ahead and document it anyhow.

Who wants some photos and a video?

Pick Nick

Not All There

High Five?

Master of Ceremonies

On the Up and Up

We packed a suitcase full of stuffed animals and shipped them off to a local charity. It was starting to feel like their numbers had increased so dramatically that, if they ever realized how powerful they had become, they could easily overthrow us. We weeded out the least popular ones in an effort to accomplish the mission undetected.

Don’t tell Emily.

Emily was very tired tonight after having played all afternoon in the park with her friend Natalie. We survived all of the bedtime preparations with minimal drama and, for her bedtime story, I read The Giving Tree.

When the story was finished, I put the book back on the shelf, turned off the light, tucked her in, and kindly kissed her goodnight. As I was kissing her head, Emily said to me, “You know those songs about trains? The ones with people on the trains?” I had no clue what she was talking about so I smiled kindly and told her so. She looked me in the eyes and continued, “Those train songs? I have it stuck in my head.” She tapped her head to show me where this song was stuck. “And Can You Feel The Love Tonight. That’s stuck in my head. And stumps. And trees. And wives and daughters and Emilys.” I kindly laughed, said goodnight once more, and legged it out of there before her stream of consciousness picked up any more speed.

Emily is three years and three months old today.

Jan was busy cooking dinner in the kitchen when I walked into the living room this evening. Emily was diligently picking up all of the toys on the floor (and there were a lot of them) and placing each and every one on the couch. I stood there and just watched her for a moment until she noticed me. Then I asked, “What are you doing?” Without breaking her stride she told me, “I’m tidying up.” Surprised and impressed I said, “That’s great, Emily. Why are you tidying up?” “Because a messy house is not a good thing.” And then she looked and me and smiled and started moving her little chairs into the middle of the room. I didn’t even have a chance to ask her before she informed me, “I’m making a film. I sit here on my bench and you can sit here and mummy can sit here on the red chairs. We’re going to watch videos.” I sat down, Sebastian sat on my lap, and Emily had us watch a series of Feist music videos that she told me we could stream from YouTube onto the TV. So we did.

Here is a song that Emily wrote last week. It’s called The Falling Song.

If I am not mistaken, parents are contractually obliged to inform the world when their child begins to walk. At least I think that’s what the tiny print said.

Well, “walking” is such a relative term. Sebastian, who has been pulling himself to standing for weeks now and, more recently, has been standing unassisted for minutes on end, has officially transitioned from quadruped to biped in that he took one full unassisted step last week and then fell on his face. OK, maybe that’s not really “walking” but it’s a step in the right direction!

I just noticed that I haven’t posted many photos recently. Here are a few goodies from a lunch we went to last month:

Scooting Along

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Upsy Daisy

Table Manners

Termite Training

I Walk The Line

Before I talk about where I’ve been for the past three weeks, let me begin with where I am right now. I’m at home. Sitting at my desk. With my feet up. Well, with one foot up. My right foot. That’s the one that is currently bandaged and swollen after being sprained this past week playing volleyball. Meh.

It could have been worse. The last time this happened, I was wrapped in a cast and was forced to hobble around with crutches in excruciating pain for nearly two months. That sucked! No, this is what I have self-diagnosed as a minor sprain. I can’t exactly walk on it but, knowing from personal experience what a bad sprain feels like, I’d say I’ll be out of action for a week to ten days. What a good excuse to work from home!

This will be a welcome change of pace, to tell you the truth. Life has been buzzing by in overdrive recently (hence the lack of recent blog entries). First my dad came to visit and stayed with us for two weeks. I finished recording voices for a long-running cartoon series. I started voicing a new cartoon series. I helped write the scripts for and acted in a series of short marketing videos for HP. I was on Catalan TV. And I had a week consisting of intensive 10-hour meetings everyday with our worldwide HP large format marketing department to plan the communications strategy for the upcoming year. Oh, and I also had a family to take care of. Maybe I’ll write about some of these things in more detail in the days to come. But just look at how absolutely insane life was for a while there:

Less than 3% of children experience true night terrors. Why must Emily continue to demonstrate how exceptional she is?

Perform a search for “child night terror” and, after reading the entirety of the first 10 search results, you will come to believe that a night terror is a sleep disorder, usually occurring in children aged 3 to 12 years, characterized by periods of extreme agitation with manifestations of intense fear, crying, and screaming in the middle of the night. Though still asleep, the child will sit up bolt upright in bed, with their eyes wide open, and scream. These episodes may last anywhere from 1 to 40 minutes and the child rarely remember any of the events of the episode after it has passed.

Now allow me to describe for you how our personal experience has differed from the clinical descriptions that we’ve read.

On almost any given night for the past couple of months, sometime between 11pm and 3am, Emily will wake up shouting bloody nonsense from her bed. If we’re lucky, she’ll settle down and fall back asleep in a minute or two. Just as likely, though, she’ll get out of bed and roam the house looking for something/someone to shout at. If this happens, we’re doomed. She’ll come into our room, disoriented and screaming, and we’ll try to escort her out so as not to wake up Sebastian. This just makes her even more upset and then the fireworks really kick off. If we try to speak to her to calm her down, she screams over us and tries to hit us. If we try to touch her or hold her, she runs away and hides in a remote corner of the room like a feral child. Then she tries to hit us again. Then she spits and hisses at us. All the while, shouting at the top of her little lungs, which all of a sudden don’t seem so little. The poor thing has no idea what’s going on. It’s a violent and scary episode which can last upwards of an hour! It’s hard not to try to interact with her but the experts assure us that there’s nothing we can do except make sure that she doesn’t hurt herself.

But the most incredible part of this intense and traumatic experience (for us) is when, after the terror has apparently run its course, she simply snaps out of it (wakes up), looks at me, and says something like, “would you like to play with the blocks and build a tower with me, daddy?” in the sweetest little voice imaginable. She does not remember very much, if anything, from the terror.

So I’m thinking my kid is seriously messed up, emotionally scarred, or, at best, possessed. But before flipping through the Yellow Pages in search of an exorcist, we thought we’d ask around to see if any other parents had been through anything similar. I was so relieved to find out that most of people we asked had experienced similar episodes – of varying degrees. Emily appears to have much more intense terrors than most but they seem to have settled down (a bit) over the past two weeks. I hope this is just a phase and that it comes to an end sooner than later – for her, for Sebastian, for us, and for our poor poor neighbors.