Hex nut hanukkiah

Jordan made this fantastic item at school today. The base is a CD. Love that!

Construction update

The construction is ongoing. The good news is that our walkway is no longer our personal rain zone. We used to always have water dripping on us when we stood at the front door, through the walkway above, even when it wasn't raining (below left), and our apartment always had a mud puddle in front of it, even when everyone else's walkway was dry. Now the ceiling is gone (below right). So it doesn't drip!

Perhaps more importantly, the rotten beams have been replaced with sound ones, the better to provide a roof over our heads.

Our interior is unchanged from ten days ago, which is a bummer. The manager says they are expecting a drywall estimate in a couple of weeks. I think that means January at the earliest.

Furlough

Furlough means vacation, right?  From the army, or from prison.  Or from ... your job.  Ahem.  The University of Maryland, in response to 20% budget cuts or some such awfulness, will be mandating furlough days for most employees.  Meaning, don't bother coming to work because we won't be paying you.  They might close campus.  (But classes will not be cancelled.  ?!?)  This even applies to those of us paid by grants.  This seems especially silly, because the money will revert to the grant in my case, meaning I will just work on the other days.

Thank goodness I have consulting work.  I submitted my first invoice today.

Nutcracker bliss

Jordan and I went to see the Nutcracker last night with Bekah, Suzie, and Ava, and wow, what a great time.  It was risky:  the 5:30pm performance meant dinner at 4pm and a purse full of snacks, and a late bedtime after that since it's a two-hour show.  It was Jordan's first full-length performance, and first big theater experience... who knew how it would go?  But he was enthralled.  He wore whiskers and fierce eyebrows and a pink nose like the Mouse King (courtesy of Mommy's makeup drawer - Ava and Suzie were elegant ballerinas with pretty dresses and their hair up tight).  For the whole show, he sat on his booster cushion watching every inch of the action and co-conducting the orchestra.  He was thrilled when I told him that some of the dancers were young kids:  he looked up at me with his face shining and said "The same age as me, Mama?"  He whispered excitedly with Ava about who they liked the best.  Every new scene brought a new persona for him to fantasize about - the Mouse King, the Nutcracker Prince, the Whirling Dervishes, even the Peacock.  The production is really amazing - the visuals are all by Maurice Sendak, and the stage effects have his cartoon-drawing sensibility rather than trying to look "real."  I loved every minute of it.  It was amazing to be there half as a kid myself and half as an adult, remembering when I had seen the Nutcracker with Mom in San Francisco, now realizing how beautifully the dance and music convey the story even to a four-year-old.  I think this is the beginning of a great new era of parenthood:  getting to do wonderful kid stuff, and appreciate it fully because you are with your kids.  

School news

Jordan's weekly newsletter is below. Although there don't happen to be any pictures of him here, his teachers have told us that he is VERY excited about the beginnings of spelling: when they put up the C-words "clown," "crab," and "chocolate" on the board and asked which one doesn't match, Jordan was practically jumping up and down with his hand in the air to say it was "chocolate" because it has a "ch" sound at the beginning instead of a "k" sound. He put me through the same exercise at dinnertime a day later. fun stuff!

Construction update

Construction proves that you can get used to anything. The walkways are still in the temporary state we documented over a month ago - safe, but ugly. The water running down the face of the building has damaged the exterior walls, so the ceilings and the siding have been partially removed. Now, water drips through the walkway above us, meaning it rains on our head when we stand at our front door, and there is always a muddy puddle for us to track in. The workers have kindly put up plastic sheeting to divert some of the water, which gives the whole place a sort of a magic-tent-meets-shantytown effect.

As of this morning, there is construction inside our apartment as well, since the water damage involves the interior walls. I guess it was a real mess while they were working - I wasn't here. They left the place in safe condition. There's no way to be perfect, though, and we found a loose staple in the rug, which was worrisome. Here's Aaron looking for more.

Lest you think we are miserable, we had a great Thanksgiving weekend, with three separate feasts - and everyone we visited had a piano. Suzie instructed Aaron in using his fingers, not his palms.

A big hand for the turkeys

Can I get away with one last Thanksgiving post? Jordan and Aaron both made handprint cards at school. Jordan wants everyone to notice that his turkey has a black eye and a fat belly and long feet, and he informs me that the red squiggle is the turkey's long, long tongue.