hand made

One of the nice things I've noticed about my kids lately is how giving they've become. There was a definite selfish stage there around age 6 that went on for a while and was making me crazy. Billie decided to make a doll for Sloane a couple weeks before her birthday- we worked together on this project each night as Bill read stories to the littles and sometimes stayed up late at the sewing machine. Billie did 95% of the work and the doll actually has and embriodered face on her other side, which is sleeping, so you can just flip her pink/purple/yellow hair over to see that.

Jackson carefully wrapped up his remote control car, which Sloane is always asking to have a go at, tied it with a bow and gifted it to her. Cort (I) picked out a Little Einstiens computer because they use a defunct computer in most of their games as a cash register or to keep track of the books being checked out when playing their most frequent game 'library'. Cort uses a lot of pseudonyms to check out more than his alotted amount of books. Sloane (looking official behind the defunct computer): What's your name? Cort: King of Jedis.

Back to the kindness- when Billie had her concussion she and I spent one night in the hospital. The kids were there for her fall, watched quietly as Bill and I got all flustered and concerned. They sat silently worried in the hallway chairs while doctors, nurses and we all hovered over Billie for an hour or so. Other people played with them and made paper airplanes with them while we ran tests and got checked in, moved to the pediatric hall (with 6 rooms). Eventually Bill took them home to see Nanna and assured them Billie would be fine and home soon.

The next day Bill brought us home from the hospital. Nanna had the girls drawing a welcome home banner for Billie and Jackson was running back and forth sneakily and only gave me a quick hello, obviously busy at work. Billie was still pretty wiped out that morning- Bill carried her to her bed. The littles went right in to give her hugs and see her. The first chance he got, Jackson snuck in to her room and I entered to find pokemon cards everywhere. He had sorted through his entire deck (let me assure you this is no small feat) and picked out all of the 'cute' characters, stacked them up and wrapped them and addressed them to Billie, complete with a few card covers to keep your most special cards in top condition. Billie was smiling and looking over her new cards for two minutes before rolling over and going back to sleep.

These trauma situations aren't exactly fun but it was nice to see how thoughtful everyone was not just to Billie, but to the whole family. We played lots of card games in bed, read stories and watched endless episodes of Teen Titans on DVD together.

Sloane

Sloane turned five this week. We had a family night with cake and gifts and a party with friends yesterday. I requested no gifts or a picture drawn by her friends and the families all came up with such thoughtful things- one boy made a necklace, as you can see in this photo. Another friend drew pictures of Sloane at her birthday party and made it into a book. All day the kids and I made cupcakes, cake, blew up balloons and hung decorations, we were feeling festive all day. Cort informed us that "You have to have a costume for a PARTY!" so he wore his helmet and Jackson's Kabuto PJs all day. We played musical chairs, hyperdash and Billie and Jackson hid a bunch of number 5s around the house and the kids ran around hunting for them to see how many they could find. It was a wonderful party and Sloane enjoyed every minute of it.

Happy Birthday to my very big girl!

The view of the mountain from our window

Billie as Hermione Granger

The magic show performance for CHILDREN at the SCHOOL, reminiscent of the Brownie troop gathering upon our arrival in Turkey.

Jackson is still here too, he's growing up and growing his hair out like Harry Potter. Bill keeps telling me to cut it, but it's Jonas Brothers style, right?

still cute

Sloane and Cort are still really, really cute. Sometimes naughty...even cute when naughty.

Bonk

Billie got a concussion three weeks ago. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me- much more of a focused fear than the time Sloane wandered out of the fence in the backyard.

A nice day outside, we put the scooters in the van and headed to a nearby park. The kids were having fun and we decided to go for a walk along the paved path. Billie and Jack were up ahead scootering along at not-very-fast speeds when Billie must have hit a crack in the pavement, thunked over and there was silence. No cry or hugging herself- just laying there on the path very still and silent. It was frightening not to hear her cry.

She was unconcious, with a teensy tiny, not bleeding scrap on the side of her forehead. Bill swooped her up we booked it back to the van and got to the hospital within 20 minutes of her fall. She woke up as we were walking to the van and got steadily better from there. There was a CT scan when we arrived at the hospital to show no sign of bleeding or damage to the brain. Relief. But I stayed worried for days afterwards.

The thing is, she could have been wearing a helmet. And it's hard to face that an accident like this could really have been prevented by Bill and I reminding her to put on her helmet.

A few days of not leaving Billie's bed (not bed side, I actually curled up in her bed with her for three days) I had a lot of time to think. I would say that, as parents, we are pretty slack on the safety scale- the kids climb trees, play outside unsupervised, go rock climbing, we use car seats MOST of the time, wear helmets on bike rides only when you're older than 6 and going further than the driveway, we don't get the flu shot and we never ever EVER use hand sanitizer (gasp!). While we were in the hospital I just kept thinking "how did this happen? We do 14 things more dangerous than helmetless scootering EACH DAY!"

I don't think we're negligent; I feel like we take precautions when something has the potential for danger; littles must hold hands when crossing a busy street and all that. But I also really want the kids to grow up with a strong sense of security and not set them up with the idea that something could go wrong at any turn. I don't want them to examine every project/idea/outing for any potential disaster...just be able to identify obvious danger and make smart choices to avoid it.

What is up with a two year old needing more safety gear than an astronaut to use a three wheeled scooter on a 4 ft square patio? What speeds and heights will this child be getting to at age two in this environment? It just doesn't seem rational to me.

What's so bad about a skinned knee? Or chicken pox?




But if you had told me I could have prevented Billie from this trauma, which is already just a funny story to tell for her...(so it's my own trauma) I would have agreed to have her wear a helmet every day for a year. This is a tricky line for me between safety and overprotectiveness. I guess I'll just have to keep figuring it out as I go.

Scenes from the stable

Today the kids picked out an activity from our 'holiday box.' The holiday box is a thoughtful, handmade gift from a friend which contains cards with activities and ideas for projects that have to do with Hannukah, Christmas or the winter season. Create your own nativity scene. Sloanes is made up of baby dolls and cute animals, Billie made one with pokemon (2 pickachus as the kings) and Jackson made a bionicle version...notice how the green bionicle cradles the Jesus bionicle...isn't that sweet? The three kings have arrived with heavy weaponry.
Also related to this subject was our conversation yesterday when Sloane called me over to tell me that she loves Jesus just as much as she loves Santa. She explained that this way Santa wouldn't say "Sloane loves me more...so take that, Jesus!"
I didn't know what to respond so I did my usual 'okaaaaaaaaaaaaayy' thing that I say when I have to take time to process what they're telling me. Apparently she has noticed that there's some connection between Jesus and Santa but clearly she's not gotten all the roles worked out.
Jackson has mentioned to me quietly a couple times that he thinks it's really parents who load up the stockings while the other morning at breakfast Billie wondered aloud "I just don't get how he can carry all the packages at once?!" Still, willing to believe despite being puzzled with the details.

Nunderwear

We got to visit with this adorable nun. She had worked for the secret service until retirement at 55, didn't think she'd live long so decided to come to the monestary. Now at 76, she's still going strong, hangs her own laundry out, grows her own food and her house doesn't even have indoor plumbing...can't even imagine how much work that would be in winter. I love our encounters with amazing people, stories and history.

new Sofia

Sloane and Cort are dear friends and she's always taking care of him. Yesterday he told Bill "I like flowers, for real!!" Weapons and baby dolls are his favorite toys. Cort wasn't sure what to make of this painting, a lovely courtyard at the monestary, a walk in the woods.

Sofia close-up

We also like all the funniness of being overseas again. Chuppa Chups enormous advertisement, broken playground equipment we let our kids play on, making friends with stray animals and interesting European art.

Welcome to Bulgaria

So, we pretty much love Bulgaria. I think I might even be getting good at moving...it's taken some practice, or maybe we got lucky this time; I'm not sure I can take the credit. We're doing well here. After our initial 4 days of running around the house up and down the five spiral staircases, down dark hallways, peeking into room after room and singing "I think I'm gonna like it here!" as Annie does when she arrives at Daddy Warbuck's. We were able to make some friends, visit an orphanage, get in some traditional Bulgarian dancing, try out some new foods, learn to love instant coffee, become obsessed with a Plants vs. Zombies, count bathrooms, get totally sick of spending time with each other and then learn to enjoy eachother again.
So, that's been our whirlwind of a new life. Going from tae kwon doe six days a week, friends at the park 4 days a week, library 3 times a week, drama class, camps, tennis courts, bikes, piano lessons, visits from family, dinner invitations, free concerts, swimming pools- I could go on and on about the things we got to do with our Virginia family. Well, we went from that to a screeching halt of nothing. No phone calls, no phone, no emails, no internet, no sports, no friends, no Life cereal, no life. It was a shock to my system and I got a little insane on some days, insisting that we all put on boots and coats and go out over the 547 potholes in the not-really-what-you'd-call-a-sidewalk to get to the cafe, get myself some nes-cafe in a plastic cup with a straw and fresh bread, tomatoes, feta cheese, cucumbers...just to get out of the house and do SOMETHING really.
I sent out friend-fishing emails and invited perfect strangers to stop by the house any chance they got. It worked, I made some friends, some playdates and a strange thing started to happen- especially between the bigs who'd been fighting recently- they started to say things like "wanna play mastermind?" "sure!" and sort of started getting along because they had to. Two days ago we woke up to snow all over and when it got dark we played tennis in the basement, which is now a tennis and racquet ball court, the other room is good for scooters and skateboards. We sing this line a lot now "The tennis court is...down the stairs. Inside the house? Oh boy!"

Last weekend we went for a beautiful walk in the mountain woods. We live on Mt. Vitosha and look forward to skiing soon.

Cousins

The joys of cousinhood...