Best Christmas Ever....
Just got back last night from Madison,
Wisconsin, where I enjoyed my best Christmas ever.
I have the most amazing family to enjoy Christmas
with, thanks to my daughter Anya, who, along with her husband Erik, is raising a
blended family of eight wonderful kids, ranging age now from five months to
eighteen years.
If you can imagine being in a menagerie like that and never once hearing the parents yell...
And kids who may fight but somehow usually resolve their disputes on their own, pretty much the way their parents would resolve them...like when Zack (age 7) wouldn't give up his turn on the computer because the game he was playing had crashed several times. So the others (Devin, age 15; Rya, age 9, Ava, age 13) said fine, we are setting an alarm for half an hour, and when it goes off you let the next person have it, no matter how many times the game crashes. All resolved without a second of parental intervention, down in the rumpus room in the basement, and neither mom nor dad even around to witness because they are upstairs looking after five-month-old Rowan (aka "RoboBaby) and three-year-old Ani.
Ani is a bit of a "wild woman" and ran me ragged, but happily so. From the moment she is up she is going a hundred miles an hour. And she is very determined that things have to go her way. Her brilliant siblings have learned how to manage that, though. Like when Ani woke up grumpy from a long nap and wanted Gramma to put her Dora the Explorer program on the tv. But I don't know how to work the contraption, and mom & dad were away, so I called Rya in to help. Well, Ani was having NONE of that. Gramma had to do it or Ani would have a conniption fit. So Rya quietly sets up the remote so that all I have to do is hit one button. Voila! Problem solved. Ani thinks Gramma did it all.
Ok, I'm biased. But I think any outside observer would also be amazed at the calm and loving interplay in such a household.
I came back with a whole lot of pics, of course. And I am learning how to use the video feature of my digital camera. It seems to capture more in poor lighting conditions than the still feature does, so I used it a lot this time. It's going to take me a while to put everything together, but here's a sample of photos and video I've put into an iMovie, titles and all, about our Christmas day pool party made possible at the hotel they put me up in for the duration. (The house is WAY too small to add a grandmother to the mix. House additions to better accommodate the menagerie plus guests are in the planning stage.)
I have so much more to write about those four wonderful days!
If you can imagine being in a menagerie like that and never once hearing the parents yell...
And kids who may fight but somehow usually resolve their disputes on their own, pretty much the way their parents would resolve them...like when Zack (age 7) wouldn't give up his turn on the computer because the game he was playing had crashed several times. So the others (Devin, age 15; Rya, age 9, Ava, age 13) said fine, we are setting an alarm for half an hour, and when it goes off you let the next person have it, no matter how many times the game crashes. All resolved without a second of parental intervention, down in the rumpus room in the basement, and neither mom nor dad even around to witness because they are upstairs looking after five-month-old Rowan (aka "RoboBaby) and three-year-old Ani.
Ani is a bit of a "wild woman" and ran me ragged, but happily so. From the moment she is up she is going a hundred miles an hour. And she is very determined that things have to go her way. Her brilliant siblings have learned how to manage that, though. Like when Ani woke up grumpy from a long nap and wanted Gramma to put her Dora the Explorer program on the tv. But I don't know how to work the contraption, and mom & dad were away, so I called Rya in to help. Well, Ani was having NONE of that. Gramma had to do it or Ani would have a conniption fit. So Rya quietly sets up the remote so that all I have to do is hit one button. Voila! Problem solved. Ani thinks Gramma did it all.
Ok, I'm biased. But I think any outside observer would also be amazed at the calm and loving interplay in such a household.
I came back with a whole lot of pics, of course. And I am learning how to use the video feature of my digital camera. It seems to capture more in poor lighting conditions than the still feature does, so I used it a lot this time. It's going to take me a while to put everything together, but here's a sample of photos and video I've put into an iMovie, titles and all, about our Christmas day pool party made possible at the hotel they put me up in for the duration. (The house is WAY too small to add a grandmother to the mix. House additions to better accommodate the menagerie plus guests are in the planning stage.)
I have so much more to write about those four wonderful days!
Posted: Fri - December 29, 2006 at 03:04 PM
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My name is Georgia NeSmith. "Random Acts of Love" is my weblog, but I have numerous other websites you can link to through this blog. "Random Acts of Love" began in February, 2004, and I have been posting to it fairly steadily ever since, although there are a few months when illness and other issues have kept me away. I write about nearly everything under the sun. I also do a lot of photography and digital art and I teach journalism online. Recently I've also started posting videos to YouTube.
When I am not doing that, I am trouble-shooting Mac computer issues. Oh, yeah. I also do a lot of community activism. (Can anyone say ADD? I call it AEG -- "attention excess gift.")
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"The difficult I'll do right now
The impossible will take a little while."
-- From "Crazy, He Calls Me"
written by: Bob Russell / Carl Sigman
Sung by Billie Holiday
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
-- Margaret Mead
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all..."
-- Emily Dickinson
"In our sleep, pain, which we cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.
-- Aeschylus, Agamemnon
-- From "Crazy, He Calls Me"
written by: Bob Russell / Carl Sigman
Sung by Billie Holiday
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
-- Margaret Mead
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all..."
-- Emily Dickinson
"In our sleep, pain, which we cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.
-- Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Published On: Aug 25, 2007 11:26 AM
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