Braces

Here's our newly metallic Elizabeth. She only got the upper braces today. She'll be back in 8 weeks for the lower. Besides a headache, she's doing fine. After reviewing the "don't eat" list, she's a little sad that she won't be enjoying corn on the cob, caramels, or Fritos for a while. Right now she's taking a well deserved nap. Time to add a new tag for the blog: braces.

Four

Happy Birthday, Colleen! Cake will come later. I promise.

This morning I asked Colleen what she wanted for breakfast, waffles or a bagel. She looked around the kitchen curiously and said "I don't see a cake." She thought the cake came first thing, like finding a quarter from the Tooth Fairy under your pillow or something. Cake will have to wait until her party on Saturday but she did recieve three phone calls today with special birthday wishes from Nanny, her Godmother Jennifer, and Nonna (on her own birthday vacation in sunny Iowa).

And... she and Cousin Amelia had their first fight at lunch. Amelia really wanted to trade her sippy cup for Colleen's water bottle. Amelia tried to hand it to her but Colleen said, "I have my own water. I don't want yours." Amelia grunted and tried again a few more times, with pointing and everything. Amelia finally gave up and chucked the sippy cup at Colleen's head. She's pretty strong and of course hit her mark. Colleen whipped around and shouted at her, "Amelia, you are so rude. I don't like you anymore and you are NEVER getting my water!" Amelia screamed right back, something which will in the near future be "MINE!"

The argument didn't last past Amelia's tears because Colleen then gave her a kiss on her cheek and told her "Poor little kid. Don't be sad. " Amelia forgave her too, leaned in for another kiss and patted Colleen on her shoulder. Amelia then handed her some watermelon to share and Colleen accepted it. Awww.

Colleen just came in as I'm writing this. She wants to know why her name is everywhere. I told her that I'm writing about her birthday. She wants you all to know that she looked but there was no cake.

Everything but Rosebud

I took the kids sledding this morning.

They've been bugging me and Cate for a sledding trip all season. Our sledding opportunities are fairly limited by sunlight and school hours, and by, frankly, our own lack of desire to take the kids sledding. That's because everyone loves to go down hill and nobody loves to go back up.

This morning was the harmonic convergence, however. I woke up in a good mood, though maybe not overly rested. It was warm today, and dry, so we weren't going to get snowed or rained on and we had 40-degree temperatures or so.

We had four people and three sleds, but then again, Colleen isn't ready to go sledding alone. Elizabeth and Robert, though, definitely are! See the video:



Now, like most sledding trips, this one seemed doomed to disaster. But it wasn't until our last trip down the hill that we stopped courting it and it found us.

Silly us. We decided we would go down the hill three sleds abreast, starting from the top of the hill. There are two sledding runs, with a tree and a stump in the middle. I found us drifting toward the left, toward the tree, and tried to slide us even further left to get around it. But, well, not so much. All three of us hit the tree, and hit it hard. I twisted to try to take the brunt of it and I flipped over the stump. So did Elizabeth, landing square on her back in pain. Robert lost a boot but quickly gave me a thumbs-up.

Elizabeth has a nice big scrape on her back and another one near her elbow. Robert has a scrape and a bump on his forehead. My tailbone and right arm are a little sore.

Colleen wasn't affected -- we didn't take her down on that run. I needed an arm to hold onto her when we went down the hill and that didn't mesh with our plan.

But we had a great time. Next time we'll choose a less-challenging hill.

Maybe.