Christmas at The Roost & in Bethlehem

"A merry Christmas to all!" from the holidazing inhabitants of The Roost on this December 25th.

Here we are wearing the new warm tops gifted by Grandma and Grandpa. Didn't Gloria pick out a fabulous sweater for Soren? (And he WILL wear it, probably until the polar bears turn brown.)

And here are the merry guests, the Testermans who traveled from afar: Jill from Portland, Ann & Bill from Anacortes. We're missing all the relatives we couldn't be with today!

Last night we attended our fellowship's Nativity pageant. It was Soren's first time "acting" in it, and he was assigned the role of a shepherd. (If he has been a girl, he would have been an angel. Strict gender segregation!)

As the narrator read the Christmas story, the children trouped in and took their positions around the manger. Soren's friend couldn't resist a wave to his parents.

Such earnest little worshippers! (Soren in mustard yellow, at left.)

We were amazed that Soren slept till 9 a.m. But he had hardly wiped the sleep from his eyes before he was reaching into his stocking. Santa had indeed been here in the night! He had nibbled at the cookies we'd left out for him, and drunk all the milk.

Papaw Bill eagerly awaits to see what surprises Soren pulls out of his stocking. P.S. This was his formerly favorite sweater, very Christmasy. I'm hoping to have him wear it for our family portrait to be featured in our year-end card.

Auntie Jill leans in close as the presents are unwrapped. A new box of watercolors, kiddie chopsticks, an origami wolf pack, felt acorn treasures, non-toxic food colorings--all good stuff for a 5-year-old Waldorf student.

Now, what's this beside the tree? (It wouldn't fit under.) It had Soren's name on it, and was wrapped in a sheet...

 

For a moment it was a horsie to ride...

And then its packing was cut free and a NEW MATTRESS uncoiled with a great bound! Now our basement bunkbed has a top mattress, MUCH better for climbing on. And Soren's surprise at the true nature of this gift was priceless. I don't think he had any idea.

We leave you with this impish grin from our little elfin boy. May your holidays be peaceful and happy. Thinking of you!

NOTE: Click on any image and then you might be able to view a slideshow of this blog's posts, depending on your browser. Ho ho ho!

Spelunking and sailing: The latest adventures

Today Soren accomplished his biggest cave exploration to date. He made it all the way to the pitch-black and somewhat scary end of an abandoned mining tunnel in the Anacortes Forest Lands. He and his grandparents had tried to explore it before without proper lights, so this time (with his mom and Aunt Jill along), we brought multiple flashlights.

Soren showed his characteristic caution for new situations, but once he made it timidly to the destination (not wanting to be in the lead), his confidence perked up, and with his own flashlight he made several solo trips in and out, laughing and singing and shouting echoes and collecting rocks--all the things that make spelunking so much fun.

It's very nice to have rendezvoused in Anacortes with Auntie Jill, who is visiting us from Portland. She's starting school (again) this summer to become a nurse practitioner, at OHSU. Congrats, Jilly!

In other adventures.... On the last day of March, we were honored to be aboard the first public sail of the 2012 season for the schooner Adventuress. She schooned around Port Townsend Bay in the rain, testing out her new mainsail (the biggest one on the west coast!), and Soren got to check everything out. (He'll be volunteer crew in no time.)
Soren's favorite activity? A close second to dogging down the watertight doors in the fo'c'sle bulkhead (just like in the Nautilus submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!) was viewing fresh-caught plankton with a video microscope in the deckhouse.
Now, when I was crew in 1999, we didn't have such fancy equipment. But no way could we have ever spotted an urchin larva with those old magnifying boxes! With this, we could even see diatom chains. Way cool.
Too bad Jeff couldn't come with us; he was manning a booth for Power Trip Energy Corp. at the Sequim Home Show. But my boy and I had a memorable sail together. Here's to many more.

P.S. If you're not a subscriber to Soren Talks, he also posted today:

http://sorentalks.blogspot.com/2012/04/im-all-boy-and-i-can-drive-tractor-too.html

Regaling our relations

We have been delighting our relations (as well as the other way 'round) with many visits this summer. Above, that's Soren and Jill in Portland in June. Here are some recent snaps of Soren with other relatives:

Canoeing on Heart Lake with Papaw Bill, in an aluminum Grumman. We've taken the canoe out twice this summer.

Sharing chocolate milkshakes with Daddy, Grandpa Jim & Grandma Gloria in the Steamboat Rock Cafe and chatting with the proprietor, who attended Soren's baby shower (!).

I would've photographed Soren at the Banks Lake beach, where he clamored to spend most of our visit, but I dropped my point-and-shoot camera on a visit to a friend's farm and broke the LCD screen. Jim set me up with a spare camera of his right as we were leaving, after the beach action. (Thanks, Jim -- my documentary work can continue!)

Soren was not the youngest at a Garrison/Rees family reunion at the Vashon beach property. One generation was represented by my mom and her brother, cousin, and cousin-in-law. The cousin-in-law's son (my age) attended with his partner and two-year-old. The elders were Soren's Great-Grandpa Gerry and his first wife's sister.

Here's Soren with the sister, Margie. The closest we'll come to knowing what his late great-grandmother (who died before I was born) would have looked like at 90. (Pretty good, I'd say -- Margie went for a paddle in the sea kayaks after enjoying ice cream!)

And the hand-cranked ice cream master passing on his wisdom of this time-honored family tradition to the youngest generation... A Vashon picnic wouldn't be the same without it.

Soren spent his first night in a tent after this reunion picnic, as he and I camped out on the beach afterward, accompanied by Ann & Bill. He slept like a log in the tent we shared, and was brimming with excitement over the activity every moment he was awake. Will have to do that again!

In two days, we're taking the train to Portland for another visit to Jill. It's a bit of a trek to take public transport, which starts with a bus ride (or in this case, a carpool) from PT to the Bainbridge ferry, a 30-minute ferry ride across Puget Sound, a 20-minute walk thru Seattle's Pioneer Square to the King Street Station, and a 3-1/2-hour Amtrak ride. We're riding south with another family with a 3-year-old, but coming north it will be just the two of us. Wish me luck!

Jumping for joy: He's potty-trained!

Yesterday, Soren and Jeff were on a "guys outing" to the PT Aero Museum and when it came time to use the bathroom, Soren wouldn't let Jeff into the stall with him. Our 2-1/2-year-old locked the door behind him, climbed up on the big toilet by himself, peed, flushed -- the whole works. Jeff reported that when Soren emerged, his pant waist was a little crooked, but that was all that needed parental follow-up.

Whoo hoo!

The breakthrough came 2-1/2 weeks after the day we switched from diapers to underwear and undertook an intensive training session. There were only two "dry days" (no accidents all day long) in that spell, and I was beginning to think we'd screwed up somewhere. The accidents (with both pee and poop) would happen randomly, but more often when Soren was away from home or deep into play and unwilling to take a break to use the potty -- even though he would be crossing his legs and holding his crotch. Sheesh, it was enough to make a parent flip!

But I'd read somewhere that three weeks was a common adjustment period, so I kept telling Jeff and myself we wouldn't panic until three weeks had passed. We did our best to be consistent in requiring Soren to do "practice" runs to the nearest bathroom each time he had an accident. He hated these, and would be screaming and crying as we steered him along with a hand on his shoulder, saying, "Soren wet his pants. Soren has to practice going to the potty. Go fast! Now practice going from the kitchen. Now practice going from the front door," etc. Our training manual called for 10 practice runs after an accident, but we contented ourselves with three or five.

I think it finally sunk in for Soren that he would have to keep up the hated "practice" every time he wet his pants; that it wasn't just a game we were playing for a little while. From March 2 on, he has not only stayed dry, he has also taken more and more responsibility for pottying himself without any help.

Now that that's behind us, we can look ahead... As Soren does here in last winter's rainbow stripeys. (I dressed him up one more time in this adorable but getting-too-small ensemble for this archival photo in mid-February before we handed down everything but the scarf and socks.)

Pottying milestones in just the last few days have included:

• Waking up from a nap on the big bed, which he can climb off of, and meeting me at the top of the stairs saying, "I have to go potty." And then going!
• Hopping down from the table as we lunched with Great-Grandpa Gerry, saying he had to go poop, and stopping me from following him to the bathroom with a traffic-cop hand. "No, Mommy, you stay here and talk with my grandpa [sic]." Then he pottied himself, accepting help wiping at the end.
• Peeing standing up, including outside at a roadside bus stop halfway through his first public transportation ride from Seattle home to PT (one ferry, two buses, and no bathrooms once we board the bus, which had me worried). We have to help him hold his penis for now, so it doesn't dribble on his clothes, but I very much doubt that will last much longer, at the rate we're going!

Nora and Gerry both witnessed Soren's skills, so they'll vouch that I'm telling the truth. We so enjoyed a four-day visit from Auntie Nono and a day visit with Great-Grandpa this past week. Here they are after helping Soren with a jigsaw puzzle. Our little boy has many reasons to be proud.

6 good reasons why I haven't been blogging

Mom is all tied up with something she calls "real life."

I keep meaning to blog, really -- and write myself a well-intentioned reminder in my DayPlanner at least twice a week -- but real life has been taking up all my spare time. Starting with...

1. The flu. I got it Monday and thankfully breezed through it in 12 hours, thanks to my super-mom immune system and Jeff taking the day off to spend with Soren so I could sleep for five hours straight in the middle of the day (minus the time spent puking). This is the first time I've been really sick -- nonfunctional sick -- since Soren was born, so I almost enjoyed the bedrest. (The last time I threw up, I was in labor.)

Soren is currently under the weather -- thankfully,
Nannie & Papaw are here to nurse him (and me!).

But just as I recovered, Soren started throwing up -- this was Monday night and he still is unable to keep down even liquids. Poor little guy -- he's exhausted and limp. Please send good thoughts his way for his speedy recovery!

2. Taxes. We do our own accounting and paperwork (Jeff takes some masochistic pleasure in this), and that includes my small business books and reckoning. My inputs and outputs are fairly minimal, so I tot up my expenses just once a year. I try to do this in advance of April 15, but this year the filing date snuck up on us.

I'd rather share a picture of Soren dressing up than me doing Quickbooks.

We had a babysitter watch Soren for two hours last Sunday so we could get all the forms in order, and just as we thought we were done and Jeff was planning to check the math tomorrow morning (April 14!), we realized we likely qualify for the "making work pay" credit and should fill out Schedule M and recalculate. Hmmm, is it worth $800? We think probably so.

3. A successful consulting gig. Successful in that my client raised $550,000 in three months and met a March 31 fundraising deadline that unlocked $1.1 million in challenge grants. Whew!

This has been a big time commitment for me, but I was pleased to play a part in closing out the Northwest Maritime Center's $12.8 M capital campaign. I was hired in January to strategize and coordinate a local publicity campaign for the final 10 weeks of fundraising. We did an ad campaign and half a dozen press releases. It was a nail-biter, right down to the final weeks, but the community came through.

Board members celebrate!

This was an especially meaningful win for me because I devoted four years of my working life (2002-05) as an employee of the Maritime Center, handling grantwriting and communications back when the brownfield property was being cleaned up and the existing dock rebuilt. When asked to help in these final weeks of the campaign, I had to say "yes" -- because if I said "no" and the challenge grants slipped away (think of how long it could take to raise $1.1 M from other sources in today's economy!), those four years of my life would have felt slightly less productive.

As it is, our town is now home to a truly amazing maritime center with great potential to grow and showcase our maritime heritage. And it's one of Soren's favorite destinations, since he can throw rocks on the beach, watch shipwrights at work in the boatshop, and run a loop that includes stairs, a long second-story deck, an elevator, then out to the end of the dock!

Here are two articles reporting the good news on April 1:
Peninsula Daily News
Three Sheets NW

4. Visits by the grandparents. Including the Eastern Washington pair, whom we hadn't seen since Thanksgiving. Jim and Gloria made the trek over the mountains in mid-March and we were very glad to see them. They were the first official guests in The Nest, and pronounced it a cozy retreat, although Gloria's keen ears still heard Soren crying one night. Soren has been saying Jim's name for a while, but he learned to say "Glor-a" while they were here.

Sharing a book with Grandpa Jim.

Grandma Gloria helping with a haircut.

Soren has also renamed "Grannie Annie" plain "Nannie" -- apparently that is a lot easier to say. His other grandparents, Papaw and Nannie, stopped by on their way home from their road trip to California at the end of March and now they are back on emergency call, helping to nurse Soren. Auntie Jill also came for a four-day visit in late March and the three of us made a day trip to Vashon to visit Grandpa Gerry. Gotta keep in touch with the relatives!

An appropriate bridge picture:
Soren helping Auntie Jill prep our pea patch.

5. Yard work. The backyard is slowly evolving, and now that the earth-moving around The Nest is finally at an end and spring is upon us, we decided to sow some grass seed. We want to a good-sized patch of lawn next to the concrete patio, but the soil there needed a lot of work. Many long hours in March were devoted (mostly by Jeff, but yours truly had to then be responsible for Soren) to breaking up an impermeable layer of clay with a mattock tool, hand-picking hundreds of small, round rocks (the legacy of glacial till), and raking it all smooth again. Gloria helped a lot the weekend she and Jim were visiting. After a nice dry spell, which was good for working the soil, regular rains came the evening after we sowed the grass-clover mix. It's sprouting beautifully now! (Notice also the new yellow gate that Jeff built.)

Jeff prepping our backyard lawn -- a lot of hard work!

6. Saturday morning garage saling. OK, OK, so it's only been taking up one morning a weekend, but I've been scoring some great stuff. Let's see...for Soren: a Radio Flyer red wagon, a pull-toy wooden locomotive, oilcloth for making him a water-play smock, loads of books, more Disney animated classics for our VHS collection, a plastic rocking horse for our backyard play-area, and a luggage cart from a free box that he likes to push around like -- well, like a push-toy.

Soren's homemade oilcloth waterproof smock for sink play.
OK, he doesn't really like to wear it. But it works!

For me: a breadbox for the kitchen that hides unruly clutter, a shapely wooden chair already painted yellow for The Nest, an in-the-box desk lamp also for The Nest, an electric citrus juicer (I've long wanted one of these -- bought a bag of oranges today to try it out on!), and a barely-been-worn blue Speedo swimsuit that fits me tolerably well. And more.

Looking ahead...the calendar is not so full, so I will try not to ignore my notes-to-self to blog more frequently. I really miss being in touch this way. Know that, dear reader!

Holidays with the Garrison clan

Soren met several members of his extended family for the first time over the holidays, at the (in)famous Garrison family reunion, which has been undertaken in the week between Christmas and New Year's for at least 12 years running. In attendance this year were my new-to-Soren cousins Forrest and Gwen (the two oldest above, both college students in Montana and Oregon respectively) and also my cousins Luka and Shanti (lower center and on lap at right). Cousin Melanie (upper center) was introduced to Soren last year. What a wacky, fun bunch!
We rented a big house at Fort Worden State Park, which is a 7 minute drive from our house in PT, so we got to home at night but showed up every day ready for group meals and action. Soren loved hanging out with the big kids, especially Shanti (5) and Luka (8).
They live on Quadra Island in British Columbia, and their mom Robyn (pushing, below) made the two-ferry trip down with them.

The hallowed tradition of "Spoons" was faithfully followed one evening. A simple card game with cutthroat silverware grabbing. Like musical chairs, there's always one spoon too few, so someone is knocked out of the round. I was runner-up to Gwen! Speed Scrabble and Apples to Apples were other favored forms of table-top entertainment.
Another fun activity out-of-doors was exploring the batteries and bunkers of early 19th-century Fort Worden. Everyone had their own flashlight, even Soren, and with my dad and I "supervising," we had some adventures indeed. At one point I wanted to turn around in a tight tunnel, leave the others, and go back the way we'd come, but Dad insisted we stick together. Soren never made a peep on my back, just shone his flashlight all around. Quite the explorer.

One day we hosted a gaggle of relatives taking a break from their nearby family reunion for a day visit to Port Townsend. They hail from California, Kansas, New York and other points of the U.S. Left to right are Karina, Scott, Cayley, Seth, Megan, and my mom, Ann.
We're out walking around Point Wilson and the lighthouse at its tip. This is all part of the state park, and I daresay it's one of the most beautiful places in the world that we are so fortunate to live in. Don't disagree with me!
Aunties Jill (above) and Nora (below) enjoyed beach time with Soren (watched over by Mt. Baker). We had a spell of warmish sunny weather that we soaked up.

And this reunion story would not be complete without Soren's great-grandparents, Karin and Gerry. Although she is frail, they make the trip from Vashon and fund this gathering so that we can all build up stores of happy family memories for the years to come. Thank you!
A span of four generations washing dishes...