Mom, I have to go!

Oliver stopped eating his dinner suddenly last night. "All of a sudden I'm eating dinner, all of a sudden I'm sick." We were eating outside, so we'd bundled him in all of our spare outer garments, but he was still cold. Now his tummy hurt, and he no longer wanted to eat. He cuddled me in my lap for the rest of the meal, eyes streaming with mucus. Yuck!
This morning we talked about being sick. He said, "When I'm cold, I'm sick. I'm not cold, I'm not sick." "Well," I said, "I was going to keep you home from school today. Do you think you can go?" That's when he said it, using the 'Mom, you're ruining my life!' kind of tone: "Mom, I have to go!" "Of course you have to go," I responded. "They're expecting you." Duh, mom.

'ativity scene

Oliver was quite excited about setting up the 'ativity scene this year. We bought it last year after Christmas, so this is really its first year with us. As with last year, Oliver bemoaned the lack of a sheep. One simply cannot have shepherds without sheep, now, come on! So this year we added a couple of sheep and a chicken. Notice the prominence of animals in this scene "behind the bushes." Note, also, the lion in the background--"Lions live in caves, you know." It's wonderful and a bit disarming to anticipate Christmas with an almost-four year old. Here's hoping anticipation and advent are lively among you!

Succumbing to Electronic Sharing

Over the last approximately 3 and 3/4 years, we have heard occasionally that more photos of our beloved family are desired. Never quite able to judge the right frequency of OP updates and not a little worried about filling your inboxes, we've been thrifty on the photo front. In recent months we have been very grateful for the blogs set up by our friends. Whether we hear from you often or rarely, your photos and commentaries are helpful and inspiring to us. We're glad to hear from you--and to prevent the feeling that we are voyeurs, we're joining the fun of electronic sharing. We don't plan to type anything brilliant, but we will try to upload some photos from time to time. Here's one of Oliver giving Ellie a ride in his orange backpack (what fun to find new uses for familiar items!).