Thomas is always good for a laugh :-)

Thomas got a TON of books for Christmas (yeah!) and so we spent part of Christmas Day reading his new books. At bedtime I negotiated with him that we would read one more book and then he would get ready for bed (teeth brushed, pajamas on) and then there would be a last book right before bed. Well, before we had even started the first book, the phone rang and it was Andi, calling from Uncle Wally and Aunt Joan's house, where a lot of the family was hanging out. I was talking to her for a while when Emmett decided he should go on and get Thomas ready for bed. Thomas wasn't happy about this since he hadn't gotten book #1, and so he told Emmett in a very loud voice,
"NO! That is NOT what we agreed on!"
Of course, Andi could hear what Thomas had said, and she just cracked up completely. The story traveled to the group assembled there and provided them with some good Christmas laughter.

That's our Thomas!

Thomas's first recital

Our Thomas...never fails to bring such a smile to my face.
Last Friday was his first recital at school, a chance for the ballet teacher to show off what she's been teaching them this year. It was, I have to say, just about the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I, of course, sentimental as I am, was crying before we sat down to watch. All the kids wore red shirts and Santa hats. I'll have to post pictures when I can (I'm actually planning during my break between semesters to post a huge backlog of photos to the web site and also work on redesigning the family web site), because words alone just don't convey how cute they all were.

There was one part where all the kids sat down and one child gets up and gets to do a solo and when they are finished they tap a child of their choice to go next (like duck-duck-goose, sort of) until each child has a chance to do a solo in front of the group. When it was Thomas's turn, he got up and at first it seemed like he was just going to do what the other kids did, but then he started really getting into it and his Santa hat dropped over his eyes and he was just dancing around like crazy with the hat covering his eyes...ohhh, you probably had to be there, but it was priceless. A lot of the parents came up and were telling us how Thomas stole the show. I don't know about all that, but leave it to our Thomas to make a spectacle out of himself. He must get that from his mother hahahahha.

The downer of the thing, though, was that before the recital we discovered that in addition to Thomas's DVD collection, the cash box from the club that Emmett is the treasurer of and Emmett's ipod, our burglar also got my new digital camera. I was very upset. But not nearly as upset as we both were when we realized the the burglar got Emmett's Dad's new camcorder with the only copy of our wedding video inside of it. That pretty much screwed up the rest of our night. We both felt like we'd been sucker punched. I think the whole thing was worse because of the fact that we keep realizing things are missing gradually so it's like a fresh round of loss every week.

But I'm pretty much over it now. It's just *things* and things at the end of the day don't mean all that much. We have each other and our health and that's all the really matters. I am slightly bummed about the wedding video, but I have my memories and a lot of people don't have a wedding video, so what's the big deal. Mostly it's just another addition to our debt load, and this year was pretty brutal in that regard, so what's one more debt at this point? Losing the camera sucks, but may give me an excuse to buy a digital SLR camera since they are coming down in price and I really want to start doing higher level photography.

Speaking of higher level photography, I am considering doing a photo book on San Francisco. So much has been done on the city that the biggest challenge will be coming up with something unique. I want the book to reflect my ambivalence about the city but to do it in a fresh way. I am hoping to incorporate the things I have learned in my classes on CA history, CA geography and CA food wine and culture. In order to do this well I am going to need a good camera that handles light well and for which I can get good lenses - I want to bring my photography up to the next level.

Okay, time to run - post office, Christmas shopping, cooking, and studying for my last two final exams.

Love,
Melissa

Thomas anecdote

Another one I don't want to forget....

His teachers say that he is one of the most entertaining kids in the class, no surprise there. :-)

We've been teaching him to brush his teeth by himself. This is not fun. Sometimes Emmett and I are a little overzealous about things that don't really matter in the long run and also we don't always have realistic expectations about what is age-appropriate. I guess that's what you get when you pair an only child with the youngest and only boy child - two people who are pretty clueless about kids. In any case we are aware of the problem and working on it.

So - I was sitting in the bathroom the other night with Thomas trying to get him to brush his teeth properly and he was messing around (as usual). When he said he was done, I said, "why don't you brush a little more on the front teeth? You want them to be clean, don't you? The girls will like you more if your teeth are nice and white and clean." (BTW - I do realize this is somewhat flawed strategy with a 4 year old, but it was pretty much half joke and half incentive).

So he brushed them a little bit more and then he rinsed his mouth out and set his toothbrush on the sink. He turned to me, made a little pose, grinned big with all his teeth showing and said, "How do I look, baaaaaby?"

I almost fell over laughing.

NEW JOB FOR EMMETT!!!

Congratulations to my wonderful husband on his new job!

We are so excited. It has been a VERY challenging 8+ months that he was either not working or working sparsely and if it hadn't been for UCSF, student loans and some small contracting gigs that seemed to materialize out of thin air when we were down to our last dollars, I just don't want to think about it - suffice to say, God is good. And we are stronger as a couple and as a family for managing these challenges and finding our way through them.

I know it was a bit disappointing for Emmett to have to turn away from the idea of self-employment, but I think that for now it was the right decision. Part of growing up I guess is realizing what is best for you in reality, which may be very different than what you think will be best for you in your daydreams. However - I still hope to be able to support him to get to law school at some point. I do think he would be happy with that and would do very well. However, I also think he would do very well if he could advance to sales management. I could see him being a wonderful sales manager mentoring other people in their sales career - he has a great deal of empathy and is outstanding at walking that line between the best interest of the company and the best interest of the employees.

Okay - but I've talked so much about what we're NOT doing, but so far not much on what we are. Emmett is going to work as an account executive at a company called parature (http://www.parature.com). I know it's a CRM software/service, but not a whole lot more at this point. I also know that the salary is more than the last job and that it pays commission which should in theory double the salary - what a coup that would be for us!!! It seems like the product will be saleable and that the commission structure makes this very manageable, so we are keeping are fingers crossed but are incredibly optimistic about 2007. Please send good wished and good luck our way as he embarks on this new career. It's a start up so there are some stock options (you never know!) - not enough to get rich, but maybe someday a nice nest egg. More relevantly to me is the idea that working for a start up may allow him to achieve and move up faster than he would in a larger, more bureaucratic environment.

So - congratulations to Emmett - I love you, baby.

He starts on December 28 - the greatest Christmas present our family could have gotten.


Love to all of you,
Melissa

Pre-Holidays

It's been such a long time between posts, it's a constant battle of wanting to be more regular and just not having the time, especially when there are so many things that I still want and need to do. A lot of my spare time lately has been feeding my sudoku addiction - I'm way too into it, it's a total addiction. I have literally stayed up all night working a puzzle. I keep thinking that I'm going to really master it, but I think I'm deluding myself.

Final exams are coming up next week and then one more semester to B.A.!!!!!!!!!

I'm also looking into my prerequisites for my Master's in psych nursing - no rest for the wicked or the weary!!!!