The Post-Dubai Chronicles

It was the dinosaur emcee of the television hit "Claymation Christmas" that posed a deeply philosophical question: "What could be more Christmasy than a thick stack of syrup-drenched waffles?" I'll tell you what: holding a five-year old and three-year old son in each arm, cheeks pressed against the cold glass, watching good ol' Saint Nick sitting atop an Arlington County fire engine, waving at the crowds as he rode by on Little Falls Road. The truck itself was completely decked out with holiday lights, and a loudspeaker blared cheesy holiday tunes of Mannheim Steamroller quality. Henry was beside himself, dazzled with the scene, not knowing whether his deeper allegiance should be to the fire engine or to Santa Claus. Christian asked all the storybook questions about a hefty fellow fitting down a chimney, people who don't have chimneys, and how elves make Power Ranger toys.

To our way of thinking, other holidays just don't compare to Christmas. Thanksgiving (a distant second to Christmas) was a very nice time indeed, but there's just a lot less irony and guilt than the act of gorging oneself on turkey and all the fixings and calling this the giving of thanks. For the six out of the last seven Thanksgiving dinners as a couple - including this year's - Amy was successful at practicing what she preaches: that Thanksgiving is a holiday, and so why the heck would she want to be stuck in the kitchen cooking twice as much food as any other day of the year? She began some time before Thanksgiving Day, pointing out to various friends of ours that we are (1) not traveling out of town; (2) avid roasted poultry fans; (3) willing to bring a side dish and dessert to complement a turkey roasted in someone else's oven, potatoes whipped in someone else's bowl, and cranberries sauced on someone else's stove. Within hours she had a dinner invitation to the home of our good friends, the Wests. This arrangement was perfectly acceptable to me because, while I might miss the smell of a turkey cooking in my own home, Kylee West's pies are blue ribbon. Throw in Amy's apple pie, and I am in T-Day heaven.

It was very nice to see the Wests as well as our other friends, the Bakers. Each of our families has three children about the same ages; in total there were eight boys, aged seven and under, and one poor little girl, eleven months old! As you can guess, things were pretty crazy, but the children were easily outdone when the adults started into a rather heated discussion about international politics. Before the liberals at the table (having no defense based in logic) started tossing rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes at the conservatives, the one pacifist at the table brought out a glorious pumpkin pie with pralines atop, and suddenly the verbal debate ended. Perhaps pumpkin praline pie is the path to peace.

Since getting a Bosch mixer a few weeks ago, we've had a weekly stream of bread and other baked goods around the house. (I say it was a gift to Amy, but it was really an indirect gift to myself!) Amy has even declared Tuesday as baking day, now my favorite day of the week. There are few things as tasty as a turkey sandwich on real wheat bread made with a bit of molasses. Amy has also discovered a Chinese cookbook and separately a breakfast cookbook that have to-die-for recipes. Between home-baked bread, zeppelin pancakes and chicken chow mein, eating at our house has been quite good lately.

A few days after we put up our Christmas tree, we had our first snow storm in Virginia. The next morning, I took a half day off work to throw snowballs, make snow angels, and laugh while a stream of vehicles try to make it up the 2% grade outside our front yard, tires spinning intermittently throughout the morning with an eerie buzzing sound. I had more than one moment thinking how different this was to last year's Christmas in the Middle East . . . not because there was snow and cold air this year, but that it wasn't inside an indoor ski resort inside a mega-mall!

The kids have been extra cute lately, in an attempt to trick Santa into forgetting their less-than-stellar behavior for the last 11 months. In his own effort to "support our troops," Christian has been dressing up in Rambo-esque attire and running around the house saluting us and yelling, "Reporting for beauty, Sir." It is really as hilarious as it sounds. We haven't the heart to correct him inasmuch as this is providing us with hours of free entertainment. (This is akin to my parents' idea of child labor minus the dirt clods and heavy hand lines we had to move as toddlers.) Christian is also becoming quite the little optimist in our family. When Rich repeatedly threatened him with a lump of coal for Christmas, Christian asked him what it is. Rich - in an attempt to emphasize the distastefulness of receiving such a thing - explained that it is a dirty, round piece of garbage. Christian thought about it for a minute then responded, "Well, that's not so bad. Since it's round, I could always roll it around for awhile." Shoot for the stars, Christian, shoot for the stars.

Until next time, here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year!

Posted by Amy & Rich Bangerter at 8:25 PM | Permalink

So as some of you might notice (particularly those of you who actually take the time to read the blog), we haven't posted a blog since who knows when. There are a myriad of reasons (excuses?) that I will attempt to use to explain this phenomenon. Christmas was busy and saw a lot of firsts for our family: Amy's dad and mom spent Christmas morning somewhere other than in their own warm bed in Idaho; the kids didn't run out of steam opening Christmas presents this year (we have finally decided that bribing your child with ice cream on Christmas morning to get him to finish opening his presents can only mean he was given far too many gifts for Christmas); and Amy's brother Jordan and his family, who were visiting from Illinois, spent some of Jordan's hard-earned money on a puppet show. We also introduced the great Trader Joe's grocery store to them all. After the brief introduction, we proceeded to eat about 4 ½ boxes of Trader Joe's signature peppermint oreo cookies. (Amy's brother ate at least three of said boxes, we think.) We made lots of great memories and ate lots of great food, and Amy's parents washed lots of great dishes. In fact, it took Amy about two days after her parents left to relocate the kitchen sink. It took Rich another four days, but Amy secretly suspects he wasn't really trying that hard to find it in the first place.

It definitely wasn't a white Christmas in Virginia this year, but it did snow once in January. As a precautionary measure, we started to put the kids' snowsuits on as the first flakes were falling to ensure they got to make snow angels before it all turned to rain: slush angels just lack panache . . . and form. Christian was so disappointed with the lack of snow that he tried to talk us into letting him wear his snow boots at least once a day. We thought we would teach him a lesson and let him wear them on an hour long walk with some friends of ours, but as in many of our parenting experiments of late, such lessons ALWAYS hurt us more than they hurt our children: Christian's 45-minute complaint taught us all important lessons.

January was a month of discoveries: Henry discovered that drawing on the walls with marker and cutting Cyrus's hair, oddly enough, incur the same penalty. Christian discovered that protecting his super-hero dual identity is not as easy as it may at first appear. He has asked us not to refer to him as Christian or Bruze Wayne (his more masculine version of Bruce) while he is wearing his Batman costume, for his own protection, of course. He also refuses to go into the post office with me if he is out of costume because the last time we went there he was dressed as Batman; he rightly pointed out that if people see him with me in his street clothes, they will figure it out and he'll be done for. I have mixed feelings about how much he is enjoying his forays as the Dark Knight. On the one hand, his observations concerning dual identity are pretty astute for a five year old; on the other hand, I am somewhat suspicious of the fact the projection of the Bat signal often coincides with chore time. Sometimes I secretly hope his cape and mask will suffer some unfortunate mishap. I'm surprised that Cyrus hasn't already destroyed them by throwing them into the dryer and thus forming a giant polyester meteor. Cyrus is into everything now, and consequently has made many exciting discoveries in the world of physics; it is easier to traverse the stairs from an upright position when someone is holding your hand than it is to do it by yourself; birthday candles placed in the waffle iron while nobody is looking make for some pretty tasty waffles; no matter how hard you suck on a sippy cup, when it's gone, man, it's gone; the ground gets harder the taller you get; nobody else's shoes in the family fit your feet as well as your own; simply hurling yourself down a slide is not the best way to descend; no matter how naughty you are, if you give your parents really tight hugs and pat them on the back while doing it, all is forgotten and you live another day.

Another reason the blog has been suffering as of late is the fact that Rich went on a five-week trip to Istanbul. After he departed, for some reason Amy had trouble recognizing all the "cute" things the kids were doing that would be blog worthy. Indeed, many of the things that the kids and Amy did do during those fateful weeks shall remain between them and the child protective services division of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It wasn't until Rich was gone that Cyrus finally learned how to say Mommy when his continual cries of "Datty, Datty," failed to bring about his desired extraction from the crib. Sadly, it was a short-lived victory; as soon as Rich came home, Cyrus reverted back to referring to his parental unit as "Datty." He sure loves his Daddy. Henry most keenly felt the loss of the priesthood in our home. One night I caught him dunking his face in the bathtub and wiggling his body around. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was baptizing himself. I'm not sure it took since he is still, by far, the most mischievous of the three. Christian was the man of the house in his father's absence. One morning I needed to take a shower and Christian said that he would get breakfast (cereal) for everybody while I showered. I sort of hovered around the table for a few more moments, and then Christian blurted out, "Go take a shower, girl!"

Love to all of our family and friends we can't be physically near right now. We love and miss you and think of you fondly and often.

Amy, Rich, and Bangerter boys

"I thought you said your dog doesn't bite."
"That's not my dog."

Any guesses, you movie buffs?

Posted by Amy & Rich Bangerter at 8:53 PM | Permalink