This winter we made a large effort to declutter the house. This was partly inspired by a couple parenting books I’ve been reading, and also a result of just trying to simplify our lives. The first things to get organized were of course the masses of toys, which have expanded slowly like molasses well beyond the play room. While some of this is to be expected, we were overdue for an overhaul. We took about 2/3rds of the toys away. The broken ones got thrown away and the ones that don’t see heavy use were put in the basement, with the idea being that the current small set of toys could be rotated out for those lesser-used treasures (after reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, I realize I need to do another pass. Highly recommended reading!).

One great benefit of this reset was that I could put out Dashiell’s desk, with all of his beautiful writing supplies (thanks much to Shelli for the nice pencils with grips), right in his playroom. I set it up attractively to get his attention, with colored papers and shiny objects. He responded right away and started writing more. For some time I’ve been writing him letters and putting them in his lunchbox, for Willis to read to him.

Now, he is starting to pick out many words on his own. I’ve had a tally going on the chalkboard of words he can read! Last night while reading a word he recognized, to, he explained to me that there is a word spelled t-o-o and a word spelled t-o and that they mean different things but sound the same. Earlier he had told me that when the C and H are together they’re pronounced “ch.” He also recognized words that start Tr, like truck. Some weeks ago, he let me know the the letters in the word spot are the same as the letters in the word stop. So they are!

Here is a grocery list penned by D:

Translation: Milk, bananas, cheese, peanut (butter)

In the same vein, Jeff the Amazing got a clever idea to generate mazes that were shaped in a name. He wrote a computer program to do this! Weren’t we surprised when D was able to quickly solve this beautiful “Dash” puzzle:

Jeff promptly made a more difficult version, with all 8 letters of his name–and it too got solved!  Jeff made mazes for each child in D’s class and handed them out…thank you Super Dad!

Along the same lines, we’ve been reading a very sweet book called Dear Bear by Joanna Harrison, which is about a girl who is scared of the (imaginary) bear she is sure lives in the broom closet under the stairs. Through an exchange of letters, the girl gradually overcomes her fear of the bear:

Dashiell is intrigued by the old-fashioned tradition of writing the author’s location in the upper-right hand corner of the letter.  I am too. What a treat it would be to receive a proper paper letter. I used to love getting letters from Grandma (Betty) Edwards, who would type them on on official bank stationary.

Although those days are long gone, the spirit of hand-written correspondence lives on in our favorite books (think books by Alexander McCall-Smith). So I was delighted when teacher Betsy asked up to write letters to our children that could be included in their term-end project:

Turns out D isn’t the only one with a new obsession.

Those of you who have also been watching The Great British Bake Off will no doubt understand my new-found enthusiasm for home baking.

Of course it’s not that new after all. Both Amanda and I spent our early years toiling away at Gould’s Bakery (now renamed), and I’ve always enjoyed decorating cakes.

Here is this week’s submission for the judges: my successful attempt at making Chetna’s Orange Savarin cake.

Doing his best Paul Hollywood, Jeff pronounced it “over proved” and “over baked” but I found its deep golden color very close to perfect. And it tastes great! Unlike my previous attempts to make some of the more complicated cakes from the show, I am quite proud of it.

I spent the day in Dashiell’s classroom on the day of his Valentine’s Day party, helping little ones pass out their cards to each other.  This is our first year making Valentines–addressing them, giving them, receiving them.

As in the past when parents are invited in, there were stations at which each child could do a curriculum-based, Valentine’s Day -inspired activity, like making a pattern with candy heart jellies,  or seeing how high one can stack candy hearts.

We worked hard on our Valentines (ahem, I did–although we all chipped in), which were small pillow boxes filled with a chocolate kiss. We designed each recipient’s box based on the colors we thought he/she would enjoy.  Here’s the one D made for Shelli (I managed to not photograph any others!).

It all started with the clothes.

Dashiell got a Timbers (MLA Portland team) outfit when he went to a game, and he would wear it once and awhile, usually with a long-sleeved shirt and long-legged pants underneath. He would kick the ball around in the yard, and sometimes try to play with the neighbor girl. I think at some point last Fall someone, maybe Shelli must have remarked about this outfit, “I like your style!”

Ever since then, Dashiell has referred to a soccer / workout outfit as his “Style.”

As the days have passed since that first became a thing, D wants to wear soccer clothes every day, and will assign himself the task of “wearing my Style.” Sometimes he is so desperate to wear his Style that he will pull filthy shirts and shorts out of the dirty laundry basket.

When Jeff was in Belgium and Germany a couple weeks ago, he procured a 4T uniform for the Federal German team (the team that won the World Cup last year). This outfit has become the undisputed favorite, since he is the only one at school with such a kit.

Ah, soccer at school. For some months now, D has attempted to play soccer with the bigger (7, 8, 9 year old) kids during After Care. This usually consists of him falling in the mud several times in pursuit of the ball. But to the big kids’ credit (thank you Jack, Carver, Addi, Angelo!)  they have taught him a thing or two and he is surprisingly adept and controlling the ball (dribbling). When he and I “play” in the backyard it is challenging to keep up with his footwork.

Last week “Coach” Willis (after car teacher, soccer Dad, role model…) and I were talking casually about whether D was ready for an actual soccer class, and Willis turned us onto what I am guessing will become our second home on weekends, the indoor soccer field.  Last weekend we got him some proper turn soccer shoes (very exciting!), shin guards (these having been requested several times) and took him over there. He was mesmerized! It was also nice to see so many of his peers there, rotating in and out of what seemed like endless matches.

We signed him up to try a class the following week. Every day this week, when he woke up, eyes still droopy, he’d ask what today was, and then he’d calculate how many days until Saturday. Could go the days go any slower?

The class (with 4 and 5 year olds) was a huge success. He listened to his coach and seemed to be the first to finish with every drill. He certainly ran the fastest and had the most enthusiasm!

D is actively wanting to read, now. We read street signs, and he loves to point out logos he sees on clothes and cars.  A few weeks I was astounded when he pointed to and said the word Quick in a book. We have been doing a lot more writing, too. Thanks to Shelli for working with D on these skills!

Here is the sweet card she helped D make for Jeff.

Also new this year: D signed his name on all his holiday Thank You notes. Most of them he signed free-form, without tracing to follow!

At D’s school, at the semester end, the school holds a “Culminating Event,” which really means Open House, where parents, Grandparents and special friends are invited to school for a program.

First the preschoolers sing onstage, then there are activities in each classroom.

In the Mazama II classroom, we were treated to a Circle Time song, in which each child demonstrated a way to “play drums.” To all of the adults’ surprise, each child found a unique way to make sounds with their 2 sticks. In this video I have only shown a few children but hope you’ll get the idea.

(In editing this video, I noticed D anticipated Samara’s drum move; I imagine there had been much practicing before we arrived!)

By far the best part of the day came next. Each child gave their family a tour of all the subjects that have been studied this term, all neatly arranged at different stations around the classroom. Each child used a checklist as an aid to show us each station. I was really impressed with the thoughtfulness of the presentations, and D was really into his clipboard! So into it that I plan on fixing us up a nighttime routine check list, in an ignite some interest into things like teeth brushing and Flo-venting (D’s inhaler).

D was asked by Coach Stan to join his “pre team” gymnastics class, because he felt he was ready for the next level, along with a smaller teacher-to-child ratio.

I was feeling a little cynical about this, thinking Stan just needed more kids in his class, until I saw these photos Jeff took.

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Well, here it is, first time on skiis!

I know, it’s not very exciting, but the exciting bits came later in the day, and the next day, when we skiied together down the bunny hill and even rode the chair lift several times! It was almost impossible to photograph or video, since the wind was blowing, fiercely at times, and the second day there were white-out conditions on the bunny hill. I’m amazed Jeff was able to take these! It was peaceful and gorgeous on other faces of the hill but there wasn’t time (or energy left) to bring D over there.

Here’s what happens after 2 days of first-time skiing, when you wait for a shuttle bus outside in a blizzard for an hour, and then you squeeze onto the bus, which is packed beyond capacity, down a dark icy road, embarking on 6 mile journey for 75 minutes.

Thank you to Austin (right) and to the man on the left (name unknown) and Eve (not pictured, but only inches to the left!) for your help, and to the nice people from Milwaukee who gave me updates of our progress, since I could not bring myself to look out the front window and watch us nearly slide off the road at least twice (and I couldn’t see anyway if I tried, since I literally could not turn around to see).

We also have some hilarious video of him sleeping sitting up, but it’s too dark to post here.

This year we headed up to Mt. Hood for the first time. The stars aligned and it snowed powder like crazy–a relief since it had been dry just the week before.  D was an awesome first-time skier (videos coming) and we hope to now get up on the mountain more this season.

Thanks to Grandpa Ed for coming all this way to join us for the holiday.

While doing holiday baking this season, D discovered he loves to play with “snow” aka all-purpose baking flour. Moving his cars and rescue vehicles through the blizzard, and creating crunch-ups, gives him (literally) hours of enjoyment.

When he was quite sick in the last weeks, I could judge how poorly he was feeling, if the option to play with flour wasn’t appealing to him…thank goodness that is behind us now and we are all mostly well for the holiday.

(And yes, the house is covered in a delicate mist of flour, but cleaning it up with his child-sized dustpan is also fun for him!)

Here is a special video, in three parts:

Enjoy the full version of Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters’s Mele Kalikimaka