You are 35 months old, although it felt like December-January lasted much longer than just a month.
We drove to Madison. We drove to MSP. We drove to Madison. We drove to Indy. We drove to Madison. We drove to MSP. I'm glad we only do that much driving once a year, and I can't even imagine how awful it would be if you were not as good a traveler as you are. Of course we make sure that we have snacks and activities, and we try to time our starts and stops well, but you really do make it pretty easy.
You were in Madison for Christmas a few days before Dad and I drove down. It snowed just enough one day that you complained about not having your snow shovel. You and Grandpa Lam made a giant snowball, at least the size of a basketball. That snowball was all that was left of the snow when Dad and I arrived. It was as if you had gathered up all of the snow from the lawn to make it, and it looked really funny sitting there on the brown grass.
You helped pick out the Christmas tree, and then helped Grandma Lam put the ornaments on it. Every morning, the first thing you did when you came downstairs was turn on the Christmas tree lights. We inadvertently gave you a lot of presents for Christmas. I had gotten a couple of things on sale several months ago, and given them to Grandma for a day that you were all sick of each other and needed a new toy. She misunderstood what I intended and wrapped them up as your Christmas presents. So instead of three or four new toys under the tree, you ended up with twice that many. I like to think that you won't grow up spoiled, but I fear that ship has sailed already.
The exploding volcano toy was a hit, as was a truck from Aunt Alice. Dad went out and found you the biggest balloon that he could (I talked him into a dinosaur shaped balloon to go with the dinosaurs from the volcano toy) and also added a trio of cheap hacky sacks to juggle for you. You like the Hungry Hippos game, which is fun. We happily ignore the actual game rules. You like to feed the marbles to the hippos or decide which hippo gets to eat marbles next. It makes me laugh.
After we opened presents, Dad and Grandma and I went to Christmas Mass. Then we all went over to the Skivers' house to visit with them and all of their kids and grandkids. Grandpa Lam made a delicious Christmas dinner, as usual. And then the next day we all packed up and headed home for a couple of weeks. Our New Year's was pretty quiet, which was just fine with me. We had some friends over to chat and then watch a movie. I don't remember how old I was the first time I stayed up to watch the ball drop in Times Square, but I'm guessing I was around 8 or 9. I wonder how old you'll be when you want to stay up for the first time, and if the pre-Ball Drop show will be any good. It will probably be like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and I won't know any of the performers or cultural references, and I'll just make disparaging remarks while you tell me how I need to stop living under a rock.
And then it was time to drive back to Madison. This time we left the dogs behind and had to pack up all of the presents for the Thornes and Spencers. We spent Thursday driving down and had a nice dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Thorne. You and Grandpa read one of the stories on his new Nook. (That was an ironic moment for me and Dad. That's what Dad had suggested getting me for Christmas, and then I told him all of the reasons not to. So he didn't get me anything yet, and keeps telling me that if I want something, I have to pick it out.)
Friday morning, we met Aunt Erin, Charlotte and Baby Ray at the Children's Museum of Indy. We started off in the gallery about trains, then we checked out the dinosaurs. They had a fun recreation of a dig in Montana, so we suited you up with some goggles and you dug around in the "dirt" for a long time. I kept putting the goggles over your eyes, and you kept pushing them up onto your forehead. Once you turned and looked at me, pulled them over your eyes and said, "I'm wearing goggles!" Then you turned back to the dig and pushed them back up. That made me laugh. A little while after that, someone mentioned that the thunderstorm was going to start by the dinosaurs, so we went to check that out. They used some strobes for lightning, which was a little too realistic for you. You started yelling at me to go in the house and get away from the lightning, which is what I always tell you when we read the encyclopedia book about weather and get to the page about lightning. "What do you do when it lightnings?" "Go in the house!" I never thought about adding the caveat, "Unless it's fake lightning from strobe lights." Clearly, I have been totally misleading you.
We also rode on their antique carousel, on a black horse named Pete, and went down the two story Yule Slide together. We checked out one of the science-y sections that Dad remembered from when he was a kid, but they'd changed it all around and he wasn't impressed. You discovered the construction site, though, and were terribly sad when we decided it was lunch time and wouldn't just leave you there the rest of the day. We spent that afternoon and night at the Spencers' house, having dinner and opening presents with them. They were generous as always; we had plenty of new music and new books to occupy us on the drive and new train track to keep us busy once we got home.
We stopped to have lunch with Jesse Grenz at UIUC on the way to Madison. So far, he only sees you once a year, so it's always fun to see his reaction to how much you've grown. You weren't talking the last time he saw you, so this was a big change this time. UIUC is a convenient stop coming from Indy, and then as the afternoon starts getting really long, we hit the stretch of highway that runs past the big wind farms, so that's a nice distraction. It's the second day of driving, from Madison to MSP, that is the really hard part and makes us really glad to be home.
And then I spent Sunday night getting all of your things ready to start pre-school on Monday, but more about that later.
Doing that much traveling can be pretty hard. But one of the reasons that I'm glad you travel so well is that family trips are some of the best memories I have from growing up. I hope that we're able to have lots of great family trips in the future. At the very least, we know you want to see the Grand Canyon, which you discovered on a placemat at Denny's. Yes, really.
Love,
Mom
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