Fabulous news at the Hojnacki household! Actually two exciting developments: first, Grace has moved from her crib into a big-girl bed, which is noteworthy in and of itself, but not quite as interesting as the fact that this has allowed us to pursue our new winter pass-time: mattress surfing! The second happy accident has happened since giving up on shoveling the back half of the driveway about a month ago. We figured, hey, why bother? We'll just drive over it and when March hits it will all melt anyway, right? Only problem being the massive amounts of snow in February and the complete lack of a thaw thus far in March. So the recipe seems to be: take two months of heavy snowfall, add freezing cold temperatures, drive over repeatedly and, viola! an ice rink.
If you think that over 100 inches of snow, fourteen consecutive and numerous other non-consecutive days of no sun, three kids stuck in the house passing cold and flu bugs endlessly to each other, and a husband enduring the ridiculousness of a corporate merger would be enough to drive one into the pursuits of mattress surfing and back-yard ice skating, you would be right on the mark. It has been a long, long winter and the end is only in sight because we are turning our clocks forward tomorrow, not because the temperatures have risen or the snow has abated in any meaningful way.
The mattress surfing came about when the old crib mattress was left lying at the top of the steps on an otherwise rather boring Saturday. Inspired by repeated watchings of "Princess Diaries 2" we decided to give it a try. It proved quite entertaining for all members of the family except Grace, who has proven to be the only sane one remaining this winter...she refused to take part. All was well and fun until Lily took a bit of a header from about five steps up and Mom and Dad had to step up to the task of parenthood and shut down the whole operation. We do have video which I will try to add when I have time to get it all loaded and edited.
Ice-skating in the back yard proved to be, surprisingly, more tame and somewhat safer than our indoor endeavors, but just as fun. Each trip out the back door and to the car turned into a challenge of balance and coordination. Due to the orientation of the garage, this area gets almost no sun, so we're looking forward to the use of our private rink for some time to come. This, too is recorded for posterity and will be posted here when time permits.
Basketball season has ended. I have to admit that I miss coaching. I miss the girls and the rush of the competition and the strategy of being in charge of a team, but it makes for much smoother operations on the home front to have me here every day after school. We ended with a 6 and 14 record which is a relatively accurate measure of the strength of that team. The moral victories of the season involved playing much more competitively in the second half of the conference season and getting two wins against teams to which we lost the first time around. The coaching staff is already brainstorming ideas for the summer and next season. Not having coached for eight years before this, I was reminded of many things that I could improve upon for next year and am already making plans for next season.
On the Grace/speech front we have seen some significant improvements since Christmas. She started going to an early childhood special education class through our school district in January. It meets every morning for around two and a half hours. There are five kids in the class, a teacher and an aide. The speech pathologist comes in twice a week, the occupational therapist once a week and a music therapist every Friday. There's another little girl named Grace in the class which has led to much shuffling of nicknames to figure out who will be Grace and who will be Gracie. We aren't sure if it's directly related to going to the class or just a natural spurt in her development, but she has begun to use her growing vocabulary much more often and is actually initiating verbal interaction with us in ways that she wasn't just a few months ago.
Grace has also proven that although she may not be saying much, she is certainly paying attention. We gave her the obligatory set of refrigerator alphabet magnets for Christmas. After putting them up, I sat down a couple of times and looked at them with her and then didn't do much with them until one day when Dave and I were talking in the kitchen. Grace was playing with the magnets when I looked over Dave's shoulder and saw her picking out the following letters from the randomly placed magnets: G-R-A-C-E. Surprised, I went over and started pointing out letters. She identified each one adding details like "D, Dadda" and "M, Mamma" when I pointed out those letters. She takes great delight in walking up to me when I am wearing one of my basketball shirts and and saying, "E-A-S-T G-I-R-L-S B-A-S-K-E-T-B-A-L-L," grinning and walking away. So that's been interesting.
Smarty-pants!
For winter break, Dave, Sophie and I headed out to Colorado for a little ski vacation. Lily and Grace stayed with my parents in Indy. We stayed at our friends' brand new condo in Winter Park and had a great time. In an attempt to pack as much skiing into our three days as possible we just about wore ourselves out, but managed to enjoy just about every run in the park that we were capable of skiing. Sophie did great. She went to ski school the first day and then skied with us the other days. We've decided that skiing is the perfect family vacation because of all of the "quality time" that we spent together. Between riding the lift, skiing down the mountain and hanging out at the condo, we did almost everything together and had a great time doing it.
Lily and Grace have been promised that if they can ski the blue hills when they are seven then they can join us out West as well. Lily did her first solo skiing on the bunny hills this year here in Michigan although her ability to stop is still a bit suspect. Even Grace was determined to join her big sisters and took a couple of runs with me holding onto the hood of her jacket. Aside from the mattress surfing (which we will again chalk up to good common sense) Grace is usually very daring and shouldn't have trouble picking it up over the next few years. Lily, on the other hand, seems to be exhibiting a rather scary pattern of extreme reticence in new situations, followed by a period of complete obstinacy in the face of offered help, and ending with a try-only-when-mastered attitude. This behavior, honestly, scares the crap out of me because it is done completely on her terms at her own pace and borders on that most terrifying of personality traits for me...perfectionism.
Our little perfectionist!
I saw the next 12 years of my life flash in front of my eyes when we had our first small "homework" assignment from pre-school. In honor of "March is Reading Month" they were asked to complete a poster about their favorite book. Lily chose, "There's a Bird on your Head" by Mo Willems. She ardently loves all books by Mo Willems and decided that she would write the title of the book across the top. This coming from the girl who has just decided, at the ripe old age of 5, that the letters are something worth learning. So I read off the letters to her as she began to write. It only took about two letters for her to get mad that she wasn't doing them well enough and want to start over because, "Nobody will ever be able to read them!" But after numerous outbursts, fits and starts, but absolutely NO HELP from me, she finished the job and I must report that it is quite legible.
The same has held true in the swimming pool. For the past several years she has enjoyed swimming very much but never been willing to put her face in the water. Last summer she began treading water and going short distances by herself, but always with a distinct doggy paddle and head held high out of the water. We tried to get her to wear goggles and blow bubbles; no luck. We signed her up for swim lessons where they were somewhat more successful but she would only put her face in exactly as many times as requested in the lesson and no more. This persisted all winter until about three weeks ago when she suddenly decided, on her own imaginary time-table, that it was time to start swimming at which point she strapped on her goggles, stuck her face in the water and performed a near-perfect crawl stroke for the 25 meter length of the pool. Within the same time she went from flat-out refusing to jump from the side of the pool to running, jumping and sinking all the way to the bottom. None of us receive any warning when these barriers are about to be crossed and there is rarely an explanation for why they happen when they do, so we all just let her go at her own pace and trust that at some point it will all come together in its own time.
That is where we stand right now. We will all be packing up and driving to Florida next week. All are more than ready for some warmth and sun. Our next post should be much more tan.
Happy Easter!
