A new year already

Happy new year! Where the does time go?

For the first time in many years, we spent Christmas at home. Carrie and Lily went to BC in mid-December for a funeral, and shortly after they returned, her parents came our way for a while. We're fortunate to have plenty of room to host now; my parents came for a visit in November and we expect more family in a couple of months.

So, Christmas in Ottawa. A green one, no less (very rare). We put up a real tree for the first time. It's almost nicer than the fake one we've dealt with for years... except the part where a million needles fall off every time you bustle past it or look at it funny. Oh, and I threw it to the curb this evening. As I shoved it out the door, there went the other 90 million needles, all over my floor. (Yes, we watered it, but our tree didn't seem to know the rules.)

Our little princess is all about dressing up. You can't be a princess without fancy clothes, and you can't make it through a day with wearing a couple of varieties of princess garb. Methinks she's becoming a tad vain, what with having to be beautiful and not ugly all the time (and "beautifuller than you Dad!"). Well, I'm hurt; regardless, it may be time to take it down a notch.

But it's not all fun and games. We do drills on rhyming, synonyms, our street address, addition, vowels, spelling and reading. Last month, she (of her own volition) grabbed a pencil and drew the numbers 1 through 10 on the back of an envelope, about seven of which were quite legible (albeit mostly backwards). A few weeks ago she sounded out a word I'd assembled with fridge magnet letters. With some coaxing she can spell and read quite a number of three-letter words. She's a little confused about the silent "e" and double letters but takes it all in stride. I want to take advantage and put her in piano lessons and have her learn five languages, but I should probably let her be a kid for a while yet, n'est-ce pas? Ah, the pressures of an only child...